Professor David Peimer
Satire vs. Evil, Part 2: Kurt Weil/Brecht, Cabaret, and Others

Professor David Peimer - Satire vs. Evil, Part 2: Kurt Weil, Brecht, Cabaret and Others

- We’re going to dive in today to look at Satire vs Evil, the second part, continuing what I was discussing last week, which was more specifically satire and the way it works and how it works with ridicule, pointing out ideas of the absurd, et cetera and with some examples from Germany. Going to look more specifically at the question of satirising Hitler himself and the evil that we obviously associate with the man. And the two questions really arise for me, which are pretty fundamental. And just going to look into these two questions a little bit first for a couple of minutes, and then go on and show a whole series of clips from films, TV series, and other various media to show a whole range of satirical approaches to parodying or ridiculing Hitler. So the first question that obviously arises is, can you ridicule, can you satirise Hitler? Or is this individual or is evil a phenomenon which stands outside the realms of satire, that the evil is so great, that the terrible and grotesque events associated with the name and the person so huge and horrific that we can’t satirise or shouldn’t, rather. Whether it’s a moral choice or a societal choice or ideological. So that’s the first one. The second, and of course then what happens when one does try to ridicule or satirise Hitler and the evil associated. The second one that’s a very important question, and I think becomes a question for our times. Not only ridiculing Hitler, because ridicule and absurdity and the parodying effect of such a character is at the essence of satire of any character. But also to ridicule societies or people’s fascination with this name Hitler, the individual, and of course the Nazis.

So these two questions to me, in particular, I think the second one, seem very, very appropriate today and relevant at all times because you don’t want to talk about another Hitler, that kind of easy newspaper jargon. Pardon me. I’d much rather go into ridiculing the fascination that masses, that groups, that individuals can have with this kind of a leader, this kind of an individual, and why they show such allegiance, almost in a cult like, almost semi-God or semi-religious way to the strong leader in inverted commas. So these are the two questions. The one other point that’s very important is we never forget that the aim of satire, as I said last week, is not only to create laughs or humour or wit that we are laughing at or with certain figures, but also that we are trying to pull certain figures down to earth, just reminding everybody, whoa, may be king, may be a great leader in a religious context, in a political context, in a regal context, but at the end, there’s the human nature, there’s the human body, the human individual there. So pull them down, take off the authority clothing and pull them down to earth, basically. And we also said that one of the main aims of satire is to parody or mock the status quo at best and at least to challenge the status quo of values, beliefs, ideologies in a society, whatever they may be, and wherever they may come from. Because of course, these change over time. And you know, who are the proponents of change? Who are the initiators of change and can sometimes come from the satirists. And of course, the role, and to me, the vital importance in any society, but especially obviously democracies of the satirist.

Okay. So these are the two key questions I’m going to look at today in relation to a whole lot of clips. Now, before going into it, couple of key questions that these lead to, of course, is that, well, how do you portray Hitler in film. Do you use the accent? Do you use physicality, the moustache? I mean, how do you actually try and portray it? I showed Henry Goodman last week, the transformation in fantastic play, The Rise of Arturo Ui, where he’s a Chicago gangster, but it’s a satire on Hitler. So the Chicago gangster looks like it and dresses. And we saw that little clip with Henry Goodman, the fantastic British actor, transforming himself like that and others. How do you do it? There’s the physical left side of it. And then there’s the other side of it, which is the real question, is the combination of fact and fiction. Because obviously, theatre, film, literature, novels, et cetera, it’s all fiction. And yet it’s based on historical fact. What is it to be human? What is it to be evil, for that matter? And the key question in portraying a figure like Hitler is, does one show him as a megalomaniac who is the embodiment of evil, a monster? Or does one show a human who has terrible inner qualities and megalomaniac and evil qualities? So is this a human being with human nature, like many of us, who evidences, who shows so much terrifying and grotesque human qualities? Or is this a monster who lacks all humanity? Which does one show? And it’s a question we have to ask ourselves, historians have to ask, is this a human with monster qualities or is this a monster who is inhuman or ahuman? And we have to investigate this when we, certainly in my field, in fiction, of showing in film and theatre and art, that becomes the key question.

And that involves looking at historical accuracy and using the dramatic techniques of fiction. Which way around is it? How would we show ? The tyrannical Greek leader. How would we show Caesar, Napoleon, Alexander The Great? Many, many other massive historical figures who are not evil in the sense that we associate with the name Hitler and the individual Hitler. And yet… Genghis Khan, Chairman Mao, they have terrifying millions of deaths on their hands. How do we show this? What do we do when we want in film or theatre, fiction, literature, when we want to show or make movies or theatre about these books, about these characters? And these are questions everyone will always face and always has faced. Monster or human being, megalomaniac or human with megalomaniac tendencies or qualities. Do we show them as individuals around them, looking up at them as gods or not? Or they believe in themselves as gods? What is the role of myth, the lie? These individuals always take a person to nirvana to the promised land of some kind. The strong man image, the faith shown by millions or thousands in a strong man image. Interestingly, at the Nuremberg Trials, they refused to let them have uniforms. And one saw just the individuals in prison uniform, prison garb, reduced, taken out of the little bit of authority, Shakespeare would say, and you just see them as normal humans. So this is Hitler’s, the wax work in Madame Tassauds, as we all know in London. This is the image that is shown and the image that probably goes around the world. It’s terrifying, it’s grotesque, it looks inhuman or a-human and yet it is also terrifyingly human.

