WW2 Games from a Nazi Perspective...

[Thyunda]

I would fucking love a game based on Sven Hassel's books.

As long as enough focus is on the story it'll be good, but if it ever happens, it's going to be a controversially bloody FPS anyway :/

I was about to suggest this - Sven Hassel is the best example of 'Nazi' media that isn't censored. It's so simple too. The protagonists aren't Nazis, they're a penal regiment. Bam. Sympathy.

 

[Mournful Crow]

So I've been going down memory lane, playing some of my older Medal of Honor games when a question popped up in my mind. Of all the WW2 games that have been churned out in the gaming market, why isn't there a WW2 Game from specifically a Nazi (or other Axis) standpoint? Is there one out there that I'm not aware of, or does one even exist? And if one doesn't exist, should one exist? You know, not to glamorize the Nazi (or Axis) viewpoint, but to at least acknowledge it, for fairness' sake.

Now don't get me wrong, the Nazis (Axis) did do terrible things in WW2, but it is 2012; Shouldn't we broaden our horizons a little, and at least try to have a Nazi campaign at least within a WW2 game? Just to get a sense of perspective from their side. To at least see that it really isn't that much different on Either side?

As usual, please keep comments mature, and if you took offense, don't. I'm just stating questions, and am sincerely curious about this topic. I find it would be quite interesting just to have a glimpse into the Nazi soldier's perspective.

Well, modern politics would intrude into such a game right now. There are two sides to every story and the Allied propaganda departments put a ton of effort into demonizing the Nazis beyond belief, while at the same time covering up their own actions during the war which were just as bad, or worse. Wars are won by the biggest bastards after all. Oveall the Allies are still the good guys in the big picture, but it's a lot less clear cut than mainsteam history and movies and such tell you.

To put things into perspective, being a real war, we massacred German civilians to break Germany. Arthur "Bomber" Harris was decorated by the US and UK (where he was knighted, he was a brit) largely for bombing the crap out of german civilians, factories, farms, and even our own people who were captured and beinf forced to work. The germans called him "Butcher" Harris. While he's especially infamous, the Allies pretty much bombed the crap out of Germany harder than they did during The Blitz. During the end german civilians tried to defend their homes in a milita called "The Volkssturm" we pretty much murdered them to a man, and anyonethat was run into for fear of being a sympathizer, they were dumped into mass graves. The Hitler Youth, we killed them, kids as young as six who never took the field were being executed by GIs simply for Nazi affiliation. There is all kinds of stuff about it out there if you start looking at the whole "why people hate Americans" angle. Wars are ugly, that's just how it's done when you go to war for real. The point is that from a German perspective we weren't any better than the crap they do in the video games, indeed we were probably worse which is why we won.

Then there is the whole holocaust thing which is paticularly contreversial right now. According to the stories Jews were basically forced into these giant murder factories and killed with mechanical presician and then dumped in mass graves. In many cases they were tortured and had their skin used to fashion lampshades and things, and the Nazis used to have mobile bone grinders they used for disposing of bodies in the field, sometimes feeding jews into them when they weren't dead. While there is a lot of truth there, if you look up the truth behind the human flesh lampshades, bone grinders, etc... they were debunked. Indeed the human flesh lampshades the war department used for early movies turned out to be goat skin when tested (they were in the Holocaust museum). Not to mention simple questions about how if the Nazis forced Jews into murder factories, there were so many alive with tatoos proving they were in death camps, many of which survived decades due to it being a long term marking system. By definition there would have been no reason to mark anyone, and there would have been no survivors. Bring this stuff up people call you a "holocaust denier", but in reality it's more a matter of acceptance but realizing it was greatly exagerrated for purposes of propaganda. People just aren't ready right now to accept World War II as anything but black and white pitting white knights against a bunch of cartoonish villains.

