Universum-Film AG - best known by its signature logo, Ufa - was once the largest, most exciting movie company in Europe. Founded by the German High Command as a propaganda outfit during World War I, and always central to Germany's nationalistic big-business interests, Ufa was also home to the most innovative talents of the Weimar Republic: Ernst Lubitsch, Marlene Dietrich, Fritz Lang, and Emil Jannings were Ufa stars; Metropolis, The Blue Angel, and Dr. Mabuse were only a few of its finest works.

Now, in this striking new book, the cultural critic and historian Klaus Kreimeier tells The Ufa Story in all its multifaceted drama for the first time. From its dazzling theaters to its state-of-the-art studios and processing labs, from its comprehensive multimedia publicity campaigns to its avant-garde art films, Ufa challenged Hollywood for cultural dominance and market share in Jazz Age Europe.

But that is only part of the story. The simultaneous advent of sound films and National Socialism only increased Ufa's power, and it was more than ready for both. The story of Ufa under Hitler is a horrifying tragedy, for although the company continued to make technically superb films - even when bombs were raining down on its studios and cinemas - it was corrupted, transformed, and eventually destroyed by the very brilliance and state-supported power that had once made it irresistible.

The Ufa Story daringly revises our sense of what Germany and movies were all about in Weimar and under Hitler; it also makes clear why the mythic glow of Ufa's best films is indestructible.