Why can't i play Nazi's?

[ryuutchi]

Not to mention the fact that doing things from a Nazi perspective could be interesting if not exactly politically correct. Consider that Hitler's people were responsible for recovering some of the greatest treasures and artworks in the world. A lot of museum collections would not be anything like what they are now if not for his ruthlessness.

Nazi fascination with The Occult does not always mean that they have to be the bad guys in that respect (summoning demons to destroy the allies). You could just as easily have secret groups of Nazis fighting against supernatural evil to protect humanity as the other side. \

No, I think it's more the "tried to kill all the Jews/Roma/gays/Jehovah's Witnesses/ANYONE NON-ARYAN AND PROTESTANT" that makes them the bad guys who are trying to summon demons to destroy the Allies.

I know I, for one, would have a damn hard time being okay with a game that depicted Nazi officials as trying to protect humanity because even if they're trying to "protect humanity", you'd have to have some pretty hardcore blinders on to not realize just how narrow the Nazi view of humanity WAS. (Hint: It didn't include Jews, Roma, gays, or anyone who wasn't Aryan and Protestant.)

 

[Eatbrainz]

Its because the nazis are BAAAAD!

 

[suhlEap]

ever heard of a RTS called blitzkrieg 2? you can either play as the nazis or the soviets. and while it is slightly odd, it's pretty fun. i don't really see a huge problem in playing as the nazis!

 

[Connor Lonske]

How about a Nazi death camp simulator. Bet OP would love that game.

 

[Connor Lonske]

i think it's about time we gave Hans in the trench a little bit more of a human face.

I agree, both sides of my family fought for the Nazi regime, and media like "Inglorious Bastards" makes me want to strangle the writers, I can guarantee most of the Nazi soldiers were either indoctrinated ot did not want to fight for the regime at all, but rather were forced.

Firstly, you shut up. That movie's going to be awesome.

Secondly, and more on topic... How would you make the game? Would you emphasize the Nazis not really wanting to fight, but killing Jews anyway? It wouldn't sell. Literally and figuratively. Regardless of how you want to argue it, the troops not having a choice and the like, no one wants to play as a hypocrite. The only way it could work is if it were about the Nazis breaking away and deserting, essentially defeating the whole purpose.

Why the hell does anyone want to play as a Nazi anyway? What's the attraction?

"Firstly" and "Secondly" are not grammatically correct.

"Killing Jews anyways"? All of the concentration camps were run by the Schutzstaffel, not the Wehrmacht, and how many of those guys do you think were really enthusiastic about running that kind of place? Most of the men were kept in line for fear of punishment, my Opa almost got shot for sleeping on duty (he feigned heat stroke to avoid punishment). All I'm saying is you shouldn't dehumanize the soldiers in WWII games, because they were no different from an Allied soldier. Oh, and before you start yelling about Jews again, research a bit about Gen. Eisenhower, and what he did to Germans after the war ended.

How bad is your self-esteem that you have to correct grammar- incredibly MINOR grammar errors- in order to make yourself feel superior? You know what? Don't answer. It isn't relevant, and I really don't care.

Just to clarify: The discussion isn't whether Nazis were sweet or caring people. The discussion is why won't developers allow gamers to play as Nazis. I've explained it. You've given no counter argument as to why developers should allow gamers to play as Nazis, except "but they were HUMAN!" I will again explain the real issue again, in case you were somehow confused.


REGARDLESS of whatever excuse a Nazi soldier has for fighting, no one wants to play as a hypocrite. I'm sure many Nazi soldiers weren't happy about what was going on in the war- they still fought. They didn't have a choice, sure, but they still fought. It might be unfair to label them as such, but it doesn't change the fact that it's hypocritical. And, again, no one wants to play as a hypocrite.

Just to go ahead and get it out of the way: if you continue to ignore the real discussion, I'm not going to bother replying. In other words, if you're going to come back with all this garbage about Nazis being real humans, without even mentioning the words "video game" or "developer" then don't bother.

They killed 11 million Jews! They fought because they wanted to take over the world. Don't say other wise.

 

[Seanchaidh]

No, I think it's more the "tried to kill all the Jews/Roma/gays/Jehovah's Witnesses/ANYONE NON-ARYAN AND PROTESTANT" that makes them the bad guys who are trying to summon demons to destroy the Allies.

Protestantism wasn't an issue as regards who was killed. Catholics were involved in both the party and the killing just as Protestants were (for whatever reason, a few Catholics were some of the more enthusiastic participants.) The Catholic Church did, though, end up excommunicating one person in the high leadership of the Nazi regime: Joseph Goebbels. Why? Because he married a Protestant.

