So many people have tried to compare Trump to authoritarians of the recent past, and, since some of his supporters have taken on a definite Nazi flair, especially with Hitler. I also made this comparison, back in June when Trump came to San Jose and I realized that the pictures of violent left wing protests would delight the right. Those pictures were shoved in my face again and again in right wing, pro-Trump stories that were used to legitimize the language Trump used against protesters, as if he hadn’t spent the preceding months actively encouraging people at his rallies to hit each other.
While it is interesting and useful to make those comparisons, I also feel like they’re not detailed enough. That is why I am trying to look at different ways to compare those two moments in time, when a demagogue rose and consolidated power, while his country was dragged behind. And one thing I am very curious about is the German voters who supported Hitler, and the average citizen who evidently stood by, fearing rocking the boat more than trying to head off a disaster that took millions of civilian lives and turned the German army into a machine that ground entire generations of German men out of existence.
That is why I am turning to the popular media of their time.
Metropolis was released in 1926, during the Weimar period. If you have never seen it, I strongly recommend it: Fritz Lang was an incredibly ambitious filmmaker and his work is enormously influential. It is beautifully shot and free to watch online. And obviously I’m going to be offering a lot of spoilers, so if you want to see it before you know what happens, here’s your chance. I’m sharing a version with a modern score, because I really enjoy watching it evolve over time. This version also includes footage I’d never seen before, coming closest to the original film:
The story Metropolis is based on was written by Lang’s wife, Thea von Harbou. She was an enormously popular writer, filmmaker and actress in her own right, and eventually she became involved with the Nazi regime. It’s important to note a few details about their life in Germany. Harbou and Lang were married in 1922, when the country was deep in poverty post WW1. There are stories of her working on set to feed the crew, peeling potatoes and cooking enormous meals. And it’s troubling to read about her today. There is no question she supported the Nazi regime. She worked on Nazi films espousing Nazi ideals, just as Leni Reifenstahl did. And by the end of the war, she was interned in a British camp. Lang fled to Hollywood as the Nazi Party gained power, but she did not. All things being equal, that is a heartbreaking thing for me to know. But we know that things are not equal, and we should resist the urge to write off the experiences of people who joined oppressive regimes. As they write at the Women Pioneers of Film Project:
“Thea Von Harbou’s nearly fifty-year, highly controversial career as a novelist and screenwriter merits attention rather than dismissal, and we can now place her political alliances alongside her accomplishments. First, we would consider opportunities for women under various German political regimes, from the monarchy to democracy to fascism. Second, we would look at her career choices in the light of the intersection between political and personal circumstances, given that the rise of Nazism coincided with the dissolution of her artistic partnership with Lang. Finally, distinguishing Harbou’s silent motion pictures from her Nazi sound-era films may be a step toward a more complex and critical portrait of this talented and ambitious woman as well as the two tumultuous eras in which she worked.”
If we want to understand Nazis, we have to look at them as people, instead of writing them off as monsters. It’s an excuse not to wrestle with the discomfort caused by knowing talented people can have very destructive beliefs. And it wasn’t until I started writing this and looking into her history more deeply that I found out that she was a pro-choice activist when Germany banned abortion:
“Our main goal is to find a new form of preventing pregnancy and therefore to make the entire 218 unnecessary. Immediately, however, the Paragraph must fall because it is no longer morally recognized by women. It is no longer a law. We need a new sexual code because the old was created by men and no man is in a position to understand the agony of a woman who is carrying a child she knows she cannot feed. This law derived from male psychology, which forces a woman into having a child, creates, even if not deliberately, constitutional inferiority of women in relation to men which serves as a bulwark against women’s activity in economic and political life.” ~ Thea von Harbou 1931
That is strikingly progressive for the 30s. So, with all that background in mind, let’s tackle the film.
