I just watched the satirical movie “Er ist wieder da” on Netflix. Hitler is magically transported to the year 2014 and tries to adapt. People meet him and assume he is a comedian just staying in-character. He becomes a television comedian while, on his spare time, coming to grips with the 21st century and what has become of nazi Germany (for example, he talks with the leader of the NPD, the nationalist party). The movie is something like a semi-mockumentary, where the main plot is scripted but lots of the random encounters with people out on town are authentic (and both funny and sometimes rather disturbing).

The whole movie reminded me of a sketch that the comedy group Grotesco did, where all Hitler’s pals are planning his bachelor’s party, which ends up with them placing an ad in the newspaper about a cockatoo for sale with Hitler’s phone number. Hitler becomes enraged by all the ringing while trying to plan for a battle, but is beamed up to a star trek-like ship, where they send him to a stand-up stage in 21st century Sweden. The sketch then follows the same theme as the movie, but with everything being scripted, and Hitler ends up being the host for Melodifestivalen, the Swedish qualifiers for the Eurovision Song Contest. Someone put up the entire episode, which contains more exquisitely crafted sketch comedy, on Youtube.

Interestingly, the second season of Grotesco, which features the Hitler episode, was sent in 2010, two years before the novel that the movie is based on was released. And while I assume it is rather popular to make comedy based on a contemporary Hitler, there are so many similarities, but I haven’t been able to find any data that suggests that either party was influenced by another. It could just be like The Walking Dead and 28 days later, which starts out almost identically - also turning out to be a coincidence.