international audience.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they investigated the family background of Max Skladanowsky to determine if they were Polish Jews. Because Skladanowsky was of non-Jewish origins, he was elevated by the Nazis as a great German cinema innovator. On May 4 1933, an event at Berlin's Atrium cinema honoring Skladanowsky's contributions to German cinema was attended by Joseph Goebbels and in 1935 Adolf Hitler