David Wnendt
Er ist wieder da

BEST-SELLER. 'Er ist wieder da' by Timur Vermes had already constituted a literary phenomenon at the time in Germany (in particular) and subsequently throughout Europe. The book quickly became a best-seller, and besides being well written, it was very well-researched and crafted in such a way not only to avoid boring the reader but also to steer clear of facile hypocrisy, given the delicacy of the subject. Consequently, it gathered exclusively positive reviews, and the fact that a film was being made from it seemed a normal and natural consequence.

The film, directed by David Wnendt and starring Oliver Masucci as the Fuhrer, is well-made and, besides capturing the plot and themes of the book, aims to reinterpret its content in its own way, creating what is an apparent state of hallucinatory confusion that, rather than confusing the viewer, reinforces its meanings. If we add this too, then in this case, we can certainly talk about one of those instances where the cinematic rendering of the literary work not only succeeds but broadens its themes and adds new visual perspectives that inevitably couldn't be grasped when reading the book.

This, in truth, happens mostly in the final part, where perhaps the director subtly uses that tool of ‘propaganda’ that is much discussed within the film, but in a skilled cinematic manner that made me think, with due respect, of certain cinematic attempts by the great Marco Ferreri.

In a sort of appendix to the story told by the book and added in the film, indeed, a sort of mixture is completed where the story of the book's creation is told in the film as if the events had really happened. As if Adolf Hitler had truly mysteriously reappeared in the middle of Berlin in 2014.

PROPAGANDA. After all, could even the book itself, the work itself, be defined as propaganda or not? The question posed by the film, following the book, is this: where do its contents end, and where does the real world and our daily reality begin?

This seems to be a question that Adolf Hitler himself wants to answer at the end of the film, when he states, even echoing a phrase often heard and used in cinema, that it is impossible to eliminate him, that one cannot get rid of him because, in the end, there is a part of Adolf Hitler in each of us. Which, in the specific case of the work, perhaps more than something that should make us reflect and somehow horrify us, instead constitutes a warning. Perhaps yet another to ensure that history does not repeat itself, even if the formula might appear different, and perhaps in this sense, try to rework all that has happened and is still happening today in a different modality. To talk about black humor in this case is perhaps possible, but all in all, when looking closely, this film (like the book) is not funny. But it makes one think. Just as the expressions of Adolf Hitler should have made people think seventy years ago.

What are we talking about when we talk about 'propaganda'? Adolf Hitler mysteriously reappears without any logical and apparent reason in the middle of Berlin in 2014. Practically two years ago and perhaps at the peak of the crisis regarding the situation of the European Union if we consider the precarious and then much-discussed situation of Greece in particular, but also Portugal and Italy. Situations moreover unresolved and less discussed today due to what is called the 'emergency migrants' besides the ISIS issue. Or better put, it would be more correct to say that there is less talk about the European Union in terms of the 'functioning' of the community, but the topic today is always and still current, even concerning contingent situations already represented.

It won't take long for Adolf Hitler (who isn't a kind of nice old man as in an old story by Stefano Benni contained in an old collection whose name escapes me, but who is instead in the prime of his physical and mental powers) in Berlin 2014 to understand that an instrument he had so much used to incite the Germans and crystallize his power, sublimating the myth of the third reich in the minds of people before practically, namely propaganda, also constitutes a more than effective tool in today's society. An effective rendering made even more powerful by the multiplication of means of information and consequently also the people who can be reached through these means. Radio, television broadcasts of all kinds, from cooking shows (which Adolf would apparently not particularly like) to entertainment programs and the usual countless talk shows, ending with the great mine and resource of information that would then be the Internet.

Believed to be truly him or not, Adolf Hitler quickly becomes a star and gathers bilateral support among the German population regardless of the political affiliation of different subjects. This within a society where he still has difficulty finding himself perfectly, at least at the beginning, considering his presence there as a kind of act of providence to shake the German people and make them find the right path where the various parties and political forces, particularly the 'hated' social democrats, would instead have failed. He declares sympathy for the Greens, not coincidentally in my opinion, which should make us reflect as usual on some situations of our local politics, and ends up clashing with what would be his 'heirs', i.e., the so-called continuers of the National Socialist party who look at him more with fear than admiration and particular loyalty.

