The Hitler Gang is a 1944 American pseudo-documentary film directed by John Farrow, which traces the political rise of Adolf Hitler. Described as a "documentary-propaganda" film by its studio, Paramount Pictures, the historical drama is based on documented fact and marks the first serious effort to portray Hitler in film. The filmmakers chose to avoid casting stars in the lead roles,[1] assembling instead a remarkable company of lookalikes to play Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Göring, and other leading Nazis. In 1918 a young soldier called Adolf Hitler recovers from being gassed during World War I. At the behest of the German Army, he joins German nationalistic parties, espousing theories that Germany lost the war because they were stabbed in the back. He rises to become dictator of Germany.