Chaplin and Hitler

It is obviously ridiculous to compare Chaplin and Hitler, but some of the comparisons are very interesting. Here are some..

Marriage Life:

Chaplin’ s marriage life was quite a wreck. He married 17-yr old Mildred Harris at the age of 29; 16-yr old Lita Grey at the age of 35; 21-yr old Paulette Goddard at the age of 47 and 18-yr old Oona O’Neill at the age of 54.

On the other hand, Hitler’s marriage lasted only for a day. He married Eva Braun on 29th April, 1945, a day before the pair killed themselves in the bunker. Eva Braun was Hitler’s only girl friend in his entire life.

Communicating to the people:

Hitler was a charismatic orator and it was his oratory skill that served as the single most important factor to claim the power in Germany.

On the other hand, Chaplin was not a big fan of speech. He refused to include dialogues in his movies even after the technological improvement permitted talkies (talking movies). Coincidentally, his first movie to have full fledged dialogue was ‘The Great Dictator’ which was based on Hitler.

Communism:

Needless to say about Hitler’s hate for Communism, Chaplin always had a soft corner for Communism. Most of his movies happen in a rural background and most of his characters were portrayed as working class laborers. It was this communist sympathy that drove him out of USA.

Final days:

Chaplin spent his peaceful final days in a manor which lies on the Champ de Ban estate. The estate is spread across a land of 35 acres and located in Switzerland.

Hitler’s final days were devastating. He spent those days in a bunker which was approx. 10 ft below ground level and he rarely left the bunker in his last 3 months.

Death and Burial:

Hitler, before his death, ordered his men to carry his body to an isolated place and burn it down to ashes so that it did not go into the hands of invading Russians. It happened so and few of his men in the bunker were the only one who actually saw Hitler’s body.

If that was the case with Hitler, Chaplin’s body nearly became a play toy in the hands of two men. Chaplin faced a natural death while asleep and was buried in a cemetery. Few days later, two unemployed men dug up and stole his coffin in order to demand money from his wife Oona Chaplin in exchange for his coffin. The police traced the blackmailers, recovered his coffin and was buried again, this time with reinforced concrete.