Goethe (though a real man) is used by Spielberg as a human manifestation of Naziism. There’s nothing good about the man at all, and there isn’t supposed to be, because the point of him is that he IS Naziism, and there’s nothing good about that. Aside from his obvious evil and brutality, mot of the others parallels between Goethe and Naziism have been pointed out, but I’ll run through what I think are the most important ones.
Jarbabyj, I don’t think you’re naive at all. I think you just went into the movie assuming Goethe was a traditional movie villian; a character with an evil streak who blocks the protagonist’s actions, with good nature twisted to suit evil means. But he is not. He is, primarily, a metaphor of the Nazi regime. If you watch Goethe thinking of him that way he makes a lot more sense:
- His airs of sophistication but reality of vulgarity and brutishness. Hitler and the Nazis did like to foist themselves off as sophisticated ubermenschen, but Nazis were mostly mediocre and dull, forwarding a vulgar, brutish way of life. Goethe pretends he is a civilized man, but he’s dirty, stupid, crude, vulgar, and profane.
Note how this contrasts with traditional Hollywood evil villians with lots of henchmen. They’re generally sophisticated types who listed to Bach and read Proust and sip expensive wines while their minions chase the good guys around. Hannibal Lecter is the most ridiculously intelligent Renaissance man in modern fiction. Bond villians are mostly rich, sophisticated guys. We had a Klingon bad guy spouting Shakespeare. It makes the bad guy seem even more evil if he’s sort of admirable. But the Nazis in “Schindler’s List” are nothing of the sort. Goethe is a dumb, banal man. The only Nazis who show any sophistication are the SS soldiers who argue over whether a guy is playing Mozart or Bach - it’s not coincidence they’re just privates and corporals, while all their officers are portrayed as mediocre men. The Nazis kill the Jews not by applying clever Evil Schemes, but by pure power and brutality.
- His authoritarian psychology. Goethe is dimissive of those underneath him and demands absolute, unswerving obedience; note on several occasions that he is brusque and rude even to subordinates. To those he percieves as his superiors - Schindler himself, or the officer he pleads with to release Schindler - he is a snivelling, belly-rolling dog, consistent with the authoritarian personality. Very typical of Nazis, or bullies of any sort; Hitler, Himmler et al. were authoritarians to an extreme degree.
Goethe’s scene with Helen Hirsch in the basement, and his later almost-but-not-quite admission of love for her, is an allusion to this. Nazis and other extreme authoritarians are disproportionately likely to be sexually repressed and puritanical, to suffer from psychosexual conflict (Hitler more so than most.) Goethe is attracted to Helen, but repulsed by his own natural feelings. His attraction to Helen is obviously stymied by his being a Nazi and her being a Jew, but clearly he is struggling to repress his own lust - which is why he conducts the entire conversation by himself, speaking for her in his head. He’s really struggling with his inability to admit his own sexual feelings, not just her being a Jew. That’s why, later in the film when he plays cards with Schindler for her life, he still cannot admit he loves her. He attempts to resolve his feelings but cannot and so transfers his sexual energy into violent energy - a classic pathology of the Nazi.
- His violent nature, obviously, all focused on a desire for power.
The scene with Schindler convincing Goethe to try mercy reflects the difference between Goethe/Naziism and civilized behaviour in terms of power. Schindler believes what he’s saying, and it’s true, but he couches it in terms of how it reflects power because he’s trying to manipulate Goethe. Goethe applies Schindler’s idea because he wants to be powerful, and he thinks it will make him more powerful. It’s doesn’t show him as having any good in him - it shows exactly the opposite, that he is inhuman and power-hungry. He’s pardoning people to exercise power, not to pardon them. When he feels like it doesn’t make him more powerful, he simply stops using it.
When Schindler is dealing with Amon, he is NOT trying to get Goethe reconnected with his humanity. The genius of Schindler is that he fully understands Goethe and his ilk, and applies his power - manipulation - to manipulate their Nazi personalities. Schindler’s dynamic arc is that insteadof manipulating men for his own ends, he starts to manipulate them to save Jews. Schindler is MANIPULATING Goethe. He doesn’t think he can make Geothe more human; he’s just using Goethe’s own personality against Goethe, to try to save lives.
Spielberg is not trying to make any statement about whether or not these men were totally brainwashed - like me, I don’t think Spielberg thinks they were brainwashed at all. I think he’s saying these men were Nazis because these were the kind of men they were - brutal, authoritarian, repressed, and violent. Some of the lesser SS minions were normal humans - like the Bach-loving SS men, or the old men and boys at the end who abandon the factory. But the Nazi leaders were just that way because that was their personality. They were evil.
