Springtime for Hitler

Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Eva and Adolf at Berchtesgaden is a fictional play-within-a-play in Mel Brooks' 1968 film The Producers, the 2001 remake and its staged versions. The story's protagonists, producer Max Bialystock and his accountant Leo Bloom, embark on a fraudulent scheme to oversell stock in a theatre production, produce a failure, and keep the investment money themselves. This absolutely requires that the play must fail immediately, i.e. open and close on the same night, so, to ensure failure, the plotters set about to choose the worst play, cast and director possible.

The play they choose is the ill-conceived and abysmally tasteless Springtime for Hitler, written by a mentally unbalanced ex-Nazi. As the opening number ends, the camera cuts to the horrified expressions on the faces of the audience.

Unfortunately for the conspirators, the audience later mistakes the play for satire, it becomes a huge success, and they go to gaol for fraud.