Timur Vermes

Jamie Bulloch

Berlin, Summer 2011. Adolf Hitler wakes up on a patch of open ground, alive and well. Things have changed - no Eva Braun, no Nazi party, no war. Hitler barely recognises his beloved Fatherland, filled with immigrants and run by a woman. People certainly recognise him, albeit as a flawless impersonator who refuses to break character. The unthinkable, the inevitable happens, and the ranting Hitler goes viral, becomes a YouTube star, gets his own T.V. show, and people begin to listen. But the Führer has another programme with even greater ambition - to set the country he finds a shambles back to rights. Look Who's Back stunned and then thrilled 1.5 million German readers with its fearless approach to the most taboo of subjects. Naive yet insightful, repellent yet strangely sympathetic, the revived Hitler unquestionably has a spring in his step.

Look Who's Back

Pratik M

Imagine if Hitler instead of being long dead unexpectedly wakes up in Berlin in 2011, what would he make of the world today and more importantly, how would he be received? Vermes' fictional satire often bordering on dark comedy is written from the first-person narrative of 'Herr Hitler', as he asks to called by people around him. It's uncanny how timely the book is considering the inexplicable rise of Trump in America and the similar sentiments he espouses unabashedly to gain popular support among the right-wing. People often consider extremist views as an edgy art form and seem to revel but does it mask a underlying agreement with the sentiments expressed? Although Vermes' Hitler is never taken seriously as political opinion, you can see the mental gymnastics his acquaintances perform while laughing with him as he maintains a poker face. Also, news that Mein Kamf has been republished in Germany and sold out within a day doesn't exactly inspire confidence that we're past bigotry yet (or are people simply trying to understand it better?) 

PS. I loved the book cover. Excellent design indeed.

Robert Lynch conducted a study that analyzed if when we laugh, we reveal what's inside us by exposing participants to very edgy stand-up routines from comedian Bill Burr. So are you laughing at seemingly racist or sexist jokes because you secretly agree? If not, what's makes us laugh? Food for thought, eh?

Also, as in any time travel tale (I'm a sucker for those), there are plenty of hilarious moments when Herr Hitler tries to wrap his head around things that have changed ("Herr Starbuck seems to have coffee houses everywhere").

hileahrious

Meh, bit of the same over and over, you get the point about 20 pages in. Skipped to the middle then the end and realized I didn’t miss out on much.

This is a satire of the adventure of Adolf Hitler waking up after 66-year in Berlin, trying to navigate modern society while accidentally ending up as a "comedian imitating Hitler" (while he actually IS Hitler). Being European and quite familiar with German culture and history, it is somewhat controversial to laugh at Hitler, and sometimes it almost feels like a guilty pleasure to read. At the same time, the book does show somewhat the naivety of modern society. 

Stefan Pettersson

Elda Mengisto

"'My good man, I should like to thank you. It is for people like you that I will continue my struggle. For I know that form this leaf-blasting apparatus, indeed from every leaf-blasting apparatus in the Reich, blows the red-hot breath of National Socialism.'
That is the fanatical will this country requires. And I hoped that I had aroused it in Sensenbrink too." (83)

Such interactions are the benchmark of the divide between Hitler's ambition and the befuddlement of the German people in this satirical novel, "Look Who's Back". In it, Hitler wakes up in modern day (at the time of writing, 2011) Berlin, facing a completely different world than the one he faced in 1945. There, he meets up with a newspaper vendor, and lives with him for a while. Little did he know that he would be recognized for his method acting and social commentary, and then goes big on German television, then in the media at large. All the while he muses in the first person on what Germany should become, often veering into political incorrectness.

The premise, along with the first several pages of the novel, piqued my interest. One of the more interesting things was how in the sixty years after World War II, Turkish workers moved to Germany as their "guest-workers". Hitler slowly realizing what was going on adds the clash of past and present. While it doesn't necessarily lead to anything outright until Hitler's first show, when he considers them uncultured in the name of human achievement, I thought it would've led towards something more serious politically, but we never thoroughly get to do that.

However, one of the most amusing scenes I've encountered was when Hitler got to stay at a hotel while recovering, in which Frau Kromeier "introduced me to one of the most extraordinary achievements in the history of human civilization: the computer" (94) His interest in the new technology really got to me, which later comes into use when Hitler and co decide to create a website. Even more so was when he started watching television and laments on what had become of this newfangled technology.

