In Nazi Germany, telling jokes about Hitler could get you killedHitler and Gring are standing on top of the Berlin radio tower. Hitler says he wants to do something to put a smile on the Berliners' faces. Gring says, ';Why don't you jump?'When a woman told this joke in Germany in 1943, she was arrested by the Nazis and sentenced to death by guillotineit didn't matter that her husband was a good German soldier who died in battle.In this groundbreaking work of history, Rudolph Herzog takes up such stories to show how widespread humor was during the Third Reich. It's a fascinating and frightening history: from the suppression of the anti-Nazi cabaret scene of the 1930s, to jokes made at the expense of the Nazis during WWII, to the collections of ';whispered jokes' that were published in the immediate aftermath of the war.Herzog argues that jokes provide a hitherto missing chapter of WWII history. The jokes show that not all Germans were hypnotized by Nazi propaganda, and, in taking on subjects like Nazi concentration camps, they record a public acutely aware of the horrors of the regime. Thus Dead Funny is a tale of terrible silence and cowardice, but also of occasional and inspiring bravery.