Cinema and Social Change in Germany and Austria

10 Haha Hitler! Coming to Terms with Dani Levy

10 Haha Hitler! Coming to Terms with Dani Levy Peter Gölz Abstract While Dani Levy’s Mein Führer—Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler (Mein Führer—The Truly Truest Truth about Adolf Hitler, 2007) continues the tradition of Hitler comedies such as The Great Dictator, it is the first feature comedy made in Germany that pokes fun at the Nazi dictator. The degree to which the film either succeeds or fails as a comedy will be discussed in this chapter. While representations of Hitler humour in other media remain acceptable to the broader audience, this feature film challenges the notions of what constitutes “acceptable” Vergangenheitsbew ältigung in Germany. A t the beginning of the twenty-first century, the previous century’s most notoriousdictatorhasbecomeaWebphenomenonandlaughingstock. The Deutsche Welle reports: “Move over Paris Hilton—Hitler is the hottest thing on Web 2.0” (Chase). Maclean’s magazine tells us that “Hitler comedy is in” and declares: “If Hitler comedy is starting to become popular in Germany,it’sabsolutelythrivinginotherpartsoftheworld”(Weinman51).The author describes its various guises, from the musical and movies The Producers, also known by the title Springtime for Hitler, to Hitler-themed episodes of The Simpsons and Family Guy,1 from innumerable YouTube postings to the selfexplanatory website catsthatlooklikehitler.com. While comedic treatments of Hitler and his surroundings are becoming more acceptable outside Germany, Vergangenheitsbewältigung made in Germanystillevokesstrongreactions .TheproductionofDaniLevy’sMeinFührer— Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler had barely begun when heated 173 discussions about its appropriateness flared up, and they have not stopped since. While German cinema has a long and internationally respected tradition of Vergangenheitsbew ältigung, coming to terms, coping, or dealing with its Nazi past, no major German filmmaker had yet approached the topic as a comedy. Many questioned its suitability, others welcomed the fact that laughing about Hitler might actually dethrone him and “rob him of the metaphysical, demonic capabilities that the postwar apologists attributed to him” (Herzog qtd. in Weinman 51).Dani Levy defended his project by stressing that a fresh look at the past, not endless repetition of what we know, was needed (“Director’s Point” 209). Helge Schneider, the famous German comedian who plays Adolf Hitler, stressed that as a genre, comedy was more subversive than tragedy (Schneider). To understand the debate surrounding Mein Führer, however, it will be necessary to place this film within the historical context of presenting Hitler as a comedic figure. The term “Hitler humour” will thus be applied to humorous depictions of Adolf Hitler as a person, his politics, and his immediate surroundings . The musical and films The Producers, for example, would not fall in this category because, although they include a ridiculed Hitler character, the overall focus is not on ridiculing the Nazis and their ideology but on skewering Broadway, and, by implication, Hollywood commercialism. MakingfunofAdolfHitleris,ofcourse,notarecentinvention.RudolphHerzog showed in his documentary Heil Hitler, das Schwein ist tot! (Heil Hitler, The Pig Is Dead!, 2006), released first as a monograph in 2006 and followed by a TVdocumentary,howwidespreadHitlerjokesalreadywereinthedictator’slifetime . Of the many reported cases from the 1940s, one of the most famous was that of Marianne Elise K., who was reported to the authorities and sentenced to death in 1943 for telling the following joke: “Hitler and Goering stand atop the Berlin radio tower. Hitler says he would love to please the people of the city. What to do? To which Goering replies: ‘Go ahead, jump!’” (Herzog 186). ButwhiletellingFlüsterwitze(whisperedjokes)aboutHitlerinNaziGermany waspunishablebyimprisonmentinaconcentrationcampordeath,tolaughornot to laugh about Hitler was never a question in Hollywood. A milestone in film history and the first feature-length Hitler comedy, Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 The Great Dictator presents a crazy Adenoid Hynkel ballet dancing with a globe. This film, Chaplin’sfirsttalkieandhisbiggestcommercialsuccess,appearedinthesameyear as the Three Stooges’ slapstick short You Natzy Spy. Two years later, the exiled ErnstLubitschreleasedToBeorNottoBe,andWaltDisneyfollowedwiththeDonald Duck cartoon Der Fuehrer’s Face. American audiences enjoyed these films, Lubitsch explained, not “because they underestimate [the Nazis’] menace, but becausetheyarehappytoseethisneworderanditsideologyridiculed”(Paul243). REASSESSING AND CONSUMING HISTORY 174 Making fun of Hitler and the Nazis in America in the 1940s was, of course, untainted by subsequent historical developments. As Sander Gilman explains, these comedies were popular exactly because they “historically pre-figure[d] the Shoah” (287). When Chaplin was asked about his portrayal of Hynkel twenty years later, he said that “had I known of the actual horrors of the German concentration camps, I could...