KZ Manager is an Austrian game (with many clones) whose earliest version has been developed in 1990 and in which you are a KZ Manager.*
In this game, the player is a Nazi concentration camp director who has to manage the "Human Resources" (Jews, Turks and Romani) by making them work to meet the costs of the lethal gas and the burning of the corpses. If you don't execute enough inmates, your public opinion will drop and you will eventually lose.
Yeah... It's that kind of a game. Needless to say, this game is very controversial.
See also Ethnic Cleansing, a similar game.
This game presents examples of the following tropes:
- Artistic Licence – History:
- Turks were never targeted by the Nazis for extermination. While some Turks died in the Holocaust, their murders generally had nothing to do with them being Turkish. Their inclusion is likely due to tensions between German nationalists and Turkish immigrants in post-WWII Germany.
- One major gameplay element is ensuring public opinion of yourself stays high; if it drops too low, the game ends, implicitly because the government has removed you from command of the camp. It's true that many Germans were at least vaguely aware of the Holocaust, but there's no evidence that a concentration camp director was ever replaced because he was unpopular with the people.
- Deadly Gas: You must buy it for your Gas Chambers.
- Dehumanization: Jews, Romani, and Turks are presented as "subhumans" to be murdered and enslaved.
- Final Solution: You're implementing it against the Jews, the Romani and/or the Turks.
- Gas Chamber: Present, of course, given the setting: you must send your inmates there.
- Human Resources:
- You buy your inmates.
- The game use Müllberg, or "pile of garbage", for describing the corpses of your inmates once you gas them.
- If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: At the beginning of the game there is a question asking you "How do you view Turkish People", with two good answers note and two bad answers note . Picking either of the good answers kicks you out of the game immediately.
- Made a Slave: What happens to your inmates once you buy them.
- Nazi Protagonist: Of the "outright villainous" variety. Considering you play as a concentration camp director, it's no surprise.
- POW Camp: You run one.
- Those Wacky Nazis: You play one.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: We are here way beyond mere potential, given the theme.
- Villain Protagonist: You play a Nazi concentration camp director.
- Working on the Chain Gang: You can make the inmates work so that the money gained can be used to buy the lethal gas or pay for the cremation of the bodies.
- You Lose at Zero Trust: If you don't exterminate enough "subhumans", public opinion will drop until you lose.
