and banned from theaters, "The fact that it is a propaganda picture does not make it necessarily unsuitable for the screen... There is no more reason why a theater owner may not take a given side on a public question than why a newspaper publisher should not adopt definite policy one way or another re Hitlerism." The German reaction to the film, however, was not as favorable. Upon request from the German ambassador in Washington D.C., a review conducted by George R. Canty on behalf of the Department of Commerce yielded the result that, "the film serves no good purpose." After the Department of Commerce review, many further American censors followed suit in their fear to offend the Nazis. The New York State Censor Board, for one, eventually banned the film throughout the state. After having passed the review of the Chicago Board of Censors, Hitler's Reign of Terror became the subject of concern for Chicago's Nazi consul, who eventually convinced the city government to halt the release of the film until certain changes were made. Loss and rediscovery In 2013, Thomas Doherty published Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939, which explored the relationship between the American film industry and Nazi Germany. In his early research, Doherty was not able to locate a single copy of Hitler's Reign of Terror. Late into his research, however, Doherty received news that the Royal Belgian Film Archive in Brussels had located a copy of the film in their possession. Doherty's theory is that a Belgian film distributor must have ordered a copy of the film from outside the country before the Nazis invaded Belgium. Being a foreign film, the copy had to clear customs. After the Nazis invaded the country, though, the distributor likely did not want to be caught with the film, and never picked it up from customs. As a result, the film lay on a back shelf in cold storage in Belgium for almost eighty years. References 'Notes Bibliography Doherty, Thomas Patrick (2013) "Hitler, a "Blah Show Subject" in Hollywood and Hitler, 1933-1939. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 59–66. External links American black-and-white films American documentary films American political drama films Anti-fascist propaganda films Documentary films about Nazi Germany Films about Nazi Germany 1934 documentary films 1934 films 1930s independent films 1930s rediscovered films 1930s political films Rediscovered American films 1930s English-language films 1930s American films American propaganda films