And yet it is so human. It’s obviously, there’s the fist, there’s the hair, there’s the face, the jaw, the set jaw. Images he gained from looking at some of the Roman classical images, he gained from looking at Mussolini, the physicalization, the physical embodiment of it, obviously the uniform, but it’s the impression of the face, the individual, all of it. And how do we respond to this? This is in the waxworks of Madame Tassauds visited by so many people around the world. Extraordinary. And this is the images that we receive. What do we do with this individual? Okay, if we could show the next slide, please. So this is some examples of contemporary or relatively contemporary comics. On the left hand side, you see an almost depressed, anxious looking Hitler, captain Marvel, contemporary comics, fairly. On the other side, comic. Look at what comics are doing and then many, many thousands more. I’m just taking one or two examples here. Of the superhero, this almost Superman, Captain Marvel figure, and the others, what are they doing with this figure? How are comics? How are children reading and absorbing this figure from history? Interesting always to look at our comics because this is part of satire, it’s part of parody. And these are young children all over absorbing this. Jewish, Christian, whatever religion, absorbing these kinds of comics, and these kinds of images of this historical figure. Bruno Ganz, and I’m going to show one or two clips from the amazing film of Downfall, which I think is a remarkable achievement. And I’m sure many know it. Bruno Ganz who played the main character, Hitler, he spoke about how he researched it.

He listened to that secretly recorded voice of Hitler’s in 1942 in Finland on the train, speaking to Manheim. And I’m going to play a minute or two of it today. You get Hitler’s natural voice, not the screaming that we are used to, but there’s a soft voice. It’s almost a calm baritone. He talks about listening to it again and again and again because of course, he’s paying the last 10 days of Hitler’s life in the bunker. So, he’s trying to access that voice. And he talks about how he wanted to, Bruno Ganz as an actor, speaking to the director. It’s important because these are looking at European German film showing this character and choices to be made in fiction. He wanted to show him as the testimony of witnesses as suggested. There’s a conversation between him and the director. And witnesses said he was kind to dogs, he was charming to women, nice to children. But then in the flip of a second could say, we’ll kill 50,000 people. So we’ll kill another 50,000, 100,000. And it was the word kill. It was never the word murder or destroy. It was the word kill that is often repeated in Bruno Ganz’s research as the actor playing Hitler. In the film Downfall, when he and his generals are discussing military problems, the one says to him, okay, so if we do this, then what about the 100,000 young German officers on the eastern front and the soldiers? They’re going to die. And Hitler replies quite dispassionately and calmly, but they’re born to die. And as Bruno Ganz, the actor says, he was completely pitiless. But now what is important is that he was not just supported by the German people, he was loved. And it’s this quality of almost an eroticized love for the strong man leader, heroic figure, heroic in their mind, of course, that I think is the brilliance of the film. The true brilliance of the film is not just another film of Hitler or even trying to parody or satirise in a way, but the true brilliance is showing the masses loving this individual.

The masses loving, inverted commas, the strong man, the leader. And I use that word adversity, and obviously from psychoanalysis, partly, but it’s an almost poetic and aesthetic sense of a love. It’s an eroticized. It’s not necessarily sexual. Relationship between him and the people was almost religious. He was that hero, standing up against a bad and corrupt world, saving them. Bruno Ganz’s words, again, he had no pity, he had no compassion, no understanding what his victims suffered. Ultimately, I as the actor, could not get to the heart of Hitler because there was no heart. How do I act that? How do I act this iconic figure? Iconic in an historical sense. So some fascinating insights of an highly intelligent actor, working with a director in a very contemporary film, trying to come to terms with this question that we’re looking at today. I want you to look at some of these examples before we go onto the satire, because let’s look at how the Hitler’s portrayed and how it’s striking us, and then look at some examples of satirising the figure. I think that can help get a sense of both sides of the debate. Do we show a monster with human qualities? Do we show a monster with no human qualities in essence? Steven Berkoff, who played Hitler, the fantastic Jewish British actor and writer, who played Hitler in 1988 in the War and Remembrance TV series, based on the novels of Herman Wouk. He said, if you only portray Hitler as a monster or megalomaniac, he is more likely to be put in a pedestal, followed by idiots. Very interesting insight by highly intelligent actor, writer in Britain of Berkoff. But on the other hand, if you depict him as a complex character, does it diminish the evil that he did?

So that is the core of the debate. If you do show humanity in the character and humanness and you evoke some sympathy from the audience, then are we diminishing the level and the amount of evil that this individual was responsible for? Ian Kershaw, one of the really top British historians, especially on the war and Hitler, written brilliant books on Hitler and the war. And he analysed Downfall, the film, and he questioned, was there a danger in seeing Hitler as a human being, losing sight of the intrinsic evil, demonic nature in his character and arousing sympathy for him? Kershaw asks. Hitler was a human being, and even if he was an obnoxious, detestable specimen, he could be kind and considerate to secretaries, to dogs, to children, to others. In the next breath show the cold ruthlessness in determining the deaths of millions and millions. So Kershaw is trying to get to grips as a brilliant contemporary thinker and historian with this figure of Hitler. Films he goes on, of course, are artistic constructs. Of course they are not compatible fully with a strict adherence to historical accuracy because they’re not documentary. Even a documentary edited, cut, filmed. The aim, of course, as all aim of all fiction and literature is does it give us some insight into human nature or does it merely feed existing stereotypes? Does it help us understand Hitler any better? Should it, can it? This is the role for me of art, the role of theatre and film, before we dive into the satire. Interestingly, Kershaw has a really interesting point. He says that if we present him only as a monster, then it perhaps absolves other people who were to blame, who allowed his rise to power. What about the industrialists? What about the military? What about other nations who didn’t stand up to him?

