‘Look Who’s Back’: Germans Reflect on the Success of a Satire About Hitler

Others find the humor limited, and the phenomenon more intriguing. Yascha Mounk, who wrote the 2014 book “Stranger in My Own Country,”about growing up Jewish in Germany in the 1980s and ’90s, said that the Vermes book’s success speaks to “the allure of the forbidden,” and that putting it on your shelf signals defiance at the notion that you shouldn’t laugh at the Nazis. Buying the book says, “Look at me transgressing the taboos that are meant to hold us down,” he added. In Mr. Mounk’s view, “Look Who’s Back” is lighter and funnier, but its taboo-breaking might also appeal to the same audience that made a best seller of the 2010 book “Germany Does Away With Itself,” in which Thilo Sarrazin argued that Germans were having too few children and Muslim immigrants too many, to the detriment of the country.