Charlie Crist's Office Mistakenly Praises Nazi Film

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Despite the content of a letter bearing his signature, Gov. Charlie Crist does not want to share an anti-Semitic movie with all Floridians.

Crist's office sent a letter thanking John Ubele for providing the governor with a copy of the film "Jud Suss." The film is recognized as one of history's most incendiary.

The brief thank-you note was dated June 30 and bore the governor's automated signature. It praised Ubele's thoughtfulness and generosity and said Crist would be delighted to share the DVD with the people of Florida.

"I was surprised considering the stigma that has been associated with the film," Ubele said Friday in an exchange of e-mails with The Associated Press. "I was even more surprised when I looked at the signature because from what I can tell it looks real."

The governor's office, however, said it was an embarrassing mistake. The signature was made by a machine and Crist never saw the letter, said Sterling Ivey, the governor's press secretary.

"We are NOT sharing the DVD with the people of Florida," Ivey said. "The governor does not support this view. The letter was sent out prior to us reviewing the DVD that was sent."

The 1940 film was produced by the Nazi propaganda arm and was a great success in Germany and abroad, although it was banned in Sweden in 1941 and has never been shown in that country.

Within the Third Reich, "Jud Suss" was the No. 1 film of the 1939-1940 season when it was seen by more than 20 million people. Anti-Jewish violence was reported after its projection in Marseille, France.

Ubele, who ran unsuccessfully for the state Legislature, is the operations manager of a group called the Nationalist Coalition that promotes "white activism."

On its Web site, the organization says it is working to "do whatever is necessary to achieve white living space and to keep it White."

Comments

[Hank10303]

The Republicans never do a thing call RESEARCH

[thefooligan5]

I doubt he watched the movie and was just being polite. No issue here.

[fusillijerry]

C-. This is a poor post. What is the film about?

[Horus45]

The problem is that Republicans are spending ALL their time spreading lies about Obama that they don't have enough time to LISTEN to their constituents, much less do any research on any of their constituents.

Are they keeping track of who is donating to their campaigns even?

[willreportforfood]

Like I wrote in the blog post that broke this story http://alexpickett.com/2009/07/23/neo-nazis-and-florida-gov-charlie-crist-share-a-love-of-moviee), I think the people of Florida can be 99.9 percent sure Gov. Crist is no anti-semite.

Even the neo-nazis who sent the film said as much: "At this point, there is no need to over-interpret Governor Crist’s reaction. It could be that he is simply a buff of old movies and that he finds this movie enjoyable. Eventually, he could find this movie educational as well. It’s worth the time to watch it."

I will agree: There is no need to over-interpret the governor’s reaction. I’m sure he is no anti-Semite and he didn't write the letter himself.

But for Crist’s sake, why didn’t an aide do a Wiki search on this movie and figure out the nature of the film?

[robinhood1]

You can actually watch the movie in question on the Internet, in German with English subtitles. I watched part of it to see what all the fuss was about. It is a boring movie and puts the fat Christian Germans who run the provincial town in a bad light. The only smart character in the movie is the Jewish businessman. The Duke running the town is a big spender and you certainly would not want him running your town's finances. Ironically, some of the best motion pictures ever made were made in 1939 by the Hollywood film studios all controlled by talented Jews: Gone with the Wind, Wizard of Oz, Wuthering Heights, Goodbye Mr. Chips (made in England by MGM) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

[SueInCA]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, make no mistake about it, that letter of thanks was no mistake. The contents of that film portrays exactly the reli gious ri ght and the gop way of thinking. Any min ority group who thinks they have found a safe haven within the republictard party is sadly mistaken. They will step on you like yesterday's gar bage when you no longer serve their purpose.

The letter of thanks was no mistake.

[WindySailor]

If the DVD was sent to the RNC, they would make it public and claim it was their own work.

[igorz]

So, exactly how DID the Governor end up promoting this Nazi propaganda film, anyway? Under WHAT convoluted chain of events did that "mistake" occur?

Seems to me that the Governor meant it when he said he wanted this film distributed to all of Florida. How else could it have happened?

