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 The film "Look Who's Back" is an adaptation of a satirical
novel by Timur Vermes which has sold over a million copies. In
it, Hitler wakes up in modern times, becomes a celebrity and
enters politics again.
Vermes has said he wrote the book to lambast what he calls
Germans' complacency about the Nazis and highlight his belief
that Hitler would have a chance to succeed today, even though
the modern German state is constructed to ensure that Nazi
tyranny can never return.
The film's director and lead actor said that the time spent
touring Germany, shooting footage that has been incorporated
into the movie, had opened their eyes and that they had
witnessed a shift to the right in attitudes.
"How can it be that so many people react positively to Hitler,
accept him?" director David Wnendt told Germany's ARD
television.
The film shows actor Oliver Masucci, complete with Hitler's
trademark moustache, mingling among crowds of smiling people,
shaking their hands, posing for photos with firemen and even
tickling pet dogs and goats.
"People quickly forgot that the cameras were rolling and started
talking to the man, to open up to him," said Masucci.
Filming took place shortly before the emergence of the
grassroots anti-Islam PEGIDA movement, centered in the eastern
city of Dresden, which drew tens of thousands of supporters to
its rallies earlier this year.
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"It didn't surprise us that they took to the streets. This middle
class that's shifting to the right - we'd got it all on camera,"
said Masucci.
The success of the book and media interest in the film reflect a
fascination among Germans with the darkest chapter of their history
even 70 years after the end of World War Two and the Holocaust.
Documentaries regularly run on television and in the last decade or
so some taboos about Hitler have also been broken with films such as
"Downfall" which chronicled the dictator's last days.
The new film also comes at a time when Germans are being scrutinized
for their attitudes towards foreigners, with many Germans worried
about the cost and social impact of the arrival of hundreds of
thousands of refugees this year alone.
The striking posters for the film, a plain white background with
only Hitler's black hair with a side parting and the title of the
film ("Er ist wieder da") compressed into a square moustache, are
adorning Berlin billboards.
(Writing by Madeline Chambers; editing by David Stamp)
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