The Reichsmarine’s failed film-company cover

A profitable business would have been a more credible cover for covert activity than an enterprise that visibly consumed money. The Reichsmarine's film company instead went bankrupt during the cinema boom of the 1920s, making the scheme an institutional liability. The joking alternative is to become the German franchise of a major American studio and use a viable company to channel investment. The joke rests on a serious problem: treaty evasion still required commercial competence. A bankrupt cover did little to protect the navy if Britain and France examined the treaty breach.