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What position did Joseph Goebbels offer Fritz Lang at UFA?
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Fritz Lang
Although it took Fritz Lang some 21 years to make 22 Hollywood films, arguably at least half of them are noirish masterpieces of menace. His time in Hollywood, which began in 1934, followed a directing career in Germany during the 1920s that included several landmark films.
After banning Fritz Lang’s film The Testament of Dr. Mabuse (1933), Joseph Goebbels—the Nazi minister of propaganda—summoned the director to a meeting. During this encounter, Goebbels expressed Adolf Hitler’s admiration for Lang's earlier film M and offered him the position of artistic director of UFA, which was the leading role in the German film industry at the time.1
Lang, who feared for his safety due to his half-Jewish background and wanted no part of the Nazi regime, declined the offer and fled to Paris.1