Er ist wieder da! - He's Back!

Not me, though I'll try and do my best to get some posts up and running with regularity again. No, the Führer is back in Timur Vermes best-selling book Er ist wieder da (He's back), soon to be available in English.



In The Sun (yeah, it's a tabloid, I know...) Gerrard Williams correctly claims that the comic novel [...] has
shot to the top of the German book charts.

In it, Hitler awakes from a coma in 2011 but people assume he is an impersonator.

He’s Back — soon to be published in English — is proof the Germans FINALLY feel able to poke fun at the former Fuhrer.

But having just read it, I can confirm that author Timur Vermes, 45, won’t be writing for UK comedy shows any time soon.

The real novelty of the novel is that it was written by a German for Germans. It has smashed a long-standing taboo among those from the country Austrian-born Hitler dominated and destroyed.

He created a generation burdened by the guilt of the death factories of Auschwitz and Dachau.

Now a new generation are able to have a laugh at his expense.

But to Brits raised on Basil Fawlty’s “Don’t mention the war!” gags, Mel Brooks’ Springtime For Hitler song and TV’s Gestapo-French Resistance farce ’Allo ’Allo!, He’s Back has all the allure of a windswept Scottish coastal caravan site in winter.

The “plot” is pure farce. The once-mighty Fuhrer does not die in his bunker in the flaming ruins of Berlin in April 1945.

Instead he goes into hibernation, waking in 2011 and expecting to find the city swarming with Russian troops. He wanders around until a newsagent takes pity and lets him sleep in his kiosk.

While people recognise him as Hitler, they assume he is a lookalike. His monologues spark amusement — unintentionally — and he is given a slot on a Turkish-born comedy star’s TV show and proves a hit. There follows stardom on YouTube and, after winning the backing of a tabloid newspaper, he goes into politics, whipping up hatred against speeding drivers and the fouling of pavements by dogs.

The “humour”, such as it is, is sub-schoolboy. Take this extract from when Hitler recalls an old First World War comrades meeting:

“Two war veterans meet.

“‘Where were you wounded?’ one asks the other.

“‘In the Dardanelles,’ says the second veteran.

“To which the first replies: ‘Oh, they say it’s terribly painful down there!’" 

The stereotype that Germans have no sense of humour seems to be born out by this book.

But it’s been highly lucrative for Vermes, the son of a German mother and Hungarian dad.

It is best to regard the book as an experiment.

For years after the Second World War, Germans tried variously ignoring Hitler, diminishing Hitler or praising Hitler — in fact, there are plenty of far-right fanatics who still choose the latter.

Now they are laughing at Hitler and while we may not get the punchline, it’s about time they did.

I've yet to read the book - it'll be some time, I've got quite the backlog - but I'll tell you if it's any good then.