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| Ich bin ein naughty boy... |
I recall chortling along at the age of fifteen or so to those gadabouts with their silly walks and dead Nordic psittacines when, in a small boarding house in Minehead, Somerset, Bimmler, Ron Vibbentrop and one Mr Hilter sat planning a little hike to Bideford but are gently chided by the newcomers that the map they have is of Stalingrad. "Not much fun in Stalingrad," Mr Hilter agrees with the landlady through gritted teeth.
To my adolescent mind, it was comedy gold, the idea that 'Mein Dickie Old Chum' was billeted in a B&B whilst plotting his return to power via the North Minehead bye-elections, surrounded by typical holidaying bourgeois couples with the political nous of a wiener schnitzel.
Fast forward a mere forty five years* and along comes Timur Vermes** and his satire. Now, I don't have enough knowledge of the burgeoning (or otherwise) German satire scene to confidently place this work into context. Is there really a battery of Hitler impersonators roaming the fringes of German comedy shows? I guess I could find out but... I have to put lard on the cat's boil. Were the German book-buying public really "...stunned and then thrilled... [by the book's] fearless approach to the most taboo of subjects"? I'll take MacLehose Press' word for it. If we assume the first is correct, shouldn't the second be particularly unlikely? Like I said, I'll not question the publisher's honesty. Whatever your conclusions, what is clearly true is that given the success of the book, the writerly God-head was heavily pregnant with the idea of a novel from Hitler's point of view.
Woken from a dreamless sleep and with no recollection of the means by which his situation was precipitated Hitler finds himself not dead in his bunker, but rather in a vacant lot in Berlin, in the year 2011, in military dress and all alone. Remarkably, but key to the success of such a Harry Turtledove-esque 'what if' plot device, his appearance goes unremarked, due to the apparent fashion for Hitler impersonators. This is Hitler's foothold on the new century and he quickly carves open the market in satire by exploiting the public's staunch belief that no-one would ever really dare to truly sympathise with Hitler, and that they're laughing at him, not with him, while at every chance explaining to the reader how his excruciating mental preparation and training help him to keep the public eating out of his hands.
In many ways, it's a fairly broad satire of somewhat tired archetypes - the stat-obsessed media exec, the honest news agent, the chameleonic politician, the sweaty, repugnant modern neo-fascists; in many passages, our peculiarly avuncular protagonist expounds at sometimes extreme length any number of topics with mixed success - his theories on the most patriotic dog breeds is an entertaining idea but is unconvincingly delivered - and one reader at least shared my opinion that it just went on too long. But for all that, it did make me titter; I was gently amused in several places by what should really have been a very silly and unlikely novel. So for this reason if for none other*** Vermes' should be applauded for his efforts, and his efforts should be recognised by a broad readership. Do pick up a copy. Schnell!
To my adolescent mind, it was comedy gold, the idea that 'Mein Dickie Old Chum' was billeted in a B&B whilst plotting his return to power via the North Minehead bye-elections, surrounded by typical holidaying bourgeois couples with the political nous of a wiener schnitzel.
Fast forward a mere forty five years* and along comes Timur Vermes** and his satire. Now, I don't have enough knowledge of the burgeoning (or otherwise) German satire scene to confidently place this work into context. Is there really a battery of Hitler impersonators roaming the fringes of German comedy shows? I guess I could find out but... I have to put lard on the cat's boil. Were the German book-buying public really "...stunned and then thrilled... [by the book's] fearless approach to the most taboo of subjects"? I'll take MacLehose Press' word for it. If we assume the first is correct, shouldn't the second be particularly unlikely? Like I said, I'll not question the publisher's honesty. Whatever your conclusions, what is clearly true is that given the success of the book, the writerly God-head was heavily pregnant with the idea of a novel from Hitler's point of view.
Woken from a dreamless sleep and with no recollection of the means by which his situation was precipitated Hitler finds himself not dead in his bunker, but rather in a vacant lot in Berlin, in the year 2011, in military dress and all alone. Remarkably, but key to the success of such a Harry Turtledove-esque 'what if' plot device, his appearance goes unremarked, due to the apparent fashion for Hitler impersonators. This is Hitler's foothold on the new century and he quickly carves open the market in satire by exploiting the public's staunch belief that no-one would ever really dare to truly sympathise with Hitler, and that they're laughing at him, not with him, while at every chance explaining to the reader how his excruciating mental preparation and training help him to keep the public eating out of his hands.
In many ways, it's a fairly broad satire of somewhat tired archetypes - the stat-obsessed media exec, the honest news agent, the chameleonic politician, the sweaty, repugnant modern neo-fascists; in many passages, our peculiarly avuncular protagonist expounds at sometimes extreme length any number of topics with mixed success - his theories on the most patriotic dog breeds is an entertaining idea but is unconvincingly delivered - and one reader at least shared my opinion that it just went on too long. But for all that, it did make me titter; I was gently amused in several places by what should really have been a very silly and unlikely novel. So for this reason if for none other*** Vermes' should be applauded for his efforts, and his efforts should be recognised by a broad readership. Do pick up a copy. Schnell!
**Vermes would have been approximately two when episode 12 of season one of Monty Python's Flying Circus was first aired in the UK. It makes you wonder what took him so long to catch on.
***Of course there is the permanent underlying reason that references to Godwin's Law and Hitler in general make my [now ex-, ed] wife crazy.
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