Doomed to repeat

'Look Who's Back'

'Er ist Wieder Da' (Look Who's Back) - film review

As I wrote in an earlier post, a new comedy film in Germany has caused tremendous controversy and not a little soul-searching among the German people.

Er ist Wieder Da is the half film, half mocumentary-style adaptation of the 2012 bestselling German satirical novel about Adolf Hitler by Timur Vermes. The book was published in the UK as Look Who's Back.

Marketed very much as a comedy, the film uses the monster from Germany's past as a comedy tool with which to explore the German (and European) people's darkening attitudes to multiculturalism and immigration, pitching parallels with pre-fascist 1930s Germany with razor sharp clarity.

In 2011, Adolf Hitler wakes up in a small patch of scrubland in Berlin, with no memory of anything that happened after 1945. Initially unaware of the intervening years he determines to continue his plans for Europe to fruition, interpreting everything he sees in 2011 from a Nazi perspective (for instance, he assumes that Turks in Germany are an indicator of Karl Dönitz having persuaded Turkey to join the Axis) — and although everyone recognises him, nobody believes that he is Hitler; instead, they think he is either a comedian, or a method actor. He meets a documentary film-maker who sees comedy potential and seeks to cash in.

So far, so fish-out-of-water slapstick funny: Hitler discovers the internet and, when invited, searches Wikipedia for 'world domination'. He laments with a dog-breeder about how the German Shepherd eventually loses its identity when it reproduces with other breeds. He pours utter disdain on modern-day German politics, but sees hope in 'a bunch of oddballs called the Green Party', misintepreting their ecological policies for a desire to preserve the pure Germanic hinterland – although, 'of course, their rejection of atomic energy is absurd!'

A TV channel, realising the ratings potential of their new star, puts Hitler on as many of their shows and internet platforms as possible. Of course, this gives him access to millions of German viewers, allowing him to transmit his propaganda of German nationhood, Aryan purity and National Socialism in ways that, as he notes while sneering at the banality of daytime TV, Nazi propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels could barely dream of.

In a remarkable performance, actor Oliver Masucci plays Hitler dead straight from the opening scene, not as a comedy send-up, but as a shrewd and charismatic political operator and orator.

21^st Century Germany celebrates what it sees as a post-modern satirical performance on their TV, a ridiculous character designed to mock and traduce the national collective memory of Hitler. The videos of his angry rants become hugely successful on YouTube, and he achieves modern celebrity status as a performer. You can almost feel the German people laughing with relief at being given the chance to finally puncture the pomposity of the figurehead from their darkest history. “Look at how ridiculous he was! How did people ever fall for it all?”

But as the film goes on, the story begins to turn, pivoting darkly around Hitler, the politician. 

On a tour of Germany, filmed as a documentary, ordinary real-life Germans open their hearts to Hitler, often expressing prejudiced views about foreigners and immigrants and 'bearded men' (Muslims) in their country, complaining that if they ever say anything about it then they are labelled a racist. One man even suggests bringing back work camps for homeless immigrants.

What is remarkable here is that these views aren't coming from radicals or fringe lunatics, but from normal, middle class people simply confronted by a chap dressed as Hitler.

Our Hitler's determination to continue where he left off in 1945 sees him meet the genuine leaders of the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany and the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, has selfies taken with sieg heil-ing football fans, encouraging a physical attack on a young antifascist, and talks with one particular man who asks for the camera to be turned off before replying, 'If you were real, I would do anything for you.'

In one memorable (thankfully fictional) scene, Hitler is confronted by a terrified elderly Jewish woman, her fear and hatred and memories cutting through her dementia. 'It's just satire. It's comedy,' says her granddaughter, trying to calm her agitated grandmother. 'That's what everyone thought then, too,' replies the grandmother, 'until it was too late.'

Very slowly, a nicely-polished looking-glass turns to reflect a simmering and resentful Germany back at its modern, confident self.

Berliner Morgenpost, one of Berlin's major newspapers, says of the film, "A fake Hitler, a small moustache ... allowed insights into Germany's dark side." Hitler, it said, "in a figurative sense, never really left...The far-right ideology smoulders to this day.”

