Line #5 Main/NaziHunter


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9	[[quoteright:350:[[Series/{{Hunters}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/huntersnazihitlist.png]]]]
10	[[caption-width-right:350:[[Film/SchindlersList Schindler's]] Hitlist.]]
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15	->''"We're gonna be doing one thing and one thing only... killin' Nazis!"''
16	-->-- '''Lt. Aldo Raine''', ''Film/InglouriousBasterds''
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20
21	Someone who dedicates their life to hunting down ex-Nazis, or is dedicated to hunting down one particular Nazi because of what they did in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (note: this trope doesn't apply just because the antagonist happens to be an ex-Nazi, it's only for someone who hunts them regularly). Often a BadassIsraeli who might be working for UsefulNotes/{{Mossad}}, a result of the high-profile kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann from [[ArgentinaIsNaziland Argentina]] in 1960. In reality, Mossad stopped chasing war criminals not long after this event, as [[UsefulNotes/ArabIsraeliConflict more urgent threats]] to Israel took priority (for example, hostile neighboring Arab regimes are considered bigger threats to Israel than old Nazi war criminals).
22
23	Expect the former Nazi to be living [[ArgentinaIsNaziland somewhere in South America]] in his well-guarded [[BigFancyHouse mansion]] financed by NaziGold, from which he [[FourthReich plots the return of the Third Reich]]. Hardly TruthInTelevision, as genuine war criminals go to some trouble to avoid drawing attention to themselves. And this usually involves living modestly and often working in low-end jobs such as manual labor. And as far as all that NaziGold, there are some other more plausible theories about where it ended up.
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25	On the flip side, a Nazi Hunter must be wary of himself and not develop a KnightTemplar tendency. If he [[HeWhoFightsMonsters hunted Nazis for too long]], he himself would [[YouAreWhatYouHate become what he hated]]: ANaziByAnyOtherName.
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27	Something of a DiscreditedTrope these days, as anyone who served in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII gets too long in the tooth to be anything other than a NaziGrandpa. And the generation that would have been old enough to be movers and shakers in the Nazi party would now be super-centenarians.[[note]]As of the third decade of the 21st century, even a raw recruit or Hitler Youth member would be no less than a nonagenarian - as of the end of 2022, the most recent Nazi war crimes trial was of a 97-year-old woman for holding a junior staff position at a concentration camp when she was 19.[[/note]] Finally, the end of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar and the start of UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror dramatically expanded TheUsualAdversaries. Occasionally, much more recent works depict the Nazis of the [[RightWingMilitiaFanatic revivalist]] [[ANaziByAnyOtherName neo-Nazi]] variety.
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29	Very common in {{Nazisploitation}} films.
30
31	----
32	!!Examples
33	[[foldercontrol]]
34
35	[[folder:Comic Books]]
36	* In the '80s, ComicBook/{{Magneto}} joined the ranks of several Marvel villains in the ''ComicBook/ActsOfVengeance'' CrossOver simply so that he could get close to the ComicBook/RedSkull and bury him alive. Magneto was a Holocaust survivor so there was no love lost between him and the Skull.
37	** Also from the ComicBook/XMen side of things is James Bradley a.k.a. Doctor Nemesis, who spent decades hunting literal super-Nazis in South America, and now considers it a kind of leisure activity.
38	* Much like Cap, ''ComicBook/AtomicRobo'' also continues to fight Nazi super-science, by virtue of Helsingard having god knows how many hidden labs throughout the world. Robo also found Otto Skorzeny living in Madrid in 1974, [[spoiler: but Skorzeny had actually brought him there so that he could goad Robo into killing him, to free him from the pain of his terminal cancer. Robo declined.]]
39	* ''ComicBook/{{Blacksad}}'': Laszlo Herzl in ''Red Soul'' is a Holocaust survivor who's part of an organization tracking and keeping tabs on former Nazis. [[spoiler:He's targeting Otto Lieber due to both his Nazi past and his selling H-bomb secrets to the Russians. He doesn't care overmuch when his hired killer accidentally offs a similar-looking owl.]]
