This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
(random passer-by) I came to this page expecting the other kind of Nazi wackiness. Maybe I should explain.
A few years back I was reading an essay, the details of which are unimportant, but in which the author groused about American education and historical inaccuracy in popular entertainment, to the effect that "in another twenty years, all Americans will think World War II was a global struggle against an eccentric criminal gang called the Nazis, who hoarded gold and built vast Rube Goldberg war robots and doomsday machines."
And you know, whoever said that has a point. Probably one in four superhero comic book issues during the Silver Age involved the Nazis in some way. And I don't mean realistic Nazis, or wanted war criminals skulking around South America. We're talking ten-story-tall bright red Humongous Mecha with rivets and swastikas all over, controlled by Hitler's cloned brain in a jar, going on a rampage in some American city. Nazi zombie armies. Nazi robots. Nazi vampires and mummies created by Nazi Mad Scientists. World-destroying Nazi doomsday machines at the Earth's core. Nazis in flying saucers. And on and on and on. Given the real history of the 20th Century, this seems to me to be inappropriately campy. But what do I know?
Air Of Mystery: Nazis make/made fantastic bad guys. Back in WW 2, everyone (on the Allied side at least) was trained to hate them because they were enemies of the country, so why not use them as bad guys? After WW 2, everyone still hated the Nazis, but because they knew what they had done to the minorities and the countries they controlled. Nazis make good bad guys now because of their huge and horrifying effect on the world, and most people would want nothing more than to have such people get their asses kicked three ways to Sunday and further.
Seven Seals: Here's a free one-liner: "Just because I'm a Nazi doesn't make me evil!"
Silent Hunter: Indeed- Oskar Schindler was a NSDAP member, according to the film.
Will: Is it worth mentioning that at least half this list features in a Mel Smith/Gryff Rhys-Jones sketch back in the 1990s? There's a transcript here: http://grasshopperliesheavy.blogspot.com/2004/10/so-you-see-captain-we-are-not-all.html
Random passer-by: You can see the sketch here on youtube (as of the 16th January 2009): http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9RJQlbQ5JoE
regarding: Jawohl!- "Yes, indeed!" (no longer used by the German Army for obvious reasons) That's wrong. I know that The Other Wiki has a similar entry in the Glossary of German military terms
but "Jawohl" is still used today and the "obvious reasons" aren't that obvious at all. It may be a word that is associated with Nazis outside of Germany (nowadays mainly because of this trope) but for Germans it's just an emphasis of "ja", meaning "yes", without any negative connotations. It is used in everyday language but especially by the military where it is more or less the German equivalent to "Yes, Sir/Ma'am". This editor has served in the German Army and is quite certain that he said and heard "Jawohl" a lot of times.
He tried to remove the sentence in question but it was restored.
Silent Hunter: I stand corrected. Sorry.
In future, I'd suggest you post here when you make the edit.
ryd: Yes, sorry about that, I intended to do that but ran out of time and then forgot about it. It was bad style, won't happen again.
Silent Hunter: Was Walter Gotell (a German actor who played a number of Nazis, but also the Russian General Gogol in James Bond) Jewish?
Rissa: If he was, no-one's told the Internet. Google turns up nothing.
diz: Judging by those first for, that old Smith & Jones sketch was the inspiration for this page...
As mentioned in the YKTTW
- The "cultured" one who stands around in vest, braces and lederhosen listening to classical music on a gramophone, who says "You see, Herr Captain, ve are not all animals."
