Look Who's Back

Look Who's Back is a bestselling German satirical novel about Adolf Hitler by Timur Vermes, published in 2012 by . The novel was adapted into a German movie of the same name, which was released in 2015. Plot In 2011, Adolf Hitler wakes up in a vacant lot in Berlin which appears to be the location of the garden outside the bunker where he was burned, with no knowledge of anything that happened following his death in 1945. Homeless and destitute, he interprets everything he sees and experiences in 2011 from a Nazi perspective—for instance, he assumes that Turks in Germany are an indicator of Karl Dönitz having persuaded Turkey to join the Axis, and thinks that Wikipedia is named for Wikinger ("Vikings"). Although everyone recognizes him, nobody believes that he is Hitler; instead, they think he is either a comedian or a method actor. He appears on a variety television show called Whoa, dude!, going off-script to broadcast his views. Videos of his angry rants become hugely successful on YouTube, and he achieves modern celebrity status as a performer. The newspaper Bild tries to take him down, but is sued into praising him. He is beaten up by Neo-Nazis who think he is mocking the memory of Hitler, unaware that he is the genuine article. In the end, he uses his popularity to re-enter politics. Publication The book was priced at €19.33, a reference to Hitler's ascent to power in 1933. By March 2014 it had sold 1.4 million copies in Germany. The book has been translated into 41 languages. An English-language translation, Look Who's Back, translated by Jamie Bulloch, was published in April 2014 by MacLehose Press. The original audiobook version is read by comedian Christoph Maria Herbst and by May 2014 had sold over 520,000 copies. Herbst had already played the Hitler-based character of Alfons Hatler in two comedy films, Der Wixxer (2004) and (2007), which landed him the part of reading the audio version of the book written from the first-person point of view of Hitler.