With Czechoslovakia and Munich, who didn’t stand up to him in other ways before? Who waited far too long before it was too late. Do we absolve them because they’re also to blame for his rise to power? The Germans in Germany and those who supported and perhaps other nations who might have stopped him earlier? Very interesting point that Kershaw raises. He talks about the cultural captivation still swirling around this figure of Hitler, and it will go on and on. And why do we need to continue making movies, TV pieces and et cetera about this individual? Why have the myriad industrys arisen? And that’s where we come into the fascination with the sort of love of this God-like figure by Germans, by masses of society in Germany for this figure, for the fuhrer. And that’s what is shown in Downfall in the film. And that is, I think, the danger is not only the individual, but the danger is the almost love like passion, infatuation with this heroic godlike figure for individuals. And that is in the mass psychology, I think, which I think speaks to our times as well. Okay, if we can show the next one, please. Oh, sorry. We can go after Ella . This is from the trial scene in the really powerful film on Hitler. Not Downfall.

CLIP BEGINS

• [Crowd] Heil Hitler.

• This is Hitler.

• [Host] So this is where he’s on trial for the Munich, the attempt at the coup in the early 20s.

• [Judge] .

• .

• [Host] Sorry, I don’t know why the captions haven’t come up, but that’s , the General, the hero of the first world war. Would you plead guilty or not?

• Adolf Hitler, .

• .

• Herr. Hitler, .

• .

• .

• [Host] Answer the question.

• Nein.

• .

• .

• .

• .

• 1918 .

• 1918.

• .

• .

• It’s right what you did.

• . .

• He’s also guilty. If I’m guilty, is guilty. We all want to take back what was stolen.

• .

• We did it for the people, .

CLIP ENDS

Thank you. So I just wanted to show a short clip from this film, which is a really good film of the early rise of Hitler. Of course, it’s fiction, but it’s taken from the actual words of the trial to show that transformation into, he’s this heroic figure, who, yes, he’s guilty, he’s not scared to say it. All the generals say not guilty, not guilty, to be part of the attempted putsch. But he says, no, I am guilty, but only wanted to take back what was already stolen from us. Isn’t that what you would do with a thief who came to your house? And he goes on and on. He’s able to turn with the use of rhetoric, almost going back to Cicero, and the other great rhetoric speakers, rhetorical speakers, is able to turn and twist language. So what is starting to get a fascination from the German people in the early 20s of this trial of his, of the Munich, the attempted Beer Hall Putsch, as it was called. To show this theme that I want to go through is how to satirise this and the fascination people feel when they identify with this megalomaniacal strongman image and the almost love. Okay, we can show the next piece, please, which is from… It’s a brief analysis, which is so good of the film, Downfall. The very recent one about the last 10 days of Hitler in the bunker.

• [Voice Over] There is perhaps no historical figure name checked more than that of Adolf Hitler. The name has in many ways become just a substitute for evil or a default attack on politicians. I mean, if I had a penny for every time Hitler was compared to Trump, I wouldn’t be even making this video right now. I’d be snorkelling in Tahiti or something. And for as controversial as the man still remains, there’s almost no disagreement about him. Everyone agrees that the actions of his regime were incredibly evil. You only get in trouble with Hitler when you don’t seem to hate him enough, which is treatment other murderous dictators of the 20th century don’t receive. The incomparable hatred towards Hitler, hatred he knew he was going to receive, by the way, renders making a movie about him incredibly difficult. If the audience gets a whiff of sympathy from the filmmaker, questions are bound to arise, fair or not. And if he’s turned into a bond villain who takes to light in making everyone around him feel terrible 24/7, that would be a mischaracterization of who he was. That was only the first challenge Oliver Hirschbiegel had to overcome before diving deeper in his film, Downfall, the story of Hitler’s last days hidden in a Berlin bunker as the Red Army closes in. But Downfall is not so much an attempt to make us see a monster as a flawed human being. Downfall is a warning about how a flawed human being was able to be seen as a God. And it’s a story that should be taken deadly seriously, especially in a time when governments are becoming more centralised by the day. The story begins in November of 1942. Five women are marched into Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair in the middle of the night for the chance to become his secretary. And although the war has started to turn on the Germans by this point, Hitler is still a legendary figure to these women. He’s the symbol of power, success and leadership. Working for him is like winning the lottery. When they first meet Hitler, he isn’t scolding a military officer or rambling about some frivolous mistake. He’s feeding his dog.

And then he greets them in a very subtle and shy way, offering little more than a small smile. This is not the Hitler anybody pictures in their mind, but it’s who he was a lot of the time. And if you read Inside the Third Reich by Albert Speer, this side of Hitler is described extensively. His patience with when she makes a mistake typing his speech is just another moment meant to show us that Hitler was more than just tirades and execution orders. My personal favourite line from the scene is when he tells her that, I make many mistakes during my dictation, you won’t make nearly as many. Self-deprecating humour from the most powerful person on earth, that’s bound to charm. The movie only gives us this one scene before quickly moving on to the chaos of 1945, but it’s potent enough to show why working for this man would be extraordinarily appealing. The rest of the film is a slow motion train wreck, and it’s a train wreck for the following reason. Everybody around Hitler locked themselves to him for decades. They fought like children for his attention, they foamed at the mouth for his approval and they consciously put the fate of Germany in his hands, and he’s cracking. The Nazi leaders give a salute and stand straight when he walks into the room, but behind his back, they’re plotting away out of the disaster he’s led them into. And the disaster itself is given quite a bit of screen time alongside the drama going on inside the bunker. The contrast perfectly shows how the incompetence and idiocy inside the bunker affects the civilian population. But the most terrifying part of the combat scenes is not the brutal violence, it’s the rationale given by those taking part in it.

