Demonizing those darn Nazis (Video-Games and other stuff)

[TheIronRuler]

When I say Nazis, I mean the NSDAP in Germany and their sister parties in countries around the world who took the same or similar ideals to heart. Hell, the USA had the German American Bund in the 1930s (not to say that they were the American equivalent to the NSDAP, but they were the closest I could find...). Whenever we see a Nazi in our current gaming culture, we either have to puncture him full of holes or tear that poor throat apart in the dark, depending on your game's genre. We've always seen them as appropriate cannon fodder, especially when they became zombies.
Oh don't get me started on the motherfucking zombies.

Anyway, where as I - yes, the Nazis (Nazi being an Austria slur for the members of the NSDAP and their supporters). Why hate them? Why make them our perfect target? I know that WW2 had been romanticized to death throughout the years now that we have no Soviet threat to fear (or root for, Go Gorbachov!), and when it comes to their depiction as disposable antagonists we're already over at the 'indigenous backwards (and brown) people' stage when it comes down to cannon fodder.

So what makes a group something that's "ok to slaughter"? Often I see people rising up against the depiction of a certain group as the antagonists in a video-game where the protagonist kills them like flies, but I didn't hear much opposition when I massacred Nazis in the first Call of Duty game.

I know that as a solution we turned to fantasy and science-fiction, such groups as elves, zombies and Krogans. We don't have people who suffered through the 'Krogan genocide' and can take offense at its depiction

What's your opinion? Is this justified, or should we just switch over to fantasy?

 

[Wintermoot]

the Nazi's are the only group that is 100% evil.
No other group systematically killed people as the Nazi's did.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

So what makes a group something that's "ok to slaughter"? Often I see people rising up against the depiction of a certain group as the antagonists in a video-game where the protagonist kills them like flies, but I didn't hear much opposition when I massacred Nazis in the first Call of Duty game.

Dehumanisation. The same thing that made the Nazis think it's alright for them to slaughter people makes us think it's alright to slaughter them because we don't think they are human. Actually that's kinda ironic when I think about it.

When your enemy isn't humanised you feel no guilt about killing them, that is why zombies are so popular, they're human bodies without the mind and soul that makes killing people so abhorrent, so it's acceptable to destroy them because they have the mental integrity of a plywood cupboard.
By seeing what the Nazis did to other humans in those death camps; the utterly despicable ways they treated other humans, people couldn't really believe that those were regular people doing those things, they were normal, sane, rational people that were also capable of becoming so... inhumane while still retaining a rational, logical, caring and loving attitude to their families and each other, so they have been repeatedly depicted as unhuman monsters, and decried as not being the same as you or I, the Nazis that ran the death camps weren't normal, they were abnormal unhuman evil beings, and as the second or third generation of this teaching we are essentially conditioned to despise the Nazis in the same way the Nazis were conditioned to despise who they believed to be unworthy of humanity.

We're not good at learning from our mistakes, even when we hold up the holocaust as the ultimate thing we must learn from and stop happening again.

EDIT: Don't mean to be mean, but the guy above kinda proves my point here...

 

[TheIronRuler]

the Nazi's are the only group that is 100% evil.
No other group systematically killed people as the Nazi's did.

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I can pull out at least three examples out of the top of my head that are more "evil" than the Nazis-
Khmer Rogue
Soviet engineered Holodomor
Soviet "Great Purge"

err... look, I want to be nice here, but I don't think you should call the Nazi's "100% evil".

Oscar Schindler [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Schindler] was a Nazi.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

the Nazi's are the only group that is 100% evil.
No other group systematically killed people as the Nazi's did.

The group as a whole might have been pretty damn evil but that doesn't make every individual member evil. I'm sure there were Nazis who enjoyed systematically killing people but I'm also sure that there were many Nazis who were just following orders out of fear or who fought in World War 2 simply because they were patriots wanting to protect their country.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Because they scored the triple three.

They did horrific things (1) in a very well-known documented event (2) and ended up losing (3).

Oh, and the Nazis are mostly extinct save a few nutcases, so there's furthermore no one to argue for their cause.

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Oh, and the Nazis are mostly extinct save a few nutcases, so there's furthermore no one to argue for their cause now this is an argument I can stand behind, but there were other groups who did the "triple three" as well. The only difference being is that they are either unknown to pop-culture or that's "politically incorrect".

 

[Vegosiux]

the Nazi's are the only group that is 100% evil.
No other group systematically killed people as the Nazi's did.

Uh huh. Genghis Khan wiped out an entire civilization. Why? Simply because they pissed him off.. Ever heard of Khwarezm? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khwarezm]

Exactly.

Yet GK seems to be the "awesome badass" archetype in pop culture. It is as the saying goes "To kill one is murder, to kill a million, a statistic." Oh and by the way, apparently Stalin never actually said that, it's misattributed to him.

