While many anti-fascists offered serious and potent arguments against Hitler, comedians like Charlie Chaplin responded to the mortal threat that the Nazis posed in a different way: They used humor to highlight the absurdity and hypocrisy of both the message and its notorious messenger. read more
Published in Berlin in the 1930s, it is thought to have inspired Chaplin's classic comedy The Great Dictator, in which he both directed and starred. In the 1940 movie, Chaplin plays a Nazi-like tyrant, Adenoid Hynkel, dictator of Tomainia, clearly modelled on Hitler. The book is to be auctioned in Shropshire next month. read more
On the contrary, he was a communist (secretly) and he had to escape, because the McCarthy Anticommunist Commitee pursuited him. He escaped from America to England in the early 50s. read more
However, British intelligence rejected American claims that Chaplin was a high-risk communist, concluding that while he may have been a “sympathiser” he was no more than a “progressive or radical”. read more