When a teenage girl has asked why the hell she’s still fighting the Red Army when the cause is clearly lost, she says, we made a pledge to the fuhrer. It’s very important to notice the language when Hitler talks about Germans, and when the Germans talk about him. The girl is fighting for an individual, the leader of her country. Hitler, on the other hand, does not recognise her individual qualities. She’s just a small slice of the quote unquote German people. And the German people are just one part of his utopian vision. If millions of his people have to die in order for his vision to come to life, so be it. The people are a single organism and that organism will recover in the same way cities are rebuilt. This is why I tell Speer, if the war is lost, it’s immaterial if the people perish as well. The people are a mere part of the National Socialist Project. If the project is over, they’re just a wheel separated from the car. They have no function. And you can tell that the affection he tries to show towards individuals is completely forced. Even the tear he sheds with Speer, I think it’s more out of sadness that the great city he’s been dreaming of will never come to be, not really Speer’s betrayal. And on a side note, this shot of spear leaving the building he designed, it’s incredible. The relationship between Hitler and his people creates a two-part question that cuts to the core of the film. And the answers to those questions are connected. The first question is, why does Hitler see his people like this? And why are the people content to accept the role? How on earth could a human being behave like this to someone who sees her as a mere tool? The first question is less complicated than…

• Thank you. So for me, this analysis is really intelligent and gets to the core of the questions that we’re looking at today. Do we show the monster who is not human, or do we show the human who has megalomaniac, ruthless, terrifying impulses, completely pitiless and with zero compassion except murder? Except the impulse to murder, I should say, the emotion. So what I want you to get at is the film starts with that interview of secretaries. In other words, it’s all around this very contemporary notion of why do people set up a leader to love them like a God? Why is the need going back to ancient times and contemporary? And then as the little girl says, the young girl in the streets of Berlin, we have made a pledge to the fuhrer? Not about Germany, not about the policy or this or that or anything, it’s an individual. From the little one, the little girl soldier to the others and to the secretaries, all of these are shown in the film intentionally, I think pushing this contemporary theme of this love like infatuation with this terrifyingly evil leader. And why do they want to do it and why do they want to sacrifice men and women, obviously, not only the female secretaries? So it’s a very interesting approach to come into a thought about this profound question of the link between fiction and historical accuracy with one of the most, if not the grotesque individual in human history. And together with that, how does one then portray it? So what I want to do is is move on to the next piece, which is, this is a brief, just if we can show the first minute and a half, , that’ll be good, which is the Hitler Mannerheim Conversation. This is the only recorded conversation where we hear Hitler’s so-called normal voice on the finished border meeting Mannerheim and others, discussing military tactics and…

CLIP BEGINS

• [Hitler] .

• [Mannerheim] .

• [Hitler] .

• [Mannerheim] .

• [Hitler] .

CLIP ENDS

• Okay, thanks, Lauren. So I wanted to show this goes on for about nine, 10 minutes. I want to show just briefly because it’s the only recording that we have of this guy’s real voice. And it’s important because we have on the one hand the obvious image and this as another. How do we now take and satirise? So I want to start with something which may surprise people, is Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick’s, well, one of his many masterpieces, Dr. Strangelove. And look how elements of the Hitler quality and Hitler quality in the scientist are put together as Hitler with his ruthlessness and this voice and the arm and other things together with the Nazi scientists. Peter Sellers from Dr. Strangelove, I’m sure you remember.

• I would guess that dwelling space for several hundred thousands of our people could easily be provided.

• Sorry, Lauren, could you just hold it?

• I would hate to have this…

• Thanks. Just to give the story very briefly, there’s a total misunderstanding, but Russia and America who started the nuclear war, and so, okay, they’re going to go for it, if we go for a nuclear war, everybody will be killed, obviously, but Dr. Strangelove, the Peter Sellers character, well, we can save a few thousand and of course, there’ll be us, the elite, the leaders, who will be saved, and he’s the German scientist advising the American president. Thanks, Lauren.

CLIP BEGINS

• Decide who stays up and who goes down.

• That would not be necessary, Mr. President. Could easily be accomplished with a computer, and the computer could be set and programmed to accept factors from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and the cross section of necessary skills. Of course, it would be absolutely vital that our top government and military men be included to foster and impart the required principles of leadership and tradition. Naturally, they would breed prodigiously, eh? There would be much time and little to do, but with the proper breeding techniques and the ratio of say, 10 females to each male, I would guess that they could then work their way back to the present gross national product within say, 20 years.

• But look here, doctor, wouldn’t this nucleus of survivors be so grief stricken and anguished that they’d, well, envy the dead and not want to go on living?

• No, sir. Excuse me. Also when they go down into the mine, everyone would still be alive. There would be no shocking memories, and the prevailing emotion will be one of nostalgia for those left behind, combined with a spirit of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead.

CLIP ENDS

• Okay, if we can hold it there. I chose this because, to me it’s a strange, mysterious, eerie, and yet it’s not really that dated for me. So evocative of the overlap of the iconic, the stereotype of the Nazi scientist and the Nazi leader, caught up and swept up in the salute, the body, the physicality, everything, offering these insane ideas, save a few thousand, kill the whole human race population, and offering sex and sexuality as a kind of reward for it. And yet it’s such an old film, but something about what Peter Sellers is doing here that is so, it’s still grotesque, it’s still evocative inside us in a satirical way. Not about big laughs or belly laughs at all. It’s an ironic smile of the irony of how these absurd, insane, grotesque images perpetuate through our society on such a mass consumption level. Okay. So, if we can go on to the next slide, please. Oh, sorry. If we can skip this and go on to the next. So this is Hitler in prison. The look on these faces from this photograph, this was after the Munich Beer Hall Putsch after the trial in the early 20s, which I showed that clip from earlier. So this is a historical picture, not actors, of him in prison. And every image where he knows the camera is coming, the eyes, the jaws, the face, everything is modelled, everything is performed.

