This Is the Line Mel Brooks Refused to Cross When Turning Nazism Into Comedy Gold

The single greatest satirist of Adolf Hitler knew that there were aspects of the Nazi movement that were never going to be fit for depiction in comedy. And, no, I’m definitely not talking about Jerry Lewis.

As both a veteran of World War II and one of the most brilliant comedic minds of all time, Mel Brooks was uniquely qualified to turn Hitler and the Third Reich into a musical-theater-themed comedy, which was a task that no one before him would even think to attempt for all the obvious reasons. The Producers, Brooks’ 1967 black comedy masterpiece about a couple of conmen who accidentally make the biggest Broadway hit of the year with their Nazi-written show “Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden,” is the most iconic piece of satire to ever make the horror and cruelty of Nazi Germany absolutely laughable, but there’s a good reason why Brooks’ prancing, effete Hitler spent his spring at his vacation home.

In a new interview with The Times, Brooks revealed that, for as much as he has reveled in spending the last 80 years turning the Nazis into a punchline, he simply refuses to make humor out of concentration camps, calling the tragedy of the Holocaust “too devastating” for comedy. 

During the talk, Brooks looked back on his own experiences during World War II, as well as those of his older brother, Lenny, who, while serving as an engineer gunner, was captured by Nazi forces — but not before he ripped off and discarded his dog tags, which bore an “H” for “Hebrew,” identifying him as a Jewish-American. “And thank God he did that, because if they’d known he was Jewish they’d have sent him to a concentration camp,” Brooks reflected, adding, “Not that any of us knew about those then.”

While Jewish-American soldiers like Lenny and Mel Brooks knew that Germany’s Nazi government was expressly and violently anti-Semitic, the full extent of the Nazi crimes against humanity wouldn’t become common knowledge until the final years of the war. “I knew there was anti-Semitism but I couldn’t conceive of a concentration camp,” said Brooks, who served as a combat engineer detecting land mines during the war. “I have no restrictions in comedy, but I never use concentration camp humor. It’s just too devastating.”

Nevertheless, with anti-Semitism once again on the rise in America and abroad today, the titan of comedy can still crack a joke about the plight of the Jewish people through the generations, commenting on the modern resurgence of hate against them, “You know, we’re attacked because we’re billionaires and we’re attacked because we’re communists. If you need a scapegoat, you can’t do better than the Jews."