Dr Mabuse

In 1933, just after the scheduled release of the film Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse, the director Fritz Lang was visited at his office in Berlin by a group of Nazi SA thugs, who announced they were there to confiscate all the prints of his new release. As one of the most famous and successful directors in Germany at the time, Lang confidently replied: “If you think you can get away with confiscating a Fritz Lang film in Germany, then do it.” They did it. Shortly after, he was ordered to appear before Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda.

“Somewhat ill at ease, I showed up at the Ministry of Propaganda. I was shown through immense corridors full of armed men, passed from one office to the next... I was sweating. Finally the doors opened and I entered a vast office, at the far end of which was Goebbels. I was seated facing him. ‘I'm so terribly sorry,’ he told me, ‘but we have had to confiscate your film. We didn't like the ending.’” 

According to Lang, Goebbels went on to announce that both he and Hitler were huge fans of the director’s work, and that rather than being in any kind of hot water, the Minister of Propaganda had summoned him there to offer him a job. “The Führer saw Metropolis,” said Goebbels, “and decided then and there: here is the man that will give us the Nazi film.” Still sweating profusely, Lang forced a smile and glanced at the hands of the clock, wondering if it were too late to withdraw his savings from the bank. Pretending to be flattered, he pointed out that perhaps the fact his mother was Jewish might cause some problems? “What is Jewish is ours to decide,” was Goebbels’ icy reply. The next day Lang fled Germany. “It was like a bad film,” he said. Indeed. Because none of this actually happened. Lang did eventually leave Berlin, but not until months after the supposed meeting with Goebbels. But in a way, Lang’s escape myth, full of its film noir tension and grandiose settings, is a fitting tale for a director of the Dr Mabuse films. 

Who is Dr Mabuse? Well, it could be said that in Germany Dr Mabuse is as well-known as Frankenstein or Sherlock Holmes. A poll taken in the mid-1980s found that 95% of German teenagers were familiar with the character’s name. And, by the way, that’s pronounced Mabooza in German - possibly a pun on böse, which is German for evil. Dr Mabuse is an arch-villain, a master of disguise and hypnotic mind-control, able to possess the bodies of others, employing a network of crime to pursue the destabilisation of society. Oh - and he has nothing to do with Strictly Come Dancing.

The character first appeared in 1921, in the novel, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (Dr Mabuse, the Gambler), by Norbert Jacques. Jacques was inspired to create his arch-villain by sharing a train carriage with an enigmatic stranger. There was something mesmeric about this character, who neither moved nor spoke for the entirety of the journey. Who was he? Was he good or bad, hero or villain? The author rushed home and completed the first Mabuse novel in just fourteen days. The book sold 100,000 copies in the first year and went on to become one of the bestsellers of its era.

Jacques wrote the novel in response to the appalling living conditions in the Weimar Republic at the time. The criminal genius Mabuse debuted in a Germany reeling from the effects of hyper-inflation, extreme politics, and the rest of the chaotic fallout from WWI - the same infernal alembic which would spawn a real-life arch-villain a few years later. Perhaps it is telling that in cash-strapped Germany cinema-goers got their thrills from Gothic monsters such as Dr Caligari, The Golem, Nosferatu, and Mabuse, while in the more affluent America, punters were being titillated by the high-jinks antics of Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy, and Buster Keaton. This original version of Mabuse was certainly a product of his time. He operated in the contemporary world of have and have-nots, where playboy profiteers could lose the equivalent of the average annual wage on the spin of a roulette wheel. In 1920s Germany to be such a gambler was held as morally despicable. The programme for the silent film adaptation of the novel stated: “This gambler, Dr Mabuse, was not possible in 1910, and perhaps – you might say hopefully – will not be possible by 1930…” Ironically the franchise went on to see multiple iterations of Mabuse over the decades. Twelve motion pictures alone were produced between 1922 and 1989.

Dr Mabuse would never have enjoyed his long-lasting notoriety without the help of Fritz Lang. With his monocle and Teutonic accent, Lang became the model for the tyrannical German émigré Hollywood director (although actually, like Hitler, he was born in Austria). The monocle was not an affectation, but worn as a result of an injury he sustained in WWI, which compromised his eyesight for the rest of his life. After his defection to Hollywood, his career never really achieved its full potential, mainly as a result of his poor treatment of crew members and actors, and the constant run-ins he had with studio bosses. His movies have recurring themes of guilt, murder, and suicide. There is even a rumour that he may have killed his first wife to make way for his marriage to Thea von Harbou, the screenwriter on the first two Mabuse films; it’s no wonder he was dubbed the "Master of Darkness" by the British Film Institute. But for all his faults, there can be no doubt that Fritz Lang created two seminal works, hugely influential in the history of film-making: the ground-breaking science-fiction film Metropolis (1927) and the influential M (1931) - an extraordinary film, and the precursor of both the noir and psychological thriller genres. It could also be argued that Lang’s first (silent) Mabuse outing, Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, is the godfather of gangster movies.

The posters for this adaptation of Jacques’ novel mimicked a cover image from the first volume of the Fantômas stories (1911), with a colossal Dr Mabuse standing astride the city scape of Berlin, just as Fantômas had loomed over Paris in his top hat and tails. An obvious inspiration for the Mabuse character, Fantômas was a similar genius arch-villain, and one of the most popular characters in the history of French crime fiction. As a younger man, Lang had been a great fan of pulp fiction and would almost certainly have read the Fantômas stories; but he was also intrigued by the occult, as can be seen in the cinematic elements of the uncanny which he introduces into the Mabuse films.

