Fritz Lang’s Monster: Was Metropolis a Pro-Nazi Film
Fritz Lang, the son of a Jewish woman, a half-breed by Nazi standards, was naturally petrified when he was invited into the office of the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Doctor Joseph Goebbels, in 1933[1]. The Nazi Propagandist, who was a fan of Lang’s previous work in Metropolis, had been less than impressed with Lang’s most recent work, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse[2]. He viewed it, in fact, as being a rebellious film, and thus banned it for daring to suggest that the Leader is not always right[3].
Lang, naturally, figured that he was being summoned into the office of the Propaganda Ministry for a scolding at best, but much to his surprise Doctor Goebbels’ fondness for his previous work was so strong that he was willing to give the half-Jew more than a second chance. Declaring both his and Adolf Hitler’s admiration for Metropolis, Goebbels went so far as to offer Lang a job in the Propaganda Ministry. “The Führer and I have seen your films,” Goebbels declared according to Lang, “and the Fuhrer made clear that this [Lang] is the man who will give us the National Socialist film.”[4]
Lang replied politely to Goebbels’ offer, but the Minister would never get his Lang-made National Socialist film: Lang would flee to America four months later, where he would continue on his career, making anti-Nazi films such as Hangmen Also Die[5].
For years, the interview with Goebbels, as well as the Minister of Propaganda’s high praise for his work, would haunt him. He later came to regard Metropolis, at least in the case of its story, as ‘silly’, and gazed back upon it with regret for having allowed it to come into a state where Hitler himself adored it, even ‘relating to’ the main character, Freder[6].
Given the fact that Lang’s then-wife, Thea Von Harbou, was responsible for writing the screenplay, it may not be surprising that certain themes and notions that would have pleased Hitler entered the film[7]. Von Harbou wrote both the novelization of the screenplay and the screenplay itself in 1927[8]. Von Harbou and her half-Jewish husband became estranged, however, as Von Harbou gravitated towards Hitler and his Party. While Lang was in America making anti-Nazi films, his ex-wife and former scriptwriter remained in the Reich, writing on behalf of the regime[9].
At first glance, it seems clear that Von Harbou managed to slip her Nazi sympathies past her Jewish husband and into the screenplay. Metropolis certainly contains elements that would seemingly go along with the pro-worker yet anti-communist message of the Nazi Party. The Nazi Party claimed to be against both the Bolshevik revolution — — a brand of workers’ uprising that is portrayed as detrimental and foolish in the film as the workers’ rebellion almost leads to the drowning of their children — -and crony ‘Jewish’ capitalism that supposedly exploited the workers. Joseph Goebbels stated that the Nazis were socialists, and even claimed that they were primarily anti-Semitic because “as socialists, we are opponents of the Jews [because they are] the incarnation of capitalism, of the misuse of the nation’s goods”[10]. This would seemingly go hand in hand with Metropolis’ message concerning the Head and the Hands working together, mediated by the Heart, rather than the Head controlling and abusing its power over the Hands or the Hands trying to tear off the Head. A middle ground, based upon the good of the nation and the progression of the state, Goebbels’ ideal, is seemingly what Metropolis promotes.
However, while Metropolis might posit some ideas with regard to cooperation between the classes for the ‘greater good’, and while Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler might have claimed that such ideals fell within the Nazi Party line, in practice Nazism, as an ideology, not only failed to live up to this ideal, but in fact did not hold this ideal — -the ideal of Arbeit, Freiheit, und Brot — -work, freedom, and bread for the workers — -as high as it held up the racialized ideal of the Führer Myth[11].
Nazism was built upon several principles, principles that Metropolis alternatively completely ignores or firmly contrasts in its narrative. Furthermore, Metropolis takes an entirely different approach in its use of technology as a tool for cooperative utopia building than the Nazi Party did. In spite of the claims of some critics, and in spite of the concerns of Lang himself, if Von Harbou intended on making a pro-Nazi film when writing Metropolis, she actually managed to make the opposite.