20th century has been called the century of where the vocabulary of performance became the vocabulary of daily conversation in daily life. It’s a performance, it’s an image, obviously for the camera, whether it’s internet, film, TV, whatever. The others are not, they’re quite proud, they’re quite smiling, besides the guy serving the food there. They’ve got a different kind of a look, but he doesn’t. He has a look which still says, I’m the leader, I am the iconic hero, I am the one who is the strong man. I’m at the centre. Okay, so going to the next, please. So this is the cover of Mein Kampf from one of the very, very early editions. That same look, that same image, to be as… Look how it’s echoed by so many of the leaders in our times all over the world, with that jaw, with the eyes, the head slightly down and so on. As if I’m piercing right through you and I’m looking right at you. What Bruno Ganz tries to capture. I’m looking only at you. I’m not looking at millions or thousands, I’m looking just at you. And there’s something very powerful in that as a performer and in these iconic images, going back to the as well. How do we satirise this? What do we do? Bring it on to the next, please. So this is, again, from Mein Kampf, that same image. We know that his photographer, Hoffman, and many other… Yeah, all the rest goes there, from very early versions of, well, this is 1939 version of Mein Kampf. Can we go on to the next, please? So Punch and Judy from a… This is from an early circus show in Britain just shortly after the war was declared. And they were trying to come to grips with using Punch and Judy in satire for children and for adults together to watch. So it’s interesting, as the British were not scared to use children’s satire to try and get this guy to communicate to so many in Britain in the early stages of the war.

There you see a policeman, you see the Punch and Judy classic images, and there you see the Hitler. Interesting. I don’t know, would we be allowed to do this today? I’m not sure. Okay, then the next one, if we can go onto the next one, please. So this is from Salvador Dali. One of his great paintings, The Enigma of Hitler, 1939. And this is meant to be, I think, a satirical comment in art of Chamberlain and the Munich piece of paper disaster peace in our time. When Chamberlain arrives in his aeroplane, waving that flattering piece of paper, it’s peace in our time, peace of honour. And this is meant to be Chamberlain’s umbrella on the side. The English aristocratic gentleman and all the morays. And then of course the breakdown of communication, telephone, connection and what happens is just an empty plate. What has Chamberlain really got out of it? It’s been offered, believes it is deceived. The Englishman at the height of power is deceived by the Bohemian corporal, as Hindenberg called him. I think Dali is playing in a surreal way with this moment in history, trying to find an artistic satirical impulse into that meeting between Chamberlain and Hitler in Munich before the war. And then the next one is of course the great classic moment today. We all know from the Charlie Chaplin film. We can show it, please?

CLIP BEGINS

• Strange, these strike leaders, they’re all brunettes. Not a blonde amongst them.

• Brunettes are trouble-makers. They’re worse than the Jews.

• Them wipe them out.

• It’s too small. Not so fast. We get rid of the Jews first, then concentrate on the brunettes.

• We shall never have peace until we have a pure Aryan race. How wonderful, Tomainia, a nation of blue-eyed blondes.

• Why not a blonde Europe, a blonde Asia, a blonde America?

• Blonde world.

• And a brunette dictator.

• Dictator of the world.

• Why not? Aut Caesar aut nulles. The world is effete, worn-out, afraid. No nation would dare to oppose you.

• Dictator of the world.

• It’s your destiny. We’ll kill off the Jews, wipe out the brunettes, then will come forth our dream of pure Aryan race.

• Beautiful blonde Aryans.

• They will love you, they will adore you. They will worship you as a God. No, no, you mustn’t say it. You make me afraid of myself.

• Yes, dictator of the world. We’ll start with the invasion of Osterlich. After that, we won’t have to fight, we can bluff. Nation after nation will capitulate. Within two years, the world will be under your thumb.

• Believe me, I want to be alone. Aut Caesar aut nulles. Emperor of the world. My world.

CLIP ENDS

• Yeah, if we can hold that there, please. I think it speaks for itself, but there’s something for me still so evocative in what Charlie Chaplain is doing. It’s obviously satirical. It’s obviously ridiculing, but that early phrase that the Goebbels type of character says to him, you will be like a God, everyone will see you, it’s the same that’s echoed in the film, Downfall. It’s the same echoed in other contexts, and we see that transformation into believing he’s a God, and of course here, it’s coming from the Goebbels type character. So it’s a theme that runs all the way through. Why do we as humans or why do humans, why did Germans then need this godlike, want this and ignore the terrible evil that was committed? Ignore that whole other side of this individual. Charlie Chaplin much later said that if he’d known about what had happened in the camps, in the concentration camps, he could not have made The Great Dictator. Fascinating thought and fascinating insight from, to me, one of the great artists of the 20th century. Because that would’ve just been a step too far, just too much for him, for Chaplin. Okay, I want to show one clip from the producers, the remarkable and brilliant Mel Brooks. If we can show this, it’s number 18. The one just after this, please. Alright, thanks.

