'The Producers' in Berlin

According to the blogger Henryk M Broder in May this year, 'de-nazification has been sucessfully completed' with the staging of Mel Brooks's The Producers in Berlin's Admiralspalast.

Much has been made of the fact that this is the very theatre in which Adolf Hitler attended performances of operettas in the 1940s. But in a country with laws against the public display of Nazi symbols, it's unusual to say the least to see dancers, actors and the stage itself draped in such symbols.

To understand fully how far the public debate, and the feelings of the Volk, have come, you need to look back a bit. In 2004, the German film Downfall came to cinemas in Germany. Some commentators were highly critical of the depiction of Hitler, not because of a lack of realism or possible glorification of the character; no, they were concerned that this adaptation of German historian Joachim Fest's book (@ BL: YC.2005.a.12316) ran the risk of revisionism.

Like the book, parts of the film depict Hitler as a human being (eating, chatting or even admitting minor mistakes), with a friendly manner to some and expressions of weaknesses to others. Such a humanising depiction could be seen as to ignore and deny the facts of the Holocaust and other horrible deeds of this Austrian man who became the most powerful German politician in the 20th century (according to the critics).

Fast forward to 2007, when another film attempted the unspeakable. Mein Führer - Die wirklich wahrste Wahrheit über Adolf Hitler ('My Leader - The truly truest truth about Adolf Hitler'), a film by the Swiss director Dani Levy, is meant to be a comedy: the postmodern, tongue-in-cheek, relation between the title and the completely fictional story is arguably the most convincing and funniest aspect of this film. The depiction of Hitler in this film was seen by some as a 'transfiguration' of the evil to a man who pronounces himself as a weak guy - not necessarily funny, but a different way to present the Führer.

Back to The Producers in Berlin in 2009: with the two previous cinematic depictions of Hitler, one assumes that they paved the way to this US musical. I disagree: I believe that the two films of Mel Brooks's concept of how to present Hitler (1968 with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder, and 2005 with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick) and the fact that this is now a musical are much more important as to why such a musical is now possible in Berlin.

Also, even though Hitler is depicted as a camp NAZI leader, this is contextualised in a version of this story which ups the double entendre and sexual content: the German version contains lines such as 'Kopulieren auf allen Vieren' [to copulate, down on all fours] - the German rhyme making this image even more surreal when talking about a stern-faced image of a strong Nazi.

Another important difference is that this musical, though about and depicting Hitler, is actually also about the need of the producers of a Broadway musical to fail in order to call themselves bankrupt - that's just one of the absurdist intentions one can imagine, especially in times of a recession.

So, the actual surprise should not be that this musical is shown now in Berlin, and that it is successful. One gets over that initial shock quickly. The surprise is why was it not a hit with folks in Vienna, where this very German version of the musical was praised by critics but flopped.

I'm tempted to travel to Berlin, not for the sense of occasion, but for seeing whether the German translation works, of course.
[CG]