The three themes that can be found in Dr. Caligiri’s cabinet and the Blue Angel are the deception of Beauty, Insanity (servere confusion) and Irony.
Ceasare is taken aback by Jane’s beauty and cannot bring himself to murder her at first. It shows how taboo beauty can be after complete debunkery. This becomes Ceasare's downfall as it cause him to be killed later, for waiting too long to proceed with the Jane's slaying.
In the Blue Angel, Professor Rath, although warning his students of the Blue Angel, gets himself in a whirlpool with Lola, a vivacious night club singer. After catching her cheating on him, he goes insane. The theme of irony is present in both films. Ceasare predicts someone’s death and incidentally he dies later on in the film. In The Blue Angel, the professor warns the children about going to the Blue Angel and he is ironically captured by her beauty.
These themes channel Nihilisim in the sense that they reflect all the ideals the Germans were rejecting during this depressing time in their country. I believe that the women and their power of beauty would symbolize what Germany once was and how that beauty of their country betrayed its own people. That betrayl and the Great War caused a depression and a sort of "insanity" which eventually destroyed everything the German people believed in.
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