What gets me lost with the book was what Vermes tries to convey. Considering how the German audience raves about this Hitler-like character who frequently has to remind himself he's "Hitler, Adolf!", I don't see the consequences of what his actions take. I assumed that it indicated that Germany seems to have realized the error of their ways on Nazi Germany, or they wanted some form of change within their system, hence they flocked to his rants. A highlight was his interview with the Green Party MP, which could've been expanded further.

It is not until the end in which things become somewhat clearer, as Frau Kromeier shows a photograph of her family, and then confronts his ideals:
"I can't go on working for you; I can't do it to my nana. It'd be the death of her. But why can't you just say, 'I'm sorry about your grandmother's family, it was horrid what went on back then, sheer lunacy?' Just like any normal person would do? Or that you're trying to make people finally understand what bastards they all were? With me, with all of us here, trying to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again." (243)

I think this is an important part of the last section of the book, yet Vermes doesn't go into depth on the consequences after this revelation. The slogan "It wasn't all bad" gives a hint of what this comedy could mean; if I were to expand the scope of the novel, I would focus on the far-right actually taking this seriously and fulfilling the newly-resurrected Hitler's command. It would be an especially pertinent sequel when populism is on the rise, and how Hitler has to confront his audiences' fears and opinions.

Look Who's Back has a good premise towards it--and a mirror in which one could reflect on how some nations are able to handle their pasts. As Germany has done a lot of things to rectify for its Nazi past, this type of novel can be written, whereas in the United States it would be difficult because of its relative indifference to how it was built. While i appreciated how Vermes highlights things through Hitler's POV, there were times I got lost on the narrative and didn't fully appreciate the joke. Hopefully watching the movie would make more sense of it, and then I could re-read it. (6/10)

Jan Jackson

A difficult read. On so many levels. For those people who think this is a book trying to rewrite Hitler for the new age, and trying to make light of the awful things that were done by him and his servants - including the Volk - you’ve missed the point. This is a commentary on us, and our world. On the modern need for a spark of recognition, and the wholesale debasement of our morality in search of celebrity. It takes a character from history, and uses him as a mirror.

This book does NOT set out to rework history - there is so much stress in the fact that the people around him can not understand he’s the same man, but rather a character actor. To be exploited. 

This book IS NOT riotously funny. It has its moments of humour. But it’s a serious - sideways - commentary on what we are (and all of us ARE the media, aren’t we?).

Liam Byrne 

‘Look Who’s Back’ is somewhat of a thought experiment – what would happen if Hitler came back to life in 2011, a Hitler that still maintained all his Hitler-y notions of the German Volk, Lebensraum and massacring millions of people who didn’t fit his ideal of the Aryan race. The answer? He’d become a successful media star who commanded millions of views both on television and on the internet. What this suggests about modern society, the cult of celebrity and the value of shock is concerning in its all too scarily accurate representation by Timur Vermes.

Before exploring the social and moral message of the narrative, it is worth mentioning that the book is genuinely funny. Your mileage may vary depending on whether you feel a book involving Hitler as the main protagonist should allow to exist at all, not least in the realms of comedic fiction. Naturally, this is not something that necessarily perturbs me, especially as his role is to shine a light on wider issues about celebrity and the media rather than to champion anything he was involved in within real life. However, if that is not something that concerns you, the confusions caused by a near-seventy year hiatus from the world are legitimately funny and for the most part, Hitler is often played as somewhat of an idiot; it is the media at large who are what gives him power beyond that which his old fashioned world view deserve.

The nature of this book also makes me wonder as to whether my views would be altered if I was German, rather than English. Some of the political and social references probably passed me by, but the narrative also gave a feeling that an underlying racial tension stills exists in Germany, as it does in many a country. Hitler’s rise to prominence in the novel is a combination of being perceived to having a nationalist view that speaks to some, as well as being edgy enough to get traction in a world of soundbites and streaming video.

Without wanting to spoil the ending, there is a moment as the novel draws to its conclusion that spoke volumes about the world of politics in the world of modern media. One incident that occurs to Hitler is suddenly claimed as being representative of every ideas promoted by each individual political party, no matter the ideals that Hitler meant to embody. That popularity triumphed moral values feels all too on the nose today and is all too indicative of a broken system.

‘Look Who’s Back’ is a thought provoking read if nothing else, whilst those who can get past the perhaps questionable choice of topic should also find a genuinely funny book that is also worrying in how very little of this seems out of the ordinary or impossible. Well, apart from Hitler coming back from the dead…I’m pretty sure that won’t happen.

Look Who's Back

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