A TRUE STORY. Naturally, the story told by the book and consequently by the film is a fictional story. We cannot even consider this film as a 'science fiction' film in the strict sense. As much as it is 'science fiction' to hypothesize that Adolf Hitler, or any other historical character, could mysteriously reappear nowadays out of nowhere, the matter of his reappearance, how he technically reappeared is absolutely irrelevant for the purposes of the plot and the contents of the film. It follows, as already mentioned, that Adolf Hitler, symbolically, in some way never left and has always been here even after what would have been his death, never fully clarified, in 1945.

A few days ago, lately, I barely leave the house, but every evening I watch some movie on television or computer, I saw another German film titled 'Im labyrinth des schweigens' directed curiously by an Italian director transplanted to Germany, Giulio Ricciarelli. The film is set in Frankfurt in the fifties, in a divided Germany that after the war seeks somehow not so much to forget as to pretend that nothing happened. It tells the story of a young lawyer who will try in every way to bring to light the history of Auschwitz and to instigate a trial against the SS and those who took part in the events that took place in the notoriously tragic concentration camp, all this primarily by bringing, or rather bringing to light a story that, although close in time and space, was even unknown, unfamiliar to much of the German people and in particular to the younger ones.

It's easy to fall into easy rhetoric when talking about Nazism and what the concentration camps were. For many, occasions like 'the day of memory' would even be considered crap and stuff that would have no sense to exist and then again, damn it, it's been seventy years, even more, since the end of World War II. Without considering that such dramatic international situations, like the classic Israeli-Palestinian one, have even had a diametrically opposite effect and in an anti-Israelian key and even if, obviously, the equation Israel=Judaism does not constitute exactly some exact thing.

'Amon' by Jennifer Teege tells the story of Amon Goth according to the testimony of the executioner's granddaughter in 'Schindler's List' and in 'The Plot Against America', Philip Roth focuses on the situation of the Jews in the United States of America during the years of the war and imagines what would have happened if the Nazi sympathizer and aviation hero Charles A. Lindbergh had become president of the USA. We can obviously consider all these works as having a simple didactic - besides dramatic - content but we can also seek within it something that concerns not only past history but ourselves personally.

There is a moment in the film, which, as stated in some way, differs from the book, where the character of Hitler somehow merges with that of the young Fabian Sawatzki, a young and unlucky cinematographer, who from the beginning follows his story and tries through his story, that of Hitler, to achieve success and establish himself. It is at this moment that you realize that his story, that of Fabian Sawatzki, can very well be yours and that of anyone else and this where, net of life's difficulties, let’s call them that, you cannot forget the social nature of the human being and which then would be that denied by the principles of Nazism.

PICTURES OF ADOLF AGAIN. There is no real conclusion to this story, I mean the story of the film, even if it should also be watched to try to discover what the ending might be - it is still also an entertaining film - which is nonetheless open and where it seems to see the great tape of history rewinding infinitely. But this, this continuous rewinding, isn't something that happens daily and every day of our individual and collective existence?

I mean, the fact that Adolf Hitler was, could return to Berlin in 2014 or today, tomorrow, is something absolutely irrelevant. It doesn't practically change the state of things. In the already mentioned film, 'Im labyrinth des schweigens' ('The Labyrinth of Silence') at a certain point the character is obsessed with two things: the first is the capture of Josef Mengele, who instead as we know will die in Brazil at the end of the seventies due to a heart attack, the second and which then becomes the keystone in his individual research and speculation, is the matter concerning his past and that of his family. Discovering that even his father had been enrolled in the Nazi party and this as practically the majority of the German people, initially leads him to want to give up everything, but secondarily, make him realize that that trial to bring to light the facts of Auschwitz was something important with regard to 'memory' where this does not constitute commemoration and/or commiseration nor punishment but analysis and critical speculation.

