Murnau antisemitic?
Before we talk about his personality let´s talk about the movie that brought about all the accusations about an antisemitic Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. Nosferatu-this pearl of German expressionism so dark it was made into a remake by the mighty Werner Herzog in ´79 and will be made into yet another remake by Robert Eggers starring Willem Dafoe and a few other Hollywood pieces in 2024 because OF COURSE. (Note that this was neither a Robert Eggers nor a Willem Dafoe diss!) Btw, Werner Herzog´s Nosferatu is streaming on Arte until the end of February. The OG Nosferatu is so old, you can legally watch it on YouTube.
Ok but here are the hard facts that can be seen when seeing the movie:
First of all, lets “break down Nosferatu`s look”, as Vogue would say. The main responsible for the movie was an Aleister Crowley-type of guy* called Albin Grau who found FW Murnau to direct “his” movie. It was Grau who gave Nosferatu rat-like features, Freddy Krüger nails and most notably that oversized nose! Nosferatu basically caricatures a Jewish person. In case you are asking, ratlike features are a trademark component of Jewish physiognomy? Gargamel did not look like a rat! Well indirectly the rat-like features are a personified stamp for the fact that Jews liked to be depicted with rats or as rats, both being a harbinger of disease. And while the Romanian word Nosferatu is allegedly some bastardization of the Romanian word Nesferatu, the Greek meaning is more interesting. A Nosferatu in Greek is basically a harbinger of disease. And so are rats right?
Film poster: Rollin´with the rats of eternity
The film poster already alludes to this fact. It shows a very scary looking creature and a few rats which build an imaginary circle. The fact that two of them are cut in half, stress the fact that there are a lot more outside of the image, ready to jump into it every time. It is mostly the imaginary circle the rats are forming that give the message that we might just see a limited amount of rats, but that there are a lot more where that come from and their sheer number is actually infinite. The monster itself is depicted in a manner as it would be stopping its march for an instant, ready to attack at any second.[1]
But anyway, the other images of Nosferatu are also not very far away from the caricatures you would see in Der Stürmer. As a matter of fact, the drawings in Der Stürmer have been directly influenced by Nosferatu. Haunted screen´s Travis Mushett said that the webpage of the Jewish museum in Tel Aviv writes that Julius Streiker, the founder of Der Stürmer was actually present at the premiere. I could not find that anywhere on the website, but I do trust Travis Mushett! Later the magazine also depicted Jews as vermin as you can see on the caricature below. Large nose and something that stands for disease whether its rats, vermin or bacteria- you get the idea.
carricature from Der Stürmer, 1944
But even if Albin Grau would have given Nosferatu grillz, corn rows, a tiara, skinny Jeans or the new Louis Vuitton speedy bag designed by Pharrell Williams– it would not have matter because apart from that look that infallibly personified “The other” the movie threw around some major themes, stereotypes and conspiracy theories that have been connected to Judaism since the middle ages and you can imagine that those were anything but positive.
But before, a few words about Murnau. Murnau himself was in a relationship with a Jewish man. When the relationship is being discussed in books, Hans is almost univocally described as his best friend, but we can be pretty certain that we are talking about a romantic relationship here. Hans´ mother was an opera singer and his Jewish father a banker. According to the Halakha that would make Hans a Vaterjude, or a half-Jew as the third-Reich language would term them. And yes, I know, in America people refer to themselves as half-Jewish all the time, but as you might imagine, Germany has a tricky relationship with words like this. Just like using terms like “race” is ok to use in English, it does not translate that into the German term “Rasse” which is something you can nowadays use in order to dstinguish breeds of dogs but never humand because d´uh, third reich and all. But –*make no mistake*, Germans now love to pretend their hypocritical commemorative culture makes them closet-historians and they constantly throw around terms like “half-Jew”, describe Arabs as antisemitic (Arab and Hebrew are both semitic languages) fail to distinguish between Antijudaism and antisemitism. I guess most nationalities do this, but hey I live in Germany, I mainly grew up here so in case you are wondering, this is the nation I know best hence my perennial criticism. If I would live in Sweden, I would complain about Swedes.
Anyway, FW Murnau was by all accounts part of the family. From then on it was all smooth sailing and kisses on the beach! Just kidding. Like so many men Hans died in World War 1. Murnau grieved what was probably the love of his life and stayed close to Hans family. He was still part of that family. Unlike his own family who, when finding out that Murnau acted in theaters, quit supporting him financially, Hans family always supported him. In their will, Hans´ mother left their house to the Freie Universität (biggest university in Berlin and Germany actually) but on the condition that Friedrich would be allowed to live there until the rest of his life.
I know that does not say much and yes, I heard all the stories about members of the Aryan brotherhood being married to black women and having mixed children- I know its more complicated than that. But ostracized folks like a presumably gay artsy Murnau in the 20s who by default live on the margins (at least in his native Bielefeld) are likely to be more tolerant. Especially if they strive in an environment that is Weimar Berlin that was so very shaped by an intellectual Jewish elite that was so very instrumental in turning Germany’s reputation from Barbarian warlords into a high-brow art center. Add to that the fact that Weimar-Berlin was basically synonymous with sexual freedom, and you got yourself a prescription against denying, suppressing and disowning your own sexuality that comes with the stellar side effect of generally being more aware of stereotypes. Murnau never had an official coming out, but it is very likely that his relationship to Hans was romantic in nature.
The eternal Jew.
The in your face antisemitic imagery of the scenes that I will describe in the following are also aggravated by the fact that none of them could be found in Bram Stoker´s Dracula. Meaning they were added.
As for the film, it starts out with the scene where real estate agent Knock receiving a letter from Count Orlok who sends him on a mission to look for a house for him in Wisborg.
