Comedy History
Schtonk! is a farce of the actual events of 1983, when Germany's Stern magazine published, with great fanfare, 60 volumes of the alleged diaries of Adolf Hitler – which two weeks later turned out to be entirely fake. Fritz Knobel (based on real-life forger Konrad Kujau) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. When Knobel writes and sells a volume of Hitler's (nonexistent) diaries, he thinks it's just another job. When sleazy journalist Hermann Willié learns of the diaries, however, he quickly realizes their potential value... and Knobel is quickly in over his head. As the pressure builds and Knobel is forced to deliver more and more volumes of the fake diaries, he finds himself acting increasingly like the man whose life he is rewriting. The film is a romping and hilarious satire, poking fun not only at the events and characters involved in the hoax (who are only thinly disguised in the film), but at the discomfort Germany has with its difficult past.
Directed by
Helmut Dietl
Ulrich Mühe
Dr. Wieland
Veronica Ferres
Martha
Armin Rohde
SS Man
Martin Feifel
SS Man
Uwe Ochsenknecht
Fritz Knobel
Michael Kessler
SS Man
Willy Harlander
Bavarian Border Official
Rolf Hoppe
Karl Lentz
Götz George
Hermann Willié
Rosemarie Fendel
Karl Lentz's Wife
Christiane Hörbiger
Freya von Hepp
Hark Bohm
Priest
Harald Juhnke
Pit Kummer
Thomas Holtzmann
Cornelius
Karl Schönböck
August Strasser
Günter Junghans
East German Police Officer
Konstantin Wecker
Georg Marischka
Von Klantz
Dagmar Manzel
Biggi
Martin Benrath
Uwe Esser
Hermann Lause
Kurt Glück
Hans-Joachim Hegewald
Schuback
Peter Roggisch
Obersturmbandführer

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