When speaking of the principles of Nazi ideology, it can generally be divided into three ‘pillars’: the Führerprinzip, the Volksgemeinschaft, and the Judenkampf. The first of these three principles, the Führerprinzip, essentially stipulates that, in the words of Hermann Goering, “[just as] the Catholic Christian is convinced that the Pope is infallible in all religious and ethical matters, so we National Socialists declare…that for us, too, the Führer is absolutely infallible.”[12] Hitler was portrayed in Nazi circles and in Nazi Propaganda as being not merely a prophet, but a Christ-like figure sent by God to ‘save’ the German people[13]. And he, being portrayed as such a figure, of perfection incarnate, was, like Jesus, above reproach and above question. Questioning the Führer or portraying him as anything but eternally correct was, in Nazi circles, tantamount to heresy, hence Goebbels’ dislike for Lang’s later anti-fascist film[14].
This notion of the Leader being Christ-like, infallible, above question or reproof, is most certainly nowhere to be seen in Metropolis. In fact, it is rather surprising that Joseph Goebbels banned The Testament of Dr. Mabuse for discouraging total trust in a leader while ignoring the exact same message that exists, clear as day, in Metropolis. Joh Fredersen may be a wealthy industrialist, a cosmopolitan, but he is at the same time the definite Führer of New Babylon: When Freder desires to argue on the workers’ behalf, he must go to his father: there is no other man he can appeal to. Rotwang, even though Fredersen is the one who took from him the woman he loved, is still compelled to work for him and do as he says, only daring to conspire against him in secret. Joh Fredersen built New Babylon, his brilliant mind keeps it going, and he is the one who is ultimately in charge. New Babylon is essentially a fascist dictatorship, with Fredersen as the unquestionable leader, and both the film and the characters therein treat this fact as a horror.
Fredersen is portrayed as being brilliant, but cold, heartless towards the people he is too far above to see the struggles of. The fact that the people below him have absolutely no say is what ultimately causes the chaos that we see in the film: the discontent, the riots, the Iron Maria, all of it can be directly traced back to Fredersen being unwilling to show empathy for those below him. However, this does not make Fredersen a cartoonish villain — — perhaps the representation of Joseph Goebbels’ ‘Jewish Cosmopolitan’ boogeyman. Instead, he acts as a redeemable figure that, upon being filled with fear for his own son, whom he genuinely loves, at last learns to empathize with the citizens of his city and work towards a better future, with the people below him having a say. This promotion of leadership accountability to the people, this promotion of a flawed but not intrinsically evil figurehead who can do better and ultimately does, certainly goes against the Führerprinzip.
Second, we have the notion of the Volksgemeinschaft. This notion of the people’s community, vital to an ideology that declared its first major socio-political goal to be ‘the unification of all Germans in a Great Germany’[15], manifested itself within Nazi thought in the ‘Socialist’ quotient of National Socialism — — where the Nazis declared their intention to fight for ‘equality for all Germans’ and for ‘the maintenance of a sound middle class [while raging] ruthless war…against those who work to the injury of the common welfare.”[16] In addition to this, the pillar of Volksgemeinschaft manifested itself in the notion of the Herrnvolk — — the superior, Aryan man that stood head and shoulders above the lesser races[17]. As Emily Teater put it: “The idea of community could only work if someone or some group could be excluded.” [18]
Metropolis may initially appear to promote at least one of these two halves of Volksgemeinschaft — -the notion of the Herrnvolk is completely absent from the film, which, though it clearly possesses an entirely white audience, never attempts to bring ideas of race or nationality into the mix when spreading its message of general equality and cooperation between the social classes. However, the film most certainly posits that rather than completely overthrowing the upper class bourgeois — -as the workers attempt to do during the film — -or allowing for out-of-control crony capitalism, a middle ground, one of social benefit to the people while continuing to allow for profit and ownership of the means of production, is idealized.
