Nazis in Space: Iron Sky at Berlinale

In Iron Sky, the most hyped movie at the Berlin International Film Festival, Nazis who hid out on the Moon after 1945 are still bent on world conquest. David D’Arcy saw the film and survived the mobbed screening to tell us about it.

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So you thought that the Nazis who got away in 1945 fled to Argentina, or just to friendly neighborhoods in Germany and Austria. Think again. In Iron Sky, a hit in Berlin that went beyond the cinephiles to the public, Nazi leaders and their troops are alive, and well, and in uniform, on the moon – the dark side of the moon, that is, where no less than Udo Kier is Fuhrer.

Two American astronauts land on the moon as part of a mission – the first one is shot – the second, James Washington, played by Christopher Kirby, is captured. This astronaut happens to be Black, which the Nazis aren’t happy about.

This all happens in 2018, when Sarah Palin is president, and the film views this as not such a bad time to be a Nazi in America. So in comes the Master Race – from outer space – and we have the makings of a new world conquest.

I won’t give the end away, but lots of space ships are blown up, and even a film with humor this dark can’t end with Nazis conquering Earth – it wouldn’t get a penny of European Union money which helps get films like this made.

Expect to see Iron Sky on the Midnight Movie programs of film festivals – how could they pass the chance to show Nazis in space. And with Stephanie Paul as a credibly nasty Sarah Palin, complete with elliptical machine in the White House, Iron Sky has to get a US release eventually.

Keep your eyes out for Julia Dietze, an Aryan blonde fluent in German and English, as a Nazi operative who has a change of heart.  My favorite is Christopher Kirby, a black astronaut whose fate is to be turned white by a mad Nazi scientist. Imagine the scene in New York when he’s homeless and white and trying to convince a detective that he’s Black, and that a Nazi  space ship has just landed.

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