Hitler’s Not Funny In Germany

Germans aren't getting a big kick out of a new comedy that portrays Hitler as a bed-wetting drug addict. Sheesh, these guys have no sense of humor.

Germany's first comedy about Adolf Hitler is being panned by reviewers ahead of its opening this week and has provoked a debate about whether the country should be laughing about the man who ordered the Holocaust.

"Mein Führer: The Truly Truest Truth About Adolf Hitler" portrays Hitler as bed-wetting drug addict who takes baths with a toy battleship and dresses his Alsatian dog Blondi in an SS uniform. Swiss Jewish director Dani Levy says he wants to follow in the tradition of Charlie Chaplin's 1940 classic "The Great Dictator."

He also wants to explore the theory that Hitler was taking revenge on the world for being beaten by his father.

What, you're not laughing yet, either?  Is it that you can't laugh at Hitler comedy, or the film is simply not amusing? After all, look at what the Germans think is hilarious about Hitler:

Levy had plenty of material given that the real Hitler offered so much scope for humor with his manner of speaking, his Hitler salute and the huge discrepancy between his own physique and the Nazi ideal of a blonde, blue-eyed master race, writes Welt am Sonntag.

Huh. With comic material like that, how can you miss?

Levy, who won critical claim for his 2004 comedy "Go For Zucker" about two Jewish brothers in post-unification Germany, told SPIEGEL ONLINE he was trying to "demystify" Hitler with scenes such as the one in which pet dog "Blondi" mounts the dictator as he walks on all fours around his giant Chancellery office.

Hey, dogs humping legs is a time-honored comic tradition in film and TV! Obviously, Levi went a step farther. We should honor this advance in cinematic comedy.

So it's not The Producers. And Daniel Levy isn't Mel Brooks. One has to wonder if the film is truly unfunny, or if the Germans aren't at the point where they can laugh about their Nazi past. Whoops, that can't be it. Hogan's Heroes was a long-time cult hit in Germany. Perhaps this movie simply sucks.

Or maybe it's just my problem with Nazi comedies. I didn't get the humor behind "The Bonker," either.