Personally, I think the best Dr Mabuse movie by far is the second one - The Testament of Dr Mabuse. Although not a direct sequel to his masterpiece M, they both share Lang’s focus on psychological tension and social critique; and they both feature the charismatic detective Inspector Lohmann. Lohmann, portrayed by Otto Wernicke, is a dogged, no-nonsense detective, and forms an early template for future screen coppers such as Colombo and Jack Regan from The Sweeney. The Testament of Dr Mabuse was made in 1932, during the death throes of the Weimar Republic. Lang admitted that in the early days he was ‘apolitical’, ignorant to the true nature of the emerging Nazi party. One day he attended a Nazi rally to see what all the fuss was about – and was horrified at what he saw. He immediately changed his opinion. The director always claimed The Testament of Dr Mabuse was an anti-Nazi polemic - which certainly stands up to scrutiny when you watch the film, but is remarkable when you consider the screenplay was written by his second wife Thea von Harbou, who had become a signed-up member of the Nazi party even before the film’s scheduled release date.

There are, indeed, ways to read connections between Mabuse and the Nazis, some of which are eerily prophetic:

·       Norbert Jacques set the original novel in Munich (at the time a pressure cooker of political unrest). Hitler used the same city as the launch pad for his first attempt at seizing power - known as the Munich Putsch.

·       In The Testament of Dr Mabuse our villain is seen imprisoned in an asylum, obsessively writing his criminal testament: intricate plans for his followers to terrorise the world with - just as Hitler used his term of imprisonment to write Mein Kampf. This also, perhaps, predicts Hitler dictating his last will and testament from the bunker, which included his instructions to the faithful for maintaining his poisonous ideology.

·       Jacques original novel had a megalomaniac leader escaping to South America after his failed conquest of Germany, which accurately predicted the prominent Nazis (such as Mengele and Eichmann) who fled to South America to escape prosecution for their crimes decades later.

·       And, of course, our master criminal, Dr Mabuse, uses methods of propaganda, disinformation, fear, and violence to control and destabilize society - mirroring the techniques employed by Hitler and his own criminal network.

All things considered, it may not be such a surprise to discover that Goebbels banned The Testament of Dr Mabuse as a menace to public health and safety. But it wasn’t the similarities between Mabuse and the Führer which the Reich Minister objected to, it was the fact that, in the film, Lang never depicts the triumph of order over chaos - the villain Mabuse does not receive his due punishment from the state. In Goebbels’ opinion the film “… showed that an extremely dedicated group of people are perfectly capable of overthrowing any state with violence”. Interestingly enough, although he banned the film, Goebbels owned his own copy, and would make private screenings of it for his friends. Perhaps he failed to recognize Hitler in the character of Mabuse because he saw Mabuse as Jewish? After all, wasn’t the doctor a psychiatrist? A sinister Svengali figure with hypnotic powers? Didn’t the Mabuse story of a criminal network controlling society resonate with the premise of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion - the infamous fabricated text purporting to detail a Jewish plot for global domination?

I think one reason for this disparity between Lang’s and Goebbels’ reading of the character is because Mabuse is not an individual but a symbol of criminal ideology. There are many potential Mabuses among us, just like there were many potential Hitlers in 1920s Germany. No matter how many times the Doctor is destroyed, he will simply reappear in a different body (as demonstrated throughout the series of movies). Dr Mabuse is the Faustian pact humans have always been (and will always be) eager to rush into when intoxicated by the heady fumes of power. Lang depicts this very concept in The Testament of Dr Mabuse, when the spirit of Mabuse appears to the asylum director Baum:  Baum willingly exchanges his soul for the chance to become the despotic leader of the Mabuse criminal network.

But perhaps in depicting Mabuse as the personification of chaos in the 1920/30s, Fritz Lang was prophesising another cultural phenomenon, one much closer to our own times? In the films, Dr Mabuse is portrayed as the ultimate puppet master, responsible for all the ills of the world – he floods the streets with counterfeit money in order to destroy the banking system; his machinations are behind the erratic fluctuations of the stock market; he uses mesmerism, and diabolical (digital?) technology to hypnotise his followers into carrying out criminal acts. By unravelling his devilish plans we discover that all the terrible things afflicting modern life are not just the consequence of random social forces but are, in fact, the results of a meticulously executed conspiracy. Disinformation, mistrust of the authorities, economic and social crises, political polarisation – a few tweaks to the recipe and from that same magic cauldron might escape a Dr Mabuse, a Hitler … or a pernicious miasma of internet conspiracy theories.

In the The Return of Dr Mabuse (1961), Inspector Lohmann (now portrayed by Gert Fröbe, most famous for playing Goldfinger in the Bond movie) gazes out of the window, at the throng of unexceptional citizens going about their mundane business, and he wonders aloud, which of these seemingly innocent people might turn out to be the new Mabuse … Well?

The majority of the information for this article was taken from David Kata's excellent book, The Strange Case of Dr. Mabuse: A Study of the Twelve Films and Five Novels