Fritz Lang’s film, “M”, showcases the power, influence, and negative side effects that mob mentality can ultimately lead to. Mob mentality is not new to this world and our modern culture, which is evidenced in both “M” as well as in the culture of Nazi Germany. To start, Nazi Germany was flooded with Hitler’s personal beliefs and ideals and those beliefs made their way into the minds of many German citizens. WIth Hitler as their leader and controlling dictator, many people felt an actual need to agree with him and support his beliefs by looking down on anyone that did not fit their “perfect”standards. People would go around feeling pressured to hate those “lesser” than them and proceeding to fake their actions in order to please those around them. At …show more content…
Everyone, convinced that the leader possesses the only true thoughts, chooses to abandon their own thinking and ideas in order to blindly follow whoever is “right”. People even forget basic morals and compassion when stuck in mob mentality, with a specific example being the townspeople in “M”. Once the murderer is found and cornered into a trial, he delivers a monologue in which he states that he does not want to murder these children and remembers nothing about his actions until he sees them in the newspapers. He adds that he feels pursued by the “ghosts of mothers” and that he feels chased by himself. While some people in the crowd nod their heads, seemingly realizing that this man is not a monster, but rather just ill and in need of help, others still start yelling that he should be killed and pay for his crimes and eventually everyone joins in. These people chose to let the primary belief that the murderer was a vile human being deserving of death control them and drive them to completely set their morals aside, along with the notion that, in killing this man in cold blood, they,
Some people would assume no Jew would oppose Hitler’s ideology because it completely removed any notion of individuality. The ideas he enforced were terrible and made people conform to everything he said. Even though many people lost their lives, Germans resisted the National Socialist ideology. When Hitler established his reign in 1933 over the people of Germany, the younger generation became indoctrinated. Children conformed to Hitler’s plans without questioning them.
Christopher Browning documents everyday experiences and tribulations of Germany men, who were involved in the tragic events of the Holocaust. Browning tries illustrate the reasoning of all the massacres caused by the Reserve Police Battalion 101, so that people could get a clear understanding of what really was going on with these men, physically and mentally. Looking past all the opposing claims of German men, Browning explains how these men were just regular “middle aged family men” who were taking basic orders from higher authorities (1). Throughout the book Ordinary Men, Christopher Browning explains his reasoning of calling these murders ordinary men, the reasoning behind all the massacres, and how these men later on became killers.
The Nazis dehumanized the Jews and convinced many that the Jews caused everything that was going wrong, both socially and economically, within Germany and throughout the world. However, these techniques do not entirely explain why the men of Police Battalion 101 participated in the Jews’ mass executions. According to Browning, “the age of the men affected their susceptibility to indoctrination another way as well. Many of the Nazi perpetrators were very young men. They had been raised in a world in which Nazi values were the only ‘moral norms’ they knew.
He is portrayed as the stereotypical criminal who has grown violent in life. When he kills the family so casually it seems as if it’s routine,“‘Good afternoon,’ he said,” (8). In a sense, one could see he is detached from his own morality. As he carries on a conversation with the grandmother we learn that he doesn’t see his actions as right or wrong, “‘I found out the crime don’t matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you’re going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it,’”
Exemplifying how these delusionary acts of violence had been utilized by Nazis which led to dehumanization and further
After losing World War One in 1918, the Germans were in an utter state of disillusionment and despair. Due to the Treaty of Versailles, they lost vast amounts of territory, became demilitarized, and had to pay millions in restitutions. A bleak time such as this was the perfect opportunity for fascist dictator, Adolf Hitler, to rise to power. Hitler managed to brainwash millions of vulnerable Germans into believing that the Jews were responsible for all the misfortune that had befallen them. Countless images and videos of Nazi propaganda circulated through Europe, depicting Jews as evil vermin that must be exterminated in order for the “master race” to reign supreme.
The Nazis were oblivious about the devastation they caused as they were influenced by one of the most perilous motives: power, and the lack thereof. During the 1930s, the German citizens felt restricted by their circumstances as the country was in a bleak situation. Millions of citizens were affected by “the worldwide economic depression [which] provoked hyperinflation, social unrest and mass unemployment.” Hitler presented his party, the Nationalist Socialist German Workers’ Party or more commonly known as Nazi Party, as the solution to their problems. It is deeply ingrained into human nature that when one is hopeless, one tends to believe whoever offers the slightest amount of hope.
Although he was acting in self-defense against a person who is not innocent, the question of him being capable of murdering an innocent
Things like this weren’t happening everywhere. So when people heard about it in the news or paper they were shocked at the lack of responsibility these people had for one of their own. Even the witnesses themselves have no real concrete explanations for their actions, “Houses near the railroad station, find it difficult to explain why they didn’t call the police” (paragraph 29). Considering this, us as the audience get hit in our core with a moral struggle. We automatically put them in the wrong for the simple reason that; our world has evolved since the time of the plague.
Fritz Lang’s M is a combination of a social film and a murder mystery—directed in 1931, in the midst of the Nazi movement’s takeover of German goverment, the film chronicles the public’s congregation to catch an infamous serial killer. Beckert, the child murder himself is presented to the audience several times throughout the film; he is shown to be involved with a constant internal struggle between allowing the darkest parts of his mind to overcome him and remaining sane. However, this film is, in some respects, making a statement less about murder and more about society at the time in which the film was released. More specifically, the film warns against and even mocks the competency and ability of the police to perform their jobs. There is a scene within the film involving an organization of beggars with the common goal of catching the child murderer.
The demonstration of the narrator's imagination unconsciously leads his own thoughts to grow into a chaotic mess that ultimately ends in a death. By murdering, it’s his own way of finding peace. He is portrayed as being a sadist, sick man with an unnatural obsession for
This is a direct example the dehumanization the Nazis employ to meet their agenda. Dehumanization occurs with the intent to force cooperation and force those under it’s effects to
(page 102, The book thief). The Nazis were so unwilling to accept others views and beliefs, if you didn’t have your flag out, like Liesel's family in the novel, The Book Thief, didn’t, then your whole family could be killed. Hitler was the root of this intolerance and it was especially taught to the youth. Some of the youth rebelled and so did adults. While some rebelling was silent, people would not participate in as much Nazi propaganda as they could or some would even risk their own lives to hide Jews.
Especially if they knew what they were doing, and what they were going to do beforehand. Even people of the town were in utter shock of what had happened. The people need to feel some sense of protection as I said earlier. "I feel that due to the violence of the crime and the apparent utter lack of mercy shown the victims,the only way the public can be absolutely protected is to have the death penalty set against these defendants (Capote 164) .