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'Funny Fuhrer' Finally Hits Berlin

'The Producers' inspires uneasy laughs with its German debut

By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff

Posted May 19, 2009 7:26 AM CDT

(Newser) – The Producers has goose-stepped its way onto a German stage 76 years after the springtime when Hitler took power, the New York Times reports. There were plenty of laughs—if sometimes uneasy ones—on opening night Sunday, but the Nazi-mocking musical and its swastika-laden ads prompted a fresh round of soul-searching in the press over Germany's past.

"Should one be allowed to laugh about Hitler?” one Berlin paper wondered several days after the opening. “People in Tel Aviv laughed,” noted another. The producers of The Producers, faced with slow ticket sales amid a glum German economy, have promoted the show as a musical for people who don't like musicals and as a test of German tolerance for jokes about its Nazi past.

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Actor Martin Sommerlatte plays Adolf Hitler during a dress rehearsal of the musical 'The Producers' on Thursday May 14, 2009. (AP Photo/Maja Hitij)

Actor Leo Bloom, center, is dressed up as a Nazi SS officer during a dress rehearsal of the musical 'The Producers' on Thursday May 14, 2009. (AP Photo/Herbert Knosowski)

Actor Martin Sommerlatte plays Adolf Hitler in the musical 'The Producers' during a dress rehearsal on Thursday May 14, 2009. (AP Photo/Herbert Knosowski)

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John Barrowman signs "Springtime for Hitler" in the 2005 movie version of "The Producers." (satyran)

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It’s great that people in the United States can laugh about everything, and we should be able to do the same. So much time has passed now. - Ferdinand Delcker, a 30-year-old German novelist

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'Funny Fuhrer' Finally Hits Berlin