L'Allemagne, l'humour, le rapport omniprésent à Hitler

Fabian Wolf de  HEEB a interviewé Daniel Erk [photo], qui est un spécialiste d'Hitler (un vrai car en Allemagne tout le monde est spécialiste d'Hitler) sur la comédie de Timur Vermes sur Hitler qui connaît un grand succès en Allemagne (et qui sera bientôt traduite en français...: Hitler, star des librairies allemandes). En tant que journaliste, Daniel Erk a beaucoup écrit sur l'utilisation des nazis et de l'Holocauste dans la culture pop avant d'écrire son premier livre sur l'omniprésence d'Hitler en Allemagne et la banalisation du mal, ou: pourquoi nous ne parvenons pas à nous débarrasser du bonhomme avec la petite moustache" (So viel Hitler war selten: Die Banalisierung des Bösen oder Warum der Mann mit dem kleinen Bart nicht totzukriegen ist).  Extraits:

How many times have you been asked whether it’s okay to make jokes about Hitler?

Virtually every time I get interviewed. When the media is preparing a program about everything from the historical anniversary of the so-called Machtergreifung to on-going Nazi problems in Germany to this book now, He’s here again, I get asked to give a statement, preferably in three sentences and under one minute. [...]

Maybe it’s my generation but I do feel there has been a rise in Nazi jokes in the last ten years.

I think it’s bigger and not as political. In the seventies they were highly political and aimed at the conservative elite who claimed that nobody knew anything. There was this strict idea behind it about what was good and what was bad. The more nonsensical stuff of the nineties opened the door for what we have to do, without any clear moral impetus. It’s like a go-to joke, like jokes about men and women. The book “He’s Here Again” is like that: Easily accessible, not elaborate, more like a cheap joke.

Okay, so the book. From what I understand it’s basically Rip Van Adolf: Hitler wakes up in 2011, without any explanation. He hasn’t aged and now walks around modern Germany.

He basically acts like someone from the Middle Ages. The humor of the book stems from the fact that Hitler is someone from a completely different time. Which is interesting because there are both perpetrators and victims that are still alive. It’s not long gone. But that’s the point the book makes: Here’s this guy that’s completely unrelated to the modern world and Germany. But I think that basic assumption is plainly wrong.  [...]

…like in that crazy-ass movie “Hitler – A Film from Germany” that Susan Sontag loved so much. Sorry, that connection just blew my mind. Anyway: So what sort of Hitler comedy would you like to see?

There are two versions – it’s either about pain and uncomfortable situations. Or you could make exactly the opposite, something that has no morals, no idea, except to make people laugh and make them feel comfortable about themselves.

So that book ultimately just wants to confirm people and their closed-off idea of history?

I think it probably started as a mediocre joke that suddenly got successful. It makes people comfortable. There’s a huge interest in history and Hitler and at the same time this reluctance to face the truth. People are obsessed with the question but don’t like the answers. So you end up with stupid answers. The book says it’s completely over, it’s far away. It has nothing to do with us. It’s over.