Nazi Confusion: The Jewish Actor Mistaken for a Nazi in ‘The Secret Agent’

Brazilian Film “The Secret Agent” Explores Holocaust Survivor’s Mistaken Identity Amid Political Turmoil

In the gripping political thriller “The Secret Agent,” audiences are immediately thrust into uncertainty as they meet Marcelo, a man clearly on the run in 1977 Brazil. As the narrative unfolds against the backdrop of the country’s military dictatorship, director Kleber Mendonça Filho weaves a complex tale of persecution, mistaken identity, and historical revisionism.

The film, set in the coastal city of Recife, follows Marcelo as he navigates a dangerous landscape where government officials and hired assassins work in tandem to eliminate him and destroy his credibility. While hiding among others persecuted by the fascist regime, Marcelo encounters a diverse array of characters caught in the same oppressive system.

Among these characters is Hans, a German tailor portrayed by actor Udo Kier in what would become his final role before his death. The audience’s introduction to Hans comes through a disturbing scene where a corrupt police chief named Euclides forces the elderly man to display extensive scarring across his torso.

The scene reveals a critical misunderstanding at the heart of the film. Euclides proudly assumes Hans is a fugitive Nazi soldier, interpreting his scars as glorious battle wounds from fighting for the Third Reich. “He’s just fascinated with, I don’t know, maybe Nazi Germany, with the German soldier, or the idea of the German soldier,” Filho explained in a recent interview. “He seems to have a one-track mind in terms of thinking that Hans, because he’s German, must have been a heroic soldier.”

However, the audience soon learns the truth through a private conversation Hans has in German and a glimpse of a menorah hidden in his office. Hans is actually a Jewish Holocaust survivor, his scars testament to surviving violent antisemitism rather than serving the Nazi regime.

“Identity can be on your body,” Filho observed. “In the scars that you have, in the tattoos that you have, in the way that you have collected physical experience throughout life.”

Filho’s portrayal of Hans draws from his own childhood memories growing up in Recife during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964-1985), a period known for its violent suppression of media and political dissidents. Though only nine years old in 1977, Filho recalls his father visiting a Romanian tailor downtown, a memory that helped shape the character.

The director also incorporated Recife’s rich Jewish history into the film. The city was home to Brazil’s first organized Jewish community, established by Dutch Jews and Sephardic refugees from the Inquisition. Between 1636 and 1640, they built Kahal Zur Israel, the first synagogue in the Americas, which now serves as a museum. Though the Portuguese expelled Jews from Brazil in 1654, a wave of Eastern European Jewish immigration in the 1910s revitalized Recife’s Jewish population.

While “The Secret Agent” is set nearly five decades ago, Filho draws unmistakable parallels to Brazil’s recent political climate under former president Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2023). “A lot of the logic of what was happening under the Bolsonaro regime seemed to mimic the military regime of the 20th century in a fetishistic way,” Filho noted.

Under Bolsonaro, Filho observed troubling echoes of the past: “Words like torture were now being thrown around, misogynistic treatment of women in words that would be questionable in 1977 and completely alien and unacceptable today.” The director pointed to renewed periods of racism and xenophobia, sometimes with overt Nazi influences—former Special Secretary Roberto Alvim was removed from his position after plagiarizing a speech from Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

The film’s examination of historical revisionism through propaganda and media censorship feels particularly relevant today, not just in Brazil but globally. In the United States, concerns have grown about Holocaust denial and the normalization of far-right extremism.

The interaction between the police chief and Hans stands as a powerful demonstration of how easily facts can be distorted to fit a preferred narrative—a warning about the fragility of historical truth in times of political turmoil.