Weird movies about Adolf Hitler

Forgotten films about the Fuhrer are now revealed again!

Greetings Gold and Silver Level Templar Knights. Back in the 1940s, during World War Two, some very odd films about Adolf Hitler were made. They’ve now been largely forgotten. Until I decided to root them out of the movie archive.

When you think about movies that portray Adolf Hitler - the ones that spring to mind are the 2004 German classic Downfall and Charlie Chaplin's mocking satire, The Great Dictator, made in 1940. But during World War Two, there were some very unusual movies about the Nazi leader of the Third Reich. For example, the long forgotten Universal studios film The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler, made in 1943. Read on to discover some other gems!

The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler - movie made in 1943

Out of a cast of 26 principal actors in The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler, 19 were people who had been persecuted by the Nazis or had family members languishing under the Third Reich. The actor playing the dictator was Ludwig Donath (1900-1967) who, like Hitler, had been born in the Austrian capital, Vienna. He had stayed in his home country until the annexation by Germany in 1938, referred to as the "Anschluss". Being Jewish, he decided to leave as conditions worsened. American newspapers reported that he had been under a Gestapo death sentence because of his outspoken anti-Nazi views.

Donath spent the summer of 1943 filming as Hitler and turned heads in Hollywood as he strode around in his Fuhrer's costume - both off set and on set, keen to live and breathe the role. When he strutted into the Universal studios restaurant in full Hitler mode, even sporting the infamous toothbrush moustache, the staff hissed at him. Donath regarded this as a personal triumph - he was being taken for the much hated enemy leader. Remember that many American families had relatives fighting in Europe at the time against the Nazis.

The director of the movie was James Hogan (1890-1943), who died months after it was released - having just finished his last film, a horror flick, The Mad Ghoul. In his movie about Hitler, actor Ludwig Donath plays a hapless Austrian who is called in for questioning by the Gestapo, after imitating the Fuhrer for laughs. Instead of punishing him, the Gestapo decide to use him as a doppelganger. Made up to look like Hitler, Donath stares madly into a mirror after the bandages are removed from his face following some kind of grisly plastic surgery. One of the Gestapo officers notes: "You can't tell them apart".

The slightly predictable twist is that Donath then decides to supplant Hitler as part of an anti-Nazi plot. You can download the movie on YouTube so I won't ruin the final denouement. This movie was fairly tame by comparison to the next one, which verged in one scene on the kinky.

Hitler's Children - 1942 movie with a whipping scene

People were whipped in Nazi labour camps but the scene in this movie where the young female protagonist is given severe corporal punishment might not pass muster today. Exploitative? Hmmm....yes. And the fact that a whip-wielding Nazi features on the movie poster over the face of his female victim tells you everything.

That said, Hitler's Children - released in 1942 - was based on the well-regarded book Education for Death, by Gregor Ziemer, that detailed the barbaric practices and indoctrination within the Hitler Youth. Before RKO made Hitler's Children, Walt Disney released an animated short derived from the same book. For RKO, Hitler's Children was a very profitable godsend during the war years - yet despite its box office success, it's entirely forgotten today.

The lead actor, Tim Holt (1919-1973), completed the role of a disillusioned young Nazi, in love with a German-born American girl, before joining the US air force and heading off to fight the Third Reich for real. There was no time to even view a rough cut of the movie before he turned up at the Santa Ana Army Air Base, ready for duty.

Hitler Dead or Alive - 1942 comedy

During the Second World War, the subject of Adolf Hitler was often a subject for comedy. The absurd posturing, shrill voice, and manic mannerisms were perfect material for satire. This was before the full horror of the concentration camps had been revealed and the scale of wartime slaughter became clear. To keep up morale, as America committed to fighting the Third Reich, Hollywood poked fun at Hitler. The aim was to puncture his pomposity. But the resulting output was sometimes questionable - or just dreadful.

In the movie Hitler Dead or Alive - an American businessman hires three convicts from Alcatraz prison to kidnap Hitler. They get hold of the Fuhrer and give him a thorough shave - taking off his distinctive moustache. When the SS arrive, they think Hitler is one of the American spies/ex-convicts and shoot him in a firing squad. Sadly, everybody else dies too. This has been described as one of the crassest movies made about Hitler during the wartime period and it's hard to argue otherwise. An image below of Hitler getting an unwanted shave. Read on below for more weird movies!

The Devil with Hitler - an attempted takeover of hell

This 1942 movie is so bafflingly bad, it's hard to know how it ever got made. Produced by the legendary comedy producer Hal Roach, it involves a plan by hell's board of directors to replace Satan, as the top executive down below, with Hitler. Keen to save his job, Satan asks to be given one more chance. He will find a way to make Hitler perform one good deed - thereby invalidating him from becoming CEO of hell.

What follows is a lot of slapstick involving Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese emperor Hirohito. Think Three Stooges and you'll get the picture. At the end of which, Hitler ends up down below where the devils cart him away - poking at him with tridents - while one of them turns to the camera and declares: "That's only the beginning folks...only the beginning." An eternity of torment presumably beckons.

Hard to believe - but somehow a sequel got made the following year: That Nazty Nuisance.