Episode no. Season 4
Episode 4 Written by Rod Serling Original air date January 24, 1963 | Directed by Stuart Rosenberg Production code 4856 | |
"He's Alive" is a fourth-season episode of The Twilight Zone. It tells of an American neo-Nazi who is inspired by the ghost of Adolf Hitler. A personal passion of Rod Serling, it concludes that figures such as Hitler will always be alive so long as prejudice and ignorance persist.
Plot
Peter Vollmer (Dennis Hopper), the leader of a small and struggling Nazi group, is visited by a shadowy figure who teaches him how to enthrall a crowd. The figure instructs Vollmer to arrange the death of one of his followers, Nick, thereby creating a martyr to rally everyone around.
Following the figure's instructions and assistance, Vollmer is considerably more successful and his group's following grows. However, the elderly Jewish man that Vollmer lives with, Ernst Ganz (Ludwig Donath), spent nine years in Dachau and strongly disapproves of Vollmer's politics. Ernst disrupts a rally accusing Vollmer of being "nothing but a cheap copy" of the German Führer. After the failed rally, responding to the shadowy man's accusation that while Vollmer has the voice of a lion, he has the instincts of a rabbit, Vollmer demands to know who his mysterious benefactor is. The man steps forward from the shadows to reveal himself to be Adolf Hitler (Curt Conway). The figure orders Peter to kill Ernst and Peter steels himself enough to complete the task. Hitler congratulates him and asks him how it felt. Peter replies that he felt immortal. Hitler's thundering response is "Mr. Vollmer! We ARE immortal!"
Afterwards, police arrive to arrest Peter for complicity to commit Nick's murder. He is shot while fleeing the scene. Peter stares at his bullet wound, astonished by the pain and by the sight of his own blood. He addresses the police: "There's something very wrong here...Don't you understand that I'm made out of steel?!"
Hitler's shadow is seen on the wall, leaving the dying Vollmer, looking for a more worthy candidate.