"Er ist wieder da" (2015)

I read the book back in 2015 right before the film was released. More importantly, it was in 2015 just a year before Brexit, Trump, and now a string of nationalist, far right parties have been gaining power across the West. At the time I said that the book was a little scary because readers could imagine the book’s premise being accurate. Now, three years later I should have talked about how prophetic the premise seemed.

The story is simple, once you get past the crazy beginning. Hitler wakes up in modern day Berlin. He is mistaken by all to be a Hitler-impersonator, a comic satirist. But he is the real Hitler, and his statements and worldview—being taken for satire—are seen to make a lot of sense and he quickly rises to power again.

In the film, that fictional story is told, intermixed with real scenes of the actor playing Hitler going around really talking to real Germans. The real outcome of those conversations plays out in the same way that the book predicted. Admittedly, they likely had to cherry-pick from many more interactions where people were rightly offended and rejecting of Hitler’s ideas. But the scary thing is that people today can be found to embrace his hatred. One imagines a “Hitler” having similar success across Italy, Hungary, and the US today.

When I was a youth minister, using popular culture to engage young people with the Gospel and biblical worldview, I would make sure to include some discussion of the World War II Era and Nazism at least once a year. I saw the issue as important and increasingly problematic in culture. As people are less and less educated the hateful lies that drove culture in the beginning of the Twentieth Century have a way of rearing their fearful head. And, sure enough, they are alive and well and strong again today.

“Er ist wieder da” is not a perfect film, but its message is very important. It earns a place on the list alongside stuff like “Children of Men,” “1984,” “Sin Nombre,” and “Wall-E”; stories that enlighten us to the danger of fearing “the other” and ideologies and powers that purport to protect us from the things we fear.