Dictator Adenoid Hynkel tries to expand his empire while a poor Jewish barber tries to avoid persecution from Hynkel's regime.

[last lines]
A Jewish Barber: I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite! Hannah, can you hear me? Wherever you are, look up Hannah! The clouds are lifting! The sun is breaking through! We are coming out of the darkness into the light! We are coming into a new world; a kindlier world, where men will rise above their hate, their greed, and brutality. Look up, Hannah! The soul of man has been given wings and at last he is beginning to fly. He is flying into the rainbow! Into the light of hope, into the future! The glorious future, that belongs to you, to me and to all of us. Look up, Hannah. Look up!
Mr. Jaeckel: Hannah, did you hear that?
Hannah: Listen...
Commander Shutz: Strange, and I thought you were an Aryan.
A Jewish barber: No. I'm a vegetarian
Commander Shutz: Can you fly a plane?
A Jewish Barber: I can certainly try...
Adenoid Hynkel: Strange, these strike leaders, they're all brunettes. Not a blonde amongst them.
Garbitsch: Brunettes are trouble makers. They're worse than the Jews.
Adenoid Hynkel: Then wipe them out.
Garbitsch: Start small. Not so fast. We get rid of the Jews first, then concentrate on the brunettes.
Adenoid Hynkel: We shall never have peace 'til we have a pure Aryan race. How wonderful. Tomania, a nation of blue-eyed blondes.
Garbitsch: Why not a blonde Europe, a blonde Asia, and blonde America.
Adenoid Hynkel: A blonde world.
Garbitsch: And a brunette dictator.
Adenoid Hynkel: Dictator of the world!
Commander Shutz: Heil Hynk... Oh what am I saying?
Field Marshal Herring: We've just discovered the most wonderful, the most marvelous poisinous gas. It will kill everybody.
Commander Shutz: How's the gas?
A Jewish barber: Terrible, it kept me awake all night.
Adenoid Hynkel: Declare war on Napaloni.
Garbitsch: Napaloni?
Adenoid Hynkel: Yes, Napaloni!
[to Field Marshal Herring]
Adenoid Hynkel: Listen, you blockhead. Mobilise every division of the army and the air force. Proceed to Bacteria and attack at once.
Garbitsch: But war will be the end of us.
Adenoid Hynkel: Do as I tell you.
Garbitsch: Madness.
Adenoid Hynkel: Shut up!
Garbitsch: Very well. Would you sign this?
Adenoid Hynkel: Yes, I'll... what is it?
Garbitsch: The declaration of war.
Adenoid Hynkel: Then I'll sign it. A pen! Und stratz mit ze uldensackt. I'll sign it! Und stratz mit sei öldensackt, il der, der flutens... , der... , der... , und strippensackt! A pen! I'll sign it. Napaloni, de grosse peanut, de cheesy ravioli. There!
Adenoid Hynkel: Garbitsch, what's the meaning of this? These appropriations? 25 million for prison camps when we need every penny for the manufacturing of ammunition's?
Garbitsch: We've had to make a few arrests.
Adenoid Hynkel: A few? How many?
Garbitsch: Nothing astronomical. Five or ten thousand.
Adenoid Hynkel: Oh.
Garbitsch: A Day.
A Jewish Barber: We seem to be defying the laws of gravity.
Garbitsch: "Corona veniat electis." Victory shall come to the worthy. Today, democracy, liberty, and equality are words to fool the people. No nation can progress with such ideas. They stand in the way of action. Therefore, we frankly abolish them. In the future, each man will serve the interest of the State with absolute obedience. Let him who refuses beware! The rights of citizenship will be taken away from all Jews and other non-Aryans. They are inferior and therefore enemies of the state. It is the duty of all true Aryans to hate and despise them. Henceforth this nation is annexed to the Tomanian Empire, and the people of this nation will obey the laws bestowed upon us by our great leader, the Dictator of Tomania, the conqueror of Osterlich, the future Emperor of the World!
Commander Shutz: You speak.
A Jewish Barber: I can't.
Commander Shutz: You must. It's our only hope.
Adenoid Hynkel: You see, when I get shaved, I'm very nervous. I like something to look at. So I'm putting in glass walls and ceiling... so that when my head is turned this way, I shall have a view of the mountains. And when it's tipped this way, I shall have a view through the glass ceiling.
Napaloni - Dictator of Bacteria: What's above-a the ceiling?
Adenoid Hynkel: The ballroom.
[first lines]
Title Cards: Note, any resemblance between Hynkle the Dictator and the Jewish Barber is purely co-incidental.
Title Cards: This is a story of a period between two World Wars - an interim in which Insanity cut loose. Liberty took a nose dive, and Humanity was kicked around somewhat.
Adenoid Hynkel: Schultz, why have you forsaken me?
International press reporter: The Phooey has just referred to the Jewish people.
[repeated line]
People: Heil Hynkel!
Commander Shutz: You must speak.
A Jewish Barber: I can't.
Commander Shutz: You must. It's our only hope.
A Jewish Barber: Hope...
Adenoid Hynkel: [Excusing himself from Madame Napaloni's company on the dance floor upon being summoned by Garbitsch] Madame, your dancing was superb. Excellent. Very good. Good.
Commander Shutz: [plane is upside down] We're upside down!
A Jewish Barber: I know it.
Commander Shutz: Give me that stick!
A Jewish Barber: Impossible.
Commander Shutz: [engine dies] Oh, there it goes. We're out of gas. Well, this is it then.
[pulls out cigarette pack]
Commander Shutz: Cigarette?
A Jewish Barber: Not now.
Commander Shutz: Then I shant need this anymore.
[tosses cigarette pack]
Adenoid Hynkel: [in the middle of a speech in which he rants in "German"] Phooey!