Pommer left Gaumont and established the Austrian subsidiary branch of Éclair in 1913 with Marcel Vandal and Charles Jourjon, answering directly to Paris and not through Berlin.
Despite being stationed at the front, Pommer through his co-founder Fritz Holz, a Berlin film distributor, made a successful bid for the rights to Éclair's German assets.
[5][10] With the company being guided by Pommer's wife Gertrud, Erich Morawsky [de] and/or Carl Wilhelm who also directed a number of its early films.,[5][10] Decla acquired the lease of the studio at no.
After being released from hospital in summer 1916 he trained recruits before joining Bild- und Filmamt (BuFA, Picture and Film department) at the German War Ministry in 1917, the forerunner of UFA.
The following year (1921), under pressure from its creditors at the Deutsche Bank, Decla-Bioscop became a part of UFA – Universum Film AG, which had been secretly formed by the German government for propaganda purposes in late 1917.
[19] Significant members of Decla-Film and Decla-Bioscop that continued to work with and through UFA include Fritz Lang, F.W Murnau, Ludwig Berger, Thea von Harbou, Karl Freund, Otto Hunte, Carl Mayer, and Hermann Warm.
[20] These directors and their creative teams of photographers, set designers, dressers and musicians assembled by Pommer helped pave the foundation for the future of Weimar cinema.