Basic Trope: Those Wacky Nazis appearing in the story with no rhyme or reason.
- Straight: In a buddy cop movie series, one installment has the heroes tracking down a band of weapon smugglers... and at the halfway point, a group of authentic Nazis takes center stage and the heroes have to deal with them.
- Exaggerated:
- In a Time Travel show, there's about 1 in 4 chance that the main characters will end up fighting Nazis, regardless of the time and place they're headed to.
- The work is ostensibly a mundane Sitcom set in The Present Day... until the Nazis suddenly invade.
- Downplayed: The Nazis show up during World War II, but not where they'd be expected (e.g. Alaska, British India, New Zealand, or Mongolia).
- Justified: The Gratuitous Nazis are a bunch of actual neo-Nazis using authentic hardware and regalia and led by several very old (and very embittered) Nazi officers.
- Inverted: The protagonists are pinned down by several criminals wielding automatic weapons... but then The Cavalry arrives, in the shape of Gratuitous British Commandos backed up by a Mk IV "Churchill" tank.
- Subverted:
- The "Gratuitous Nazis" are actually a bunch of perfectly mundane criminals who want to play on the fact that if people report Nazis committing crimes, few will believe them.
- The plot does some Foreshadowing that Gratuitous Nazis will appear... but when they do, the heroes find them all dead, assassinated by a group of heroic Gratuitous Ninja.
- Double Subverted:
- And then it turns out that their boss is an immortal sorcerer from the 17th Ghostapo Division and putting them in uniforms was Step One to get them infested with pissed-off SS ghosts that will turn them into Technically Living Nazi Zombies.
- Some of the Nazis are revealed to have had survived, and become secondary enemies for the rest of the story, on the heroes' as well as the ninjas' target list.
- Parodied:
- The heroes are exploring a Haunted House, see a Jack-in-the-Box toy... and suddenly, a Vampire Hitler head pops out of it.
- The modern-era Gratuitous Nazis are a particularly ridiculous neo-Nazi gang that funds itself by producing and dealing crystal meth.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: The story needs Politically Incorrect Villain antagonists to contrast with the heroes, but the writers pick a more sensible option - such as Amoral Afrikaners or The Klan.
- Enforced: The producer says: "We need some really bad guys for the climactic battle... I know! Throw some Nazis in there!"
- Lampshaded: As soon as Gratuitous Nazis are sighted, the Deadpan Snarker of the group says "I did Nazi that coming..."
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- The Big Good has made it his goal in immortal life to hunt down and destroy anything related to Nazism and enforce No Swastikas in society—by the time the story starts in 3257, all that remains is the Big Good talking about wiping out Nazis in some Noodle Incident that nobody else in the cast is able to understand.
- The author knows that Hitler is evil, but deliberately doesn't want to use Nazis as he feels it may diminish the weight of the evil actions of the Third Reich if Nazis were just thrown in.
- Discussed: "Wait, are those... Nazis?! How in the nine circles of Hell did they even—" "I have no idea, but there's one hard rule with the Nazis - shoot first, ask questions later!"
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: The otherwise Nazi-unrelated story opens on a Dead-Hand Shot featuring a black sleeve with a cuffband like those worn by SS officers.
- Deconstructed: The appearance of Gratuitous Nazis kicks off the plot and takes all of ten minutes, and the rest of the story is about trying to uncover who they really were and if anything supernatural was involved.
- Played For Laughs: While on a night of drunken debauchery in Las Vegas, the heroes encounter a group of drunk, heavily-armed cyborg Nazi vampires cruising around in a pimped-out Hanomag, and promptly decide it's time to head back to the hotel.
- Played For Drama: A large force of Gratuitous Nazis appear out of nowhere in New York City, and promptly start wrecking the city and slaughtering innocents, while the New York City Cops desperately try to contain them and discover just how is it even possible.
- Played For Horror: The Gratuitous Nazis make their random, out-of-nowhere appearance in the story by massacring a holy site or any other atrocity the author believes would increase the shock value up to a hundred.
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