40	* ''ComicBook/CaptainAmerica'' himself continues to do this to this day, thanks to the ComicBook/RedSkull being [[JokerImmunity very hard to kill]].
41	* ''ComicBook/{{Hellboy}}'' occasionally tracked down Nazis after the war. Some of these Nazis are still around and he expresses his disgust of Nazis every time he sees them.
42	* There is an indie comic called ''Manimal'' (no, not [[Series/{{Manimal}} that one]]) about a SuperHero who tracks down and slays the Nazis responsible for turning him into a freak. This comic was reviewed by WebVideo/TheCinemaSnob and [[WebVideo/AtopTheFourthWall Linkara]].
43	* ''Magazine/NationalLampoon'': There was an extended comic story about "Gunnar Von Weissen", [[RefugeInAudacity an ex-Nazi who hunted former concentration camp prisoners]], ''a la'' Wiesenthal.
44	* Rebecca's sister Sarah in ''ComicBook/RequiemVampireKnight''. She kills Otto (an old Nazi hiding in [[ArgentinaIsNaziland Argentina]] at that point) in revenge for killing Rebecca in a concentration camp, sending him to Resurrection.
45	* A back-up story in an issue of ''ComicBook/SavageDragon'' involved the [[CaptainPatriotic Super Patriot]] tracking down a cult of [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot ninja cyborg Nazis]]. Since he was a WWII vet, he took great pleasure in blowing them apart.
46	* In the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, ComicBook/SilverSable's father did this, with the Wild Pack originally being established as a Nazi-hunting group.
47	* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wiesenthal Simon Wiesenthal]], TheProtagonist of ''ComicBook/SimonSaysNaziHunter'' dedicated his post-Holocaust life to hunting down Nazis.
48	* The ''ComicBook/SinCity'' short story ''Rats'' features an elderly Nazi war criminal, apparently living in secret in America. A mysterious Nazi Hunter soon kicks in the door and kills him by [[KarmicDeath shoving him in the oven]]. It is speculated that the Nazi Hunter in this story is a young [[TheDon Mob Boss Wallenquist]], a German mafia leader.
49	* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman'' [[ComicBook/WonderWoman1942 Vol 1]]: Zenna Persik is a Roma woman whose family was murdered in Nazi concentration camps. She spends the rest of her life hunting down and killing Nazis, targeting those that escaped any form of punishment after the war.
50	[[/folder]]
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52	[[folder:Fan Works]]
53	* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' mentions that back in the day, Magneto, like his counterpart in ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' (which is indicated to be broadly canon), was a prolific and extremely ruthless example of this trope.
54	[[/folder]]
55
56	[[folder:Film]]
57	* ''Film/TheDebt'' follows three young Mossad agents attempting to kidnap a CaptainErsatz version of Dr. Mengele from East Berlin in the '60s.
58	* ''Film/InglouriousBasterds'' features a squad of Jewish-American soldiers killing Nazi officials and soldiers during [=WW2=] as opposed to after it. One of their members also happens to be a former German soldier that developed a taste for killing Nazis himself after he was subjected to torture by Gestapo agents.
59	* ''Film/MarathonMan'': A rare villainous example is [[spoiler:Janeway is a member of a government organization that performs this function, who has decided to allow Szell to be free (and looks the other way with his other monstrous acts) as long as Szell provides information on any other fugitive associates of the Nazi regime that he knows about]].
60	* In the French movie (and remake) ''Film/MarieOctobre'', the target is not the former Nazi himself, who was simply an enemy soldier: the problem is that said German revealed the presence of a traitor in the former [[LaResistance resistance]] movement.
61	* ''Film/OperationFinale'' has an entire Mossad squad of them, as it is a dramatization of the kidnapping and extraction of Adolf Eichmann.
62	* Dolores Koulechov (Louise Monot) from ''Film/OSS117LostInRio''.
