Although a print of this film was not viewed, a trailer promoting the picture was screened. In the trailer, an announcer invites the audience to "watch and listen as [Cornelius] Vanderbilt interviews [Adolf] Hitler," without indicating that the interview is a re-enanctment. In an excerpt from the interview, Vanderbilt is heard shouting at the Hitler impersonator, "And what about the Jews, your Excellency?" The NYT review describes a moment in the interview with the Crown Prince in which the Prince says that he would rather not be quoted, "evidently being unaware that somewhere a microphone and a camera are busy making a record of the talk." Var states that while the film does not identify them as such, all of the anti-Nazi speeches were delivered at a Madison Square Garden rally. Many reviewers complained about the amount of newsreel and re-created footage used in the film, as well as the excessive use of superimposed "white circles," which highlighted Vanderbilt's presence in various crowd scenes. Reviewers also commented on the "ballyhoo" surrounding the release of this documentary, particularly in New York and Chicago, where questions of censorship were being debated hotly in the newspapers. In Chicago, the film was banned after the first day of its release as a result of protests from the German diplomatic service, according to FD. Presenter Samuel Cummins agreed to change the film's title to Hitler's Reign in Chicago in order to appease the protesters, and the picture was re-opened. In New York, according to FD, the Steuben Society of America asked Mayor Fiorello La Guardia to stop the opening of the film "on the grounds that it stirs up racial feeling." Cummins, however, got an injuction from Supreme Court Justice Alfred Frankenthaler to prevent anyone from prohibiting the film's exhibition. According to a news item in DV, Nazi sympathizers showed up at the New York opening, but were dispersed by a policeman. At one New York screening of the film, Vanderbilt and Edwin C. Hill appeared in person and made introductory "microphonic" comments, according to NYT review. FD notes that "specially made shots" of Clarence Hathaway, executive secretary of the American Communist Party, in which he gives the Communist view of Hitler's government, were added to some prints of the picture, and the film was then billed as Workers' View of Hitler's Reign of Terror. FD lists the sound engineer's name as Murray Dichter and credits Sam Rosen as the cameraman instead of the editor.
       During the early years of Nazi rule in Germany, Hollywood studios avoided mentioning Adolph Hitler or the Nazi Party. Perhaps the earliest reference to Hitler, in M-G-M's Dancing Lady, was excised before the film's release (see entry).