After a failed assassination attempt, Hitler looks his assailant, and the camera, in the eye and says, 'You can't kill me. I am a part of you. I am a part of all of you,' reminding the watching audience that Hitler, far from overthrowing the Government of the time and installing himself as Chancellor, was in fact democratically elected by the German people in 1933 on an explicit and well-publicised anti-Simitic Nazi manifesto.

The film was made in 2013/14, before the Syrian and Middle East refugee tragedy brought hundreds of thousands fleeing war and violence to Europe's borders. Following the public and political backlash to the crisis and the arrival of the refugees, the film seems prescient. 

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

The final, terrifying scene sent a cold chill straight down my spine, and should act as a call-to-arms for antifascists and right-thinking people everywhere: real-life, recent news footage of violent racist attacks, mass demonstrations across Europe against immigrants and asylum-seekers, huge far-right rallies, rightwing and Conservative political parties pushing anti-immigrant policies and using dangerous rhetoric to whip up xenophobia and fear - all shown against Hitler being driven through the streets, smiling at waving Berliners and, with some satisfaction, declares:

'I can work with this.'

In the biggest shadow of all

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanjahu's recent idiocy, blaming the Jewish Holocaust not on the Nazis but on a former Palestinian leader, has forced Germany, and particular Chancellor Angela Merkel as the global representative, into a strange and awkward position.

Merkel is working with US Foreign Secretary John Kerry at the moment in attempts to end the latest round of violence in the Palestine/Israel conflict, so the Chancellor had to move quick to stamp out this particular fire before Netanjahu's words set the region even more aflame. 

Das Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas
(Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe), Berlin

Germany doesn't hide or fudge its responsibility for the Holocaust. So, in response to Netanjahu's screaming about Palestinians and the Holocaust making global headlines, the world looked to Germany.

And then, once everyone was looking , they had to basically say, 'That Holocaust. Yeah, that was definitely still us.'

In international diplomacy, Merkel's response was as admirably definite as it was solemn: “Germany abides by its responsibility for the Holocaust. We don’t see any reason to change our view of history.”

So button it, Benny big balls.

However, this event has highlighted a recurring symptom in Germany that I've noticed since arriving here. Aspects of the country's behaviour – its politics, its media, its citizens – is still partly informed by its role in World War II, 70-odd years ago.

Wilmersdorfer Witwen

Just a few days after arriving in Germany, my wonderful flatmate took me to see the play Linie 1 (with English subtitles projected on the walls). Written in the 80's, the play used the central U-Bahn (tube) line through the heart of west Berlin – the Orient Express to Kreuzberg - to explore the culture, politics and people of 1980s Bundesrepublik Deutschland (FRD) Berlin. It's a wonderful play, but the scene I remember most vividly is the hilarious Wilmerdorf Widows – Wilmersdorfer Witwen – song.

Die Wilmersdorfer Witwen

Four self-righteous widows, all played here for comic effect by male actors, have a go at the young heroin of the play, when a middle-aged lady intervenes. The widows insult the lady, whose father was a "socialist degenerate" and "red rat", who replies "Better a red rat than a brown blowfly".

The widows, declaring themselves "German nationalists" and a preference to be "brown" than "red", go on to sing about the advantages of the Third Reich, and that they are fighting "for purity and discipline, as fifty years ago". Their deceased husbands had high positions in the Nazi party and consequently for the rest of their lives pick up their fat government widower pensions.

It's an extremely funny performance (you can watch it below, sieg heils and all, but unfortunately I can't find any English subtitles anywhere online).

Linie 1 is from the 80s, but 30 years on it is still massively popular in Germany, with secondary school teachers regularly dragging their classes along to see it.

That a film like Linie 1, that ostensibly comments on modern-day Berlin (in the 1980s), should delve into the city's terrible past with Wilmersdorfer Witwen, and feel the need to poke fun at a lasting but marginal relic from that dark period, and that Wilmersdorfer Witwen is still so popular in 2015, I think speaks volumes about Germany's insecurities. 

Er ist Wieder Da

A new film came out in Germany a few weeks back simply called Er ist Wieder Da , or 'He's Back'. The film basically has Hitler returning to modern-day Berlin, bemused to find a peaceful multicultural city and a woman in charge of the country.

