7 replies to this topic

[Dr. Tynan]

I'm sure you all know that Gert Frobe was a member of the Nazi party, though he says he never did anything.

Does knowing this make you dislike him totally, or not like him as much?

He hid a Jewish family.

I don't think Frobe was a bad guy.

[DLibrasnow]

There was talk of Goldfinger being banned in Isreal because of his affiliation with the Nazi's. Then, when it came out he had helped Jewish people the movie went on to be a huge hit in Isreal.

I don't think Frobe was a bad person either...joining the Nazi party was probably motivated by self-preservation most likely.

[marktmurphy]

I'm sure I wouldn't like a lot of the people that entertain me socially (Sean Connery and Ian Fleming are two people I'm not I'd enjoy meeting), but luckily I don't have to in order to watch them. Whatever his reasons, joining the Nazi party makes it very hard to respect someone (to put it mildly), but luckily I don't have to. He was in a film I have watched- whether he was a good guy or not makes no difference to me.

[doublenoughtspy]

I agree with dlibrasnow and marktmurphy - 1) he didn't hate Jews and proved it by saving a family and 2) I don't look to film stars for my role models.

Frobe initially came to the producers attention because of his wonderful performance as a child molester. Should that affect my thoughts about him too?

[stromberg]

There was talk of Goldfinger being banned in Isreal because of his affiliation with the Nazi's. Then, when it came out he had helped Jewish people the movie went on to be a huge hit in Isreal.

I don't think Frobe was a bad person either...joining the Nazi party was probably motivated by self-preservation most likely.

Don't know anything about his reasons, but I guess it was mostly a self preservation thing. He was a talented violinist (with radio apperances) and a painter (he got the Saxonian State Award for painting in 1936) before he decided to turn to acting. When you were a German artist at that time you almost had to be a party member to get a job.

I think it was after the release of Goldfinger that he did an interview with Daily News. He didn't make a secret of the fact that he had been a party member, and the newspaper made a big thing out of it with a huge headline like "Of course I was a Nazi". As a result of this, the Israeli government banned GF.

But it turned out that he never made any Nazi propaganda movies (his first movie appearance was in 1948 anyway) an indeed, jews from Vienna came and spoke for him, that he saved their life during the "Anschluss" time, when he was doing military service there as an ambulance man.

[doublenoughtspy]

Very interesting info there Heiko. Thanks.

I think the coolest Gert Frobe trivia (and also told to me by Heiko) is the fact that Gert's own voice is on the German version of Goldfinger - and apparently he sounds quite evil and nasty.

[SnakeEyes]

Schindler was a nazi and look what a good guy he was.
I think Gert was a good guy too.

[Colossus]

I think we all pretty much are on him being the good guy, why in the blazed was this topic even bumped??? LOL