Spoof Hitler rants to be removed by YouTube

Adolf Hitler, for years a vessel of frustration in a popular internet video, was silenced by YouTube.

'Downfall', a German film released in 2004 about Hitler's last days, was adapted for wildly popular YouTube parodies that spanned mock rants about topics including the standard of service from an Irish broadband provider, Kerry's defeat of Dublin in the All-Ireland Senior Football semi-final and even the workings of Nama.

Every spoof is from the same scene in the film: A furious, defeated Hitler, played by Bruno Ganz, unleashes an impassioned, angry speech to his remaining staff, huddled with him in his underground bunker.

The scene takes on widely different meaning when paired with English subtitles about, say, getting banned from X-Box Live.

Any subject could be - and was - substituted, made even funnier by the scene's intense melodrama, artful staging and timely cutaways.

On Tuesday, the clips on YouTube, many of which had been watched by millions, began disappearing from the site. Constantin Films, the company that owns the rights to the film, asked for them to be removed, and YouTube complied.

Martin Moszkowicz, head of film and TV at Constantin films in Munich, said the company was fighting copyright infringement for years. Jewish organisations also complained about the tastefulness of the clips, he said.

"When does parody stop? It is a very complicated issue," Mr Moszkowicz said. "So we are taking a simple approach: Take them all down. We've been doing it for years now. The important thing is to protect our copyright. We are very proud of the film."

Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said the league was "delighted".

"We find them offensive," said Mr Foxman of the videos. "We feel that they trivialise not only the Holocaust but the Second World War. Hitler is not a cartoon character."

Mr Moszkowicz disputed the idea that all the attention to 'Downfall', which grossed $5.5m (€4.1m)at the US box office and was nominated for a best foreign language film Oscar, helped the film.

"We have not been able to see any increase in DVD sales," he said. "There is no correlation between internet parodies and sales of a movie, at least not that I am aware of."

Mr Moszkowicz said he did not know why the videos were only recently taken down and suggested that it could have been "something on the YouTube end".

Many Hitler clips were still online, however, and new parodies were popping up featuring Hitler ranting about his removal from YouTube.