- 18/05/2025
‘Don't Be a Sucker’ is a 1943 American anti-fascist propaganda short film produced by the United States War Department. The film follows an American Freemason named Mike, who listens to a street speaker ranting about minority groups. Initially agreeing with the speaker, Mike changes his mind when the man denounces Freemasons. A Hungarian refugee then explains how similar rhetoric led to the rise of fascism in Nazi Germany, warning that prejudice and division harm everyone. The film urges Americans to reject discrimination and unite against fascism. It was later reissued in 1947 and gained renewed attention after the 2017 Unite the Right rally.
Credits:
Director: Richard Collins
Producer: United States War Department
Starring: Paul Lukas, Felix Bressart, Bob Bailey, Kurt Kreuger
Narration: Lloyd Nolan
#DontBeASucker1943 #AntiFascistFilm #WorldWarII #PropagandaFilm
Credits:
Director: Richard Collins
Producer: United States War Department
Starring: Paul Lukas, Felix Bressart, Bob Bailey, Kurt Kreuger
Narration: Lloyd Nolan
#DontBeASucker1943 #AntiFascistFilm #WorldWarII #PropagandaFilm
Category
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Henry here got on the train with two hundred dollars he couldn't see any harm in a friendly
00:11game of cards what if the other men were strangers and take Joe Collins he's got a
00:18nice wife at home but he met this girl at the bar and she looked after the first couple of drinks
00:30there's a good old-fashioned word for people less we call them suckers and there are other people
00:57people who stay up nights figuring out how to take away what they've got there are all kinds of
01:08game Mike here for instance he's got everything in me he's young he's healthy got a job and he's
01:16got a kind of a fool big factories to make things a man can use big cities to do the business of a
01:23big company and people lots of people enough to work the farm and build the factories dig the mines
01:31run the business all kinds of people people from different countries with different religions
01:40different colored skins free people they can live together and work together and build America
01:49together because they're free free to vote to say what they please go to their own churches
02:00to pick their own jobs
02:04yeah Mike's got something all right he's got America but there are guys who stay up nights figuring out how
02:17to take that away from him I happen to know the facts friends I'm just an average American but I'm an American American and some of the things
02:28I see in this country of ours make my blood boil I see people with foreign I see Negroes holding jobs that belong to me and you now I ask you if we allow this thing to go on what's going to become of us real Americans
02:43I've heard this kind of talk before but I never expected to hear it in America
02:50this fellow seems to know what he's talking about
02:52what are we real Americans going to do about it
02:55you'll find it right here in this little pamphlet
02:58the truth about Negroes and foreigners
03:00the truth about the Catholic Church
03:02do you believe in that kind of talk
03:04I don't know makes pretty good sense to me
03:07and I tell you friends
03:09we'll never be able to call this country our own
03:12until it's a country without
03:14without
03:16without what
03:17yeah without what
03:18without Negroes
03:20without alien foreigners
03:22without Catholics
03:24without Freemasons
03:26you know
03:27what's wrong with the Masons I'm a Mason
03:30hey that fellow's talking about me
03:33and that makes a difference doesn't it
03:36these are your enemies
03:38these are the people who are trying to take over our country
03:41now you know them
03:42you know what they stand for
03:44and it's up to you and me to fight them
03:47fight them and destroy them before they destroy us
03:50thank you
03:56before he said Masons you were ready to agree with him
04:00well yes but he was talking about
04:03what about those other people
04:05but in this country we have no other people
04:09we are American people
04:11what about you you aren't American right
04:14I was born in Hungary but now I am an American citizen
04:17and I have seen what this kind of talk can do
04:20I saw it in Berlin
04:22what were you doing there?
