Willi Forst(1903-1980)

Twice caused controversy: the first time by arousing the ire of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels through his refusal to appear in the stridently anti-Semitic film Le juif Suss (1940), the second time by angering conservative civic groups with a nude long shot of Hildegard Knef in Die Sünderin (1951).

[on his involvement during WW II in making films under the control of the Nazi regime] I never wasted much thought on the kind of films I was making. They came about by themselves, born of my relief at no longer having to "reproduce," and of the growing pressure exerted by the Nazis. My native country [Austria] was occupied by the National Socialists, and my work became a silent protest. Grotesque though it may sound, it is true that I made my most Austrian films at a time when Austria had ceased to exist.