During World War I, an anonymous private (Chaplin) fighting in the army of Tomainia, effects the valiant rescue of an officer named Schultz (Reginald Gardiner), but suffers loss of memory when the plane in which they are flying crashes into a tree. The little soldier is sent to a hospital where he remains for the next 20 years, unaware of the changes that are taking place around him. He does not know, for instance, that Hynkel (also played by Chaplin) has become Dictator of Tomainia, and is ruthlessly persecuting Jews with the help of his two ministers, Garbitsch and Herring.