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Basic Trope: German characters being portrayed as Those Wacky Nazis in the future, the past, or in fantasy universes.

  • Straight: In a Time Travel show, Frederick the Great, The Red Baron, Erich Honecker, Chairman Schultz, and Walther Ivermann all exhibit mannerisms that evoke Nazi Germany distinctly.
  • Exaggerated:
    • Every single German in the history of ever is portrayed as a longcoat-clad, goose-stepping, Jew-hating, Card-Carrying Villain.
    • All Germans, even people with only one very distant German relative, are Adolf Hitler. They do not merely resemble him, they are exactly like him.
    • Dwight Eisenhower, Winston Churchill, Chester Nimitz, J. R. R. Tolkien, King George VI, most of the troops in the British, American, Canadian, New Zealand, and Australian armed forces, and a large number in the Indian army all have German ancestry. As do many in the Red Army. Therefore, they are all exactly like Hitler, even though they opposed Nazism. As are all the people who live in Austria, Switzerland (even the French, Italian, and Romansh speaking people), Liechtenstein, many in Luxembourg and the Netherlands, and many of the people of Israel.
    • Theodoric the Ostrogoth, who lived more than fourteen centuries before World War II, was a Nazi. And he carried a swastika with him when conquering Rome. So too were Charlemagne and most of his enemies.
    • Even Amish are Nazis as they have German ancestry.
  • Downplayed:
  • Justified:
    • Historical figures are replaced by time-travelling Nazis trying to Make Wrong What Once Went Right.
    • The scenes during World War II are set inside a secret village, where only members of the Nazi Party are allowed in.
    • The story is about a Nazi propaganda project associating every famous person of German ancestry with Nazism.
    • The story is set in an Alternate-History Nazi Victory, where the Third Reich still stands today and forced all of it's citizens to abide by it's ideology.
    • The story is set in WW2 and the only German soldiers engaged by the heroes are fanatical Waffen-SS.
  • Inverted:
    • Even from 1933 to 1945, there are no Nazis.
    • All Germans embody a different ridiculous stereotype: Oktoberfest around the clock. Beer and polka for everybody!
    • Germany is the only country portrayed in the work as not having Nazi attitudes.
    • No Nazis Are Germans: All Nazi characters are of non-German nationalities, such as foreign recruits in the Wehrmacht and SS or American Neo-Nazis.
    • All the German characters are deeply ashamed of their country's Nazi past, and are constantly apologizing for it.
    • All Russians Are Stalinists: Every single Russian character, even those from before the Russian Revolution, is portrayed as an over-the-top Stalinist.
  • Subverted: A German leader in The Future looks and sounds like a Nazi, but it's only a prank to scare the time-travelers.
  • Double Subverted: But then an actual Nazi leads a revolution and overthrows him.
  • Parodied:
  • Zig Zagged: The German character often switches between acting like a Nazi and being offended by being treated like one.
  • Averted:
    • Germans both before and after the Nazi era are portrayed appropriately, without any references to Nazis.
    • During Nazi rule, some Germans are portrayed as either outright defiant or less than sympathetic to the regime, or else as apathetic.
  • Enforced: The work was made in 1946, or is a throwback to that era.
  • Lampshaded: "Herr Bismarck?" "Ja?" "...You're wearing a swastika armband. What. The. Fuck."
  • Invoked: "Let's go to a German neo-Nazi rally; it'll look like all Germans are Nazis."
  • Exploited: Bob the Sleazy Politician has Sam the equally sleazy PR agent remind people of Germany's Nazi past because his government is competing with modern Germany for political prestige in the EU and wants a propaganda advantage.
  • Defied: "Let's only meet the least stereotypical Germans possible."
  • Discussed: "As we're in 1930s Germany, all Germans we'll see will be Nazis."
  • Conversed: "These guys are great. Why does everyone think they're Nazis?"
  • Implied: Fritz gives voice to many ideals Nazi Germany is known to have espoused, including some controversial ones, but very few people call him a Nazi.
  • Deconstructed:
  • Reconstructed:
    • But he actually is a Nazi in secret and occasionally shows it.
    • All media depicting Germans as Nazis are owned and created by a German Nazi, making the whole plan Shaped Like Itself.
  • Played for Drama:
    • The German characters all are members of a Nazi Nobleman family that got off scot-free thanks to their connections, and they are now working to support Nazi ideals in modern-day Germany. Everyone angsts about this a great deal.
    • Mikhail, a former Nazi Hunter with a huge Knight Templar tendency, believes that all Germans are Nazis and they must be exterminated. So he begins to perpetuate a Final Solution to cleanse the entire German population, regardless whether they are truly Nazis. His action ironically makes him no different to the Nazis...

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