A house that looks like Hitler

[Garbarsardar]

Look Who's Back is the title of a new satirical book by Timur Vermes that was published in Germany and will soon be translated in English. The plot is simple. Hitler wakes up in Berlin in 2011 and tries to adapt to the new reality while others try to adapt to his comeback. Hilarity ensues. The book sold 1.4 million copies thus far and according to critics, it is not a very good book. But this is besides the point.

In a sense, Hitler coming back is the real joke here since he was never away.

Hitler was always present in European (and probably global) subconscious. Boogeyman, object of fascinations, reminiscence of guilt his presence in a variety of forms signaled phases of political evolution and historical understanding since 1945. In Germany he was associated with guilt, humiliation, a scab on the German soul that no one really wanted to scratch. And no one for a long time could laugh with Hitler.

In other countries the story was different. If we exclude the Dictator as more of a propaganda piece in the guise of comedy, making fun of Hitler was never out of reach for wide audiences. Mr. Hitler made Adolf familiar, the Producers put nazism in the comedic pantheon of the time, but at the same time Heil Honey I'm home was cancelled after one episode. It was a bad show, it came just one year after the fall of the Berlin's wall but I suspect that it also verified that one cannot rehabilitate Hitler.

In the same year West Germany won the World Cup and many at the time speculated that the red cards that reduced the Argentinian squad to 9 players and the penalty that won the trophy was FIFA's wedding gift to the reunited country. However it would take another world cup, that of 2006, hosted by Germany this time to show the world that Germans could finally be nationalist without evoking nightmares of a very distant past. Still, no one in Germany laughed at Hitler.

Two years before the 2006 World Cup, Downfall appeared in the German screens. What was consider as a solid biopic/ history vignette in most countries was unsurprisingly less palatable for the Germans themselves. It seems that even in 2014, "normalization" of Hitler as a person could not be easily accepted. Even if Germans had progressed in getting rid of the historical guilt with which they were burdened, Hitler was still too hot a topic to be handled as every other historical figure. The Downfall generated a meme culture by itself, but very few of the 1000+ memes were German.

The success of Look Who's Back shows that probably this historical cycle is coming to a close. Germans can laugh with the Fuhrer. And as the guilt is gone and the dread fades I hope that at some point we will also get rid of the fascination that remains. And in a future day we will not be able to see Houses that look like Hitler.

Videos

Mr. Hitler Springtime for Hitler Downfall 1990 World Cup Final Heil Honey I'm home

[StealthFox]

Hmm, interesting. On the topic of Hitler houses, I can't resist posting this one:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Astaroth]

The Downfall generated a meme culture by itself, but very few of the 1000+ memes were German.

Tbh I think that's mostly because basically all of the "Downfall" memes are based on the premise that Hitler/Bruno Ganz angrily shouts incomprehensible nonsense (to non-German speakers) in German that is faux-translated into English in the subtitles.

When you actually know German, the meme isn't particularly funny, simply because the German sound and the subtitles evidently clash and don't fit together. That also explains why there are few "Downfall" memes with German subtitles.

[Diamat]

Tbh I think that's mostly because basically all of the "Downfall" memes are based on the premise that Hitler/Bruno Ganz angrily shouts incomprehensible nonsense (to non-German speakers) in German that is faux-translated into English in the subtitles.

When you actually know German, the meme isn't particularly funny, simply because the German sound and the subtitles evidently clash and don't fit together. That also explains why there are few "Downfall" memes with German subtitles.

That is true. The meme has never been particularly funny to me. What is funny to me, however, is non-Germans thinking it's funny. Thus, a long time ago, I made the following Hitler video when Shogun 2 first came out:


And I should perhaps also point something out, speaking as a German. At least based on my personal experience, our outward appearance is different from our inward thinking. Thus, while in public we may give the image of historical guilt, inwardly and among close comrades, things are different. So for example I know a bunch of Hitler jokes, which are cruel, and which I would never dare say in public. What is happening now, with it becoming more public, does not really indicate some great change of German mindsets, imo, but rather simply an acceptance of joking about Hitler in public instead of just in private.