04:23I was a professor at the university
04:25I heard the same words we have heard today
04:28but I was a fool then
04:31I thought Nazis were crazy people
04:33stupid fanatics
04:34but unfortunately it was not so
04:37you see they knew that they were not strong enough to conquer a unified country
04:42so they split Germany into small groups
04:45they used prejudice as a practical weapon to cripple the nation
04:49of course that was not easy to do
04:51they had to work hard to do it
04:53you see we human beings are not born with prejudices
04:59always they are made for us
05:01made by someone who wants something
05:03remember that when you hear this kind of talk
05:06somebody is going to get something out of it
05:08and it isn't going to be you
05:10this is not classroom theory
05:14I saw it happen
05:16I saw it happen
05:18I saw it first in Berlin in 1932
05:22five young men that I knew were standing in the crowd listening to the Nazi speaker
05:27Eric was a Catholic
05:30Anton a student of mine was a Jew
05:34Heinrich owned a small hardware store
05:37Carl was a farmer
05:40and Hans was an unemployed metal worker
05:44to all Boerian Germans
05:46I say it is time you inherited the nation
05:49which rightfully belongs to you
05:51to you alone belongs the glorious destiny of the greater Germany
05:55the Nazi party will provide land for the farmer
05:58work for the worker
06:00and profits for the small businessman
06:02who is getting these things now
06:05the Jew
06:07the Jew
06:08the Jew who has stolen our nation and our birthright
06:11who makes all the money and takes all our jobs
06:15the Jew
06:16he must be shunned
06:18he must be ostracized
06:20he must be eliminated
06:22and the Catholics
06:24we don't want our great nation run by a foreign church
06:28we Germans will know what to do with these people when the time comes
06:32they and their faith must be destroyed
06:35then there are the Freemasons
06:37in Germany we have no place for secret societies
06:41there may be only one society
06:43and that is the Nazi party
06:45there may be no secrecy about that
06:47in the new greater Germany
06:49one by one he attacked each minority
06:52and he split them off one from the other
06:55these men were all fellow Germans when they came here today
06:58now they were split into rival groups
07:01suspicious of each other
07:03hating each other
07:04they were being swindled
07:06all of them
07:08but the man who was really being fooled
07:11was Hans
07:12he was pure German
07:14according to Nazi standards
07:16to him they promised everything
07:19and he fell for it
07:21that's how Hans became a superman
07:25they gave him a uniform and they pumped up his ego
07:28he wasn't just a little fellow out of work anymore
07:32he was a member of the master race
07:35Hans and thousands of others like him
07:38all playing a sucker's game
07:41they gambled with other people's liberty
07:44and of course they lost their own
07:46a nation of suckers
07:48Hitler needed these people
07:50there was lots of work to be done
07:53there were trade unions to be smashed
07:56because unions were organized
07:58and might offer resistance
08:00there were many political parties in Germany
08:03these the Nazis destroyed
08:05they were determined to smash every organization
08:08where people might band together and resist them
08:11there were Jews to be beaten and killed
08:14the Jews were not powerful
08:16but they were a convenient excuse
08:18for all the nation's ills
08:20and besides a Nazi party member could not take over this man's toll
08:25hundreds of Catholics were put in jail
08:28because the Catholic Church had strength
08:30and could resist the Nazi rifle powers
08:33they had split the nation into a hundred pieces
08:37and then one by one
08:39they had destroyed the pieces
08:42over these broken pieces the Nazis rode into power
08:46one party, one nation, one religion
08:50these men had won their struggle for power
08:56they now ruled all of Germany
08:59but still they had trouble with their oldest and most persistent enemy
09:03the truth
09:04they found that truth does not die easily
09:07and so they decided to abolish truth
09:10one great source of truth is literature
09:14so they burned books
09:16twenty million of them
09:17many great men in Germany
09:19who were spokesmen for truth
09:21were jailed or driven from their country
09:23teachers, writers, scientists
09:25education was discouraged
09:28in five years college attendance
09:31dropped fifty-three percent
09:33it was forbidden to listen to a British radio program
09:37or read an American newspaper
09:40in Nazi Germany
09:42you had to get you information from Dr. Goebbels
09:45he knew what was best for you
09:47the church was one forcing Germany
09:50still strong enough to proclaim the truth in public
09:53this Catholic priest was arrested the following day
09:57on charges of immorality
09:59the Protestant church also continued to try and fight for truth
10:04the Nazis put this man in a concentration camp
10:07there were others who spoke for truth
10:11and I am proud to say that educators were among them
10:14and what may I ask
10:17is an Aryan?