63	* The protagonist of the second ''Film/{{Outpost}}'' movie is a young woman [[FollowInMyFootsteps carrying on a family vendetta]] of hunting down those who killed their relatives in the holocaust. [[OurZombiesAreDifferent Turns out one of the perpetrators isn't a]] NaziGrandpa.
64	* ''Film/SLCPunk'' has a modern take on this; the main characters find Neo-Nazi punks and beat them up. This is mostly due to the Neo-Nazis calling themselves punks rather than any moral reasons.
65	* ''Film/DerStaatGegenFritzBauer'': The title character is a German prosecutor in the 1950s who spends most of his time investigating the networks of escaped Nazis so he can bring charges against them in Germany or elsewhere, as he wants to rehabilitate his country's image after the war. He even discovers vital clues that help Israel with finding Eichmann.
66	* {{Subverted\|Trope}} in the movie ''Film/TheStatement'' (from the novel by Brian Moore). An old [[LesCollaborateurs Vichy French war criminal]] played by Creator/MichaelCaine kills an apparent Nazi hunter in self-defence, but when the police start investigating it turns out that [[spoiler:the Nazi hunter was just a hitman with a fake Jewish-Canadian background, hired by a couple of influential war criminals who wanted to get rid of Caine as [[HeKnowsTooMuch he knew too much about them]]]].
67	* ''Film/TheStranger'' has a United Nations War Crimes Commission detective trying to track down a notorious high-ranking Nazi (essentially a fictionalized version of Adolf Eichmann) who has successfully escaped and hidden himself in a suburb in Connecticut.
68	* The Australian short film ''Film/{{Ubermensch}}'' (based on a story by Creator/KimNewman) has an aging Nazi hunter visiting his last target in his cell in an American prison... who's still as young as the day they first met. Turns out this is an alternate ComicBook/{{Superman}} who landed in Nazi Germany instead of the United States. So how do you kill a man with superpowers who's effectively immortal?
69	* Erik spends the first twenty minutes or so of his screentime in ''Film/XMenFirstClass'' tracking down and killing Nazis [[PayEvilUntoEvil in often brutal fashions.]] In fact, his reason for joining the X-Men is so that he can find and kill Klaus Schmidt/Sebastian Shaw, the mutant Nazi scientist who killed his mother.
70	* Eyal (Creator/LiorAshkenazi) from ''Film/WalkOnWater'' is initially reluctant to become one and prefers to let the old Nazi die, but his boss Menachem insists on "punishing him before God does".
71	[[/folder]]
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73	[[folder:Literature]]
74	* ''Literature/TheBoysFromBrazil'' by Ira Levin. The protagonist is an obvious Wiesenthal {{expy}}.
75	* Subverted in ''Cobra'' by Creator/AndrewVachss. Burke motivates The Mole (who's Jewish) by saying the people he's chasing are Nazis when the only Nazis he knows are pathetic wannabes to whom he sells copies of Hitler's final speech (actually Simon Wiesenthal addressing a crowd of Holocaust victims).
76	* Former DaChief Barty Crouch Sr. in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'' was a KnightTemplar who led a crusade against the ANaziByAnyOtherName Death Eaters, sending anyone remotely suspected of being one straight to TheAlcatraz without trial. This even included his own son, which led the public to believe [[HeWhoFightsMonsters he was becoming as ruthless as those he fought]].
77	* RecycledInSpace in ''The Literature/HandOfThrawn'', a ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' duology whose conflict is set off by the discovery of the Caamas Document, which details how a group of [[LesCollaborateurs Bothan collaborators]] helped the Galactic Empire glass the planet Caamas, an act of genocide against its pacifist anti-Empire inhabitants. This sparks a near-CivilWar in the New Republic, with some members trying to hold the entire Bothan species accountable since the section naming the collaborators is conveniently missing,[[note]]Although many Republic members are just using the debate as [[PretextForWar an excuse for payback against old enemies on the opposing side]], which the Republic would normally prevent. Also Imperial {{deep cover agent}}s are egging things on.[[/note]] and many of the protagonists go to great lengths to find an intact copy. [[spoiler:Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade ultimately find an intact copy in Grand Admiral Thrawn's archives in the Unknown Regions, and the surviving collaborators are quickly brought to justice.]]
