The reason Fritz Lang fled Joseph Goebbels and Nazi Germany
The Austrian filmmaker and screenwriter Fritz Lang is one of the most revered directors of all time. The Expressionist master of cinema is best known for his wildly influential movies Metropolis, the science fiction classic from 1937 and M, the 1931 progenitor of the film noir genre.
Despite Lang’s excellence as a director, he was actually banned from Germany around the same time that Adolf Hitler first came to power. Lang began filming The Testament of Dr. Mabuse towards the end of 1932, and Hitler’s Nazi party assumed power at the beginning of the following year.
It took until March 1933 for Lang’s film to be banned over concerns that it would serve as an incitement to public disorder. The film is a sequel to Lang’s 1922 silent film Dr. Mabuse the Gambler, starring Rudolf Klein-Rogge as Dr. Mabuse. It tells of the titular doctor and his imprisonment in an insane asylum where he furious details his future crime plans.
When his plans start to come to fruition, an inspector begins to investigate Mabuse via the gangster Thomas Kent as well as two other members of the mental institution, one of whom has developed an obsession with the doctor. Lang used the characteristics of Hitler to inform the main character, leading the German leader to be enraged.
The film is now considered an “anti-Nazi” film, even though Lang had merely put the words of the Nazi leaders into the mouths of his characters. When Joseph Goebbels became the Minister of Propaganda, he banned the movie in Germany because it would lead to a lack of confidence in Hitler.
Goebbels has said the film “showed that an extremely dedicated group of people are perfectly capable of overthrowing any state with violence.” A paranoia quickly grew in Lang, who had a Jewish heritage. Goebbels met with the director to explain why he had banned his movie and, at the same time, expressed his admiration for his work. In fact, Goebbels even offered Lang a position in the Nazi party as the head of film.
However, Lang decided in that very meeting that he needed to flee Germany. It was that evening that he boarded a train to Paris. He returned a few times throughout 1933, but by July 31st, he left for good. Lang worked briefly in Paris before leaving for America, where he stayed for the next 20 years.
Around the time of the Second World War, Lang began to make genuine anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist movies such as 1943’s Hangmen Also Die! and 1944’s Ministry of Fear. He’s one of the greatest European directors of all time, but he very nearly was a casualty of the Nazi regime.
