Metropolis was to be a metaphor of the threat of a world ruled by soulless technology, a theme that was particularly popular among conservative and right-wing thinkers and politicians. The anti-Semitic dimension of the story, which is not immediately obvious anymore, is all the more disturbing in that the liberation of the enslaved people becomes possible only when the false Maria is burned at the stake and the flames sear off the simulacrum of flesh to reveal the automaton’s iron physique.
