Ask any of James Bond movie series fan to name their favorite James Bond movie, and there are high chances that all of them will say, Goldfinger. It’s Steven Spielberg’s favorite James Bond movie of all time. Goldfinger is also most probably the most famous James Bond movie of all time.
It was the beginning of the modern James Bond films, as we know them today, complete with the extraordinary gadgets Bond was to use in every film after Goldfinger. This was also the first Bond movie to have the classic Q-Branch gadget testing workshop scene that later on became a Bond staple. This movie also featured the Bond car: the Aston Martin DB-5.
Why it was Banned in Israel
So why this legendary James Bond movie was banned in Israel for a time? The reason for that was the main villain of the movie Auric Goldfinger was played by German Karl Gerhart Fröbe, also known as Gert Frobe.
Gert Forbe was a member of the Nazi Party before and during WWII. As you might have expected, this didn’t go well with the Israeli government and Israeli people, and they banned the movie in that country.
Frobe joined the Nazi party at the young age of 16, hoping that Hitler could bring the change. This didn’t happen as he had expected. In 1944, the theatres were closed by the Nazi Government in Germany, and Gert Frobe was transferred to the German military to serve during World War II.
But before you go on and think how dare they cast Frobe an evil Nazi for this role, you should continue reading. While Gert was a member of the Nazi Party for a long time, as he became an adult and didn’t like what the Nazi party had become and he even dared to try to leave in 1937.
So how did the movie got unbanned in Israel what did Frobe do? He put his life in big risk by hiding a Jewish family during WWII.
Frobe had mentioned this in the interview that got Goldfinger banned in Israel, but the reported choose to cut that part and focus more on the controversial part where he said that I used to be a part of the Nazi party till World War II. Though the full line he said was “During my time in the German Military, I had the been to be able to save two Jew people, although I was a member of Hitler’s Nazi party from the age of 16 years old”.
Though the damage was already done and many people didn’t believe in Frobe. Until one of the Jew he saved during WWII, Mario Blumenau, showed up at the Israeli Embassy in Vienna. Mario informed them that his and his mother’s life was saved by Frobe when he hid them during the war. And shortly after Mario showed up at the Israeli Embassy, the Israeli ban on Goldfinger was lifted officially, and he gained much love from Israeli people.