There is a song by Bill Fay, contained in what I consider one of the greatest albums in the history of pop music and one of my absolute favorite records, 'Time of the Last Persecution'. The song is titled 'Pictures of Adolf Again'. The whole record for truth is permeated by what I consider a deep inner and spiritual suffering, it is an album I consider in some way religious, but not concerning belonging to any particular belief (although Bill Fay appears declaratively Catholic) as much as concerning one's attitude towards life and others. Bill Fay refers to Adolf Hitler and cites Balthazar Johannes Vorster, the leader of Afrikaner nationalism during the seventies. Aware and scared at the same time of the 'reappearance' of Adolf Hitler like any other 'Caesar', he asks us the question of where and how it is lawful to disavow today's representatives and leaders of our nations and of what would be our democratic system. The question is clearly broad and would deserve a large and wide debate, but the point is: if Adolf Hitler reappeared today in Berlin or any place in the world, would our democratic system, which then consists of all of us in our individuality, have the means and capabilities to reject him, to prevent this 'monster' from somehow becoming dominant? This is the question with which I close this page and which I take from a black comedy ('The Last Supper' by Stacy Title) that had a certain public and critical success in the nineties: 'Traveling back in time, we end up in 1909 in Austria. You are in a pub drinking a schnapps with a stranger. You know he studies art and has a missing testicle. His name is Adolf. At this point in his life, he has done nothing wrong. He is not disappointed, not angry, hasn't committed any crime, doesn't go to dinner bringing a pocket knife, hasn't killed anyone, and least of all sparked a world war. You don't kill him? You have to poison the schnapps knowing you can save millions of innocents. What would you do?'

Quotes

1. 'The only glimmer is given by a strange party called: the greens. It was born after the war following a violent industrialization that caused enormous damages to the country, the air, and thousands of people.

'They want to engage in protecting the German race, these greens.

'May you be an example!

'But their aversion to atomic energy for a couple of accidents is not shareable. Uranium is useful for armaments.' (Adolf Hitler)

2. 'Mixing races is not a good thing.

Look at that German shepherd. Its race is pure. If you decide to cross it with that dachshund, what would come out of it?' (Adolf Hitler)

'A dachshund shepherd.'

'And what one would look like?' (Adolf Hitler)

'It would be funny.'

'And now try to imagine if two dachshund shepherds mated? A German shepherd would never be born.

'We would be witnessing the end of a race.' (Adolf Hitler)

'Right.

'The race is extinct.' (Adolf Hitler)

'Yeah.'

'And this also happens in our nation.' (Adolf Hitler)

'Right.'

3. 'There is never a responsible one.

'Germany needs a turnaround. A Fuhrer. Germany needs a true leader to lift them from ignorance.

'The highway, according to you, was the work of any man? No! It was the work of the Fuhrer!

'When in the morning you eat good bread, you know, it is the baker's merit.

And when in the morning you step on the former Czechoslovakia, you should know, it is the Fuhrer's merit.' (Adolf Hitler)

4. 'In 1933, no people were deceived by any propaganda. They chose me as Führer and I expressed my ideas very clearly. Germany elected me.' (Adolf Hitler)

'You are a monster.' (Fabian Sawatzki)

'You think so? You should also condemn all those who voted for this monster then. Were they all monsters? No, it was ordinary people who decided to vote for an extraordinary man and entrust him with the destiny of their country. What do you want to do, decide for everyone?

'I have a question. Have you ever wondered why people follow me?

'Because in the end, you are all like me. We have the same values.

'And that's why you won't shoot me.

'You cannot get rid of me. I am a part of you. Of all of you. Acknowledge it.

'I'm not that bad after all.' (Adolf Hitler)

5. 'What would happen if the real Hitler reappeared, could history repeat itself?'

'God, we have been reworking what happened for more than seventy years. Kids are fed up with studying the Third Reich, I think we should have more trust in humanity.' (Katja Bellini)