Metropolis takes place in an unspecified future, in a city run by giant machines under the Earth. These machines are manned by a labor class who lives in their own city, under the ground. The city above rises high into the sky, and at the very top, are pleasure gardens and stadiums where the children of the wealthy top dwellers play, in a place called, “The Club of the Sons”. One young man, Freder, is playing in the gardens when suddenly the doors open, revealing a beautiful young woman, surrounded by barefoot, cringing children. She says, “Look, these are your brothers.”
She is sent away by the keepers of the garden, but Freder is intrigued, and decides to follow her underground. He finds one of the giant machines, and is horrified when he watches it overheat and explode, killing and injuring the exhausted men who cling to it. He has a vision of Moloch: seeing the smoking machine transform into demon with a gaping maw, guarded by vaguely Egyptian looking priests as people in chains are driven into its glowing throat. Deeply disturbed, he decides he has to tell his father of the horrors endured below by the people who power the lavish city above.
Freder’s father is Joh Fredersen, the president/king/CEO of the city. We find him working in “The Tower of Babel”, stalking around a boardroom full of counting machines and men furiously writing. Freder enters meekly, and it’s pretty clear that Fredersen does not tolerate being disturbed. When Freder gets an opportunity to speak to him, he learns that his father already knows that the people below live in poverty and suffer from a life spent in service to machines.
When Joh Fredersen learns of the explosion down below, his first and pretty much only concern is to blame a nervous looking fellow named Josaphat for letting him hear it from Freder. When a new character, Krot, the keeper of the Heart Machine comes up, he brings crumpled plans found on the bodies of those wounded in the explosion. Plans for some kind of revolution.
Josaphat is fired.
It is worth noting here, that for modern audiences, this scene is an excellent metaphor for the Holocaust. Freder cannot understand how his own father could create and oversee such a brutal system. Everyone who comes into contact with Joh is terrified of him, even though he is the picture of a polished, polite bureaucrat. There is a visceral level of horror in the faces of everyone around him, who are more afraid of challenging their boss than they are of being part of a machine that eats people and creates spectacular wealth.
Freder follows Josaphat out and prevents him from committing suicide. They make a plan to meet later. Meanwhile, Joh sends an assistant to follow Freder, who goes back underground. When he sees a man struggling to keep up with a clocklike machine, Freder pulls him away and takes his place. They trade clothes and Freder sends him into the upper world to meet with Josaphat. Astonished and grateful, the man goes up and hails a car, only to become distracted by the money he finds in his pocket. He winds up at a nightclub instead.
The story now returns to Joh, who has gone to meet with Rotwang the inventor. This is when we learn that Freder’s mother, Hel, died in childbirth. We also learn that Rotwang had also been in love with Hel. This loss has driven him to madness and obsession, and he has not only built a monument to her, he has also built a robot version of her. As they admire this creation, who cost Rotwang his hand, Joh asks him for help deciphering the plans found below.
Underground, Freder is invited to a secret meeting. His shift ends, and he now looks as haggard and pale as all the other workers.
Rotwang and Fredersen learn that the found plans are a map of ancient catacombs under the city. They enter through a secret passage, and eventually come to a small room overlooking a large chamber. Below is the meeting Freder was invited to. It is actually something like a religious revival. And there we see the girl Freder was following, preaching to the crowd about “The Tower of Babel.”
It’s not the biblical version. This is a far more metaphysical take. The designers of the tower hired laborers to build it, but over time the brutal building efforts drive a rift between them. Instead of literally speaking different languages, the words stay the same, but the meanings each group has for them are different. The workers revolt, destroying the tower and killing the elites who designed it. The lesson, we are told, is that labor and invention need “a mediator”: the heart, who will help the brain and the hands communicate. And the girl telling the story is named “Maria.”
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?
