The Great Dictator noted Chaplin's use of Wagner's "Lohengrin" prelude when Hynckel dances with the globe-balloon. Chaplin repeated use of the "Lohengrin" prelude near the conclusion, when the exiled Hannah listens to the Jewish barber's speech celebrating democracy and freedom. The music is interrupted during the dictator's dance but it is heard to complete and climax in the barber's pro-democracy speech. Commenting on this, Lutz Peter Koepnick writes in 2002, Chaplin's film was released nine months after Hollywood's first parody of Hitler, the short subject "You Nazty Spy!" by the Three Stooges, which premiered in January 1940. Chaplin had been planning his feature-length
Roman dictator the earliest period, the official title of the dictator throughout the history of the Republic was "magister populi", or "master of the infantry". His lieutenant, the "magister equitum", was the "master of the horse" (that is, of the cavalry). However, the use of "dictator" to refer to the "magister populi" seems to have been widespread from a very early period. The appointment of a dictator involved three steps: first, the Senate would issue a decree known as a "senatus consultum", authorizing one of the consuls to nominate a dictator. Technically, a "senatus consultum" was advisory, and did not have the