Four days separated the birthdays of Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler, both occurring in April 1889. One ended up being a symbol of laughter; the other, a representation of industrialized terrorism. They both had the same mustache, but while Chaplin used it to help people relax, Hitler used it to create fear throughout whole countries.
This is what made The Great Dictator such a threatening movie to Hitler and Nazi Germany. By not using bombs or speeches against Hitler in this film, Chaplin was instead using ridicule to defeat him. Dictators usually do not succeed once a populace stops fearing them and begins to find them humorous.
Although there has never been confirmation as to whether Adolf Hitler ever saw The Great Dictator, there are unproven allegations that a pirated copy was sent to him and he viewed it twice alone. If true, the absurdity of such a view must have been incredible; here he was, the most feared person in all of Europe, silently watching Charlie Chaplin tear his entire image down with just some jokes and silly demeanour.
Almost immediately upon its release, the Nazi regime recognized the danger The Great Dictator posed and banned its distribution/Screening throughout all of occupied Europe; Charlie Chaplin was labeled an enemy of the state. Because once fear begins to fall apart, the dictators fall apart much more quickly. Terrorism is reliant upon a large public act of fear; when that fear is challenging, the act of tortured assassination ends quickly. While Chaplin could not defeat Hitler using military force, he provided critical evidence that there is an alternative means of eliminating a dictator from power.