The Private / The Barber
When we first meet the protagonist of the film, we know him as the Private. He is a soldier on the Western Front at the close of World War One, and is a courageous young man, saving the life of his Commander after a plane crash. He suffers a head injury in a subsequent crash and loses his memory.
As the Barber, he still has little or no memory of his experiences. He lives in the Ghetto with other Jews, and falls in love with his neighbor, Hannah. Having fought valiantly with the Tamainian army twenty years earlier, the Barber now finds himself persecuted for his religion. He is sent to a concentration camp but escapes; when discovered he is scheduled to be killed but is saved at the eleventh hour by the Commander who both recognizes him and remembers his bravery and courage. The men forge an unlikely friendship but are both genuine, resourceful and courageous men. The Barber is responsible for restoring peace in the region when he gives a speech whilst being mistaken for Hynkel.
Commander Schultz
Schultz is a respected military man, a pilot, who is brave and steadfast. We do not know much about what has happened in his life during the twenty post-war years in which the Private has been receiving treatment at a mental health facility; however, we do know that he has distinguished himself with honor because he has been promoted to governor of the ghetto. He is not all together comfortable with this role, or with the man to whom he now reports. Although he is essentially a tool of the dictatorship, Schultz is not a supporter of the dictator. He is identified as such and consequently arrested for doing the right thing - saving the life of the man who save his all those years ago. Schultz is a man of peace and healing, not a war-monger.
Hannah
Hannah is the Barber's neighbor in the ghetto. She feels as strongly for the Barber as he does for her. She goes into hiding in the ghetto, and is not discovered, which allows her to flee successfully to Osterlich, but she fears that she will again be persecuted when Osterlich is overwhelmed by and occupied by the same Tomainian regime she has fled from.
The Dictator Adenoid Hynkel
Hynkel is an allegorical dictator in the mould of Adolf Hitler - they even share the same initials. He hates Jews and wants to purge them from first his country and then from all others. He is also an empire builder in the worst way, aiming to take over the region and impose his regime on all of the neighboring countries. Hynkel is not particularly smart and easily outwitted in the end. Mistaken for the Barber while out in civilian clothes on a duck shoot, he is taken to a concentration camp and imprisoned.
Benzino Napaloni
Benito Mussolini by another name, Napaloni is the Dictator of Bacteria, the neighboring country to Tomainia, and second fiddle in the region to the more powerful and frankly insane Hynkel. He caves in to Hynkel when it comes to deciding who should lead the invasion of Osterlich and this sums up his general relationship with his fellow despot.
Garbitsch
Say his name quickly and you will see what the script writers thought of this garbage-named allegorical character, a parody of Josef Goebbels. He is Hynkel's secretary, loyal to the last, and also his Minister of Propaganda, a very busy job.
Herring
An amalgam of the name of the man he is an allegory of, Herring is in fact a parody of Hermann Goring. He is Hynkel's Minister of War, and is not particularly successful at it.