 

[dochmbi]

You can play as a incredibly evil character in so many games, for example in Fallout 3 you can do many heinous things. So why would it be a problem to play as a Nazi soldier during an alternative WW2 in which Germany is victorious?

 

[hebdomad]

World War 2 is still a very sensitive issue

Many of our relatives fought and died in the conflict on both sides.

Sure, by our ideology, the Nazis did some terrible stuff, but the concept of 'pure blood' is still popular today (AkA Harry Potter).

Another note is that both sides killed millions of each other. The allies are not as squeaky clean as your history books may tell you. The bombing of Dresden is a prime example.

I'm not hear to defend anyone. To be honest, Both sides had their mad men and the most important point is, all this mass murder was done by your average human. We are all capable of doing the same.

Game developers wont touch these at all. They would rather focus on the "ooH Raa! Allies Saved the world from evil narzis"

 

[beddo]

We have all seen the many many MANY WWII games in which we play as either the allies or the sovjets. But why are there so few games in which i can play as the Nazi's?

The ethical/political discussion aside, war is hell, for both sides. The Allies weren't fighting demons, the Axis suffered a great deal as well. And i think it's about time we gave Hans in the trench a little bit more of a human face.

Why do you want to 'play' through the horrific events of World War 2 in games that give neither an appreciation of the cricumstances or a true representation of what really happened? War is not a game, I would be horrified to think that people were playing a war I lost friends in, as a game.

 

[wordsmith]

They killed 11 million Jews! They fought because they wanted to take over the world. Don't say other wise.

[devil's advocate] They fought because they were told to. They were told to fight because by eliminating the factions which split not only Germany but the world, they would have united the world. Think about it. A world without Anti-semitism, a world without racism, a world without discrimination based on disabilty. In short, a new human race. [/devil's advocate]

Now, before I get jumped on, let me just mention something. I have only made the above comment because people seem to fixate on "they killed them" rather than "why did they kill them?". I've got dark eyes, dark hair and celtic ancestory, so I wouldn't have been part of the "new world". I'm not saying what Hitler wanted done was right, no-one can say that. I'm saying it was a good theory, executed (pardon the pun) poorly. Unite the world, great. Kill everyone who won't unite, bad.

 

[Utarefson]

I'd like to see a WW2 game where you play as a german soldier, but not as a nazi.
It should be some kind of RPG/Shooter thing, where you have to make decisions between doing the right/not getting shot by the nazi standing next to you because you look like a traitor.
And it should show that nazis were a minority ruling over a majority.
And that they were scary.Really.

 

[Epitome]

They killed 11 million Jews! They fought because they wanted to take over the world. Don't say other wise.

1) Coming from an American that is one hollow ass statement, your country has done nothing but attempt to impose capitalism on socialist republics for decades, and God forbod somebody doesnt worship money or salute the Aemrican flag 9 times a day

2) If you knew ANYTHING about the history of the war you would know that it was about righting the perceived wrongs against Germany from the end of WW1 and reuniting Germans, it snowballed after Hitler tried to reclaim Poland

3) Alot of soldiers fought because they were conscripted, you remember conscriptio n its that thing YOUR country did when it lost Vietnam, calling upon the avergage citizen to fight for their country, if your government told you to do it tomorrow you would smile and eat some apple pie you walking stereotype

I am NOT pro-Nazi, nor anti-semetic but WW2 cost ALOT of lives and the most of it was senseless, but you can dehumanise the whole thing because you dont question propaganda, oh and you conveniently forgot the 200000 CIVILIANS your government saw fit to vapourise.Nazi soldiers were people to

 

[kiltmanfortywo]

I am for the idea, if for no other reason than it would be something new. We are always killing nazis, probably because they are the one group of people that can be publicly hated without anybody being upset.

From a cultural standpoint, it would be interesting because of the change of cultural perspective. It wouldn't be offensive anymore than playing as the german army in a multiplayer match, I have seen several american and soviet soldiers through the ironsights while wearing a wermacht uniform.

It is important to remember that the german army was composed of men just like ours; you will often hear stories from soldiers of the war saying how these enemies could easily have been friends, if the meeting was under different circumstances. The average german grunt was no different than the american counterpart, except for language and uniform. They were just as scared as we were, they had families like ours, jobs in the civilian world, and they wanted to get back to these just as much as the americans to theirs.

Watch all quiet on the western front. It is WWI but from the german perspective. It illustrates my points very nicely, albeit for a different war.

 

[The Kangaroo]

We have all seen the many many MANY WWII games in which we play as either the allies or the sovjets. But why are there so few games in which i can play as the Nazi's?