 

[QtheMuse]

Terrorists are the next nazi.

 

[Ryotknife]

I dont see where the harm in hating Nazis is. Most americans hate Nazis, but it is not like we hate Germans (hell ill go on a limb and say most of us LIKE germans). If anything it provides incentive for it to not happen again.

So long as hatred of Nazis doesnt spill over onto innocents, I would actually say it is productive to mankind.

 

[Nieroshai]

NAZI wasn't a slur, it was an acronym for the "Nationalsozialistische" in "Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei" or "National Socialist German Workers' Party". I know you want to make your little point, but those ARE the Nazis we shoot in video games, not neo-Nazis or fascists or socialists with German accents.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

Now this is an interesting take on this particular topic. For me, I find it easy to 'demonize' Nazi's, simply because of their general stance to wipe out an entire people, the Jewish people, because they found them abhorrent. That, combined with the stance of, I would assume very vocal, extremists who viewed the Aryan's as the most 'superior' race out there, make it very easy for me to hate the group and their standpoints. I despise racists, and I loathe those that are so haughty as to think themselves better than everyone else by simply being.

Now, I fully understand that, more than likely, most German soldiers at the time, didn't have that standpoint, and were simply following orders. They were literally no different at the core to Allied soldiers of the time, save being on the other side.

But here's the thing: As a soldier, and in games, you most often play as one when it happens to be set in World War 2, you need to be able to kill your enemy without hesitation. This usually means dehumanizing and demonizing them to the point where you can not only kill them without hesitation, but also without remorse.

Now, whether a soldier feels justified in fighting a war against a certain country or enemy, depends on the cause and the enemy. Considering the atrocities that the Nazi's, as a whole, committed? I would say that most Allied soldiers felt justified, and we are expected to feel the same in games taking place in World War 2.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Now this is an interesting take on this particular topic. For me, I find it easy to 'demonize' Nazi's, simply because of their general stance to wipe out an entire people, the Jewish people, because they found them abhorrent. That, combined with the stance of, I would assume very vocal, extremists who viewed the Aryan's as the most 'superior' race out there, make it very easy for me to hate the group and their standpoints. I despise racists, and I loathe those that are so haughty as to think themselves better than everyone else by simply being.

Now, I fully understand that, more than likely, most German soldiers at the time, didn't have that standpoint, and were simply following orders. They were literally no different at the core to Allied soldiers of the time, save being on the other side.

But here's the thing: As a soldier, and in games, you most often play as one when it happens to be set in World War 2, you need to be able to kill your enemy without hesitation. This usually means dehumanizing and demonizing them to the point where you can not only kill them without hesitation, but also without remorse.

Now, whether a soldier feels justified in fighting a war against a certain country or enemy, depends on the cause and the enemy. Considering the atrocities that the Nazi's, as a whole, committed? I would say that most Allied soldiers felt justified, and we are expected to feel the same in games taking place in World War 2.

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Were the soldiers of the time aware of the atrocities Germany at the time committed? Do note that the allies themselves did some very nasty stuff themselves. For the most part they were comfortable watching the USSR burn till they realized that the Soviets were pushing back.

 

[Texas Joker 52]

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Were the soldiers of the time aware of the atrocities Germany at the time committed? Do note that the allies themselves did some very nasty stuff themselves. For the most part they were comfortable watching the USSR burn till they realized that the Soviets were pushing back.

Of all of the atrocities being committed? Likely not. But I would think that some of what the Nazis were doing, such as the extensive death camps, were known to some extent, even at that time. There isn't any way they knew the full extent of what was going on, no way. Only hindsight and history reveals most of what was happening, and even then it can be somewhat unreliable.

Still, I'm not going to say that Allied troops were one-hundred-percent justified in World War 2. I'm pretty damn sure that there wasn't a side in that war that came out smelling purely of roses and justice. But, especially compared to some of the horrors of the holocaust, both the Allies and the Soviets came out smelling pretty good, when compared to the Axis Powers.

 

[ImSkeletor]

Because WW2 was probably the most Black and White war ever fought. They killed millions apon millions of innocent people in the most cruel ways possible. If they were the villian of a novel and did not actually exist people would criticize the novel for having such one note unrealistically evil characters.

 

[TheIronRuler]

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Were the soldiers of the time aware of the atrocities Germany at the time committed? Do note that the allies themselves did some very nasty stuff themselves. For the most part they were comfortable watching the USSR burn till they realized that the Soviets were pushing back.

Of all of the atrocities being committed? Likely not. But I would think that some of what the Nazis were doing, such as the extensive death camps, were known to some extent, even at that time. There isn't any way they knew the full extent of what was going on, no way. Only hindsight and history reveals most of what was happening, and even then it can be somewhat unreliable.

