Little Coloured Bricks

Many have said it time and again, but this knowledge bears repeating: LEGO blocks are a fantastic, ingenious toy that channels the imagination early on, and can do so even when its possessor has grown old alongside it.

The same can be said about LEGO minifigs or minifigures –blocks made of the same material as any other LEGO block, but are in the form of miniature humanoids. These inventions took the world by storm in 1978 and has thus given the LEGO universe an entirely new line of various products ever since – not to mention quadrupled sales and a fan-base that’s been globally expanded tenfold.

Now you’d think the LEGO guys in Denmark would’ve been satisfied with that, right? Well, in 2003, they did something better – something that changed the face of the minifig industry: they introduced a new skin color, giving the tiny humanoid figures race. Soon you could tell the Afro-American minifigs from the Caucasian ones, and without that distinction then many minifigs reflecting our reality’s history wouldn’t have been born. One of those minifigs, of course, is the ever-controversial and world-renowned politician Adolf Hitler. After all, if every minifig was the same and had no distinctions whatsoever and someone integrated a Hitler minifg into the LEGO world, Hitler would probably turn on his grave. What many people don’t know is that he was an artist, and as such, prized uniqueness and superiority above all.

Adolf Hitler was born as a citizen of Austria in April 20 1889, and died as a political leader of Germany 56 years later, but the time between his birth and death were most interesting and full of controversy, to say the least. Many historians say that he was infantile, or “persistent in remaining in a child’s world of being aware of no one but himself and his own mental images”[1], and that he was a decidedly gifted child, though easily lost his temper. But we all know that artists are mostly sensitive and prone to expressing feelings impulsively. Hitler was just human…and now, he’s a LEGO minifig, too. All thanks to the wonders of LEGO minifig customization.

Hitler wanted many things: to destroy his perceived evils like communism, national discord and insurgency from the working class, to build a better, more financially stable Germany, and even to be a successful painter, musician, and architect. And although the last bit was left unfulfilled, he still got one thing that he didn’t ask for, that many others desire: to be immortalized as a minifig and to become a part of the infamous LEGO legacy. Maybe if LEGO blocks were around then, he would’ve had a more suitable conduit for creativity at an earlier age, avoided becoming a frustrated artist and everything would’ve turned out better.

Yet for all that he’s done, does he even deserve the publicity? A lot of things about Hitler had been said – and most of them have been negative sentiments – but there are a few filmmakers that don’t blame the man for his actions, and say that he is simply a product of his era. And if we can’t believe the words of people from Hollywood then what kind of dimension are we living in? If Tinsel town speaks, we listen; otherwise the world we know will collapse under a rule of chaotic anarchy.