Watch Lambeth Walk—Nazi Style: The Early Propaganda Mash Up That Enraged Joseph Goebbels

In a ter­rif­ic his­tor­i­cal prank that sent Nazi Pro­pa­gan­da Min­is­ter Joseph Goebbels storm­ing out of the screen­ing room, British min­is­ter Charles A. Rid­ley edit­ed togeth­er scenes from the film Tri­umph of the Will with the music from the musi­cal Me and My Girl to cre­ate a spoof that infu­ri­at­ed lead­ers of the Third Reich.

Lam­beth Walk—Nazi Style was released in 1941 to news­reel com­pa­nies. It was billed as “Schich­le­gru­ber Doing the Lam­beth Walk, Assist­ed by the Gestapo Hep Cats,” and lays the catchy tune against images of Hitler and Nazi sol­diers from Leni Riefenstahl’s sem­i­nal pro­pa­gan­da film.

The sto­ry goes that the par­o­dy enraged Goebbels to such an extent that he ran out of the screen­ing room, kick­ing at chairs and scream­ing obscen­i­ties.

“The Lam­beth Walk” tune was writ­ten for the 1937 musi­cal, about a Cock­ney boy who inher­its a for­tune and must leave behind his work­ing-class ways to become a gen­tle­man. Nazi par­ty offi­cials called the tune “Jew­ish mis­chief and ani­mal­is­tic hop­ping,” mak­ing it even fun­nier as the back­ground music for Nazi sol­diers parad­ing.

The name “Schich­le­gru­ber,” by the way, was also a dig at Hitler. It was the name of his mater­nal grand­moth­er, whose son Alois (Hitler’s father) was an ille­git­i­mate child. Oops!

via Slate

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Don­ald Duck’s Bad Nazi Dream and Four Oth­er Dis­ney Pro­pa­gan­da Car­toons from World War II

“The Duck­ta­tors”: Loony Tunes Turns Ani­ma­tion into Wartime Pro­pa­gan­da (1942)

Hitler Reacts to Take­down of Hitler Par­o­dies

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at .