Still, I'm not going to say that Allied troops were one-hundred-percent justified in World War 2. I'm pretty damn sure that there wasn't a side in that war that came out smelling purely of roses and justice. But, especially compared to some of the horrors of the holocaust, both the Allies and the Soviets came out smelling pretty good, when compared to the Axis Powers.

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Soviets? Oh fuck no, I wouldn't go that far. When the first camps were released the allied (including Comintern) troops were shocked to find these walking corpses inside. They weren't prepared to see what they saw, and it showed in the way they treated the survivors. People motherfucking died after the camps were released because they ate some much food the troops gave to them til their stomach burst. I remember a fucking heartbreaking story of four brother who were in the same camp together. The first died during a harsh winter out of sickness and the third died when he couldn't stop eating the food the American troops gave him... till he died. He was that hungry he couldn't stop even when his brother begged him to. So no, they weren't prepared. The shit that went down with the German internment and death camps were nowhere near as horrible as the Soviet's Gulags, but they weren't that far off. Secret police executed Kulaks in their homes and many were deported to these camps where they died working in the harsh conditions.
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Because WW2 was probably the most Black and White war ever fought. They killed millions apon millions of innocent people in the most cruel ways possible. If they were the villian of a novel and did not actually exist people would criticize the novel for having such one note unrealistically evil characters.

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The Soviets killed millions and millions of "their own people" in the late 1920s and 1930s before the war in the Holodomor and the Great Purge. Killing clergymen, officers of the white-guard and old army, wealthy people and their family was a responsibility delegated upon a "secret police" force. Furthermore, many were exiled to labor camps in Siberia where some died.

The allied? Well, Britain shot their deserters, The USA locked up its Gays and Canada... well, Canada was kinda nice. There were no good guys here. Just the Old Imperialist guard standing against new revolutionary fascist forces that wanted a piece of the wold colonies' pie. They were being forced to join hands with a rebounding hated Communist super-state while a 'benevolent' democracy across the seas broke out of its isolationism with the help of its revolutionary president to break the war and later dictate a new world order. So... No, it wasn't black vs. white. It was a cluster-fuck of the colors of the rainbow.

 

[aceman67]

The entire side of my Grandfathers Family tree, all of their extended family, everyone, were killed in Auschwitz. They DESERVE to be demonized.

No other group systematically killed people as the Nazi's did.

Not true.

Look up the Genocide in former Yugoslavia. My father still wakes up in the middle of the night screaming (Almost 20 years later) over what he saw there as a UN Peacekeeper.

Then there is the Rwandan genocide, and while not on the same scale, or in the same ways, they just dragged Tutsi men, women, and children into the streets and butchered them with machetes. They killed 500,000-1,000,000 (They don't know how many people were killed) people in 100 days.

I'm not saying that one is worse then the other, Genocide is Genocide, and should be equally reviled.

Oh, you should look up a man named Genghis Khan. Historians believe that he's responsible for millions of deaths and the entire annihilation of civilizations during his rise to power and is rule afterwards.

Because WW2 was probably the most Black and White war ever fought.

Not exactly true, the allies had heard rumours about what the Nazi's were doing, but no real evidance. It wasn't until The Russians liberated camps on their March to Berlin on the Western Front, or until the 101st Airborne found the camps on the Eastern Front that the true scale and horror of it all was brought to light.

 

[TheIronRuler]

The entire side of my Grandfathers Family tree, all of their extended family, everyone, were killed in Auschwitz. They DESERVE to be demonized.

No other group systematically killed people as the Nazi's did.

Not true.

Look up the Genocide in former Yugoslavia. My father still wakes up in the middle of the night screaming (Almost 20 years later) over what he saw there as a UN Peacekeeper.

Then there is the Rwandan genocide, and while not on the same scale, or in the same ways, they just dragged Tutsi men, women, and children into the streets and butchered them with machetes. They killed 500,000-1,000,000 (They don't know how many people were killed) people in 100 days.

I'm not saying that one is worse then the other, Genocide is Genocide, and should be equally reviled.

Oh, you should look up a man named Genghis Khan. Historians believe that he's responsible for millions of deaths and the entire annihilation of civilizations during his rise to power and is rule afterwards.

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Oh, don't get me wrong here, I'm not justifying shit. Since my family was situated inside the red giant all they saw was (luckily) a crazy run in the night from the occupied Ukraine from Nazi forces and many of the men in the family fighting in the ranks of the red army against the Germans. I have some of their letters even today, and their heroic stories will live on in my heart and mind. One of my great-great-grandparents was a veteran of WW1 and the October Revolution. He was an injured, starred sergeant in the war. When they called men to arms they spared him because of his past and military injury, but he insisted on going into battle commanding his old unit (with some of his old comrades). He fought all the way to the outskirts of Berlin were he was injured again and decommissioned. He survived both world wars as a hero. I think he was 46 when he got into the ranks of the Soviet army in '41.