At the end of World War II, Germany was a broken nation. This work offers a close look at German cinema in the immediate postwar era, and an examination of its relationship to the Allied occupation. Robert R. Shandley reveals how German film borrowed - both literally and figuratively - from its Nazi past, and how the occupying powers (specifically the United States) used their position as victors to open Europe to Hollywood movie products and aesthetics. Incorporating a reading of several important postwar films, Shandley also discusses how the German studio system operated immediately after the war, in the east and the west, giving special focus on DEFA, the east German studio that rose during Soviet occupation.