Oct 6- Nazi's

Nazis are almost too easy. In the same way that Darth Vader and The Joker are easily recognized across all factions of culture, so are Nazi’s unanimously recognized across cultures as some of the worst pricks on the planet. You can say literally anything about them and not worry about offending somebody. As Craig Ferguson put it, “fuck you, you’re a Nazi!”

Given their almost universally hated status, they’ve become the easy go-to when it comes to making an easy villain. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, he thought he was just looking for his father, and then he discovered Nazis were involved, then the whole game was changed. In the recent spy adventure, The Man from UNCLE, both Soviets and the US put aside their differences. Why? To stop a Nazi. When Captain America decided to dissolve SHIELD, why did he do it? Because they had been taken over by Hydra, a Nazi organization. Once a Nazi gets involved in anything, that’s when you know it’s time to pull the plug.

So why are Nazi’s so hated? I don’t really think I need to answer this, but here we go. They mass murdered both their own people and people from other countries, they tried to take over the world, their politics were insane, and their leader sported one of the worst mustaches in history. They also were not very good at letting things go. For example, when France surrendered to Germany, Hitler made them sign the surrender document in the same train car that Germany had surrendered to France at the end of World War I. Does anybody want to be friends with someone who throws that much shade?

What makes them so terrifying is that they aren't aliens or monsters. They are people. Actual thinking people thought that murdering so many people for such trivial reasons was not only justified, but the right thing to do. They told themselves they were making the world a better place by doing these things. That's a horrifying. Convincing a small group of people to do something crazy is one thing, but Nazi ideals had an entire country supporting this. Now of course, the defense that a lot of former Nazi's threw around at Nuremburg is that they were under orders. This notion had psychologists baffled for years. How is it that these seemingly intelligent, decent people could be coaxed into committing these atrocities? Eventually an answer was found, though through less intense means. Nazi Germany is the ultimate example of what can happen when too many people let their emotions get the better of them. 

As odd as it sounds, it was hard to pick a specimen to represent the ideal nazi in movies. The reason being that there have been so many of them throughout cinema history and the type of movie they are in depends on how they are going to be shown. If this were Indiana Jones or Inglourious Basterds, then they are mustache twirlers. If this were Schindler's List, they would be as true to history as possible. 

So I guess speed round?

 Belloq. Not techinically a Nazi, but was willing to go along with it to reach his own ambitions.

Hans Landa. Actually, one of the most likable on screen villains you'll find. Super polite and courteous. He even hints that he doesn't really support the Nazis in his mind, but he's a detective, so working for the Nazis is just his way of putting food on the table.

 Hitler, or Kung Fuhrer. Perfect example of how we take Nazis and exploit the hell out of the fact that we can point and laugh at them all we want and nobody gets offended.