An MI5 dossier announces Sidney Bernstein, later Baron Bernstein, helped the Soviet Consulate to vet writers applying to go to Moscow and provided funds for a Czech-German agitator named Otto Katz, recounted to have once been Marlene Dietrich’s first partner. He was famous for convincing Hollywood movie celebs to make a contribution to the Anti-Nazi League, a Red front, A Security Service report from 1936 on Bernstein, then a cinema mogul, stated : “Sidney Bernstein is now reliably reported to be an active secret Red . He usually cuts the news films in his theatres so that Nazi scenes etc which might make a favourable impression are removed.
The claims were confirmed in Nov 1938, when it appeared that Bernstein was making investigations for the Soviet Consulate about the “suitability of newspaper reporters who are proposing to go to Russia and who are making an application for visas”.
In 1940 he was delegated a film confidant to the Ministry of Info , but only after his political perspectives had been vetted. Bernstein renounced his links with the Commie Party in 1939 when the USSR signed the non-aggression deal with Germany, but MI5 declared : “It would be foolish to accept this statement at face value.” Bernstein was ennobled in 1969.