78	* ''Literature/TheOdessaFile'' by Creator/FrederickForsyth has Simon Wiesenthal as a cameo character. The protagonist is an IntrepidReporter tracking down a German war criminal. [[spoiler:However his motives are revealed to be [[YouKilledMyFather entirely personal]].]]
79	[[/folder]]
80
81	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
82	* In the ''Series/{{Airwolf}}'' episode "Fight Like a Dove", the daughter of a Nazi hunter who was murdered by an ex-Nazi ArmsDealer gets the Airwolf team's help to attack the BigBad in his fortress in Paraguay.
83	* The man Sister Jude goes to for information on her co-worker, [[spoiler: Nazi scientist Dr. Arden, also known as Hans Gruper]] in ''Series/AmericanHorrorStoryAsylum''. This takes place in the 1960s, so there are likely a good many Nazis still running around.
84	* Sue Sylvester's mother Doris on ''Series/{{Glee}}'' was absent for most of Sue and Jean's lives as she was hunting down Nazis. Based on some of Doris' comments, and the show being set in the 2010s, it seems the "Nazis" she was tracking down were actually the [[SinsOfTheFather descendants of Nazis]] who were quietly living their lives with no ties to their ancestors' beliefs or crimes.
85	* ''{{Series/Heartbeat}}'' ("Going Home"). A German-American called Victor Kellerman tries to kill a local resident, after spending years trying to track down this 'friend' who confiscated his wealth and sent him to a concentration camp. He's finally able to track him down when the man's son sells a valuable stamp that used to belong to Kellerman.
86	* ''Series/{{Hunters}}'' centers around a team of Nazi hunters who track down and kill a secret Nazi cabal in TheSeventies. [[spoiler:The big twist of the show's first season involves a ''huge'' subversion, in that the group's leader is revealed to be a notorious former Nazi trying to turn [[TheAtoner Atoner]].]]
87	* ''Series/InSearchOf'' covered the international hunt for [[MadDoctor Josef Mengele]], basing their "facts" on the allegations of Simon Wiesenthal (see Real Life). Unfortunately [[DatedHistory now that Mengele's identity while living in South America is known]], the dramatic tales of his narrow escapes from Nazi hunters have turned out to be bogus.
88	* ''Series/{{Kessler}}'', the sequel to ''Series/SecretArmy'', in which the title character is pursued by a German police officer, and a young Israeli woman seeking revenge for her roommate being killed by neo-Nazi thugs.
89	* ''Series/{{Marple}}'': The 2007 TV adaptation of the Literature/MissMarple story ''At Bertram's Hotel'' turns Malinowski (a racecar driver in the novel!) into a Nazi hunter.
90	* ''Series/NightGallery'' pilot film, episode "Escape Route". A Nazi war criminal living in South America is pursued by Israeli agents, including a man he tortured at Auschwitz.
91	* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' solved the age problem with [[TheAgeless ageless]] Nazi necromancers. Unfortunately the Nazi hunter in this case -- who inherited the role after his grandfather was murdered -- is a Jewish college kid who used the instruction manual for his {{golem}} as [[TheStoner rolling paper for his marijuana]], so he has no idea how to command it (the golem isn't happy about him either).
92	[[/folder]]
93
94	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
95	* Any ''TabletopGame/DeltaGreen'' Agent in an operation against the [[{{Ghostapo}} Karotechia]] will be this. One particular example in the backstory is Operation SOUTHERN HOSPITALITY, where Delta Green went to South America to track down and assassinate former Karotechia members, UsefulNotes/{{Mossad}} style.