This would seem to go in line with National Socialism, where the workers constituted a key social group that Hitler appealed to during his rise to power. These workers, in general, supported Hitler during his reign, perceiving him as an ally who (up until the defeat of Germany, obviously) improved their living conditions greatly[19]. However, if one breaks through the Nazi propaganda and takes a view of the situation that had developed in Germany objectively, it becomes clear that Hitler had far more in common with Joh Fredersen than with his son. What the Nazis said and what the Nazis did, after all, were often two very different things. Where it concerns their application of ‘socialism’, simply put, Maria would have disapproved: the Nazis, more often than not, made things easier for the working class only in comparison to the horrible conditions of 1932 rather than the relative prosperity the workers enjoyed in 1929. By comparing themselves only to crippling poverty, they made themselves come across as saviors to the working class, benefactors who had drastically improved their living conditions even though the living conditions for the average German worker remained well under the 1929 standard[20].
In fact, far from trying to give the workers more representation, the Nazis shut down and seized the offices of labor and trade unions within Germany[21]. Though this conjoined with efforts to alleviate the workers by offering higher wages — -between 1934 and 1937 the wage for the average lower-class worker was raised by an average of 15 percent, though the wages were at the same time frozen so that they could not climb higher than these levels[22] — — this ultimately meant that unlike in Freder’s improved utopia, where the workers had a say, in Hitler’s so-called ‘worker’s paradise’ they were under the thumb of the state and had even less say than they had under the poor conditions of Weimar. This became especially troublesome for the workers as the war progressed, as compulsory longer working hours took a toll on their collective heath and workplace accidents increased from roughly a million a year to two million[23]. This, of course, is not even taking into account the foreign workers, usually Ostarebiter — — Poles and Slavs — -who made up a third of the German workforce in the armaments industry and were, of course, treated as slave labor[24], in horrid conditions even worse than what Joh Fredersen put his workers through.
And while the workers, German and foreigner alike, toiled, the Nazi elite embodied the bourgeois, cuddling up to big business even in spite of their proclamations of their intent to make large industries share the profits — — such industries ended up sharing the profits, certainly, but only with the Nazi elite[25]. The old German nobility, princes and dukes, also curried favor with and offered financial support to Hitler and his close allies, which allowed them to live a rather high-class lifestyle. Hitler had a driver, and his number-two, Hermann Goering, filled his Carinhalle household with fine (stolen) are and exotic animals such as lions[26]. Agriculture minister Walter Darre reported of his visit to Hermann Goering’s estate that the Reichsmarshall would have a personal servant dress him and present him with 12 colorful precious-gem rings laid out on a cushion every day, which he would choose from to suit his mood[27]. Clearly, the Nazis lived more a life suited to Freder Fredersen when he lived in blissful ignorance, in the Eternal Garden, and they, unlike Freder, never attempted to trade lives with the workers — -only to give them the illusion of a better life.
Third, we have the notion of the Judenkampf: the supposedly eternal and intrinsic struggle of the German volk against the ‘cancer’ of the Jews. The Jews were viewed as the ultimate foe of the German people, the Joh Fredersen and the Iron Maria as it were: a combination of greed and a lust for chaos and destruction that would cause the fall of the Utopia that the Nazis sought to build[28]. It was necessary, the Nazis preached, for them to burn this Iron Maria of a people at the stake. “The Jews Are Our Misfortune” was a common slogan of the Nazi Party, printed on banners, hung at rallies, proclaimed on the cover of every copy of the Nazi rag Der Stümer[29]. This notion of a race war, a struggle for survival, was more important to the Nazi ideology than any other, and this, of course, is absent from the film as well. As stated previously, the workers are never divided into racial groups, the crony capitalist Fredersen is redeemed by the end and thus cannot be considered instinctually, racially evil, and while the Iron Maria certainly causes chaos, she is merely a tool of Rotwang, and he is much too creative and sympathetic in his love for Hel to meet the Nazi standards of embodying ‘the Jew’. Goebbels often proclaimed that, “The Jew lacks creative abilities”, and Rotwang is, if nothing else, certainly creative[30].
This all-important principle, absent from the film, furthermore feeds into the Nazi view of the goal of technology. In Metropolis, technology itself was promoted as the goal of the future. It was the duty of Hands, Heart, and Head to ultimately work together equally so that technology could be built and New Babylon improved for all. New Babylon stood not because of idealism or history or even a conjoined culture, but because of Fredersen’s brilliance and Rotwang’s creativity. Technology made the city of the future, and thus served as an end goal itself in the building of Utopia. Utopia, in Metropolis, is portrayed as one where technology can be permitted to advance, rather than crumble, as Maria claims the original Babylon did when the Head and Hands could not cooperate.
