and also of the American press. Chaplin later stated that: "Had I known of the actual horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, I could not have made The Great Dictator."
             The film starts in 1918 at the end of the First World War in the trenches on the franco-german front. The soldiers' helmets characterized by a spear on the top suggest that they are Germans. The main character played by Charlie Chaplin is a soldier whose role is to fire on the Cathedral of Notre Dame located in Paris with the gigantic cannon named "la Grosse Bertha". At the end of the war, many new weapons had been developed such as "la Grosse Bertha" or the use of barbed wire as an obstacle. As it is shown in the film, barbed wire was staked in the ground usually 20 yards into the area between one's own front line and the enemy's. Additionally, grenades, machine guns and planes were used to destroy the enemy. Due to these new deadly inventions, the trench warfare was the cause of many human losses during World War I.
             Afterwards the action takes place in the ghetto in the late thirties. The Storm Troopers are painting the word "Jew" on each shop window to persecute the population and to confirm that the Jews are an inferior race. Furthermore, they rob the merchants, destroy the shops and use violence and terror to intimidate. It is obvious that there is no justice in the ghetto. When the barber stands up to two Storm Troopers, he almost gets hanged on the lamppost in public. Killing a person in public was a way for the soldiers to demonstrate the consequences of a misbehaving and it would prevent any disobedience from other individual. This event also proves that anyone could get killed for any reason.
             Then the film continues with Hynkel's speech where important events are mentioned such as the built up of the military strength of Tomania (which is in reality Germany). At that time, Hitler needed to create...