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“Springtime for Hitler”

"Springtime for Hitler" is the fake musical at the heart of Mel Brook's movie and later musical "The Producers." It is supposed to be a play that is so poorly written and in such poor taste that it is sure to be a flop. Thus allowing the producers of the title to profit from over-selling shares in the production to investors. However, the audience takes the musical to be a joke and it turns into a big hit, dooming the producers.

"Springtime for Hitler" is also the song that opens the fake musical.  It's lyrics famously include the lines, "And now it's.../Springtime for Hitler and Germany/Deutschland is happy and gay!/We're marching to a faster pace/Look out, here comes the master race!"

How It's Used

“Inglourious Basterds is part 'Dirty Dozen,' part Sergio Leone, part Leon Uris—but not much 'Night and Fog' or 'Shoah,' and certainly not much 'Schindler’s List. ([Steven] Spielberg is too nice a Jewish boy to have a U.S. soldier tell a Gestapo officer, before shooting him, 'Say auf Wiedersehen to your Nazi balls!') The film also contains suggestions—intentional or not—of 'Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS' and 'Springtime for Hitler.'"

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