Read Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler’s Germany for Free Online

Nazi
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    Similar in thrust, although somewhat more original, was another popular quip:
    A cook is trying to make fried potatoes without lard and begins waving a swastika banner over the oven. When asked why, she answers: “Under this flag, a lot of lard-asses seem to have come out pretty well.”
    One Nazi bigwig who was especially crass about taking what he wanted was Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. In 1939, after the annexation of Austria, von Ribbentrop took a fancy to the idyllic Fuschl Castle and simply dispossessed its owner, Gustav Edler von Remiz.This forced entry into the landed nobility earned him the nickname “von Ribbensnob.”
    The crude behavior of Ribbentrop and other fascist officials upset the German populace far more than the brutal Nazi pogroms. Popular doubts about the party were expressed in a political joke that turned on two meanings of the German word
wählen:
“to dial a telephone number” and “to vote for someone”:
    The telephone rings, and a man says: “Hello, can I speak to Müller?” “Who?” “Müller. Is Müller there?” “No, my name is Schmidt.” “Oh, I’m sorry, I must have dialed the wrong person.” “No big deal, we all did that in the last election.”
    Hitler himself had not been directly elected, but as the leader of the party that came out best in the general elections he had been charged by President Paul von Hindenburg with forming a coalition to take over state power. Nonetheless, in the early days of the Third Reich, there was no significant anti-Hitler opposition. On the contrary, historical contemporaries consistently remember the time prior to World War II as the “good years” of Nazism, the period in which unemployment declined and Germans began to feel confident again after a decade of deep insecurity and depression. Such an attitude may appear cynical now, considering that along with the economic upswing came an increasing number of government strictures, the rapid dismantling of civil rights, and violent suppression of the opposition. Nevertheless, an extraordinary number of people felt that that things had changed for the better.
    The noticeable improvement in the economy and the youthful optimism the Nazis spread obscured the dark side of the regime. In addition, Hitler knew how to portray his own ruthless grasp for power, which extended to the most insignificant office, as a “national uprising.” There was virtually no public resistance to the bright future that was constantly being trumpeted by the Ministry of Propaganda. The ideological techniques Joseph Goebbels used to blind the German populace were effective. It took Mussolini seven years to amass the sort of power in Italy that the Nazis were able to grab in Germany in mere months. The remaining parliamentary structures quickly collapsed, in part because they lacked popular support to begin with. People on the street suppressed any unease they might have felt at Hitler’s rapid and brutal seizure of power and told themselves it was no use going against the tide. Individual Germans repressed concerns about, or simply ignored, the terrible consequences awaiting many oftheir fellow citizens. They were more concerned with establishing their own place in the new Aryan racial community.
    Tellingly, in the months after Hitler came to power, the ranks of the Nazi party swelled. People from across the political spectrum ended traditional allegiances and joined the NSDAP, and conversions from Communism were particularly frequent. Both Hitler himself and the populace took bemused note of the numbers of so-called March violets, latecomers to the Nazi party. One popular joke ran:
    [Nazi Labor Minister] Ley visits a factory and, after taking a tour, he asks the director about political views among his work force. “Do you still have any Social Democrats?” “Yes, around 80 percent.” “What about Centrists?” “Sure, around 20 percent.” “But that means you don’t have any National