SONG BEGINS

♪ Well, hi there, people, you know me, ♪ ♪ I used to run a little joint called Germany ♪ ♪ I was number one, the people’s choice ♪ ♪ And everybody listened to my mighty voice ♪ ♪ My name is Adolph, I’m on the mic, ♪ ♪ I’m going to hip you to the story of the New Third Reich ♪ ♪ It all began down in Munich town and pretty soon ♪ ♪ The word started gettin’ around ♪ ♪ So I said to Martin Boorman ♪ ♪ I said, hey Marty, why don’t we throw ♪ ♪ a little Nazi party? ♪ ♪ So we had an election, ♪ ♪ Well, kind of sort of, ♪ ♪ And before you knew it, hello, new order ♪ ♪ To all those mothers in the fatherland, ♪ ♪ I said achtung, baby, I got me a plan ♪ ♪ I said, what you got Adolf? ♪ ♪ What you going to do? ♪ ♪ I said, how about this one? ♪ ♪ World War Two ♪ ♪ To be or not to be ♪ ♪ Oh baby, can’t you see ♪ ♪ We’re going to take it to the top ♪ ♪ You’re making history ♪ ♪ And it feels so good to me ♪ ♪ Ooh darling, please don’t ever stop ♪ ♪ Don’t be stupid, be a smarty ♪ ♪ Come on and join the Nazi party ♪ ♪ Party ♪ ♪ Like humpty dumpty over that wall ♪ ♪ All the little countries they began to fall ♪ ♪ Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Poland ♪ ♪ The troops were rocking and the tanks were rolling ♪ ♪ We were swinging along with a song in our hearts ♪ ♪ And Deutschland uber alles was making the charts ♪ ♪ We had a new step called a goosestep we were marching to ♪ ♪ Well, it’s sort of kind of like a German boogaloo ♪ ♪ I was getting what I wanted but it wasn’t enough ♪ ♪ so I called the boys, I said boys, get though ♪ ♪ Now I surrounded myself with some unusual cats ♪ ♪ There was skinny little Gobbels and Goring, mister fats ♪ ♪ And let’s not forget old Himmler and Hess ♪ ♪ You’d better believe we made a hell of a mess ♪ ♪ Say heil, heil, siegety heil ♪ ♪ We’re going to whip it on the people teutonic style ♪ ♪ To be or not to be, oh baby, can’t you see ♪ ♪ We’re going to make it to the top ♪ ♪ You are our destiny ♪ ♪ This thing was meant to be ♪ ♪ Why don’t we do it till we drop? ♪ ♪ Say you boots ain’t black and your shirt ain’t brown? ♪ ♪ Get back, Jack, you can’t get down ♪ ♪ Do it, Adolf, do it ♪ ♪ I drank wine from the Rhine with the finest ladies ♪ ♪ And we did it in the back of my black Mercedes ♪ ♪ I was on a roll, I couldn’t lose ♪ ♪ Then came D-day, the birth of the blues ♪ ♪ The Yanks and the Brits started raising cain ♪ ♪ Those guys were the pits, it drove me insane ♪ ♪ People all around me started swallowing pills ♪ ♪ Let’s face it, folks, we was going downhill ♪ ♪ Berlin was crumbling, we was under the gun ♪ ♪ Time to look out for number one ♪ ♪ So I grabbed a blonde and a case of beer ♪ ♪ Said the Russians are coming, lets get out of here ♪ ♪ To be or not to be, ♪ ♪ Oh honey, can’t you see, ♪ ♪ We had to take it to the top ♪ ♪ You sure made history ♪ ♪ And it felt so good to me ♪ ♪ Oh schatze, please don’t ever stop ♪ ♪ Auf wiedersehn, good to have seen you ♪ ♪ I’ve got a one way ticket to Argentina ♪ ♪ To be or not to be ♪

SONG ENDS

• Okay, thanks, next one. So, the incredible, irrepressible Mel Brooks. Extraordinary. And I think he does go to the heart of the question. Again, does one show the monster who is not human or the human who has these monster qualities? How do we portray it in satire and ridicule and parody? This figure responsible for so much evil in human history. It’s obviously he’s satirising the eroticized images. He’s satirising the dance. He’s satirising hip hop even way before I think hip hop even began. So in the spirit of satire is Mel Brooks trying to work. But of course, it’s subversive to the status quo. It’s subversive to beliefs and values. And it’s at minimum challenging the status quo at most seriously subversive. How do we take it on? What do we allow? Does one say it has to be banned or not, or allow it, encourage it, what does one do? Okay, the last piece I want to show is from John Cleese in Fawlty Towers, which the writing and the acting is so brilliant here, and this is taking a step away from the figure of Hitler himself, which obviously I’ve been focused on, and this idea of why is it that so many people, the masses in Germany at the time, needed or wanted to idolise and make a God out of this figure that Charlie Chaplin picks up on all the way to Downfall in the Downfall film that Bruno Ganz speaks about. Okay, here is just looking at, these are contemporary or relatively at the time of Fawlty Towers, Germans visiting, John Cleese’s Fawlty Towers little hotel in the south of England. Okay.

CLIP BEGINS

• Oh yes, the place is grilled. In fact, the whole room’s a bit warm, isn’t it? I’ll open the window, have a look. And the veal chop is done with rosemary. That’s funny, I thought she’d gone to Canada. And is delicious and nutritious. In fact, it’s veally good. Veally good.

• The veal is good?

• Yes, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, never mind.

• May we have two eggs mayonnaises, please?

• Certainly, why not? Why not, indeed? We’re all friends now, eh?

• A prawn cocktail.

• All in the market together, all differences forgotten, and no need at all to mention the war. Sorry, sorry. What was it again?

• A prawn cocktail.

• Oh, prawn, that was it. When you said prawn, I thought you said war. Oh, the war, oh, yes, completely slipped my mind. Yes, I’d forgotten all about it. Hitler, Himmler and all that lot. Oh yes, completely forgotten it, just like that. Sorry, what was it again?

• A prawn cocktail.

• Oh, yes, Eva Prawn, yes. And Goebbels too, I can hardly remember at all.

• And a pickled herring.

• Hermann Goering, yes, yes. And Von Ribbentrop, that was another one.

• And four cold meat salads, please.

• Certainly, well, I’ll just get your orders, orders, which must be obeyed at all times without question. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

• Mr. Fawlty, would you please call your wife immediately?

• Sybil, Sybil. She’s in the hospital, you silly girl.

• Yes, call her there.

• I can’t, I’ve got too much to do. Listen, don’t mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it all right. So, it’s all forgotten now and let’s hear no more about it. So, that’s two eggs mayonnaise, a prawn Goebbels, a Herman Goering, and four Colditz salads. Wait a moment, I got a bit confused here. Sorry, I got a bit confused because everyone keeps mentioning the war. So, could you… What’s the matter?

