Nazis in fiction

During and after the Second World War, Nazism became a key driving force behind Allied propaganda, as well as the development of the superhero during the Golden Age of comics. Ideas that the Third Reich could have possibly implemented have helped to fuel various films, books and comics from 1939 to the present day. In almost all fictional use of Nazis, both during and after the war years, the Nazis are portrayed as cold-hearted, ruthless and evil. They are often stereotypically portrayed as wearing monocles and black uniforms similar to those of the Schutzstaffel.^[1]

Films and cartoons

Various propaganda films used the Nazis as a way to encourage patriotism and national pride, as well as a means to recruit soldiers into the Allied forces.

The British cinema were the main people to create such films before the American entry into the war following Pearl Harbor. The British comedian Will Hay created various films that ranged from Nazi spies being smuggled into mainland Britain via the Isle of Skye, to scientists working on gas-bombs.

American cinema at first used the Nazis only to show the stubbornness of the Reich, such as the 1940s film, Casablanca. American propaganda concentrated largely on the Japanese involvement in the war, with the Nazis as a backup.

The Looney Tunes and Walt Disney Studios used the Nazis as a ploy for their comic characters. However, Disney seemed to concentrate more on the German people within the Nazi Regime, as shown in their 1943 film, Der Fuehrers' Face, starring Donald Duck. Warner Brothers produced a series of propaganda cartoons named Private Snafu to train recruits on what not to do if they were in a situation similar to those in the cartoons.

Comics

America's Best Comics #7 October 1943

The comic-book industry were able to boost their sales because of their help in the war effort meant that they were spared from paper recycling. Superheroes in particular, like Captain America were pictured as fighting the Nazis, both real and fictitious, in large battles. The better remembered version is of Captain America fighting Adolf Hitler himself. In Fawcett Comics the character Captain Marvel fought against the Monster Society of Evil, which included Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo, along with Captain Nazi and Herr Phoul, a stereotypical Nazi officer. Captain Nazi was a superstrong perfect Nazi who was a major enemy of Captain Marvel Jr.. Hitler was shown in the hellish realm of the demon Mephisto in a Thor comic, and in a story where the demon Sattanish resurrects and empowers four historical murderers to form a Lethal Legion, one of them is Heinrich Himmler, who is given the power to belch gas fumes from his mouth.

The British comics tended to portray the Nazis as clumsy and foolish due the cartoon-style of the comics available at that time, as shown in characters like Desperate Dan and Lord Snooty.

The retro-comic-book company, Big Bang Comics, have recreated a lot of Golden Age comics using Nazi characters for villains, ranging from Nazi spies to saboteurs. The All-Star Squadron of DC Comics was another retro-comic produced in the style of World War II propaganda comics. A tactic also used in the Amalgam Comics run with Super-Soldier.

By the beginning of the Silver Age of Comics in the 1960s, the focus of the Nazi threat turned to the threat of Communism with the rise of the Cold War. In the Flashpoint event Nazis are occupying Brazil.

Books

Books written during wartime were few and far-between, partially from National Service that called up a large amount of volunteers and the other from paper rationing. Ka-Tzetnik 135633 published accounts of his experiences at the Auschwitz concentration camp. He anonymously published his erotic The House of Dolls in 1955. The stalag fiction uses sexploitation to describe the German camp brothels in World War II. Ka-Tzetnik 135633 described how the Nazis forced women into sex slavery at the Freudenabteilung (Joy Division). The author revealed his identity in 1961 at the trial of Adolf Eichmann. Outside of comics, only a few books were ever written for propaganda purposes. Those that were tended to work along the lines of the comic books.^[2]

Magazines

After the rise of the books, many men's magazines followed up with the same content. Real Men published a Nazi-themed cover and story in 1959.^[3] Real Men followed up in 1960 with a similar cover with the featured story, "Inside the Nazi Death Chambers."^[4] "The Underground Army of Red Recruiters... The Call Girl Traitors of Berlin" was the next story to appear in the magazine in 1961.^[5] Another similar cover appeared in the same year,^[6] again in 1964,^[7] and again in 1965.^[8] In 1966, the magazine published the article, "How We Broke Up the Fantastic Plot to Smuggle Hitler in Argentina."^[9] Real Men published "Charlie Ruff--the Montana Hunter Who Destroyed the Nazi Fortress in Argentina" in 1967.^[10]

