Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, has been represented in popular culture ever since he became a well-known politician in Germany. His distinctive image was often parodied by his opponents. Parodies became much more prominent outside Germany during his period in power. Since the end of World War II representations of Hitler, both serious and satirical, have continued to be prominent in popular culture, sometimes generating significant controversy. In many periodicals, books, and movies, Hitler and Nazism fulfill the role of archetypal evil. This treatment is not confined to fiction but is widespread amongst nonfiction writers who have discussed him in this vein. Hitler has retained a fascination from other perspectives; among many comparable examples is an exhibition at the German Historical Museum which was widely attended.
Depictions of Hitler during his lifetime
Numerous works in popular music and literature feature Adolf Hitler prominently.
In Germany, before he gained power, Hitler was often portrayed satirically in newspaper cartoons and propaganda by political enemies. The photomontagist John Heartfield regularly depicted Hitler in absurd ways in his anti-Nazi poster designs. After the Nazis came to national power in January 1933, Hitler was mostly depicted as a god-like figure, loved and respected by the German people, as shown for example in the Leni Riefenstahl propaganda film Triumph of the Will (1935), which Hitler co-produced.
An exception was the German Fritz Lang film Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse (The Testament of Dr. Mabuse) from 1933, which was banned by the Nazi propaganda ministry. Many critics consider Lang's depiction of a homicidal maniac masterminding a criminal empire from within the walls of a criminal asylum to be an allegory of the Nazi ascent to power in Germany.
Outside Germany, Hitler's persona was often parodied. The George Bernard Shaw play Geneva (1936) includes a caricature of Hitler as "Herr Battler", appearing at an international tribunal with his friends "Signor Bombardone" (Mussolini) and "General Flanco" (Franco). Numerous cartoons satirize his distinctive features, such as those by David Low.
In the United States the 1934 Production Code Administration made the 1927 Hays Code binding on American studios which put a damper on films mocking public figures or national identities including Hitler and the Nazis. Another discouraging factor was that Germany and Italy contributed to 30% of the American film industry's overseas profits. In 1933 two animated shorts, Cubby Bear in World Flight and Bosko's Picture Show appeared in theatres. The former only had Hitler waving a beer stein but the latter depicted him chasing Jimmy Durante with an axe. In 1934 two documentaries, Hitler's Reign of Terror and Are We Civilized? were released but were both were unable to obtain a wide distribution. American isolationists and those harboring anti-war sentiments tended to view any criticism of Nazism as pro-war propaganda and the studio heads were arguably afraid exacerbating public antisemitism which were already at high levels.
After the start of the war
Another early example of a cryptic depiction is in the Bertolt Brecht play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1941), in which Hitler, in the persona of the principal character Arturo Ui, a Chicago racketeer in the cauliflower trade, is ruthlessly satirised. Brecht, who was German, but left when the Nazis came to power, also expressed his opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in other plays such as Mother Courage and Fear and Misery of the Third Reich.
Outside Germany, Hitler was made fun of or depicted as a maniac. There are many notable examples in contemporary Hollywood films. Several Three Stooges shorts, the first being You Nazty Spy! (1940), the very first Hollywood work lampooning Hitler and the Nazis in which the boys, with Moe Howard portraying "Moe Hailstone", as the Hitler character, are made dictators of the fictional country of Moronika. This short in particular implies that business interests were behind Hitler's rise to power, and was said to be Moe Howard's and Larry Fine's favorite Stooges short subject. A sequel was released a year later entitled I'll Never Heil Again. This one illustrated the disagreements between Hitler and the League of Nations. In other Three Stooges shorts, Hitler is referred to as "Schicklgruber" in reference to his father Alois Hitler's birth name. First released some nine months after the Stooges' initial Nazi-lampooning short subject, Charlie Chaplin made fun of Hitler as "Adenoid Hynkel", the buffoonish dictator of Tomainia, in his film The Great Dictator (1940). This is one of the most recognizable Hitler parodies.
Especially during World War II, Hitler was caricatured in numerous animated shorts, including Der Fuehrer's Face, a 1942 Disney wartime propaganda cartoon featuring Donald Duck (inspired by Spike Jones' performance of the song written by Oliver Wallace), and the Warner Bros. cartoon Herr Meets Hare featuring Bugs Bunny. Another 1942 Warner cartoon The Ducktators caricatures Hitler as a duck hatched from a black egg, Benito Mussolini as a goose and Hideki Tojo as a Japanese styled duck. However, Hitler's first appearance on a Warner Brothers cartoon was in Bosko's Picture Show in 1933 in a short gag where Hitler is shown chasing after Jimmy Durante with an ax. George Grosz painted Cain, or Hitler in Hell (1944) showing the dead attacking Hitler in hell. The photomontage artist John Heartfield made frequent use of Hitler's image as a target for his brand of barbed satire during Hitler's lifetime. In Fritz Lang's 1941 movie Man Hunt, which opened in theaters before America's entry into the war, Hitler is seen in the scope of a British hunter's rifle. In Ernst Lubitsch's 1942 films To Be or Not to Be (as well as in Mel Brooks' remake in 1983), an actor from a Polish stage group impersonates Hitler to enable the escape of the troupe to England.
