The release that for the movie was October 1940, which came at the Western Campaign that was successful for Germany/Axis. It came out at a stage were there was potential for peace efforts between Allies/Axis. Apparently some folks weren't to eager on this happening.
Movies need to be script-written, planned, produced, edited etc. Bot the scriptwriting and production process take time.
The production actually took place from August 1939 onward:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... 20Dictator This still leaves time for script-writing and planning, which would be at least month before that date.
The cost for production budget was given at US$ 2.000.000 which was a substantial amount of money at the time. How that compares with other movie productions would be interesting to see.
Given the popularity of Chaplin, it can be assumed that it was aimed for maximum audience in the US, but also other English-Speaking countries. My guess is that movies were far more influential at the time, given the novelty and lack of competition of other media. That would impress far stronger on the audience than other media, since it also reaches people that usually don't read or listen to long radio programs.
One may of course asked what the intentions of the sponsor with this elaborate piece of art was.
Theming of the movie is of course:
* Evil, lunatic, ridiculous Nazis. (that want to kill all Jews (and brunettes) and conquer the whole world)
* Poor, innocent, oppressed, heroic Jews.
That's the impression they tried to take. Arguably an educated audience doesn't get its 'facts' and 'information' from entertainment movies. But that underestimates the power of cultural products on the thinking of people. Informally addressed, sublime information is far more powerful on the mind than direct, formal, sober information given to a person. In fact the later tends to go in the one ear and go out at the other even more easily. Information that either shocks or entertains the person is far more likely to be processed longer and deeper. I mean the whole advertising industry works on those premises.
One may ask why people in the US were bothered that much with what was happening in Europe EVEN before world war two. Sure, most were not, but others obviously had this as a priority. People with interest and power in the movie industry. There goal would obviously be a world war with American engagement in it.
It's almost funny how the movie was a cartoon version of people's post war idea about the era. NS-Germany, Second World War and the 'Holocaust'. Notably this was set into stage substantially long before WW2 although this was done during an era, when Hitler was Chancellor of Germany.
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