It's a satire, and even in German looks hilarious, but where people in most other countries I think would rightly laugh at the film and its extraordinary premise, in Germany it seems to have really touched a nerve and caused some controversy.

Our modern-day Hitler, for instance, meets real life members of the UKIP-style Alternative for Germany party and the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), while the final scenes show news footage of far-right protests and a rally by the nasty PEGIDA movement (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident), a sort of EDL but without the charm.

As Berliner Morgenpost, one of Berlin's major newspapers, said, "A fake Hitler, a small moustache ... allowed insights into Germany's dark side." Hitler, it said, in a figurative sense, "never really left...The far-right ideology smoulders to this day and has found new forums... in the form of the Alternative for Germany and the PEGIDA movement.”

Indeed, one viewer, who gave her name as Angela, complained: 'It was all a bit too forced. The film is playing too hard on the fear about Nazi ideology, and they only picked out the worst sequences.' 

Tell me again about the better parts of Nazi-ism?

As the AFP reports

'In the real-life scenes, lead actor Oliver Masucci - replete with Hitler moustache and uniform -- is seen getting rousing receptions from ordinary people, many of whom pose for "selfies" with him.

'Tourists and football fans cheer the fake Hitler at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, in a Bavarian village and elsewhere, and elderly people pour their hearts out to him, often voicing extremist views.

'"Yes, bring back labour camps," says one citizen to the dictator.'

'Frau Merkel. Here is the people!'

PEGIDA

Speaking of which, according to reports, tens of thousands of people cheered at a PEGIDA-organised anti-refugee rally last week in Dresden when some tool with the microphone said 'It's a shame the concentration camps aren't up and running.'

It's the specificity of the language used here that is interesting. Above all the usual far-right brain-farts you get from these numpties, in Germany they casually and approvingly talk of specific places where millions of people were murdered.

Concentration camps? Really?

from the good, good people at Ballspielverein 
Borussia 09 eV Dortmund (Borussia Dortmund FC)

Refugee crisis

Even Germany's heroic response to the Syrian refugee crisis is haunted by World War II.

Willkommenskultur , a word really invented by the Government in essence to create an open and warm welcome that would attract skilled workers from other countries to Germany, has been hijacked and used as a much better application to encourage help from German citizens for the hundreds of thousands of refugees arriving here by the month.

According to a recent opinion poll commissioned by the TV channel ARD-DeutschlandTrend, a simply stunning 88% of Germans have donated clothes or money to refugees, or are planning to do so.

But, it's quietly acknowledged by Germans that their efforts in the crisis are, at least in a small part, a response to the events of the WWII.

Petra Bendel, of the Central Institute for Regional Research at Erlangen, in Bavaria: “German citizens know that the regulations of the Geneva Refugee Convention stem from the historical experience with Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust.”

The self-aware bank man

And finally, on a more personal note, I went to open a German bank account here in Berlin last week. The process involved me sitting down with a nice man from the bank and, over a cup of tea (German people, it's really not that funny to splash a little milk in a cup of tea!), go through the process.

Like a lot of Germans I've met since I arrived, he was mad keen to talk to me, in flawless English, about Britain, our culture and, particularly, in a 'are you people nuts?' sort of way, British politics. My man here brought up the 2017 UK referendum on EU membership.

'The EU is so important,' he said to me. 'If only to stop us invading France...'

That a stranger, a bank worker of all things, should want to talk to me about the war while opening a bank account is remarkable enough, but to be straight to the point about his country's role in invading their neighbours, is astounding. Could you ever imagine an Englishman saying how important the 1707 Acts of Union was because 'it stopped us from invading Scotland?'

I had absolutely no idea when I arrived, but am fast learning, that Germany is still a country where guilt over World War II and the Holocaust still has substantial influence in shaping the national discourse.

Of course, history like Germany's in WW2 should never be forgotten, and walking around Berlin it's clear that Germany goes to great lengths to ensure they, and we, never will. But examples like these make me wonder when, if ever, the German people, no matter what their age, will ever be able to live free of the biggest shadow of all.

UPDATE 28/10/2015: Here, at last, are the subtitled trailers for Er ist Wieder Da