Authors from Around the World: Germany
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Thea von Harbou 1888-1954
Today Writers From Around the Worlds looks at Thea von Harbou, one of the leading lights of the golden age of cinema during the Weimar era; she was also a short story writer and a novelist of national renown. She personified female independence and what would now be feminism, being an early proponent of abortion, among other things, the most controversial of which—her support of Nazi Germany would lead to her mainly being ostracized by both literary and cinematic historians. These controversial political views make her a testament to just how complex the human experience can be. While she lived in splendor in the pre-war years on her wall – once covered with the art of the world– were two photos. One was of Gandhi, and the other was of Adolf Hitler.
Patrice Petro, author of "Representation In Weimar Germany," quotes a 1931 speech by Thea von Harbou regarding the repeal of Paragraph 218 which banned abortion--
“Our main goal is to find a new form of preventing pregnancy and therefore to make the entire [Paragraph] 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 code was created by men, and no man is in a position to understand the agony of a woman carrying a child she knows she cannot feed. The 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 activities in economic and political life.”
Remembered more as a footnote to the career of her onetime husband and titan of German cinema director Fritz Lang. Born in the German province of Bavaria in 1888, Harbou published her first story at age 14. Completing college in Dresden, she traveled to Africa, later returning to Germany to pursue a career on the stage. By the 1920s, she was a behemoth in her own right within the German film world.
Harbou co-wrote both of Lang's "Dr. Mabuse" films, "Der müde Tod" ("Destiny"), the "Die Nibelungen" films, "Metropolis," and "M," among others. In total, she wrote or co-wrote ten films with Lang. For Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, another great director of the era. Harbou wrote or co-wrote "Phantom," "The Grand Duke's Finances," and "The Expulsion." Harbou co-scripted "Michael" with director Carl Theodor Dreyer. She was also a short story writer and a novelist of national renown. She secretly married Ayi Tendulkar, an Indian screenwriter, journalist, and actor, in 1938. Harbou remained in Germany during the war and continued writing scripts and directing two films (both of which had problems with Nazi censors). At a 1954 rescreening of "Der Müde Tod," she slipped and fell, dying several days later of complications.
Metropolis (1926)
Published originally in 1926 and in English in 1927, the novel was the basis for and written in tandem with Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film Metropolis. An example of expressionist literature, the story is considered the only way to understand the movie of the same name. The novel rendition expertly reproduces the ambitious nature of Wiemer German cinema and is even available online for free.