• It’s all right.

• Is there something wrong?

• Will you stop talking about the war?

• Me? You started it.

• We did not start it.

• Yes, you did, you invaded Poland. Here, this’ll cheer you up, you’ll like this one. There’s this woman, she’s completely stupid, she’d never remember anything, and her husband’s in a bomber over Berlin. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. She’ll love this one, she’ll laugh.

• Leave her alone.

• No, this is a scream. I have never seen anyone not laugh at this.

• Go away.

• Look, she’ll love it, she’s German.

• No, Mr. Fawlty.

• What?

• Do Jimmy Cagney instead.

• What?

• Jimmy Cagney.

• Jimmy Cagney?

• You know, “You dirty rat.”

• I can’t do Jimmy Cagney.

• Please try. “I’m going to get you.”

• Shut up. Here, watch, who’s this then? I’ll do the funny walk.

• [German] Stop it.

• I’m trying to cheer her up, you stupid kraut. Not funny? You’re joking.

• It’s not funny, not for us, not for any German people.

• You have absolutely no sense of humour, do you?

• This is not funny.

• Who won the bloody war anyway?

CLIP ENDS

• Okay, thanks. Thanks, Lauren. So I wanted to show this at the end because I think it’s one of the great examples of brilliant writing, brilliant acting and satire. We all know the piece, who started the war and you did. And what John Cleese is doing is setting it obviously in an ordinary situation, ordinary German visitors coming to an English town, couple of decades after the war, and trying to bring in the memory and bring in some of those iconic images that we spoke about of that Hitler face, that walk, that moustache, that salute, everything and the language, but he does it through the character of Basil Fawlty. And that’s what is so fascinating and I think so brilliant. He’s not trying to act out another character or the Hitler, which we see in the other versions. He is doing it through the character of Fawlty and the character of this grumpy, miserable, angry, and aggressive man who runs a small little hotel in the south of England. It’s the character that makes it like that. And that’s a whole shift in approach to satire. It’s not trying to act Hitler himself, but through another character, which has a great tradition going all the way back in theatre and many, many kinds of performance. It almost is trying to go back to a bit of the Punch and Judy and many other approaches to musical and performance in theatre. Okay, I’ll hold it here and we can look at some questions.

Q&A and Comments:

From Mitzi, what seems important is why is what is so attractive in Hitler to so many others. Exactly. Which is exactly the question that we’ve been trying to look at today. What is it that becomes such a fascination, almost of an eroticised love or figure or an infatuation at least in this figure to others? Because that needs to be satirised in the way that John Cleese and Peter Sellers and to me, Charlie Chaplin and these others do. It’s that fascination that has to be brought down to earth. And I think Mel Brooks is trying to, they bring the fascination down to just earth completely by using hip hop, by being the short little guy trying to walk and then falls and does all sorts of other things.

And Rita. So it’s not only the character of Hitler, it’s the fascination that needs to be ridiculed. Rita. Mel Brooks ridiculed Hitler. Yep. And the producer of Springtime, absolutely. Which I was going to show today, but when we’ve got time.

Rita, another brilliant film, Jojo Rabbit. Absolutely. Thank you for that, appreciate.

Q: Mavis. How does a human like Hitler come to terms with evil? Does he rationalise by thinking he’s able to have the kindness to animals, children, secretaries?

A: Well, what they show in the film is the kindness to the dog, kindness to the secretaries and some others and to children. So there is that side, which is a performance I think. I don’t think it’s genuinely felt. And I think I would go along with Bruno Ganz, that this is, to act a character who is completely without heart. Hitler called Hydrick the Man With the Iron Heart. And I was going to show a little stamp that the Nazis made in 1942 to Hydrick after he was assassinated in Prague. And it’s, for me, he called Hydrick the Man With the Iron Heart, but he himself knows that Hydrick is merely an example of himself, that his heart is iron. Whether turned to iron or always was is a debate for another time. But if there is iron there, there is no compassion, no empathy, no pity. And that’s an entirely different kind of individual.

Rita, he won the Oscar . Yes, thank you.

James. Hitler With human quantities. I think it’s possible to depict evil characters as rounded humans. Think of the ancient classics of Shakespeare, Richard Macbeth, yep. Edmond Diago, absolutely. One can sympathise the character while being horrified by the evil actions. After all, the capacity for turning to evil is part of what it means to be human. Absolutely. I agree completely.

Depicting people as mere monsters is superficial and a lesser form of art. I agree entirely with you, James, and you’ve put it far more succinctly than I could. Thank you. I think if one does depict people only as monsters, it is superficial because they are part of our human species. We all know that. And we are in a range on a spectrum. I think also the point that Ian Kershaw makes is good, is that it absolves others who infatuate, fall in love with this one figure. It absolves them of any responsibility if that individual is a total monster, and it absolves other countries from their responsibility as well, as Kershaw says. Thanks so much, James, appreciate.

Sherry. Trump is not Hitler. Absolutely not, but there are similarities. Well, we always would need to look for, what is it Mark Twain’s line? History does not repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes. Certainly, of course Trump is not Hitler and these others aren’t, but there are elements of this kind of figure that I’m trying to get to, which is megalomania, which is obsessed with power, obsessed with themselves, total narcissistic, no empathy. There are qualities and then in the physical of the jaw and the eyes, of many leaders in the world of our times that there are similarities that we look for, contemporary versions of this kind of human embodiment of terrifying evil qualities.

Judith, which film? I’m not sure, which film? Was it Downfall you wanted to know? Need to know that.

