<p><em>"We're here to stay!"</em> was what Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels assured, speaking to members of the German film industry in early 1933. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>There were many who agreed with him like Karl Ritter who introduced Mickey Mouse to German audiences in 1930 and in 1933 began to produce propaganda films like <strong><em>Hitler Youth Quex</em></strong>: <em>"In our cinemas we want to see nothing else than convinced National Socialists!"</em></p><p><em>&nbsp;</em></p><p>For a while German film export languished, but with WW2 the Nazis "conquered" cinemas all over Europe and flooded them with their movies, propaganda as well as allegedly "apolitical" entertainment. <em>In the new Germany one can laugh again! </em>the propaganda promised but it was a different way of laughing. It was gallows humor. </p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>This book deals not only with Hitler's personal cinematic likes and dislikes, with the ambitions of Leni Riefenstahl, with the idyllic world of German animation, with film emigration, with anti-Semitic films, Dachau and Auschwitz. There is also a back story to tell about certain German silents like <strong><em>Metropolis </em></strong>and why the way of Teutonic imagery didn't end with the death of the Nazi leaders in 1945, why their way of "laughing" is still alive on German screens...</p><p><br></p><p>From the Foreword: </p><p><br></p><p>It is also a story about family entertainment in Nazi times, about animated films that were supposed to fulfill the Nazis' dream of creating a cartoon film industry that would rival Disney and make Europe's children happy, while the little captives of a children's barrack in Auschwitz who dreamed of Disney's Snow White, too, thanks to murals painted by a Jewish artist, ended in burning fiery furnaces.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong><em>About the author</em></strong></p><p>Rolf Giesen, a film historian, worked for 40 years writing, collecting, supervising, lecturing in Germany and abroad, particularly China. He is one of Europe's leading experts on animation and VFX. </p><p><br></p>