One spoof of Hitler appeared in a short propaganda film created in 1942 by Charles A. Ridley of the British Ministry of Information that had among other names, Schichlegruber - Doing the Lambeth Walk and Lambeth Walk – Nazi Style. The film features footage of Hitler and other Nazis taken from Triumph of the Will and edited in such a way to make it appear they are marching and dancing to "The Lambeth Walk", a dance common at the time (including in Germany) but despised by the Nazis. The use of the footage was intended to give audiences is Britain and other Allied countries a good laugh and make Nazis angry. The film was distributed uncredited to various newsreel companies that gave the film other titles such as Hoch der Lambeth Valk: A Laugh-Time Interlude, Lambeth Walk - Nazi Style, Gen. Adolf Takes Over and Panzer Ballet. The newsreel companies would supply their own narration for the clip. When Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels saw this film, he ended up so enraged that he left the screening room kicking chairs and screaming profanities.
Apart from films, Hitler was the enemy of several comic book superheroes who battled Hitler directly or indirectly in comics published during World War II. Superheroes that fought Hitler include Superman, Captain America, the Shield, and Namor the Sub-Mariner. The front cover of Captain America Comics #1, Captain America's first appearance, showed him punching Hitler in the jaw. Captain America's archenemy, the Red Skull, was established as being an apprentice to Hitler. In Superman #15 the dictator Razan appeared, who attempted to invade a nearby democratic nation. Superman defeated his army, and Razan was shot while trying to escape.
One Superman story where Superman defeats Hitler is notable for triggering a response in an official Nazi media outlet. The story was called "How Superman would end the War" and was published not in a comic book but in Look magazine in 1940. The story was published with the full cooperation of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of the Superman character. Both Siegel and Shuster were Jewish and therefore are considered enemies by Nazi Germany so while the United States was still officially neutral, Siegel and Shuster were not. "How Superman would end the War" is acknowledged in the magazine itself as outside of normal Superman continuity and non-canon. As implied by its title, "How Superman would end the War" is a story detailing a hypothetical scenario in which Superman intervenes in World War II. The story starts in the Siegfried Line where German soldiers see Superman flying towards them. Superman then lands and while the soldiers shoot at him, the bullets have no effect and bounce off. Superman puts an artillery gun out of service by using his super strength to tie a knot into the gun's barrel. After that, Superman flies away and when an airplane tries to stop him, he tears off the propeller, confusing the pilot. Superman continues his flight where he lands in Berlin and kidnaps Hitler (who complains about his kidnapping). Superman, while holding on to Hitler, flies to Moscow in the Soviet Union where he kidnaps another dictator, Joseph Stalin (at this point not yet in the war, he was against Hitler starting from 1941 onwards) and flies them both to the Palace of Nations, the League of Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Hitler and Stalin are then both put on trial for war crimes including among others, the Nazi-Soviet joint occupation of Poland. This trial thus ends the war.
A Nazi in the United States had read the Look issue and Superman comic strip within it when it was published and alerted the SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps to its contents. In April 1940, Das Schwarze Korps published an article condemning the comic strip, Superman and his co-creator Jerry Siegel personally. The article, titled "Jerry Siegel Attacks!" criticizes Superman as someone "with an overdeveloped body and underdeveloped mind" and in typical Nazi fashion, repeatedly uses anti-Semitic language to describe the story and denounce Siegel. Such language includes the opening sentence where Siegel is described as "an intellectually and physically circumcised chap". The article is also an attack on Siegel's own morals, claiming that he only created Superman to make money off him. Superman is further condemned when it mentions the scene of Hitler and Stalin handed over to the League of Nations and noting his superhero costume probably breaks the dress code in the building but that Superman ignores those rules "as well as the other laws of physics, logic, and life in general". The article ends with a final attack on Siegel where Das Schwarze Korps describes him as feeding "poison" on a daily basis to the hearts and minds of American children.
Hitler was mocked in satirical folk songs such as "Stalin Wasn't Stallin' or when new lyrics were created to old songs such as "Hitler Has Only Got One Ball" (to the tune of the "Colonel Bogey March").
Representations of Hitler after his death