Linda. I know Christians who have at least their own minds a sexual relationship with Jesus. Yes, I do. I agree with you, Linda. The love of Jesus, the love of certain individuals, but that’s a totally different end of the spectrum, not Hitler, but is any iconic strong figure that is set up, Chairman Mao, whatever, all different kinds, I think that it is, I agree with, I suppose, post Freudian psychoanalyst or and others, there is a mass psychology of fascism, which is partly, maybe eroticised is the better phrase because the aesthetics are eroticised and I think that’s the key. The aesthetics of how they’re portrayed, how they’re presented is shown as eroticised. And I think that’s what the Downfall film tries to undermine. It’s not aestheticized erotically. And I think that with Mel Brooks or Charlie Chaplin in that scene and John Cleese , they subvert by not showing it as a eroticised, or setting it up and then subverting it. Which is a classic approach of a satirist.

Q: Nicky, do you know if he was coached by anyone?

A: Yes. As far as we know, there were a couple of, at least one a actor that we know of, we think. In the very early days in Munich that he was coached by out of work actor or couple of them, maybe one, he was even Jewish. I mean, there is certain amount of evidence for all of this. He modelled himself a little bit on Mussolini and some of the other aspects, and then with Speer later with aspects of Ancient Rome and all the others. So this is all a conscious performance or a setup of a conscious performance. Also, why not ever want his real voice ever heard or ever recorded? It’s all consciously the manipulation of mass media of his times.

Susan, I don’t think showing Hitler some positive human qualities could ever diminish. That’s a great point, Susan, Suzanne. I think that showing him looking at some dogs, looking at some children, some young female secretaries, doesn’t matter, it doesn’t diminish the enormity of the murderous evil, as you’re saying. That was Steven Berkoff’s idea when he was acting Hitler in in the 1983 TV series. He said that he didn’t want to play him only as a monster because it could be seen as that.

Thank you, Rita, that’s appreciated. Dr. Strangelove. I mean Kubrick’s one of my great filmmakers of all time and it’s extraordinary to me. So many decades later, these images still resonate.

Judith, let’s look at Trump and… Yeah, well, there’s I think a need maybe in human nature to elevate certain individuals. I mean, what does celebrity culture do? God-like image, God-like status. But the question is why society and masses of people want and need God-like images that they make out of humans and allow those individuals to become it. That to me is the fascinating through line of what I’ve been trying to focus on today. The question in Charlie Chaplin, they’ll love you like a God, and then in Downfall that he’s loved like a God, and then as he breaks and shatters from that image, they don’t know how to deal with it except run for their lives.

Mitzi. Stalin was responsible for more deaths. Hitler is the image. Yes. And I think for obvious reasons. Not really does he start the war, but also obviously the concentration camps and the six million Jewish people. And so many other things that go with the Hitler. If we try and imagine how this second world war will be portrayed, imagine if we will a century or 250, 200 years time, how will they remember that as we remember back 200 years to Napoleonic Wars, how do we remember those wars? How will this period be remembered?

Susan. Charlie Chaplin film is right on with the humour. I think it’s brilliant and I think that he gets it. It’s not belly laughs. It’s an ironic smile knowing what happened. And you see that hint at eroticization and yet there’s this little character, running around with this huge earth and it’s that line from the Goebbels character, they will love you like a God, that is the reference all the way through the Charlie Chaplin… Yes.

Rita, thank you. Robert, how frightening. Yeah, we’ve spoken there. Thank you, Rita.

Mel Brooks as Hitler break dancing, complete mockery. Exactly. And he’s doing hip hop with the rap style. I think this is way before rap, by the way. The language, the dance, the moving. He’s trying to show himself like a New York streetwise kid almost with break dancing and everything else, trying to subvert the erotic elevation of the character to this God-like status.

Rita, thank you. Sandy. I once saw an interview with Mel Brooks. He said the best way to get back at Hitler was to ridicule him. Yep, exactly. And that is the exact… Henry, thank you.

Q: Yana. Why do you think there’s so many people in the entertainment world who feel a compulsion to satirise Hitler?

A: Well, I mean, why is it also going to make money? Otherwise they wouldn’t do it. So therefore they know there’s going to be a massive audience. So, great question. I would flip the question to why there’s not so many people in the entertainment world will make it, they’re making it because they know they’re going to make money because there’s a huge audience out there in satirising Hitler. And I think it’s far better than glorifying or romanticising that individual.

Judith. Trump is speaking lies, has done. Yeah, exactly. Okay, I think we’ve spoken about Trump, Judith, thank you. Peter. Why have we humans allowed so many evil men to become leaders? And so a few good, decent characters, in Czechoslovakia, I agree. If we could answer that, we’d probably be able to answer a hell of a lot about human nature. It’s showing, I think as James mentioned earlier, all sides of human nature. The dark and the light, the shadow and the bright. It’s all sides of human nature. Some aspects push to more obviously a grotesque extreme than others.

Thank you, Susan. Barbara, thanks so much, very kind.

Nina. Waco, Texas, Jonestown. Yep. The Pied Piper. The hypnotic masses just following, even though go to our deaths. I remember being in Berlin some years ago with my sisters and going on one of the tours, and they said, from this point to that point is where, as was shown in Downfall, is where 10,000 Hitler youth, like those little kids that we saw in a clip from the film, 10,000 were killed in the space of six and a half minutes with the advancing Russian army. And they were ordered so that Hitler could have an extra six and a half minutes of life.

Nicky, the church idolise a worship. That takes us into a whole fascinating area of discussion, Nicky. The role of the Vatican, certainly, of a Catholic church and others. I don’t know if they idolised a worship, but to put it in essence, I guess, a bullock against communism, against atheism and playing out and of course going way back towards the attitude to the Jews, that would be pretty obvious, but it’s much more complicated than I’m saying, and I think that’s for a whole separate conversation.

Thanks, Nicky. Julius, thanks for your kind comment.

Okay, so thank you very much, everybody. Hope you have a great rest of the weekend. And as always, thanks so much, Lauren.