It is difficult to figure out how Metropolis was received at the time. There are stories of wild applause and boos. It was cut mercilessly for international distribution, specifically removing allusions to Hel and communism for American audiences. And most importantly, the situation in Germany was unique: the Weimar Republic, established after a political revolution in 1918, faced a set of problems not mirrored in America. I can’t tackle the complexity of that time here, but a few key details stand out. For one, there was no reporting allowed in Germany about World War I, so their surrender came as a complete surprise to most Germans. The Kaiser abdicated and negotiations for the Treaty of Versailles were carried out mostly by lower ranked generals, who were not supported by their superiors who had actually pressured them into the negotiations. There was a lot of simmering rage, and a power vacuum that fueled the rise of extremist parties on the left and right. On the left, you had the Social Democrats who were inspired by the Socialists in Russia, and on the right, the Nazi party is founded. There are a few coup attempts, riots and hyper inflation.
“Money had by the fall of 1923 lost almost all its value. Workers demanded to be paid twice a day and given an hour off after each pay so they could use the money before its value further deteriorated. At the inflation’s height in November trillions of marks were needed to make purchases of basic goods.”
By 1924, things improve some, with international loans stabilizing the economy, but the death of the President and founder of the Republic came as a surprise. He was so respected that there hadn’t been any serious candidates challenging his re-election. This is how Hindenburg, a major military figure in WWI, gained the Presidency, and his leadership was also marked by his insistence that “internal enemies” were responsible for Germany losing the war, rather than any decisions he had made as general.
Metropolis opens in December of 1926 (or possibly in January of 1927?). I can find no explicit record of how it was received, though it seems pretty clear that the original 153 minute version was only shown a few times. Most of the commentary I can find is not German, and more importantly, is about the later 90 minute version cut for export. For example, I can find many citations referring to a review written by H G Wells. He panned it.
Back in the underground chapel, Maria tells her people that the head (designers) and the hands (labor) need the heart to be a mediator between them. In German, the word for “mediator” is “Mittler”.
I did not make that up. Yes, the year after the Beer Hall Putsch, Lang and Harbou made a film about desperate, enslaved people awaiting “Mittler” who will save them from decadent, calculating leaders.
The sermon ends as the workers promise Maria they can wait, but not much longer. They disperse, but Freder stays. He calls out to her, and she asks, “Oh Mediator, have you finally come?” as Rotwang watches from above. Joh Fredersen does not see Freder approach Maria, and he tells Rotwang to make his robot take on Maria’s appearance, “to sow discord.” Rotwang agrees, and sends Joh back to the surface. To himself, he says, “You fool! Now you will lose the one remaining thing you have from Hel… your son!”
Freder and Maria kiss, and promise to meet again tomorrow. He leaves, and Maria takes a separate entrance, lit with a single candle. Rotwang follows her through the catacombs. He uses his robot hand to extinguish the flame, and then menaces her with a flashlight. He herds her back up to his secret entrance, through a trap door into a chamber lined with doors marked with stars.
The following day, Freder goes to the cathedral. A monk there is reading from Revelation, “And I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns, and the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, having a golden cup in her hand.”
Naturally, this is a good time to return to Rotwang and his ladybot. “You will destroy Joh Fredersen! Him, and his city, and his son,” he says, kneeling before her.
Back in the cathedral, Freder is waiting for Maria. He sees statues of all the deadly sins and Death. He suddenly thinks of the worker he sent to the surface, Georgy. And the action switches to Yoshiwara, an exotic nightclub. Georgy comes out and is quickly nabbed by the spy who was supposed to be watching Freder. He finds the scrap of paper with Josaphat’s address, and the film leaps to Josaphat’s house. Freder has just gotten there and asked for Georgy who obviously isn’t there. Georgy, who the spy will refer to only as “11811”, is told to return to his machine and forget everything else.
Freder meanwhile, is too lovestruck to worry about where Georgy is, telling Josaphat that he needs someone he can trust, so he can “fulfill his destiny.” He leaves Josaphat the very instant the spy arrives in a separate, extremely German looking elevator. And of course Freder has forgotten his Georgy hat in Josaphat’s flat. The spy immediately snatches it up, realizing that Freder was just there. He starts trying to bribe Josaphat to leave his apartment for the night, setting a trap for Freder. Josaphat refuses the money, even slapping the spy in the face with a bunch of bills. Amused, the spy shows him the checkbook from Joh Fredersen, “This man does not not want his son to find you still here tonight.”
