Der Fuehrer's Face
Anti-Nazi propaganda short featuring Donald Duck in a nightmare.
Der Fuehrer's Face—first called *Donald Duck in Nutziland* or *A Nightmare in Nutziland*—is an American animated short film from Walt Disney Productions. It was made in 1942 and came out on January 1, 1943, through RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon shows Donald Duck stuck in a nightmare where he works in a factory inside Nazi Germany. It was created to help sell war bonds and stands as a piece of American propaganda from World War II. Jack Kinney directed it, and Joe Grant and Dick Huemer wrote it. Before the film hit theaters, Spike Jones and his band put out a version of Oliver Wallace’s theme song.
The short is often counted among the best animated films of the 1900s. It won the Oscar for Best Animated Short at the 15th Academy Awards, making it the only Donald Duck cartoon ever to take that prize (though eight other Disney shorts were nominated). In 1994, animation professionals ranked it number 22 on their list of “the 50 Greatest Cartoons.” Still, because it’s propaganda and shows Donald as a Nazi (even a reluctant one), Disney kept it out of general release after its first run. The film didn’t get a home video release until 2004, when it appeared in the third wave of the Walt Disney Treasures DVD sets.
**Plot**
An oom-pah band made up of Axis leaders—Hideki Tojo on sousaphone, Hermann Göring on piccolo, Joseph Goebbels on trombone, Benito Mussolini on bass drum, and Heinrich Himmler on snare drum—marches through a caricatured German town, singing about Nazi doctrine. The town is full of swastika shapes: trees, windmill blades, fences, telephone poles, and even clouds. The houses look like Adolf Hitler’s face.
Donald Duck, apparently a German citizen here, is woken by his alarm clock (which wears a pickelhaube) at 4 a.m. He smashes it with his fist. His cuckoo clock then chimes with a Hitler-like bird, and Donald throws a shoe at it. Outside, a rooster gives the Nazi salute and crows “Heil Hitler.” The band members pass by Donald’s house and poke him out of bed with a bayonet. He faces and salutes portraits of Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini, then tries to go back to sleep, but someone splashes him with water and yells angrily in German.
Donald makes breakfast. Because of wartime rationing, it’s a stale, wood-hard loaf (cut with a saw), coffee brewed from a single hoarded bean, and a bacon-and-egg-flavored breath spray. The band shoves a copy of *Me
- Release date
- January 1, 1943
- Director
- Jack Kinney
- Writers
- Joe Grant, Dick Huemer
- Production company
- Walt Disney Productions
- Distributor
- RKO Radio Pictures
- Award
- Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film (15th Academy Awards)
- Voice cast
- Clarence Nash as Donald Duck, Cliff Edwards as Nazi lead singer, Charles Judels as Off-stage Nazi
Quick Facts
- Director
- Jack Kinney
- Producer
- Walt Disney
- Story
- Joe Grant · Dick Huemer
- Starring
- Clarence Nash · Cliff Edwards · Charles Judels
- Music
- Oliver Wallace
- Animator
- Bob Carlson · Les Clark · Bill Justice · Milt Neil · Charles Nichols · John Sibley
- Layout Artist
- Don DaGradi · Andy Engman
- Studio
- Walt Disney Productions
- Distributor
- RKO Radio Pictures
- Released
- 1943 · 01 · 01reason=Vanity press · date=January 2026
- Color Process
- Technicolor
- Runtime
- 8 minutes
Facts from the source article.
Lore & Background
The short opens with an oom-pah band of Axis leaders—Hideki Tojo, Hermann Göring, Joseph Goebbels, Benito Mussolini, and Heinrich Himmler—marching through a caricatured German town where trees, clouds, and houses are shaped like swastikas or Hitler's face. Donald Duck, as a German citizen, is awoken at 4 a.m., forced to salute portraits of Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini, and given a meager breakfast of stale bread, single-bean coffee, and bacon-and-egg breath spray. He is then marched to a factory where he works 48-hour shifts screwing caps onto artillery shells while saluting portraits of Der Fuehrer, with the pace intensifying until he suffers a nervous breakdown with hallucinations.
Reader's Guide
Der Fuehrer's Face is significant as a piece of wartime propaganda that used a beloved character to mock Nazi ideology and encourage support for the war effort, particularly through war bond sales. Its Oscar win and ranking as Number 22 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons in 1994 reflect its lasting impact on animation, though its propagandistic nature led Disney to keep it out of general circulation for decades. The film's depiction of rationing and forced labor resonated with American audiences on total war footing, while its censorship in Russia in 2010 (later reversed) shows how its content remains controversial. The short's theme song, released by Spike Jones before the film, became a popular hit, and the cartoon's home release in 2004 on Walt Disney Treasures made it accessible again.
Did You Know?
- Der Fuehrer's Face is the only Donald Duck film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
- The short was originally titled Donald Duck in Nutziland or A Nightmare in Nutziland.
- Spike Jones released a version of the theme song before the film was released, which peaked at No. 3 on the U.S. chart.
- In 2010, a Russian court in Kamchatka ruled the film extremist, but the ruling was reversed in 2016.
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