Unit 7: Great Depression and World War II
War and Peace

“Der Führer's Face”

Oliver Wallace, 1942
Humorous song mocking Adolf Hitler, a poular song of World War II.

Lesson ideas

Vince Aleccia, 2004 NEH Teacher Institute

Using Spike Jones’ “Der Füerher’s Face” in the Secondary Classroom

Historical Background:

During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Adolf Hitler was the subject of numerous parodies such as Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) and several Warner Brothers’ cartoons. One of the most memorable parodies that poked fun at the German leader was a Disney-make cartoon, Donald Duck in Nutsy Land (1942). The Disney duck dreams that he is a worker in a German munitions factory and is constantly interrupted in his work by being required to salute the Nazi dictator. The animated short was clever and gave Donald Duck his first Academy Award. Disney staffer Oliver Wallace wrote the hit song from the short titled “Der Füerher’s Face, which became so popular that it caused the cartoon to be renamed. Wallace’s song also provided a big break for bandleader Spike Jones and his City Slickers.

Activities

This song can be adapted to both social studies and language arts classes at the secondary level. United States history courses can use this song as a springboard into a discussion of the rise to power of Hitler in Germany, including his ignoring the ban on making munitions and raising armies imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. Students in history courses will need some context if they have not yet studied the rise of Nazi Germany. Wallace mentions two Nazi figures that students may be unaware of: Joseph Goebbels and Hermann Goering, the heads of Nazi propaganda and the German Luftwaffe, respectively. Students may also need to know the concept of Aryan superiority and übermensch for the song to be understood. One technique that can draw secondary students in is to break them into small groups. Have each group take a stanza of the song and explain the storyline and historical allusions. Another technique might be to have students create a map of Europe to show the rise of the Third Reich and how far it extended by the time the song appeared in 1942.

In addition, “Der Füerher’s Face” can be an excellent lead-in to a discussion of the nature of parody and how propaganda devices may be used in literary works. One technique for the language arts classroom is to list common propaganda devices (ad hominen, bandwagon, testimonial, etc.) and then have students find examples of them in the song’s lyrics. Another technique that would extend this and encourage students to work at the higher-order levels of thinking is to have them compare and contrast how Hitler is parodied in Disney’s cartoon and a clip from Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Yet another technique that might be used in the language arts classroom is to have students analyze how the song uses double entendres (“Super-dooper-super men” and “dis[-]order”) to convey the sense of parody.