In contrast, the Nazi concept of Utopia was built upon the notion of the ‘war’ with the Jews being ‘won’ and Germany thus being a Judenfrei (Jew-free) nation, a nation free of the ‘corrupting influence’ that Goebbels so often preached the Jews were[31]. In the Nazi mind, Germany was already Eden, and it only needed to be one snake shorter to be made the Eternal Garden once more[32]. Because of this, Nazi technological thought was squarely focused in two areas: military development and development for the extermination of the Jews and the ‘lesser races’ of Europe[33]. Insofar as the war effort went, the Nazis developed a myriad of armored tanks, the most famous being the Panzer, as well as ballistic missile systems (the V2 rocket program) which would eventually be utilized by the United States during the Cold War[34]. However, while the United States would take advantage of Nazi science and technology in this regard, there was little else available to take advantage of. In the medical field, the Nazis, focused on their mission to create a perfect Volksgemeinschaft, pushed for eugenics and failed to uncover anything truly revolutionary — -even Josef Mengele’s infamous human experiments were mostly useless in terms of scientific progress as he focused on strange experiments such as attempting to change the eye color of children by injecting chemicals into their corneas[35]. In other areas, the Nazis took advantage of technology for one purpose: for control of the populace. Their proto-type computer, the Hollerith Machine, was used for surveillance, tracking, and control of the populace, and the engineering work that the Nazis perfected at Auschwitz had one use and one use only: genocide of the supposed ‘Jewish foe’[36]. Attempts at marrying advancement in technology with the notion of a Nazi Utopia, as one Fritz Todt attempted to do, were shot down by the likes of Albert Speer, who promoted the Nazi ideal of technology being ‘for the war effort’[37]. While Metropolis promotes technology as an end, to the Nazis it was merely a means.
Joseph Goebbels fancied himself as not only a good judge of character, but as a literary intellectual[38]. In spite of this, where it concerns Fritz Lang he made two vital errors: ever thinking that a half-Jewish man would be willing to work on Hitler’s behalf, and, in addition, projecting his own Nazi worldview into his reading of Lang’s masterwork, Metropolis. Thea Von Harbou may very well have attempted to slip her pro-Nazi opinions into Metropolis, but ultimately Metropolis not only does not reflect how Nazi Germany operated in practice — — the Nazis’ failure to truly uplift the working class — -but it actively disregards and objects to the pillars of Nazism. The Führerprinzip is rejected in Metropolis’ critique of Joh Fredersen, the Volksgemeinschaft is contradicted in its promotion of general equality and its lack of a ‘racial enemy’, and the Judenkampf is contradicted in the absence of an all-evil Jewish caricature, as well in Metropolis’ portrayal of the beauty of technology not lying in its use for exterminating the enemy, the Jew, but instead as being the very goal when building Utopia. The Nazi ideals, the Nazi vision of Utopia, not only does not exist in New Babylon, but Maria and Freder’s mission ends up casting such ideals and visions into the gutter. Lang did not make a monster in Metropolis, he only made a piece of art, and art, unfortunately, can be both admired and twisted by monsters.
Sources:
Ayçoberry, Pierre. The Social History of the Third Reich: 1933–1945. New Press, 1999. Print.
D’Almeida, Fabrice. High Society in the Third Reich. Wiley, 2008, Print.
Goebbels, Joseph. “The Jew as World Parasite.” Calvin College German Propaganda Archive. 1944. Accessed December 12, 2017. http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/weltparasit.htm.
Goebbels, Joseph. “Those Damned Nazis!” Calvin College German Propaganda Archive. 1932. Accessed December 12, 2017. http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm
Grunberger, Richard. The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 1971. Print.
Guse, John C. “Nazi Technical Thought Revisited.” History and Technology, vol. 26, no. 1, Mar. 2010, pp. 3–33, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07341510903545557
MacGregor, Robert R. The Avenging Sword: An Analysis of Technology in Nazi Germany. IB Twentieth Century World Area Studies, 2001. Accessed 11/23/2017. http://drbobguy.freeshell.org/papers/sword/sword.shtml.
