'Mein Fuehrer': Berlin director takes heat for Hitler Comedy
OK, I wanted to start this piece with a Hitler joke, but I came up emptyhanded. Pages of google.de research using the German word for joke, "witz," combined with Adolf's last name, left me without a lead-in for this article.
Maybe Germany's most famous citizen still isn't a laughing matter to most Germans. Daniel Levy discovered that last week when "Mein Fuehrer" was released. In his last film, the Berlin director was swamped with praise for bringing back Jewish humor to German cinema in "Alles auf Zucker (Go for Zucker!),
The Germans were in agreement _ as a Jew he was allowed to tell jokes about Jews, and man is Jewish humor funny.
But Levy's grandmother could have told him the Germans' smile would freeze when faced with a comedy over their pint-sized dictator. "She told me you will get it from everywhere," Levy said.
Levy's two years of hitchhiking through the United States may have left him the impression you can joke about anything _ or maybe that came from his earlier career as a clown. But Levy's grandmother proved the smarter of the two.
Even the Poles have jumped on Levy.
"A comedy about Hitler can be made by Americans or even the English, but a German ew in Germany? That is a lack of respect for millions of victims," one reader wrote to the website forum of the Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza.
Levy's work has been unfavorably compared to other classics on Hitler, Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator," Mel Brooks' "The Producers," or Ernst Lubitsch's "To be or not to be."
Stephan J. Kramer, the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, pointed out none of those films were made in Germany. The Holocaust, however, was. He joined the voices condemning the Swiss-born director's attempt to demystify the German demon and his death camps.
"Hitler was not just a humorous figure with a tragic childhood ... he doesn't deserve any mitigating circumstances or pity. The mass murder of millions of people in Europe can't be separated from Hitler's own person," Kramer said.
"Given the growing anti-Semitism in Europe, the film 'Mein Führer' is unnecessary and even dangerous," he added.
Some say this is strictly a German debate. English-speaking natives would ask, was it funny or what?
The Bild, Germany's largest daily, said it was, although the laughter hurt in places, and gave it a thumbs up. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the country's most respected, said there was exactly 2 1/2 laughs before the lights mercifully go back on.
In Germany, of course, one never knows if they first have to discuss the political correctness of Hitler as a pathetic clown, then you are free to laugh. The ueber-syllable word Auseinandersetzung is what the Germans call the process.
One argument is the Levy film triggers the Germans' deep embarrassment over Hitler. It goes like this: He was a monster, alright maybe something ugly produced by the German psyche, but charismatic, armed with all the overwhelming powers of the dark side to drive them into a murderous frenzy.
Could it be instead we Germans followed a pathetic nobody, the bedwetter with the farting problem shown in "Mein Fuehrer." What does that say about us?
Thomas Mann described that feeling back in 1939. "A brother," Mann said. "A somewhat unpleasant and shameful brother; he gets on your nerves, he is a very embarrassing relative."
Levy has been accused of not taking enough risk in "Mein Fuehrer," not going far enough with the material. Maybe then, this would be the latest international hit from X-Filme, the Berlin studio that also produced "Lola Rennt (Lola Runs) and "Goodbye, Lenin."
Levy did respond to another accusation _ that the documentaries that run almost every night on German television were the only right way for the Germans to learn about Hitler. Scrupulously researched, they examine every aspect of the Nazi leader _ his women, his generals, his dog.
The documentaries don't glorify, but denounce the Nazis. Nonetheless, the historical film footage automatically reflects their theatrical, pompous style.
"Television makes this supposed authenticity to a dogma," Levy said. "There is, in fact, a willingness created to experience the Nazi era as a highly emotional experience. The big Nazis are almost made into pop stars."
In short, the Nazis knew how to put on a great reality show. From Levy's view, the best way to show their evil isn't authenticity, but ridiculing them in a comedy.
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