the film was a financial flop. Movies made by Jews could not be sold in Germany, and the Austrian market was too small to cover costs. Before long, Viennese studio bosses avoided Gerron and cut off his cash flow.
In the meantime, Gerron’s parents and wife had joined him in Austria, and that made his financial situation even more complicated, so after eighteen months, he decided to move on. Initially he went to The Hague in Holland, a country that took in émigrés with open arms. Jewish performers who chose to stay in Vienna were in for a rude awakening. Before long, Hitler began casting a greedy eye on the country of his birth.
The other Alpine nation, Switzerland, would remain a safe haven for the duration of the Third Reich—for those Jews who managed to get in. Swiss immigration policies were tough, and the country’s relationship with Nazi Germany was ambivalent. The Swiss government never took a clear stand against the inhuman practices of its much larger neighbor. Swiss official attitudes ranged from diplomatic caution to callous indifference when it came to the suffering of would-be émigrés. And againstthis background of official silence, the Swiss fascist movement became ever more vocal in its demands for political authority.
Pro-Nazi fascists in Zürich took especial umbrage at the political cabaret house Cornichon, and Walter Lesch, the founder of this cultural institution, became enemy number one for those on the far right. All of the issues on which the Swiss government chose to remain silent were paraded in front of a paying audience night after night in Lesch’s theater. The satire was so cutting that on numerous occasions Germany’s Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop filed official complaints with the Swiss government. But neither those complaints nor the whining of Swiss fascists had any effect. Despite calls for the theater to be censored or closed, Cornichon’s doors remained open.
The theater became a magnet for the German cabaret scene in exile, a venue where performers could heap scorn and ridicule on the Nazis without fear of retribution. Lesch himself ratcheted up the atmosphere with anti-German songs featuring lyrics far more uncompromising than to be found anywhere else in the Alpine countries. In 1938, he composed this song, with rhyming lyrics in the original, about a nation called Nazidonia and its favorite enemy:
“He’s to Blame for It All”
In Nazidonia, happy land
Where the original Aryans throng
,
Reich of a thousand little years
And the racially pure marriage-band
Comes a leader, big and strong
,
Promising butter, blood, and cream
.
Yet though he like a Wotan stand
Bellowing out his glorious songs
Ruling the land at the top of his lungs
,
Cooking fat’s still an impossible dream
.
And the Führer keeps a sharp eye out
For the insidious assassin
Since it stands beyond a doubt
That someone’s to blame for the mess we’re in
.
And lo and behold, look at that
.
The villain’s already been found
,
Isidore, ever degenerate
,
Is guilty of this too, the hound!
And to punish his malice, vile and depraved
,
He’s stripped of money and passport for that
,
And though they still have no cooking fat
,
The people think they have been saved
.
And the moral of the story
To make it short and sweet
If it weren’t for the evil Jew
How could we rule the state?
In Italy, in Italy
The land of musicality
Hateful crows now call their song
From the roofs of palaces
,
The lira barely limps along
,
And Il Duce’s terribly concerned
,
That in far Abyssinia
Where the palms and pine trees sway
No one can rule as he please
Or stroll the sands unburned
.
But the leader cannot err, and thus
There’s no possible conclusion
But that known traitors, foes to us
,
O’er the Po spread their confusion
Just as everywhere they do
.
And the culprit we already know
.
Signor Cohen, so it seems
,
And his usual traitor’s schemes
.
If someone breaks his neck in
In the meantime, Gerron’s parents and wife had joined him in Austria, and that made his financial situation even more complicated, so after eighteen months, he decided to move on. Initially he went to The Hague in Holland, a country that took in émigrés with open arms. Jewish performers who chose to stay in Vienna were in for a rude awakening. Before long, Hitler began casting a greedy eye on the country of his birth.
The other Alpine nation, Switzerland, would remain a safe haven for the duration of the Third Reich—for those Jews who managed to get in. Swiss immigration policies were tough, and the country’s relationship with Nazi Germany was ambivalent. The Swiss government never took a clear stand against the inhuman practices of its much larger neighbor. Swiss official attitudes ranged from diplomatic caution to callous indifference when it came to the suffering of would-be émigrés. And againstthis background of official silence, the Swiss fascist movement became ever more vocal in its demands for political authority.
Pro-Nazi fascists in Zürich took especial umbrage at the political cabaret house Cornichon, and Walter Lesch, the founder of this cultural institution, became enemy number one for those on the far right. All of the issues on which the Swiss government chose to remain silent were paraded in front of a paying audience night after night in Lesch’s theater. The satire was so cutting that on numerous occasions Germany’s Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop filed official complaints with the Swiss government. But neither those complaints nor the whining of Swiss fascists had any effect. Despite calls for the theater to be censored or closed, Cornichon’s doors remained open.
The theater became a magnet for the German cabaret scene in exile, a venue where performers could heap scorn and ridicule on the Nazis without fear of retribution. Lesch himself ratcheted up the atmosphere with anti-German songs featuring lyrics far more uncompromising than to be found anywhere else in the Alpine countries. In 1938, he composed this song, with rhyming lyrics in the original, about a nation called Nazidonia and its favorite enemy:
“He’s to Blame for It All”
In Nazidonia, happy land
Where the original Aryans throng
,
Reich of a thousand little years
And the racially pure marriage-band
Comes a leader, big and strong
,
Promising butter, blood, and cream
.
Yet though he like a Wotan stand
Bellowing out his glorious songs
Ruling the land at the top of his lungs
,
Cooking fat’s still an impossible dream
.
And the Führer keeps a sharp eye out
For the insidious assassin
Since it stands beyond a doubt
That someone’s to blame for the mess we’re in
.
And lo and behold, look at that
.
The villain’s already been found
,
Isidore, ever degenerate
,
Is guilty of this too, the hound!
And to punish his malice, vile and depraved
,
He’s stripped of money and passport for that
,
And though they still have no cooking fat
,
The people think they have been saved
.
And the moral of the story
To make it short and sweet
If it weren’t for the evil Jew
How could we rule the state?
In Italy, in Italy
The land of musicality
Hateful crows now call their song
From the roofs of palaces
,
The lira barely limps along
,
And Il Duce’s terribly concerned
,
That in far Abyssinia
Where the palms and pine trees sway
No one can rule as he please
Or stroll the sands unburned
.
But the leader cannot err, and thus
There’s no possible conclusion
But that known traitors, foes to us
,
O’er the Po spread their confusion
Just as everywhere they do
.
And the culprit we already know
.
Signor Cohen, so it seems
,
And his usual traitor’s schemes
.
If someone breaks his neck in
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