Maria:  The Maschinenmensch (lit. 'machine-human' in German) is a fictional humanoid robot featured in Thea von Harbou's novel Metropolis and Fritz Lang's film adaption of the novel. In the film, she is played by German actress Brigitte Helm both as a robot and in human guise. She was created by the scientist Rotwang in dedication to his deceased lover, Hel, though in the novel they have no correlation. The Maschinenmensch was one of the first fictional robots ever depicted in cinema, and as a result popularized the concept worldwide.