Norbert Jacques' Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler

Dr. Mabuse is one of the greatest diabolical criminal masterminds in fiction. In Germany he became a pop culture icon on the scale of Sherlock Holmes. Dr. Mabuse was created by Norbert Jacques (who was born in Luxembourg but later became a German citizen) in his 1921 novel Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler (Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler). Dr. Mabuse’s place in German pop culture was cemented the following year when he became the subject of one of Fritz Lang’s most celebrated movies, Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler.

Norbert Jacques wrote a sequel in 1932, Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse. A year later Lang directed a sequel to his film, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. In 1960 Lang made another sequel, the excellent The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, which was so successful that it spawned four more Mabuse movies.

An English translation of Norbert Jacques’ original Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler by Lilian A. Clare was published in 1923.

Dr. Mabuse was by no means the first literary diabolical criminal mastermind. That honour probably belongs to Dr. Nikola, created by Australian writer Guy Boothby, who made his first appearance in the novel A Bid for Fortune in 1895. There are some definite resemblances between the two characters - both are masters of the art of hypnosis.

Dr. Mabuse, the Gambler begins when a young man named Hull loses a very large amount of money gambling. The man to whom he loses the money is a man probably in his sixties who goes by the name of Balling. Hull has extraordinary bad luck but, although he is usually a cautious gambler, he also makes some very reckless decisions. The curious thing is that all his friends insist that Hull brought Balling to the gambling club but Hull has no recollection of this at all. In fact he remembers very little of the evening. It seems more like a dream. Things get even stranger the next day when Hull tries to pay his gambling debt. He goes to the address that Balling gave him and finds a Herr Balling there but he’s not the same Herr Balling and this one knows nothing of any gambling debt.

Hull is both puzzled and disturbed by he has recently acquired a new mistress so he spends the 20,000 marks on her instead.

Gambling swindles have recently attracted the attention of State Attorney Wenk. This official is a bit like a combination of a District Attorney and a Chief of Detectives and he takes a very active part in investigations. He is convinced that gambling has become a threat to German society. The further he digs into the matter the more convinced he is that all these swindles are perpetrated by a single man.

The man concerned is of course Dr. Mabuse and he’s involved in more than gambling, as Even slowly comes to realise. Mabuse is a kind of Professor Moriarty, with a hand in crimes of all kinds including smuggling and currency speculation. Mabuse is more than just a master criminal. He has extraordinary hypnotic powers which he uses to turn his victims into not just willing accomplices but slaves.

Mabuse is an obsessive. He has grandiose plans. His crimes are to finance his kingdom of Citopomar in Brazil. He had vast holdings there which he lost as a result of the war. Now he intends to reclaim his kingdom. Whether Citopomar actually exists is an open question as it is possible that Mabuse is quite mad.

What makes the story more interesting is that his nemesis, State Attorney Wenk, is every bit as obsessed as Mabuse. He may even be as mad as Mabuse.

Mabuse and Wenk have one common obsession - the beautiful (and very married) Countess Told. There’s a great deal of twisted sexual obsession in this novel.

This is a novel that is very much a reflection of Germany at the beginning of the 1920s, devastated by the shock and humiliation of defeat in war. Wenk believes that German society is diseased and needs to be purified. To Wenk the disease is manifested by an obsession with money, a lack of purpose among the upper classes and the enthusiasm for modernist art and literature. Wenk is a man looking for a moral crusade.

Needless to say this book (and Lang’s film version) is often seen as some kind of anticipation of the collapse of the Weimar Republic and the rise of the Nazis. In fact in 1921 the Nazi Party was just a handful of individuals and utterly obscure. The Freikorps, which opposed communism and were in some ways a precursor of the Nazis, did exist. And the German economy, soon to suffer the ravages of hyperinflation, was already shaky. The Nazi angle should not be exaggerated, but this book does reflect a growing feeling in some sections of German society that Germany had lost its way.

To Wenk Mabuse is the personification of all the evil forces threatening his country.

This novel has historical importance as the launching pad for one of the great fictional diabolical criminal masterminds and a key figure in the history of 20th century pop culture. The whole thing is outrageously complicated and melodramatic and the ending goes right over the top, but it’s weirdly fascinating and compelling. It’s a strange book that won’t be to everyone’s taste but it’s still recommended.