In order to understand his speech, read about the plot of the movie and how he wound up sitting on the dais.
Below was written by Stephen Gutowski
Apparently Chaplin plays both Hitler and a Jewish barber who happens to look exactly like Hitler. Long story short… near the end Hitler is mistaken for the barber and arrested and the barber is mistaken for Hitler and taken to give an important speech.
The speech, of course, is a blatantly anti-nazi, anti-racism, and pro-freedom. All of which took an incredible boldness in 1940s America given that we were still technically at peace with the Nazis. In fact, while it was in production England declared it would ban the film as a part of their appeasement strategy… their opinion understandably changed after they went to war against the Nazis. This was just plain ballsy.
Why have I never heard of this before? You’d think during my years of education and the hundreds of hours I’ve spent watching documentaries about World War II on the History Channel I would have come across this act of bravery by a world renowned comedian before. Weird.
Either way this gives me a new found respect for Charlie Chaplin.
Posted by Stephen Gutowski
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