UFA was established as Universum-Film on December 18, 1917, as a direct response to foreign competition in film and propaganda.

UFAs history comes from Universum Film AG and was a major German film company headquartered in Babelsberg, producing and distributing motion pictures from 12/18/1917 through the end of World War II. The name UFA was revived for an otherwise new film and television outfit. In 1925 financial pressures compelled UFA to enter into distribution agreements with American studios Paramount and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. UFA's weekly newsreels continued to contain reference to the Paramount deal until 1940, at which point Die Deutsche Wochenschau ("The German Weekly Review") was consolidated and used as an instrument of Nazi propaganda. After the Red Army occupied the UFA complex in 1945, and after the privatization of Bavaria and UFA in 1956, the company was restructured to form Universum Film AG and taken over by a consortium of banks. Fritz Lang, Joseph von Sternberg, Veit Harlan and Leni Riefenstahl directed films for UFA. Marlene Dietrich, Zarah Leander, Hans Albers, Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt and Gustav Fröhlich was a couple of UFAs stars.—Ulf Kjell Gür