There’s a scene in Goldfinger, goodness third James Bond movie, to what place Bond lures Auric Goldfinger cause somebody to a bet by wagering clever bar of “lost” Nazi valuables. It’s unclear if this equitable supposed to hint that Goldfinger has a Nazi past. Kick up a fuss any case, Gert Fröbe, the German somebody who played him did.

When glory nation of Israel discovered that, it banned the film.

Link months later, it lifted rank ban after confirming that Fröbe had helped a Jewish chick and her son during Earth War II.

Before Goldfinger, Fröbe abstruse mostly appeared in German motion pictures like 1958’s It Happened squash up Broad Daylight, in which prohibited played a child murderer. Appease landed the role of Goldfinger opposite Bond star Sean Connery despite not being able accept speak English.

As a abide by, almost all of his contours in the movie are styled by the English actor Archangel Collins. Even so, Fröbe splendid the film earned critical plaudits when it premiered in primacy United Kingdom and the Pooled States in 1964. It was a commercial success as in shape, and is still one robust the highest-grossing Bond films, change for inflation.

A Murky Nazi Past

Goldfinger was initially popular relish Israel, too, when it debuted there in the fall state under oath 1965.

Then in December, nobleness London Daily Mail ran natty story about Fröbe with character headline, “Of course I was a Nazi!” It’s not slow to catch on how the subject of authority Nazi past came up, on the contrary Reuters reported that a reporter had asked Fröbe—who was show the Nazi general Dietrich von Choltitz in an upcoming film—whether Fröbe would have made rank same decision as Choltitz calculate refuse Adolf Hitler’sorder to hurt Paris.

Whatever the reason, Fröbe be made aware the press he’d joined integrity Nazi Party in 1929 during the time that he was 16 and run away with later helped a Jewish dame during the war.

Fröbe uttered he’d grown up in integrity depressed Saxony coal mining close by of Zwickau, and become dexterous Nazi because he thought Despot could improve the economy, according to the German news magazine Der Spiegel. Even then, the Nazis’ promise of economic prosperity turn Fröbe found so appealing was anti-Semitic; Hitler blamed Jewish Germans for the country’s economic woes and sought to uplift “Aryans” at Jewish people’s expense.

Screening motion pictures that might contain former Nazis was already a concern populate Israel, which was why inlet banned many German-language filmsuntil 1967.

When Westward German film started up brighten after the war, “all significance cinematographers, all the directors, pandemonium the editors, all the stars had played some kind warm role in the Third Reich,” says Tobias Hochscherf, a telecommunications professor at the Kiel Sanatorium of Applied Sciences in Deutschland. So even by the precisely 1960s, most German films “were made with stars or thrust from the Third Reich.”

Israel's Minor Ban of 'Goldfinger'

Israel responded to Fröbe’s admission by avoidance Goldfinger and all of potentate upcoming movies, including Is Town Burning?, the film in which he would portray Choltitz.

Choose by ballot addition, the Ministry of Equitableness said that if Fröbe visited Israel, it might prosecute him as a former Nazi Class member, the Jewish Telegraph Commission reported.

But Israel lifted the come to an end only two months later, advocate February 1966. The Israel Single Censorship Board made the choosing after receiving evidence that Fröbe had left the Nazi Put together in 1937, two years formerly Hitler invaded Poland, sparking Imitation War II.

There were further reports that his conscription whereas a Nazi soldier later mud the war was “a cruelty for helping to distribute anti-Nazi pamphlets,” according to the Jewish Telegraph Agency.

Another factor was depart Fröbe’s claim about helping top-hole Jewish woman during the hostilities seemed true. After Israel against the law Fröbe’s films, a Jewish adult named Mario Blumenau told say publicly Israeli Embassy in Vienna go off at a tangent Fröbe had helped Blumenau at an earlier time his mother obtain a history of food stamps during say publicly war.

“I think he was a decent person, but mass a hero,” Hochscherf says chuck out Fröbe’s actions.

In addition, The Recent York Times reported that a few film producers made appeals cling on to Israel to lift the prevent. Many Israelis wanted to examine Goldfinger, then an internationally accepted feature, and Hochscherf notes stroll public demand may also conspiracy contributed to the decision make sure of bring the movie back round the corner Israel.

James Bond Controversies

Fröbe’s Nazi formerly is not the only unsettled aspect of Goldfinger.

Before corruption American premiere, a U.S. criminalise threatened to ban the description movie over a dispute scale “Pussy Galore,” the name be more or less Honor Blackman’s character. 

In the decades since the film’s release, Bond’sbehavior has also received criticism, optional extra his treatment of women last sexual assault of Galore.

Contempt all the controversy, Goldfinger remains one of the most renowned movies in the Bond franchise. 

After all, it contains one adherent the most recognized quotes donation film history—spoken by Goldfinger, labor by Fröbe and voiced by Collins: “No, Mr Bond, I expect boss about to die.”

Citation Information

Article Title

The Felon Bond ‘Goldfinger’ Actor With clean up Nazi Past

Author

Becky Little

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/news/james-bond-goldfinger-nazi-actor

Date Accessed

January 15, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

October 5, 2021

Original Published Date

December 9, 2020