10:19I don't know my son
10:21but let us see
10:23what our present so-called authorities have to say about him
10:27they say he is tall
10:30tall
10:36slender
10:44blue eye
10:48and blonde
10:52there is no Aryan race
10:55and more important
10:57there is no master race
11:00there are people
11:02who may find these ideas convenient
11:05but science cannot support them
11:08there is no scientific proof
11:11that there is any correlation
11:14between a man's racial characteristics
11:17and his native ability
11:19or character
11:20in all racial groups
11:23we find the same range of potentialities
11:28we find idiots
11:29and geniuses
11:30we find criminals
11:32and philanthropists
11:34we must judge each man
11:38as an individual
11:40and not by the color of his skin
11:43or his eyes
11:44or by the length of his nose
11:46come in gentlemen
11:57it's comfortable
11:58and remember
12:01that there is no master race
12:04that is a scientific truth
12:07anyone who tells you otherwise
12:10is lying
12:11and so for all practical purposes
12:21truth had been abolished in Germany
12:23a lot of my German friends wondered
12:27what had hit them
12:28how did it happen
12:30where did it start
12:31it started right here
12:34and this was where it could have been stopped
12:37if those people had stood together
12:40if they had protected each other
12:42they could have resisted the Nazi threat
12:44together they would have been strong
12:46but once they allowed themselves
12:48to be split apart
12:49they were herpes
12:51when that first minority lost out
12:53everybody lost out
12:55they made the mistake of gambling
12:57with other people's freedom
12:58now let's see how those bets paid off
13:01Karl the farmer was gambling on a better life for himself
13:05what he got was extra hours of back breaking money
13:09as much as a hundred hour a week
13:12he was forced to stay on his land
13:14and produce what he was told to produce
13:16because now Hitler was preparing for war
13:19for Heinrich who owned a hardware store
13:22the bet didn't pay off either
13:24one hundred and four thousand small businesses
13:27were closed in two years
13:29and for Hunts conditions hadn't improved any
13:33he had a job now
13:36in the munitions factory
13:38but he worked long hours for little pay
13:40the working conditions grew increasingly bad
13:44and even though he didn't like the job
13:48he wasn't permitted to leave it
13:50and when Hitler decided the time was right
13:52Germany went to war
13:54not by declaring war
13:57but by a carefully prepared sneak attack
14:01once again Hitler needed Hunts to do his dirty work
14:05Hunts was an expert at brutality this time
14:09and Hitler had decided to use Hunts and his brutality
14:13against other peoples
14:15the Czechs, the Poles, the French, the Russians
14:18but in the crucial test of war
14:21Hitler's race theories didn't pay off
14:24his pure-blooded supermen
14:27were defeated by the mongrel armies he despised
14:30by the British of El Alamein
14:42by the Russians at Stalingrad
14:45then on D-Day by American soldiers of every color and religion
14:54who smashed across the Normandy beaches
14:57and drove on through to the heart of Germany
15:01for the misguided Germans who had swallowed the Nazi bait
15:05the Nazi game did not pay off
15:08the continent of Europe was strewn with millions of German bodies
15:12pure Aryan bodies
15:14Karl the farmer was left in the snow outside of Moscow
15:19Heinrich stayed in Italy at Salerno
15:23and Hunts who was going to rule the world
15:27got only a little patch of Normandy
15:30that he could call his own
15:32we must never let that happen to us or to our country
15:36we must never let ourselves be divided by race or color or religion
15:40because in this country we all belong to minority groups
15:43I was born in Hungary
15:45you are a Mason
15:46these are minorities
15:47and then you belong to other minority groups too
15:50you are a farmer
15:51you have blue
15:52you go to the Methodist church
15:54your right to belong to these minorities is a precious thing
15:58you have a right to be what you are and say what you think
16:01because here we have personal freedom
16:04we have liberty
16:05and these are not just fancy words
16:07this is a practical and priceless way of living
16:10but we must work at it
16:12we must guard everyone's liberty
16:14or we can lose our own
16:16if we allow any minority to lose its freedom by persecution or by prejudice
16:20we are threatening our own freedom
16:25and this is not simply an ideal
16:28this is good hard common sense
16:31you see
16:32here in America is not a question whether we tolerate minorities
16:36America is minorities
16:38and that means you and me
16:41so let's not be suckers
16:49we must not allow the freedom or dignity of any men to be threatened by any act or word
16:56let's be selfish about it
16:59let's forget about we and they
17:02let's think about us
17:05yeah
17:09yeah
17:11yeah
17:20yeah
17:21yeah
17:24yeah
17:32yeah
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