I have a great deal of sympathy for Josaphat.
As Freder wanders through town, we see shots of Maria and Rotwang in his lab. He passes Rotwang’s house and hears the struggle, but cannot find her. He breaks in, but is trapped by a series of doors which open and close by themselves. Finally he is directed down into the same room with the trapdoor. There, he finds Maria’s shawl. And above, Rotwang turns the robot Hel into Maria’s twin.
It is tempting to Mary Sue Maria. After all, Harbou was a beautiful, politically active and talented woman. But I don’t think that does justice to the story she wrote. Yes, Maria is a sketch of a character, “goodness personified”: a pure, selfless woman who just loves to preach to downtrodden men and take poor, barefoot children on field trips to watch princes flounce around gardens. But that is by design: it’s striking to notice that there are nearly no women in the movie at all. There’s Maria, and robot Maria, and the beautiful women vying for Freder’s attention in the garden. Freder has a nurse briefly who cares for him as he sleeps. There are a couple of nuns kneeling in the cathedral, but honestly they might as well be furniture. It’s obvious that she is not a character you empathize with, she is a symbol for revolution. Her entire purpose is to lure Freder out of his privileged place so he can choose the role of Mittler. But when he tells his father why he goes down below, he says it is to see the faces of “those whose children are his brothers”. Not, “well there was this girl…”
This is not a love story. Helpfully, you can tell which one is the real Maria, because Hel, the Evil Maria wears eyeliner.
The transformation is complete. Freder is released and runs up the stairs to find Rotwang.
“Where is Maria?!”
“She is with your father.”
And sure enough, she is. Freder’s mind is blown. He has another vision and evidently faints, because later we see him in bed being tended by a doctor. Joh is concerned, but he’s got a revolution to thwart, so he heads out with his entourage to Yoshiwara. In a room full of aggressively German men in tuxedos, a luminous, smoking box is balanced on the shoulders of squatting black men dressed in loin cloths. Evil Maria rises out of it in a sparkling, translucent cape and begins to dance, nearly nude. She is very well received.
Freder comes to as the spy is looking at him in bed and has another vision. In this one, the spy becomes a fire and brimstone preacher. And he can see Maria dancing. The disembodied hands of his nurse stroke his forehead and give him water. He sees that Maria has become the Whore of Babylon. He sees the statues of the seven deadly sins from earlier come to life, led by Death playing a bone flute. The men holding up Maria’s throne are transformed into the sins. “Death descends on the city!” cries Freder, as Death approaches, swinging his scythe. He faints again.
When he awakes, he is in a chair, reading the Revelation of St John. And Josaphat stops by for a visit. He is wearing the workers’ clothes now, telling Freder he put them on as a disguise to escape “the Thin Man”, Joh’s spy, who has evidently been terrorizing the workers’ city below. But there’s worse news, Maria is now the queen of Yoshiwara, and all the men of the city are fighting each other to the death for her. Freder thinks it must be a different Maria, and when he hears the whistle signaling the shift change, he knows he must go meet the good Maria down in the workers’ city, to begin his life as the mediator.
The Thin Man is meeting with Joh, to let him know that the workers anger is barely contained. Joh orders “let the workers do as they will”.
Fortunately, Rotwang is there to explain everything to the still imprisoned Maria: “Joh Fredersen wants to let those in the depths use force and do wrong, so that he can be justified using force against them.”
When I started writing this piece, that was the part that I couldn’t understand. How is it that Metropolis, with all its grand ideas about human beings coming together in common purpose, was made by and for the same people who went on to commit one of the greatest atrocities in human history?
The answer awaits in part 2.
