Lupita Kohner, on the premiere of Der Rebell (1932) in January 1933 in Berlin (interview excerpt)
Lupita Kohner, on the premiere of Der Rebell (1932) in January 1933 in Berlin (interview excerpt)
Die Premiere für Der Rebell fand im Ufa-Palast am Zoo statt. An diesem Nachmittag haben sie den Namen meines Mannes aus dem Film herausgenommen. Niemand wusste, was zu tun war, denn bei Universal hieß es, daß sie die Kopie nicht bekämen. Also stellten sie am Nachmittag mit großen Pinseln gemalte Schilder auf: „Eine Paul Kohner Produktion“.
[The premiere of Der Rebell was held at the UFA-Palast am Zoo. On that afternoon, they removed my husband's name from the film. No-one knew what to do because Universal said that they had never received the copy. So in the afternoon they painted signs using large brushes: "A Paul Kohner production". (ed. trans.)]
Interview with Lupita Kohner
Paul Kohner had learned his craft in the film business in Hollywood in 1920 and enjoyed a career as a producer: from 1930 to 1933 he was Head of Production at German Universal in Berlin. In this capacity he was also responsible for the patriotic historical film by Luis Trenker entitled Der Rebell (1932). The premiere in Berlin, which was attended by the future minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels, took place on 17 January 1933, i.e. less than two weeks before the Nazis came to power. Kohner and his wife, the Mexican actress Lupita Tovar, learned at short notice that Kohner's name had been removed as a producer of the film. He fought back against this anti-Semitic discrimination and had large signs put up in the cinema, stating that this was a Paul Kohner production.
Paul Kohner's widow felt the atmosphere on that evening to be disconcerting and threatening, as she reports in this interview. On this evening, the couple decided to leave Germany.
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