Created at the height of Germany's power during the Second World War, To Be or Not to Be is an anti-Nazi satire set in occupied Warsaw, centering on the resistance of a Polish theater company and the ham antics of its narcissistic husband and wife stars (Benny and Lombard). Ernst Lubitsch managed to pull off the impossible in this witty, sophisticated comedy: to successfully satirize Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party without wallowing in bad taste. More sardonic and less sentimental than Chaplin's The Great Dictator, Lubitsch's film successfully achieves its political message, primarily through comedy that displays the absurdities contained within the fascist ideology.