McGilligan, Patrick. Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast, University of Minnesota Press, 1997, pp. 147–164. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt5hjjmt.12.
Peukert, Detlev. Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life. 1987. Print.
Teater, Emily. “Volksgemeinschaft: The Rise of Nazi Ideology .” Undergraduate History Symposium. Bowling Green State University, March 26, 2012.
Trueman, C.N. “The Fuehrer Principle” The History Learning Site, 9 Mar 2015. 18 Dec 2017.
Werner, Gösta. “Fritz Lang and Goebbels: Myth and Facts.” Film Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, 1990, pp. 24–27. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1212633
[1] Werner, Gösta. “Fritz Lang and Goebbels: Myth and Facts.” Film Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, 1990, pp. 24–27. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1212633
[2] ibid
[3] ibid
[4] McGilligan, Patrick. Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast, University of Minnesota Press, 1997, pp. 147–164. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt5hjjmt.12.
[5] Werner, Gösta. “Fritz Lang and Goebbels: Myth and Facts.” Film Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 3, 1990, pp. 24–27. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1212633
[6] McGilligan, Patrick. Fritz Lang: The Nature of the Beast, University of Minnesota Press, 1997, pp. 147–164. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctt5hjjmt.12.
[7] ibid
[8] ibid
[9] ibid
[10] Goebbels, Joseph. “Those Damned Nazis!” Calvin College German Propaganda Archive. 1932. Accessed December 12, 2017. http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm
[11] Ayçoberry, Pierre. The Social History of the Third Reich: 1933–1945. New Press, 1999. Print.
[12] Trueman, C.N. “The Fuehrer Principle” The History Learning Site, 9 Mar 2015. 18 Dec 2017.
[13] Peukert, Detlev. Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life. 1987. Print.
[14] Grunberger, Richard. The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 1971. Print.
[15] Grunberger, Richard. The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 1971. Print
[16]ibid.
[17] Peukert, Detlev. Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life. 1987. Print.
[18] Teater, Emily. “Volksgemeinschaft: The Rise of Nazi Ideology .” Undergraduate History Symposium. Bowling Green State University, March 26, 2012.
[19] Grunberger, Richard. The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 1971. Print.
[20] ibid
[21] ibid
[22] ibid
[23] ibid
[24] Peukert, Detlev. Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life. 1987. Print.
[25] D’Almeida, Fabrice. High Society in the Third Reich. Wiley, 2008, Print.
[26] ibid
[27] ibid
[28] Goebbels, Joseph. “The Jew as World Parasite.” Calvin College German Propaganda Archive. 1944. Accessed December 12, 2017. http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/weltparasit.htm.
[29] Grunberger, Richard. The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi Germany, 1933–1945 1971. Print.
[30] Goebbels, Joseph. “The Jew as World Parasite.” Calvin College German Propaganda Archive. 1944. Accessed December 12, 2017. http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/weltparasit.htm.
[31] MacGregor, Robert R. The Avenging Sword: An Analysis of Technology in Nazi Germany. IB Twentieth Century World Area Studies, 2001. Accessed 11/23/2017. http://drbobguy.freeshell.org/papers/sword/sword.shtml.
[32] Ayçoberry, Pierre. The Social History of the Third Reich: 1933–1945. New Press, 1999. Print.
[33] Guse, John C. “Nazi Technical Thought Revisited.” History and Technology, vol. 26, no. 1, Mar. 2010, pp. 3–33, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07341510903545557
[34] MacGregor, Robert R. The Avenging Sword: An Analysis of Technology in Nazi Germany. IB Twentieth Century World Area Studies, 2001. Accessed 11/23/2017. http://drbobguy.freeshell.org/papers/sword/sword.shtml.
[35] ibid
[36] ibid
[37] Guse, John C. “Nazi Technical Thought Revisited.” History and Technology, vol. 26, no. 1, Mar. 2010, pp. 3–33, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07341510903545557
[38] D’Almeida, Fabrice. High Society in the Third Reich. Wiley, 2008, Print.
