History Main / Ghostapo

* The Literature/Andrew Doran series is about how the Nazis have started utilizing the power of Cthulhu Mythos in order to TakeOverTheWorld. Andrew Doran, AdventurerArchaeologist, is the only person capable of stopping them. There's multiple groups working for the Nazis harnessing the occult and they're often competing against one another.

May also overlap with {{Nazisploitation}} and NinjaPirateZombieRobot. Subtrope of WeirdHistoricalWar. Supertrope to NaziZombies.

* The second volume of the ''Literature/{{Baltimore}}'' comic (set in an AlternateHistory version of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI) has an [[NoNameGiven anonymous]] evil sorcerer heavily implied (and [[http://www.cbr.com/mignola-golden-reach-beginning-of-baltimores-end-in-cult-of-the-red-king/ confirmed]] by WordOfGod) to be a young Hitler. Most readers won't realize this at first because he has a different mustache and name.
** The mustache is a nice bit of [[ShownTheirWork historical accuracy.]] Hitler ''did'' have this style of mustache early in World War I. The German army made him trim it down to a toothbrush in order for his gas mask to fit and he liked it so much he wore it that way for the rest of his life.
* The ''ComicBook/TwoThousandAD'' strip ''ComicBook/CaballisticsInc'' makes mention of Nazi Germany's occult warfare division, Sonderkommando Thule, very frequently. When the titular Caballistics, Inc. was still functioning as a secret department in the British Government at its peak during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, as Q Department, Sonderkommando Thule was their biggest enemy. [[spoiler: [[TokenEvilTeammate Solomon Ravne]]]] is revealed to have been a former member.
* The ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica: Hail HYDRA!'' miniseries does this, casting ComicBook/{{HYDRA}} as an ancient conspiracy who piggyback on the Nazis' conquests to take advantage of their sweeping across Europe and [[ShownTheirWork Himmler's and to a lesser extent Hitler's historical interest in the occult]] to ransack Europe of occult goodies to [[spoiler: create their own god]] and which uses resurrected dead SS troopers as indestructible immortal mooks.
* ''Captain Gravity And the Power of Vrill'': [[spoiler: The Nazis are looking for Atlantis!]] It was actually pretty awesome.
* In "Army of the Walking Dead" in ''Creepy'' #35 a Nazi {{Mad Scientist}} used then-current technology to create a bunch of zombies that obeyed only his verbal commands. This ended up biting him in the butt when he broke his jaw during a plane crash.

* Franchise/TheDCU retconned "[[http://superdickery.com/index.php?view=article&catid=35%3Apropaganda-index&id=846%3Asuperman-joins-the-army&option=com_content&Itemid=24 Why]] didn't Franchise/{{Superman}} [[http://superdickery.com/index.php?view=article&catid=35%3Apropaganda-index&id=841%3Asuperman-on-top-of-the-world&option=com_content&Itemid=24 kick Hitler's ass?"]] by [[HandWave explaining that]] Hitler [[RetCon had used]] TheSpearOfDestiny to brainwash any American hero who entered Germany's borders (In some stories, this extends to the entire Eastern Hemisphere) and send them off to attack the US.
** ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': The ComicBook/{{JSA}} and Hippolyta are rather unsettled that the magical protections of the Spear of Destiny seem to have been lowered around Nazi controled space. They discover the protections were lowered temporarily in order to facilitate a magical experiment by Paula von Gunther that involved her reading from an Eldrich Tome in order to transform herself into a powerful monster.

* Even ''Comicbook/{{Fables}}'' has to get in on the action. One flashback issue told of Bigby Wolf as a commando in WWII, stopping the Nazis for creating an army of FrankensteinsMonster and [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent Werewolf]] soldiers. Which raises some serious questions about the quality of their {{Masquerade}}.
** Bigby comments once on his general apathy towards being discovered.
--->'''Bigby:''' Even if they saw a man transforming into a wolf, I'm sure their first thought probably wouldn't be, "What, a collection of former storybook characters from our collective subconscious has set up a nation-in-exile in the heart of New York City to escape from a dimension-spanning evil empire!"
* ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}''. The titular demon was summoned to Earth by Nazi occultists, and the plans of the Third Reich regularly play upon the plot, in both the comic books and the films. President Truman personally sent the Comicbook/{{BPRD}} to Berlin in 1946 to catalog all the data pertaining to the Nazis' obsession with the occult - on account of American soldiers uncovering scores of… ''bizarre'' things since the city fell.