[ICorpsDoc]

You think the Gov actually saw that incoming? Or the outgoing letter?

Here is how it happened.

A staffer or vol worker opened the incoming. At some point a staffer went into their canned paragraph for responses that they have on file for an occasion just like this.

They picked out a couple of paragraphs that looked right. Combined it into a response.

Then sent this all to the automatic signature machine.

Poor staff work in a political charged election period? Ya betcha.

But it happens.

The principals at large public and private organizations neither read nor answer all the letters they get. Most times they never see them.

That is how it happens.

[josefsvejk]

This is a microcosm of how the GOP actually governs while in office--negligent of most details (big and small) and out of touch.

[Ergon]

Oh, one of those gotcha! moments

[blukazoo]

WTF?

[mudshark12]

Some prudent research on the internet would have turned up information like this (which I cut & pasted from judsusshol­ocaustdvd/­index)":
"Jud Suss and the Holo-caust by German film historian, David Calvert Smith.
This is the most definitive collec-tion of the most notorious film produced during the Third Reich which had a major impact on the fate of the Jewish people during the Holocaust.­" This was Joseph Goebbels favorite propaganda film.
Governor Crist should have investigated before they give their endorsement, I think he is blame shifting. I wonder if Ubele had made large campaign contribution??

[MoeJava]

Sounds as if his Staff doesnt look at each thing sent in, before sending out bread+butter notes.
How then, could they say they wanted to "share this with other Floridians" if they havent watched it?
.
I'll just bet an imaginary $50 that one of his Staffers, will be unemployed very soon.
.

[Nancy84]

Not much attention to detail down there in Florida it seems. As they say "The devil's in the details".

[ibsteve2u]

Hint: Communicating with your elected officials requires significant personal wealth if you are to bypass the automated machinery.

[TalkingOutLoud]

Great point ... guess we know what happens to our letters; the computer made us do it!!!

[Mum]

(I submitted the comment below 24+ hours ago. A similar comment was submitted to Raw Story, which had a similar headline, and it appeared immediately. I'll try again. As I pointed out on Raw Story, there is enough hatred and bigotry without contributing to it by writing a distorting headline.)

I'm a little bit perturbed by the headline for this article: "Charlie Crist's Office Mistakenly Praises Nazi Film." There is nothing in the article to suggest that Crist's office sent anything other than the usual bland thank you note. The article itself says: "It praised Ubele's thoughtfulness and generosity and said Crist would be delighted to share the DVD with the people of Florida." As I read it (and I tend to think most intelligent people would read it the same way) it seems to be saying that the letter praised Ubele for his "thoughtfulness and generosity," pat political phrasing, if I ever heard it. Praising the movie would be an entirely different matter, and much more serious, in that it would suggest that Crist (or someone on his staff) had seen the movie and was giving it a thumbs up, so to speak. So, as it stands, the headline is rather incendiary in and of itself. And, as this article is being strictly moderated, I would suggest that the folks at Huffington Post engage in a little self-moderation. And, I will also be interested to see if this comment makes it into "print."

[LaurenMarie984]

I agree. Crist happens to be the Governor of a state that has a large Jewish population and is planning his Senate campaign. I highly doubt that he would risk pissing off half his voters unless it was a major boo-boo and I agree this article is highly suggestive. People in the state are relatively happy with the his policies and a clerical error is a far cry from "praising" a Nazi endorsement.

Huffington Post: This is the second time in a few days that one of your writers has injected huge bias into what's supposed to be "reporting".

[lentinelia]

The strange part is the "sharing it with the people of Florida" part.
Does his office offer to "share" every DVD it gets in the mail with the people of Florida?

I agree with your part about his office "praising" the film.
He did not do that.

But the offer to share the contents of a DVD by the office of the governor seems really odd - automated or not.

[emrogers]

Yes, should have been clearer. If you want to read really mis-leading headlines though try Faux News once in a while. Sometimes they have nothing to do with the story.

[lentinelia]

I don't think we want to read any more misleading headlines - no matter the source.
That's the point.