By Steve Sailer
07/06/2023
I was watching some old movies and was reminded of how common used to be the trope of the German Scientist in America. A German accent was treated as the highest proof of scientific genius in mid-century Hollywood movies, such as Frankenstein, Bedtime for Bonzo and Dr. Strangelove. TV Tropes calls it “Herr Doktor.”
For example, in Billy Wilder’s 1966 comedy The Fortune Cookie, shyster lawyer Walter Matthau talks Jack Lemmon into faking a back injury to file a million dollar lawsuit. The insurance company sends 5 doctors to examine Lemmon. The four American doctors fall for the hoax but the German-accented expert, whom the others seem intimidated by, does not.
The last movie I can recall with a German Scientist in America was Scorsese’s 2004 The Aviator, in which Howard Hughes’ personal meteorologist has a thick German accent.
Movies in the Einstein Era usually kept it vague on whether the German Scientist was gentile or Jewish. In general, there was less anti-German prejudice in old movies than you’d expect from movies made in the Raiders of the Lost Ark era onward. Lots of popular and/or powerful people in Hollywood had German accents, such as Wilder, Fritz Lang, Marlene Dietrich, Erich von Stroheim and so forth, so they tended to be respected.
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