** Though this is mostly in the movie continuity. In the comics the Nazis still had loads of occult stuff, but Hitler himself is portrayed more realistically, as an ordinary dictator who only funds this insanity because he's desperate to gain an advantage over the Allies and winds up dying the same way he did in RealLife anyway. In the first story arc, [[BigBad Rasputin]] refers to Hitler as a "small, doomed madman" who the former cooperated with simply to advance his own agenda.

* In the {{Elseworld}}s story ''ComicBook/TheGoldenAge'', it's revealed that [[spoiler:an American super villain with a gimmick for switching his brains into other bodies replaced an American superhero and ran for Senate... and secretly transferred ''Hitler's'' brain into a FlyingBrick to help him take over America.]]
** The comic also offered a similar ComicBook/PostCrisis explanation for why none of the heroes tried to kill Hitler -- the Nazis had their own superhuman who had the ability to nullify any superpower.
* Irish indie comic ''ComicBook/TheLeagueOfVolunteers'' has a group of Nazis summons an ancient Irish demon to serve them in issue 1. It doesn't go as planned.

* In the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, Hitler was [[CloningBlues cloned multiple times]] by a geneticist named Arnim Zola and repeatedly [[BodySurf transferred his mind from body to body]]. In most of these bodies, he called himself the "Hate-Monger", wielded a "hate ray" that could [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin manipulate people's emotions]], and wore a costume that looked something like a purple Klansman's robe. Marvel eventually tried to distance themselves from the Hate-Monger by having him [[SealedEvilInACan transfer his mind]] into a [[ArtifactOfDoom Cosmic Cube]] that didn't actually work. [[DeathIsCheap This being comics]], even Hitler couldn't stay dead forever, though.... Marvel has also raised the question of whether this is "really Hitler" or "just a mental copy of Hitler", which somehow never comes up when it's someone else using Zola's process (such as Zola himself).
** Marvel Comics also had Baron Von Strucker attempt to attack America with a submarine full of Nazi vampires. Unfortunately for them, the submarine got sunk off the Louisiana coast and they spent 70 years at the bottom of the sea. By the time Comicbook/CaptainAmerica and Comicbook/JubileeMarvelComics found them, they were nothing but dust and hate.

* ''ComicBook/{{Vampirella}}'' has Dr Midwinter, a high-ranking Nazi officer who was tasked with finding supernatural artifacts during World War 2. He was able to find [[AmuletOfConcentratedAwesome amulet known as the Scarab of Atum-Ra]] in Egypt but lost it to the immortal priestess Pantha [[AnArmAndALeg who tore off his arm]] and escaped with the amulet. Midwinter's life was extended as a result of him touching the amulet and he spent the next 60 years chasing Pantha across the world to get it back from her. In the final issues of the run in which he appears in he [[IntercontinuityCrossover concocted a plan which required him to summon]] ComicBook/LadyDeath.
* ''Whom Gods Destroy'', a Elseworld's story featuring Franchise/{{Superman}} and Franchise/WonderWoman showing an alternate universe where the Third Reich won the war and its backed by the Greek pantheon, having mythological monsters at their disposal.

[[folder:Fanfic]]

* The 2018 film ''Film/{{Overlord}}'' featured a band of heroes raiding a supposedly-mundane Nazi communications facility, only to discover that it was instead a [[{{MadScientistLaboratory}} laboratory]] dedicated to the creation of indestructible soldiers via the "unbelievable power" that they discovered in naturally-occurring tar beneath French soil.
* ''Film/ReignOfTheGargoyles'' from the [[Creator/{{Syfy}} Sci Fi Channel]]: The Nazis make a pact with stone-winged killers.

* ''[[http://www.comics.aha.ru/rus/stalin/1.html Stalin vs. Hitler]]'' does this a great deal both for both Hitler and Stalin. [[http://dsss.be/hitler-vs-stalin/ Here's an English translation]]. The first panel is now the page image. Hitler is depicted as a fairly typical mad sorcerer, while Stalin's own magic is powered by Marxist-Leninist ideology (no, really).

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/RasputinVoiceOfTheDragon https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rararasputin_6.png]]]]

UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler himself was pretty skeptical of the occult and notions of mystical powers, and restricted secret societies out of fear that they would threaten the power of the Nazi Party, but nevertheless tried to get his hands on TheSpearOfDestiny mostly for propaganda value. Hitler's own religious beliefs are a matter of intense debate, not least because of contradictions in his own writings, not helped by [[GodwinsLaw how both sides of the debate tried to portray Hitler]] as either an atheist (when in fact, he absolutely hated them and ordered for them to be killed) or a religious fanatic (when he privately disparaged both Christianity and Himmler's paganism). The consensus is that Hitler never really cared about participating in any religious activity, but still believed in and spoke of [=God/Providence/Fate/Nature=] in a [[UsefulNotes/{{Pantheism}} pantheistic manner]].