[Aikanár]

I just say Serdar Somuncu.

[M D]

Oh Mr Hilter...

[Pontifex Maximus]

Find a house that look like Goring, find a large, well dressed house.

[Bethencourt]

Here in Spain there has been a debate and then a law to change the names of the streets from Franco regime to new or even older names. Where I live there were several streets with Franco himself an his generals names. So most of them have changed but some still remain. I think people got used to those names but I guess it was funny for some foreigners to use those streets. I remember that Spanish footbal national team played in the 2000's a match in a stadium in Germany that in those war time was named Adolf Hitler, but the speaker of the televisión said it had of course changed once the war was over. But at that time many streets in Spain were named General Franco. So I guess it being contradictory it is explained by the reduced importance we give to daily repeated things. So what from outside is seen as extraordinary, if you live in it then it is not so important. Einstein asked what they fishes know about the water they live in? Somehow we are those fishes too,..... it was a rhetorical question.

[Belisarius]

I would be very worried if we did forget who hitler was. Forgetting might open the door to another charismatic mad man taking advantage of a bad situation and driving a country to madness. Furthermore, if it's a choice between mocking his memory or idolizing it, I'd rather he be an object of laughter.

I don't feel hitler should be something Germans are ashamed of. Germany and her people were in the wrong place at the wrong time. What hitler highlights is not a fault within the German people but rather a fault within humanity.

[Diamat]

I don't feel hitler should be something Germans are ashamed of. Germany and her people were in the wrong place at the wrong time. What hitler highlights is not a fault within the German people but rather a fault within humanity.

I agree that today's German people should bear no responsibility for what happened in the past. However, the people during Hitler's time do bear responsibility. The Zeitgeist back then is hard for our Zeitgeist today to relate to. This is not to make an argument for nihilism or moral relativism, however. My point is, morality differs with Zeit (time). Therefore, today, we can and should judge the past morality of a people, their Zeitgeist.

What Hitler highlights, to me, in slight disagreement with your stance, is not any fault with humanity, but a fault of that time and place. It is a fault endemic particularly to democracy, where people are led to think that they are somehow in charge, while putting all that power into some other, some object of their devotion, such as a dictator. They then support that object as if it were their own, because the more fanatically they support it, the more they feel empowered, in charge, ruler of themselves, even though in actuality they are but slaves to their own object - alienation at its finest. Democracy, in whatever form, fetishizes man, fetishizes the self. Self-worth should not lie in an abstract conception of what a human being is, of what a citizen is. Rather, self-worth should entail the universal recognition of all, where recognizing an other is at the same time a recognition of my own self. Particularly if self-worth is based on the sort of recognition that demands the destruction of all not in compliance with one's own recognition, as was the case in Nazi Germany, we cannot talk about a free society. Such is a spiritually enslaved society - eine geistige Sklavenhaltung.

[Bethencourt]

"Many forms of Gov­ern­ment have been tried,and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pre­tends that democ­racy is per­fect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democ­racy is the worst form of Gov­ern­ment except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time; but there is the broad feel­ing in our coun­try that the peo­ple should rule, con­tin­u­ously rule, and that pub­lic opin­ion, expressed by all con­sti­tu­tional means, should shape, guide and con­trol the actions of Min­is­ters who are their ser­vants and not their masters."

[Makrell]

I wonder if this is the case with other historical "villians" I would think it is, having tutsi and hutu jokes in Rwanda probably wont fly well till long after the rest of the world jokes about it.

Or the soviet russia jokes in russia.

In Norway we have no villians other than hitler, so none clear people to laugh at.

Does anyone else here have a villian they cant joke about?

[Bethencourt]

Here in Spain jokes about Franco are very common.

[Augustus Lucifer]

Now that's a house I could heil from.

[Yojimbo]

I would be very worried if we did forget who hitler was. Forgetting might open the door to another charismatic mad man taking advantage of a bad situation and driving a country to madness.

Agreed. The scars of war have not yet healed and the earth has not forgotten.