Knock is thrilled by this opportunity and soon decides to send his young pure-hearted coworker Hutter on this journey. We get a little glimpse of the letter and see some malapropism of kabbalistic and Hebrew scripture. Count Orlok will later turn out to be Nosferatu aka Dracula aka harbinger of disease aka evil personified. But you probably knew this because who if not evil personified would send a letter consisting of Hebrew-Kabbalistic- gibberish?
Some scenes also came out different in the film as opposed to the book.
In Murnau´s film holy Hutter takes a break from his journey to Wisborg in a local inn. The landlord, dressed *in a traditional Slavic (read Jewish) costume* warns him about continuing his itinerary that very night and thus actually saves him from directly racing into his misfortune.
In the Original screenbook Hendrik Galeen radically reverses this saving grace:
Hutter decides to take a break at a local inn, on his way to count Orlok the landlord of the inn tells him to not continue his travel that night. Galeen´s screenbook reads something along the lines of this:
“The landlord is a small Jew looking at the carriage. Meanwhile the other travelers descend. Longhaired Huzules in Black. All of them dressed eerily similar and with eerily similar looks”
He did not specifically mention the two curly strands of hair but otherwise he pretty much describes a Transylvanian Jew.
The landlord then plays a vital role in driving Hutter into misery. When Hutter declares that he wishes to pay a visit to Nosferatu, the screenplay reads “The old, buckled Jew” listens attentively. When Hutter oversleeps the next day, the landlord explicitly tells the carriage driver to wait because he really wants Hutter to arrive at the palace where shit really hits the fan.
Now we drink Aryan cuz we thirstay.
Another climatic scene is when hooked nose count Orlok feasts on the blood of Ellen, Hutters blond and blue eyed, dare we say Aryan-looking wife. But even before that, the viewer could witness Noferatu taking a glimpse of Hutter´s medallion with a picture of Aryan thirst trap Ellen and showing a face that screams “…and I thirsted to ravish her”.
Similar to the stereotype of Black men lusting after white women is that of the Jew lusting for the Goy´s woman. Btw In Bram Stoker´s novel, Ellen does not even die. Murnau´s version demands a victim though. An Aryan one. Because OF COURSE.
What else can´t be missed in a piece of antisemitic propaganda? Well poisoning of course! The screenplay explicitly reads: “Place with a well: Nosferatu: Coffin under his arm. Standing in the middle of the place and is looking around”.[2] No more question, yours honor right?
Meta-twist galore
Julius “Stürmer-journalist” Streiker was not the only fan of the movie. Another one was Lotte Eisner. THAT Lotte Eisner. Lotte “Jewish film critic extraordinaire” Eisner who had to leave Berlin in 1933 regarded the movie as an aesthetic milestone and emphasized the quaint picturesque quality of the film. What?
In case you are confused, now let me confuse you more! I have been mentioning Henrik Galeen as the screenwriter for Nosferatu. Henrik Galeen was a German Jew who just like Lotte Eisner had to flee Nazi Germany. AKA it was a Jewish man who added all those antisemitic details that were missing in Bram Stoker´s version and were actually heavily diluted by FW Murnau. Yet it is constantly Murnau who is being accused of antisemitism.
Twisting the twist
I mean you aready read about it. Murnau very much diluted Henrik Galeen´s antisemitic imagery. As in, would it be for Galeen, the movie would have been loaded even heavier with antisemitic imagery. Meaning it needed a German white boy to mitigate the flagrantly obvious symbolism. There is a simple solution to that and it is this formula:
German Jews > Other Jews.
German Jews probably had a lot more in common with other Germans than with Polish Jews. In the years leading up to world war 2, Polish Jews for instance were rather poor, they usually worked as handymen lived in small shetls and spoke Yiddish. Rules about the professions that Jews in Germany were allowed to exercise were different though, so a lot (but not all) ended up exercising professions like Doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers and writers.
In Deborah Feldman´s memoir Unorthodox, the Berliner-by-choice describes a scene where her ultraorthodox grandmother who lives in fear of a second Holocaust is justifying this very fear because according to her, the German Jews were too assimilated, too secular and that it was this very behavior, that brought about the Holocaust.
All in all there have been quite a few thesis, books and probably dissertations that have been written about the fact that contemporary horror movies from Frankstein to Saw have been mirroring societal fears. In case you are interested here is a little video by the BBC.
Nevertheless I still need to reveal what I mean by G-words. Next time! But then for real! Promised!
*You might ask yourself why I hyperlinked the Red Hot Chili Peppers out of all people, along with Gun´s and Roses probably one of the most LA-bands there is and Berlin being the antidote to Los Angeles you are rightfully confused. But this album is one of a gazillion Aleister Crowley references found in pop culture today. Its called “magic” not “magick” the ck, is a nod to the old Greek name “kteis” meaning something like Vagina and thus Black magic because of course. But I could also mention this song. Or this album-cover. Or half a dozen Death metal songs that allude to Aleister “Sex magick” Crowley. Iron Maiden singer wrote the screenbook to an apaprently really crappy horror movie that goes by the name of “Crowley-back from hell”. Led Zeppelin´s Jimmy Page was so fascinated he even purchased one of Crowley´s former houses were this avid lover of heroine used to perform his magick rituals. One of the last allusions to him was probably JK Rowling´s Voldemort who is somewhat based on him.
Sources:
Feldman, Deborah (2012). Unorthodox. The Scandalous rejection of my hasidic roots. Simon & Schuster. Reprint edition
Mushett, Travis, host. (2022) The haunted screen. https://www.hauntedscreenpod.com/
Müller, Jürgen. (1999) Der Vampir als Volksfeind. Fotogeschichte 19
[1] Müller, Jügrgen
[2] Müller, Jürgen.