| Der Fuehrer's Face | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Jack Kinney |
| Story by | Joe Grant Dick Huemer |
| Produced by | Walt Disney |
| Starring | Clarence Nash Cliff Edwards Charles Judels |
| Music by | Oliver Wallace |
| Animation by | Bob Carlson Les Clark Bill Justice Milt Neil Charles Nichols John Sibley |
| Layouts by | Don DaGradi Andy Engman[1] |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | RKO Radio Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 8 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Der Fuehrer's Face (originally titledDonald Duck in Nutziland[3] orA Nightmare in Nutziland) is an Americananimatedanti-Nazipropagandashort film produced byWalt Disney Productions, created in 1942 and released on January 1, 1943 byRKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon, which featuresDonald Duck in a nightmare setting working at a factory inNazi Germany, was made in an effort to sell war bonds and is an example ofAmerican propaganda during World War II.[4] The film was directed byJack Kinney and written byJoe Grant andDick Huemer.[5]Spike Jones released a version ofOliver Wallace'stheme for the short before the film was released.
Der Fuehrer's Face won theOscar forBest Animated Short Film at the15th Academy Awards.[6][7] It is the only Donald Duck film to receive the honor, although eight other films have also been nominated.[8] In 1994, it was voted Number 22 of "the 50 Greatest Cartoons" of all time by members of the animation field.[9] However, because of the propagandistic nature of the short and the depiction of Donald Duck as a Nazi (albeit a deeply reluctant one), Disney kept the film out of general circulation after its original release. Its first home release came in 2004 with the release of thethird wave of the Walt Disney Treasures DVD sets.
Anoom-pah band – composed of Axis leadersHideki Tojo on the sousaphone,Hermann Göring on the piccolo,Joseph Goebbels on the trombone,Benito Mussolini on the bass drum andHeinrich Himmler on the snare drum – marches while singing the virtues of theNazi doctrine. They are in a caricature of aGerman town, where the trees, windmill blades, fences, telephone poles and even clouds are all shaped likeswastikas, while the houses resembleAdolf Hitler's face.
Donald Duck, apparently a German citizen in this world, is awoken by hispickelhaube-wearing alarm clock at 4 a.m. He smashes the clock with his fist. His cuckoo clock chimes with a Hitler-esque bird, only for Donald to throw a shoe at it. The rooster outside does theNazi salute and crows "Heil Hitler". Passing by Donald's house, the band members poke him out of bed with abayonet. Donald faces and salutes the portraits of Hitler,Hirohito, and Mussolini, then tries to go back to bed, only for someone to splash him with water while yelling angrily inGerman.
Donald goes to make breakfast. Because ofwartime rationing, it consists of bread that's so stale and hard it resembles wood (and must be cut with a saw), coffee brewed from a single hoarded coffee bean, and a bacon-and-egg-flavoredbreath spray. The band shoves a copy ofMein Kampf in front of him for a moment of reading, then marches into his house and escorts him to a factory, with Donald now carrying the bass drum and Göring kicking him.
Upon arriving at the factory (at bayonet-point), Donald starts his "48 hours a day" shift of screwing caps ontoartillery shells on an assembly line. Mixed in with the shells are portraits ofDer Fuehrer, so Donald must perform the Nazi salute for each portrait, all while screwing the caps on with his other hand, much to his disgust. Each new batch of shells is of a different size, ranging from individual bullets to massive shells larger than Donald. The pace of the assembly line intensifies (as in theCharlie Chaplin comedyModern Times), and Donald finds it increasingly hard to complete all the tasks. The band's song intermittently resumes, but is now more cynical, saying that Der Fuehrer "lies and rants and raves", the citizens "work like slaves" and that they'd like to see Hitler blown up. A different German-accented voice shouts propaganda messages about the superiority of theAryan race and the glory of working for Der Fuehrer. When Donald momentarily grumbles in frustration, the guards overhear him and point their bayonets at him, forcing him to fearfully recant his complaints.
Donald has "paid vacation" which consists of forced exercise (contorting his arms into swastika shapes and quickly Nazi-saluting) in front of a painting of theAlps. This only lasts for a few seconds before the voice declares that Donald, "by special decree of Der Fuehrer", must work overtime. The work resumes at an even faster pace while the voice constantly screams orders. Donald has a nervous breakdown with hallucinations of artillery shells, including snake- and bird-shaped shells, army boot shells crushing Donald, and marching band shells that hiss the music. (Some of the animation in this sequence is recycled from the "Pink Elephants on Parade" sequence fromDumbo).
When the hallucinations are cleared, Donald wakes up in another bed (wearing stars-and-stripes patterned pajamas), only to see the shadow of a figure holding its right hand up. Believing it to be a Nazi salute, he begins to do so himself until he sees that it's actually the shadow of a miniatureStatue of Liberty on his windowsill. Donald realizes that the whole thing was a nightmare and he lives in theUnited States. He kisses and embraces the statue, saying, "Am I glad to be a citizen of the United States of America!"
The short ends with a caricature of Hitler's angry face and a tomato is thrown at it, with the splatter forming the wordsThe End.
| "Der Fuehrer's Face" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Single bySpike Jones and His City Slickers | |
| Recorded | 1942 |
| Songwriter | Oliver Wallace |
Before the film's release, the popular bandSpike Jones and His City Slickers, noted for their parodies of popular songs of the time, released a version ofOliver Wallace's theme song, "Der Fuehrer's Face" (also known informally as "The Nazi Song"), itself a parody of theHorst-Wessel-Lied, in September 1942 on theRCA VictorBluebird label.[11] Unlike the version in the cartoon, some Spike Jones versions contain thesound effect of an instrument he called the "birdaphone", a rubber razzer (also known as theBronx Cheer)[12] with each "Heil!" to show contempt for Hitler[13] (instead, the cartoon version features the sound of a tuba). The so-called "Bronx Cheer" was a well-known expression of disgust in that time period and was not deemed obscene or offensive. The sheet music cover bears the image ofDonald Duck throwing a tomato in Hitler's face. In the Jones version, the chorus line, "Ja, we is the supermen—" is answered by a soloist's "Super-duper super men!" effeminately delivered[12] suggesting the prevalence ofepicenes among Nazis; in the Disney version, these lines are delivered flatly but with effeminate gestures by Hermann Göring. The recording was very popular, peaking at No. 3 on the U.S. chart.[13][14]
Although the film portrays events in Nazi Germany, its release came while theUnited States also was ontotal war footing. Coffee, meat and food oils were beingrationed, civilians wereheavily employed in military production, andpropaganda in support of the war effort (such as the film itself) was pervasive. The film's criticism therefore emphasizes violence and terror under the Nazi government, as compared with the dull grind that all the warring nations faced.[18]
In 2010,Der Fuehrer's Face was ruled by a local court inKamchatka,Russia to be included in the national list of extremist materials, which was first created in 2002. This was due to a local who received a suspended sentence of six months for uploading it to the internet and "inciting hatred and enmity". In July 2016, another Russian court reversed the ruling of the local court, removing the short film from the list. The court highlighted that the film's portrayal of Nazism through caricature form cannot be deemed "extremist" in nature.[19]
The short was released on May 18, 2004 onWalt Disney Treasures: Walt Disney on the Front Lines.[20]