This is actually more plausible than it sounds. The Swastika is one of the [[UsefulNotes/NonNaziSwastika oldest symbols]] in many religions, including Hinduism, and also became significant in some occult groups. Nazism's roots are arguably traceable to an occult group called the Thule Society. A primary focus of the Thule Society was a claim concerning the origins of the Aryan race, as the descendants of {{Atlantis}} (sometimes called Thule), depending on which rumour you listen to. A lot of the senior Nazis, most notoriously SS head Heinrich Himmler, were intensely interested in the occult. Himmler followed a religion called Armanenschaft which was, according to its believers, the original religion of the ancient Aryans, which later evolved into Myth/NorseMythology and Hinduism.

'''Mr. Glozier:''' The Fuhrer also wants the HolyGrail. And TheSpearOfDestiny, if you should run across them.

->'''Major Eaton''': I'm beginning to understand Hitler's interest in this.\\
'''Brody''': Oh, yes. The Bible speaks of the Ark leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions. An army which carries the Ark before it... is invincible.

* One of the movies in the Urotsukidoji/Legend of the Overfiend Hentai anime series has our hero squaring off against a mad scientist whose father was deeply involved in trying to bring occult science to the Nazis. In one scene, Hitler himself is seen upbraiding the father for his failure to produce immediate results.

* In the backstory of ''LightNovel/FateApocrypha'', Nazi Germany intervenes in the third Holy Grail War after Darnic informs them about the existence of the Holy Grail and convinces them to try and acquire it with his help. Wehrmacht commits a full scale invasion of Fuyuki city and defeats The Three Families as well as the Imperial Army that tries to stop them. After the war ends inconclusively, Darnic stabs the Germans in the back and steals the Greater Grail for himself.

* The first season of ''Anime/WeissKreuz'' has a pack of enemies called the SS whose leaders are obvious Nazi analogues. Their evil plot revolves around the occult powers of black magic and the main character's sister.

* ''Series/{{Danger 5}}'' completely embraces the camp potential of this trope, particularly in the episode "Fresh Meat for Hitler's Sex Kitchen", in which Hitler uses {{blood magic}} to magically turn his opponents into evil blonds. The plan is foiled when his blood sample is tainted by "impure" Swiss blood. And [[LittleKnownFacts as everyone knows]], Swiss blood is [[YodelLand made of money]].
* One of the historical vignettes in episode 3 of ''Series/GoodOmens'' shows a small group of Nazis trying to gather any occult artifacts that might help win the war, including Agnes Nutter's book of prophecies.

[[quoteright:350:[[http://dsss.be/hitler-vs-stalin/ https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ghostapo.png]]]]

Pretty much [[AcceptablePoliticalTargets everyone agrees]] that the Nazis were very, '''very''' bad. So, how do you make them even more intimidating? Why, by giving them BlackMagic and EldritchAbomination allies (or have them [[SummoningRitual summon some]], with [[EvilIsNotAToy various results]]), of course!

* In ''[[ComicBook/{{Hellboy}} Hellboy: The Science of Evil]]'', you fight clockwork Nazis, cyborg Nazis, and, in one late-game area, [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot clock-work-cyborg-Nazi-zombies being animated by a Lovecraftian alien worm.]] Makes for the [[AcceptableTargets single most okay-to-beat-up mook ever.]]

*** It's actually a plot point of the series that once the Nazis shed their occultism and shifted their 'ethics are for quitters' mindset to metallurgy and physics, they suddenly became a much bigger threat. There's only a couple of supernatural artifacts to go around, after all, but if you can give ordinary Wehrmacht troopers alloy armor and sci-fi cannons, well...

* ''Fanfic/HalloweenUnspectacular'': In "The Wax Museum" from the second collection, one of the disturbing exhibits [[WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom Danny]] and Tucker find in the titular museum tells the story of how Adolf Hitler tried to create an army of ghosts by harvesting the souls of captured Russian civilians.

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyZombies'' started out as this, back in the ''World at War'' era of Zombies. Back when it was Nazi Zombies, the aforementioned undead were the result of genetic experiments from the Germans with Element 115 (with a light smattering of otherworldly possession and corruption on the side) with the trope coming into effect with the revelation of the zombies being controlled by a little German girl within the Aether. A little girl one Edward Richtofen would swap minds with and control the zombies himself, putting this trope into ''full'' effect. This would continue on until the last map of ''Black Ops II'', which would reset the worlds and instead cast the zombies as the minions of a group of extradimensional Lovecraftian beings known as the Apothicons, removing the trope entirely.
** Later iterations of the Zombies submode also often disregard these origins[[note]]Exo Zombies are the result of a chemical weapon gone wrong, while Infinite Warfare Zombies are just enemies in a set of films - demonically enhanced films, but films nevertheless[[/note]]. That is, until Sledgehammer Games' [[VideoGame/CallOfDutyWWII Nazi Zombies]] ([[NamesTheSame yep, the same name]]) took the undead to their roots once more, casting them as experiments of the Nazis and powered by an eldritch energy known as Geistkraft, sourced from the legendary sword of Frederick Barbarossa.

