Adolf Hitler's subtitled rants are gaining popularity online and have viewers laughing hysterically. Photo: Li Hao/GT

Furious and shaking with anger, the most evil dictator of the 20th century launches into another hilarious rant that has viewers doubled over with laughter. Adolf Hitler may have been the source of immeasurable pain and suffering during his life, but with his distinct look and peculiar mannerisms, the man is now a source of endless laughter through online parody videos. 

Recently, a series of Hitler parodies named The Unusual Life of the Fuehrer have gained popularity online. Edited carefully from the 2004 movie The Downfall, which tells of Hitler's last days alive hiding in his Berlin bunker, the parodies use subtitles to successfully turn the original film into a number of funny little stories, such as finding a girlfriend online for Hitler.

Parody makers' favorite scene taken from the movie is when Hitler has a tyrannical tantrum at his subordinates over his army's lack of progress. The comical twist to the scene is that Hitler's words have been replaced with Chinese subtitles.

For instance, video makers use the old man's anger to vent their own opinion on particularly trivial issues, such as a Japanese cartoon, or how online games charge too much money.

The Hitler parody videos are mostly found on acfun.com and bilibili.com, two Chinese video websites famous for real-time commenting. Video makers on these sites have made different versions of the scene since 2004, each with subtitles addressing new topics.

Fu Yize, 24, the author of The Unusual Life of the Fuehrer, actually became popular as early as in April 2011, when he first published the episode of Hitler parody online. Now this episode has become a "classic" and has received over 150,000 clicks and more than 16,000 real-time comments on bilibili.com.

Chinese young Net users like Fu's series so much that several famous German lines which sound similar to Chinese have even become memorable catchphrases.

However, not everyone is enamored with such parody videos. Some online viewers are worried that this kind of videos are not helpful to young people's understanding of real history.

"I think making fun of historical figures is not proper," said Zhang Yanqiu, a primary school teacher who has a son in junior high school. Zhang often tells history stories to her students, which she thinks is good for them to establish a correct view of the world and its history.

"Children that access the Internet are getting younger and younger, and most of them may have not received a correct historical education when they see the [Hitler] videos," said Zhang. "My son one day showed me the Hitler video and said 'the fuehrer was cute.' What is worse, on the real-time video websites, some people mischievously add pornographic Chinese explanations to the Germany words," added Zhang.

Qing Feng, a history scholar, told the China Youth Daily that some young Chinese extremely hate the Japanese fascists who invaded Asia, but yet fail to care about the German fascists who attempted to destroy humanity.

"This is partly because the humiliating history of China is too heavy for Chinese people," said Qing. "So they don't pay extra attention to the further history of the world."

Although questioned many times for disrespecting history, Fu does not think it is a big deal.

"I have put explanations at the beginning of each video," explains Fu. "It says the videos have no relation to real history or historical figures."

Fu also points out that funny Hitler videos were not initiated by Chinese people.

"On YouTube there are numerous videos [related to Hitler] since 2004, and some are quite well edited," said Fu. "Since I do parody videos for fun in my leisure time, it depends on my inspirations whether I will do them in the future."