96	* ''TabletopGame/HunterTheVigil'' has the Loyalists of Thule. Originally part of the [[{{Ghostapo}} Thule Society]], they got squeamish about how chummy the organization was getting with the Third Reich, and split off. In modern times, they feel the need to atone for their part in the Nazi rise to power by hunting neo-Nazis, monsters with ties ''to'' the Nazis, and monsters in general when they get a minute.
97	[[/folder]]
98
99	[[folder:Video Games]]
100	* The New California Republic from the ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series becomes this towards the [[ANaziByAnyOtherName Enclave]] after the latter's defeat at the hands of the Chosen One. The two eventually go to war with each other and despite numerous casualties on both sides, the [=NCR=] prevailed and the Enclave was forced to relocate to the East Coast to lick their wounds and bide their time; those who stayed behind were executed on the spot, ostracized, or successfully integrated into the [=NCR=] to avoid further persecution. In one particular character's ending in ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', [[spoiler: after the conclusion of the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, his connections and history with the Enclave soon were revealed by both the NCR and the Brotherhood of Steel, and the two factions team up together to hunt him down and attempt to try him for his affiliations (i.e. [[SinsOfOurFathers simply being the son of an officer]]) with the organization, who had a rack sheet of crimes against humanity and non-humanity alike.]]
101	* ''VideoGame/SniperEliteV2'', ''VideoGame/SniperEliteIII'', ''VideoGame/SniperElite4'' and ''VideoGame/SniperElite5'' feature Lt. Karl Fairburne, whose missions mainly involve sabotaging [[StupidJetpackHitler Nazi wonder-weapons projects]] before they can be completed. Often, as part of his missions, he's also tasked with hunting the Nazi scientists and officers behind the projects in order to achieve NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup.
102	* The Soldier from ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2''... sort of. He traveled to Poland during the war to kill Nazis and didn't stop until four years after the war was over, because he ''didn't realize the war was over''. What form this Nazi-killing spree took, exactly, is not made clear, but it's heavily implied that they weren't actually Nazis.
103	* The TropeCodifier is BJ Blazkowicz from ''VideoGame/{{Wolfenstein}}'', he dedicated his entire life to hunting down Nazis over and over again, he first took down Hitler himself in ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'', and later on dealt with ''[[{{Ghostapo}} supernatural Nazis]]''. BJ is rather picky about his foes; he only hunts Nazis.
104	[[/folder]]
105
106	[[folder:Real Life]]
107	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wiesenthal Simon Wiesenthal]]
108	** The Simon Wiesenthal Center has recently started to realize that Nazi war criminals are soon going to be all dead, so they've redirected toward hate groups, and toward anybody accused of antisemitism, except, oddly, Argentine dictators who openly praised Adolf Hitler.
109	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Rimland Ingrid Rimland]] once cooperated with Simon Wiesenthal to hunt Josef Mengele, even writing a book, ''Demon Doctor'', about that hunt. [[FaceHeelTurn Later, she'd meet Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel, marry him, and is today a Holocaust denier herself.]]
110	* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakam The Avengers]]. No, [[ComicBook/TheAvengers not them]]. Or [[Series/TheAvengers1960s them]].
111	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efraim_Zuroff Efraim Zuroff]]
112	* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_and_Beate_Klarsfeld Serge and Beate Klarsfeld]]
113	* Hunting Nazis was one of the first tasks carried out by the UsefulNotes/{{Mossad}}.
114	* After his stint in the SOE during World War II, Creator/ChristopherLee -- [[Film/HammerHorror yes]], [[Film/TheWickerMan1973 that]] [[Film/TheLordOfTheRings one]] -- hunted down Nazi war criminals because of his fluency in both French and German.
115	* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliahu_Itzkovitz Eliahu Itzkovitz]] (also listed under the BestServedCold trope) hunted down a former guard who murdered his family in a Romanian concentration camp and who had joined the French Foreign Legion, joining the Legion himself and trailing him all the way to French Indochina, which is now Vietnam, before taking his vengeance upon him and pinning his death upon the enemy.
116	[[/folder]]
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Context Main / NaziHunter