* In the ''Series/KamenRider'' series, particularly in the Showa era, SHOCKER was founded by Nazis who had survived World War II. Among its officer is an ex-Nazi named Colonel Zol.

* The Band "Current 93" has a song called "Hitler as Kalki" which referrences Miguel Serranos ideas.

** "Cry of the Revenant" has the narrator's grandpa tell him about the time his squad, plus one terrified SS big-wig, fought off an ancient, undead aryan (one of the god-like people who settled in what is now Germany in nazi mythology) warrior, who was absolutely honked off about being ressurected by nazi wizards.

** There's one about a haunted copy of ''The Lion King'' for the SNES that was ROMHack[=ed=] by the Nazis (apparently inspired by a real bootleg of the game that inexplicably features swastika-emblazoned dirigibles as platforms), presumably involving TimeTravel and a very bored technician somehow.

* In the {{Elseworld}}s story ''[[ComicBook/TheGoldenAge]]'', it's revealed that [[spoiler:an American super villain with a gimmick for switching his brains into other bodies replaced an American superhero and ran for Senate... and secretly transferred ''Hitler's'' brain into a FlyingBrick to help him take over America.]]

--->-'''Bigby:''' Even if they saw a man transforming into a wolf, I'm sure their first thought probably wouldn't be, "What, a collection of former storybook characters from our collective subconscious has set up a nation-in-exile in the heart of New York City to escape from a dimension-spanning evil empire!"

* Creator/CharlesStross's ''Literature/TheAtrocityArchive'' portrays the Holocaust as a gigantic necromantic experiment, ''Operation Jotunheim'', to summon an [[EldritchAbomination Infovore]], a being of near-infinite cold that feeds on energy and information; the titular archives store the particular artifacts that the public should never find out about. [[spoiler:It also features an AlternateUniverse where the Nazis ''succeeded'' in their goal; unfortunately for them, they weren't in control of it and didn't realize what they'd unleashed until it was much, ''much'' too late. As a result, that universe is nearing its [[ApocalypseHow entropic heat death]] in the present days, and the laws of physics themselves were being distorted.]] A particularly nasty bit involves the description of Nazi necromantic practices, or as Stross dubs it, Algemancy - divination thru pain. (There's also some crossover with StupidJetpackHitler since "magic" in the Laundryverse is really just [[FormulaicMagic applied higher mathematics]] crossed with computer science with a little quantum physics for seasoning.)

* ''Fanfic/SixesAndSevens'' has HYDRA as this, naturally, though at the start all that Michael and Emily have to go off of are rumours that they've heard about them "conducting Doctor Frankenstein-like experiments in gloomy châteaux across the Loire".

** In the [[FunctionalMagic magic-riddled]] [[{{Pulp}} 1930s]] setting of ''TabletopGame/GURPSThaumatologyAgeOfGold'', the Nazis are a threat and a source of antagonists and evil plots — and they very much want to use and abuse magic. However, they aren't quite as formidable as they could be, because they tend to reject any and all ideas about magic which happen to have Jewish or "non-Aryan" origins. Still, Nazi archaeologists with supporting squads of stormtroopers are bad enough, and can be very dangerous if they locate the right artefacts.

** Esoteric Nazism is one of the game's many ideological alignments, associated primarily, though not exclusively, with the SS. While there are no supernatural elements in the game (an [[AlternateHistoryNaziVictory alternate history of a Cold War between the US and Nazi Germany]]), the ideology does believe in a fair bit of mysticism about the Aryan race, more pronounced in certain sub-ideologies than others. For some "[=EsoNaz=]" leaders, it's mostly about secular [[TheSpartanWay Spartanism to build a "stronger" Germany]], but Josias zu Waldeck und Pyrmont is obsessed with finding ancient Aryan artifacts while ruling Reichskommissariat Kaukasien as a totalitarian slave state, Sergey Taboritsky turns Russia into a cult devoted to a long-dead heir to the Romanov line should he reunite the shattered nation, Isabel Martínez de Perón in Argentina is a pawn of the mad mystic José López Rega (which actually happened in real life), and Heinrich Himmler [[spoiler:wants to start WorldWarIII in order to [[RestartTheWorld remake the world in his image]]]].