Man's Epic featured a similar style with their first issue in September 1963.^[11] The magazine published a similar cover in April, 1964.^[12] In June, 1964, they published "Captive Beauties for the Monster Baron."^[13] "Love Slaves of France's Harlot Army" is an article that appeared in Man's Epic in August, 1964.^[14] The magazine published the article, "Secret Horrors of the Nazi Torture Cult" in October, 1964.^[15] Men's Epic featured a similar article in December 1964.^[16] In February, 1965, they published an article, "Tortured Beauties for the Nazi Blood Cult."^[17] Man's Epic publishes the article, "Soft Bodies for Hitler's Torture Master," in April, 1965,^[18] and continued the story for June, 1965.^[19] "Nude Beauties for the Devil's Chains" appeared in the issue for August, 1965.^[20] Man's Epic features "Chained Nudes for the Monster's Rack" in October, 1965.^[21] They followed with "Trapped in the Fires of Lust" in February 1966.^[22] Man's Epic publishes a similar cover in April, 1966.^[23] In May, 1966, they published "Shackled Nudes of the Monster General."^[24] Man's Epic publishes "Scream for my Kisses Before You Die" in July, 1966.^[25] They published "Soft Decoys of Death to Smash the Krauts" in September, 1966.^[26] Man's Epic publishes "The Gestapo's Sin Queen in the Boudoir of Hate" in November, 1966.^[27] In January, 1967, they published "Doomed Harlots in Hitler's House of Horror."^[28] Man's Epic published "The Fantastic Lust of the Nazi Sin Spy" in March 1967.^[29] In July, 1967, they magazine published "Sin Swindle of the Nazi-Killing Wantons."^[30] In May, 1968, Man's Epic published "Exposé: Odessa--the Nazis' Worldwide Underground Organization."^[31] They published "Hot Lead for the Nazis' Maiden-Butchering Monster" in March, 1969.^[32] In July, 1969, Man's Epic published "Mission Impossible: Smash the Nazis' Female Torture Stalag.^[33] In September, 1969, they published "Tonight We Hit the Krauts' Hell Plant."^[34] In January, 1970, Man's Epic published "Operation Blood: Get Hitler's Maiden Butchering Sadist."^[35] Man's Epic published "Amerikaner, Watch Your Maquis Maiden Die Horribly!" in March, 1970.^[36] In April, 1971, they magazine published "The Terror-Bound Virgins in Hitler's Brothel of Agony."^[37] In August, 1971, Man's Epic published "Soft Flesh for the Nazi Monster's Pit in Hell."^[38] They published "Helpless Beauties of the Nazis' Circus of Agony in October, 1971.^[39] Man's Epic published "Inside the Nazis' Hell Prison for Girls" in February 1972.^[40] "Bring Out the Hostages of Hitler's Death Trap" was published in Man's Epic in April 1972.^[41] In August, 1972, Man's Epic featured an apparent Neo-Nazi.^[42] They published in October, 1972, the article, "Chains of Agony for the Bound Beauties of Norway."^[43] Man's Epic published "Lt. Maynard's Incredible Kraut-Killing Beauties" in December 1972.^[44]

Videogames

Wolfenstein 3D, 1992

"Wolfenstein" emerged in 1981 and focuses on the escape of a POW in a Nazi POW camp. Wolfenstein 3D was released in 1992 for MS-DOS and arguably popularized the franchise, as well as the first-person shooter video game. The game is from the perspective of an American POW, William "B.J." Blazkowicz in WWII as he escapes several floors through opening various doors to find food and ammunition, but also to come across Aryan Nazi guards and violent German Shepherds. The game was considered a financial success, gathered awards, and is remembered as the first shooter game with rudimentary visual effects.^[45]

List of fictitious Nazis

• Arnold Toht - a psychotic Gestapo agent in Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Auric Goldfinger from Goldfinger
• Karl Marsen - from Night Train to Munich
• Major Heinrich Strasser - from Casablanca
• Franz Kindler - from The Stranger
• Carl Lanser in Judgment Night
• Gunther Lutze - from Deaths-Head Revisited
• Oberst Kurt Steiner - played by Michael Caine in The Eagle Has Landed
• Herr Battler in George Bernard Shaw' 1938 play, Geneva, a Fancied Page of History in Three Acts
• Tim and Eva from The Limo (Seinfeld)
• Oberst Wilhelm Klink - played by Werner Klemperer on Hogan's Heroes
• Pop-Pop (Dee's Grandpa) from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (season 1)
• Red Skull - A Marvel Comics character
• Karl Ruprecht Kroenen - Hellboy's enemy
• Ultra-Metallo - A Nazi super-robot from Amalgam Comics
• Rudolph Müller - A Will Hay character, a spy
• Green Skull - Another Amalgam Comics character
• Baron Zemo - A Nazi aristocrat in Marvel Comics who after the war escaped to South America.
• Von Vulture - An anthropomorphic vulture who appeared alongside Daffy Duck
• Ingrid Weiss - A Neo-Nazi who fought Tom Strong
• Super Stormtrooper - A Big Bang Comics character, a Waffen-SS soldier
• Hitler Youth - Another Big Bang Comics character
• Oberst Max Radl - Appears in The Eagle Has Landed, organized the supposed kidnapping of Winston Churchill
• Franz Leibkind - A Neo-Nazi who wrote Springtime for Hitler
• Heinrich von Gitfinger - A Neo-Nazi featured in Captain Kremmen
• Captain Nazi - A DC Comics villain
• Baron Blitzkrieg - Foe of the All-Star Squadron.
• Hauptmann Englande - An alternate Captain Britain from a world where the Nazis won World War II.
• The Z-34 - An excavator/submarine machine featured in Big Bang Comics
• Zwerg - Assistant to Baron Blitzkrieg
• Standartenführer Hans Landa - SS officer tasked with hunting Jews in Occupied France. Played by Christoph Waltz in Inglourious Basterds
• General von Talon - A Nazi falcon played by Tim Curry in the 2005 film, Valiant
• Herr Otto Flick, a Gestapo officer in 'Allo 'Allo!
• Alfred Hoffman in the Fringe episode "The Bishop Revival"
• Arthur Arden - A convicted Nazi war criminal in American Horror Story
• The Major from Hellsing
• Kurt Dussander, commandant of Patin, a fictional concentration camp. Fugitive Nazi war criminal living under the alias "Arthur Denker" in California. Dussander is one of two main characters in Stephen King's novella Apt Pupil, under the section Summer of Corruption, part of the collection Different Seasons.
• Hans Volter - The antagonist of Killing floor 2
• Rudol von Stroheim - A Nazi officer from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Battle Tendency, who helps the Ripple users defeat the Pillar Men.

See also

• Nazi exploitation
• Adolf Hitler in popular culture
• Fiction based on World War II

References