Hollywood’s Spies: The Undercover Surveillance of Nazis in Los Angeles

The product of over a decade of research, this book documents the work of the Los Angeles Jewish Community Committee in infiltrating and combating Nazi groups in Los Angeles between 1934 and 1941. Independent scholar Rosenzweig’s archival detective work documents how the LAJCC, funded by Jewish film-industry figures and using primarily non-Jewish undercover agents, gathered extensive intelligence on the German-American Bund and other Nazi-infiltrated groups, such as the America First Committee. The LAJCC findings quoted here will surprise readers in showing how extensive and active pro-Nazi groups were in Southern California. The book chillingly recounts how their leaders planned for der Tag (“the day”), a nationwide putsch that would install a pro-Nazi regime in Washington and throughout the U.S. Rosenzweig elsewhere discusses how the LAJCC, in addition to passing along intelligence to local and federal government, engaged in effective counterpropaganda against pro-Nazi materials via radio programs and short films, thus gaining national influence; however, this activity sometimes brought its leadership into conflict with that of other Jewish defense organizations, such as the Anti-Defamation League. Rosenzweig has produced a fine, very-well-documented study. (Sept.)