Why is it, when ever you see a movie, from say, the 1950’s or 60’s, and they have a doctor in it, he always has a thick German accent? The same applies to scientists–and TV, for that matter (cf. the Twilight Zone).
I know today, doctors are often from foreign countries. Several of my doctors, are. But why German? And why that time period–the 50’s and 60’s?
And does it have anything to do with Operation Paperclip? Actually, I throw that in, because surely it couldn’t. There couldn’t have been that many doctors and scientists rescued by Operation Paperclip, that then the majority in this country were.
This, plus in science fiction and horror movies. America really didn’t have any “ancient history of weird science and hidden knowledge” that could have been imagined from a European - German accent.
As noted above, von Braun and a large number of other German scientists worked for the Allies after the war, reinforcing the cliche. However, the cliche preceded the war; the original may have been the robot Maria’s creator Rotwang in Metropolis.
It does seem like there was a time when the term “German science” or “German engineering” had people shaking in their boots. No doubt WWI and II had a lot to do with it. This is probably a stereotype that’s mostly faded away by now. In my limited experience, German scientists and engineers have been competent but didn’t particularly stand out from any others. (Now if you really need a genius, find a Serbian scientist.)
Germany was by far the world’s leader in science and science education by the end of the 19th century. American universities were far behind. Virtually every college graduate who desired to make a career in science went to Germany for graduate work. The basic stereotype of a scientist was a German.
I found a wonderful example of this in the 1911 comic strip Percy. Percy was comics’ first robot lead character, invented by a “perfessor” with stereotyped German dialect. The character was the public image of a robot for at least a decade, helped by several later strips that incorporated him, a movie short about him, and a number of vaudeville acts that stole the character and the perfessor. That was an easy steal: the same accent was used by comedians in vaudeville, where “school acts” usually were led by a German dialect-heavy teacher.
Einstein was perfect because he fit into the stereotype that already existed, plus he had the instantly identifiable hair. Remember that “long hairs” a century ago were classical musicians and other bohemian types, usually associated with Europe. A German scientist was a stock character in 30s movies. After WWII, everybody knew about the German scientists we brought over, not because the government promoted them - it mostly wanted to play down any suggestion that we needed our former enemy’s help - but because von Braun became the foremost populizer of rockets, a true media star.
