Trolling Hitler

[Silverblade]

I found this video today that was made in 1939 by the British government specifically to troll Hitler.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYdmk3GP3iM

In 1939 there was this popular music hall song called The Lambeth Walk and Hitler and the Nazis hated it (not quite sure why, something to do with the Jews). So Charles Ridley from the British Ministry of Information took some footage the movie Hitler made, Triumph of the Will spliced in The Lambeth Walk to play alongside of it to piss off the Nazis. Apparently it worked too. When Joseph Goebbels was shown the video he was so angry he started screaming with rage and ran from the room.

Just wanted to post this because I think its awesome that the spirit of /b/ has been around way before the internet and 4chan, and that years ago the British Government used it to make the Nazis lose their shit.

 

[Erttheking]

Huh. So that's where people were inspired to make youtube poops from.

Also, that video was oddly soothing to watch.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

On the subject of trolling dictators, Stalin is said to have been confused by this popular graffiti the Americans kept spraying all over Europe:

To the point of raising his suspicions and asking his aides about this mysterious Killroy.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

This is even better trolling than the cartoon shorts Warner Bros. and Disney made back during the war. And that's saying something when Hitler himself flies a bomber to Moscow while fending of gremlins from the Kremlin and Donald Duck has to heil pictures of Der Fuhrer so much on an assembly line he resorts to heiling with his tail (in other words, Donald Duck mooned Hitler) to keep from dropping shells.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, there's lots of those sorts of things around, some a lot cruder than others. Multilingual posters about Hitler and Mussolini having sex, for example.

Lord Haw-Haw and Tokyo Rose could be considered this sort of thing, I guess. Not sure why anyone would listen to them, though...and Haw-Haw really got it wrong with the Desert Rats.

 

[Silverblade]

Huh. So that's where people were inspired to make youtube poops from.

Also, that video was oddly soothing to watch.

Me to. I think it has to do with the idea of making something one normally finds scary into something funny. Its like fighting a Boggart, taking away a thing's power to terrify by mocking it and making it look ridiculous.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Oh the English. You loved making fun of Napoleon back in the day and with the magic of film you could make Hitler look even more ridiculous.

Steady on.

 

[Bestival]

This is slightly topical, so I will shamelessly take advantage of it to post some Armstrong & Miller:



Also check out their RAF stuff. Freakin' amazing.