I've crashed so many planes on the Allies as a German in El Alamein that I don't know how to respond to that.

(Battlefield 1942.)

And anyway, portraying the Nazis as sympathetic in a single-player game would dig up too many emotions from the public, I'd think. It's too soon. Wait another generation or two.

There is a difference between Nazi and German soldier and while I agree with you that Nazi's and terrorists are fuckheads so were the Russians, I mean the things Russians did in the war are horrible and lets not forget the mass murderers that are the Americans(atomic bomb) but yet we constantly play as them, slaughtering people by the thousand.

The atomic bombs killed far less people, even including radiation aftereffects, than German concentration camps or the Japanese occupation of just about any given chunk of eastern, southeastern, or Pacific Asia.

(Or the Soviet, er, anything. But they were allies at the time so there's kind of an embarrassment with bringing them up.)

America slaughtered people by the thousands while others were slaughtering people by the millions. At worst, we were the lesser evil.

That's what I'm saying, nobody was innocent in either of the World Wars or really any war.

 

[ryuutchi]

Now, before I get jumped on, let me just mention something. I have only made the above comment because people seem to fixate on "they killed them" rather than "why did they kill them?". I've got dark eyes, dark hair and celtic ancestory, so I wouldn't have been part of the "new world". I'm not saying what Hitler wanted done was right, no-one can say that. I'm saying it was a good theory, executed (pardon the pun) poorly. Unite the world, great. Kill everyone who won't unite, bad.

He didn't kill everyone who wouldn't "unite". He killed everyone he decided wasn't human. Jews and Roma were considered bloody RATS. It had nothing to uniting anything except Hitler's conception of the Aryan Race. The why was that Hitler was a genocidal asshole, and managed to convince a significant portion of Germans that Jews were not human by preying on old prejudices.

I'm not quite sure why people find that hard to understand. Why did they kill them? It was ETHNIC BLOODY CLEANSING.

Stalin killed people who wouldn't unite. Hitler killed because he hated Jews.

 

[ryuutchi]

The answer is: "BECAUSE THE GODDAMNED HOLOCAUST," okay.

It doesn't matte whether those particular soldiers have taken part in the death camps-- if you think about Germany and WWII, what's the first thing that comes to mind? THE HOLOCAUST. People don't want to have that association when they're supposed to be playing as a good guy. You know, the association that says that "if I win this game, and Germany does win the war, they're going to continue killing Jews, so I am, in essence, causing genocide."

How is this hard to get?

 

[Connor Lonske]

They killed 11 million Jews! They fought because they wanted to take over the world. Don't say other wise.

1) Coming from an American that is one hollow ass statement, your country has done nothing but attempt to impose capitalism on socialist republics for decades, and God forbod somebody doesnt worship money or salute the Aemrican flag 9 times a day

2) If you knew ANYTHING about the history of the war you would know that it was about righting the perceived wrongs against Germany from the end of WW1 and reuniting Germans, it snowballed after Hitler tried to reclaim Poland

3) Alot of soldiers fought because they were conscripted, you remember conscriptio n its that thing YOUR country did when it lost Vietnam, calling upon the avergage citizen to fight for their country, if your government told you to do it tomorrow you would smile and eat some apple pie you walking stereotype

I am NOT pro-Nazi, nor anti-semetic but WW2 cost ALOT of lives and the most of it was senseless, but you can dehumanise the whole thing because you dont question propaganda, oh and you conveniently forgot the 200000 CIVILIANS your government saw fit to vapourise.Nazi soldiers were people to

First Paragraph: You have a point.

Second: That was the resin the people played along, but Hittler was shit bats insane and hated minorities, (just for the record, I am a Jew). He wanted two things, more German "living space", and death to Jews and other groups.

3th and 4th: You have a point, but tell you the truth, every country did that back then because they wanted to have solders that wanted to fight, but tell you the truth, I don't really like that fact. Hell I don't even like the US that much, I was not even talking for the US when I said the Nazis killed 11 million Jews, I was talking for the other western countries who were affected by them, one you are likely in. I was also taking for my family members who were living in poland who had to hid the fact that they had Jewish blood so they could live.

Also, don't say that we killed 200,000 civilians randomly with out a source to back it up.

 

[oneniesteledain]

"Playing the Nazis" would be like "playing the democracy".

Nazism is a sociopolitical belief system, not what all German soldiers were.

Nonetheless, I understand the point, and believe you should have the option. CoH: Opposing Fronts lets you play as Germans, although this has been pointed out.

 

[Soxafloppin]

A game from both perspectives would most likely sell, but not if it was just from the nazi point of view.

 

[Merteg]

I would enjoy to play as the Germans.