The issue of Nazi manpower is also an issue, the popular conception has Hitler and a small group of people holding Germany in a reign of terror, and somehow also managing to be omni-present in occupying huge parts of Europe. The truth is that Hitler was hugely popular and his military was made up of followers from all over the world, he didn't need a police state in Germany as the people virtually worshipped him. Likewise nations like Romania and even France provided huge amounts of willing manpower. The French resisance being largely a myth, based on small groups of french patriots and hardliners backed by Russian intelligence. France gets insulted as being "surrender monkeys" because basically what happened is they surrendered to Hitler in part because fighting him was relatively unpopular, they then backed him as they saw him as the winning side, but when the tide turned France realized it was in the way and even if it turned around for Hitler it would be smashed by the allies. The whole "surrender monkey" thing is the allegation that they surrendered twice in the same war, once to each side, and the acceptance of German occupation and French resistance is kind of a political fiction that everyone would agree to when things finished. That's not a perspective you hear much, but understand Hitler couldn't have occupied France and turned it into a police state while doing everything else he was up to, especially not with native Germans. He simply didn't have the manpower to do all of the things he suppodedly held down even allowing for the idiocy of the Russian Campaign. Nobody has that much manpower.

As a result World War II games for the moment kind of need to be a pretty straightforward "Nazi Shooting Gallery", where the bad guys are pretty much always going to be german, or maybe occasionally an Italian if the writers are feeling especially bold. I don't think I've even fought one Romanian in a World War II game, and the Romanians in paticular welcomed Hitler helping them with their Jew problem and looked forward to the "Re-Romanianization" of land and property after their removal. France is always portrayed as a victim, rarely is there anything even remotely ambigious about their role in the war or questions about how the heck Germany ever managed to achieve a virtual police state with an SS member on every street corner as often portrayed while doing anything else (I mean think about how many dudes it would take to occupy France, if it was hostile he would have just flattened it).

-

That said WW II shooting games have never been my strong suit.

I've actually thought it might be cool to do a "Wierd World War II" game from the german perspective. A very dark one where pretty much everyone is an arsehole (except for maybe you), and you play as a team of Hitler's Occult Task force out to recover magical treasures, ancient mysteries, and artworks for the Nazis during World War II. A game that would eventually lead to saving the world while caught between Nazi thugs, and allied morons, an affair made plausible simply by the fact that being a Nazi operation it was covered up after World War II. Something that would stay away from all of the holocaust stuff. I originally thought it would be amusing as an idea because in all of the "Weird WW II" stuff I read it always seems the Nazi mad scientists and occultists get all the fun toys like the cloned dinosaurs or whatever. Playing with that in the same setting without being the bad guy (due to personal perspective) might actually be kind of fun. Of course my tastes are odd to say the least.

The awkward moment when I learn more about WW2 in an internet post, than in a history book....

 

[Mournful Crow]

if you took offense, don't.

This. I would make it my signature if such a thing existed on this site.

Anyway, it's an interesting thought. Though I predict outrage if such a thing were made.

Well of course, what do you expect? We still think we're the good guys for invading the wrong country after 9/11...

 

[wolf thing]

we need to get it across the difference between members of the nazi party and German soldiers. many of the soldier joined before the war and even the one after joined to defend there country not to kill vast quantitys of inocent people. they were men doing there job while nazi officers were kill jews and the other put in concentration camps. many german soldier evaated incons and rescuqed people from the camp, and many were captured and killed by allies forces because they were german. other wisre we wowuld just get another game about the americans kill the pure evil nazis.

 

[Mournful Crow]

it's shooters that don't do this probably because people would want to play a reverse Normandy mission(trying to hold out against waves of landing allies and stopping them from getting off the beach) and shooting americans would not go over so well.
because most non-shooters allow you to play as the germans.
and i should mention that nazi is probably the wrong term for this since (unless you play as part of the waffen-SS) most german soldiers were just guys who got drafted. they were trying to survive and get home, like every soldier fighting a war (except maybe that crazy british guy)

I had a feeling using the term Nazi would be a little inaccurate, but I Didn't know of a more accurate term....

 

[Stepan_RUS']

I seem to have a very different opinion about the war to the people i meet on-line.

I am from Ukraine, my grandfather fought in the 14th SS division "Galician". Germany did a great thing liberating our country from the Bolshevik pigs, if only for a while. I am proud that my grandfather helped them. I do not understand why many forigners hate the Nazi.

To discuss video-games, i cannot say that I play them, so i am not sure about Germany and war-games.

 

[bl4ckh4wk64]

There's a whole hell of a lot of world war II games where you can play as the Germans. While I would like an FPS to do this, (and not fighting Russians like in RO2) it's probably not going to happen. For me, the biggest thing is the Japanese perspective. I mean, there was a whole other half of the war being fought almost solely by Japan against the largest economic powerhouse of the 1940's. The only game where I've played as the Japanese are in Men of War: Assault Squad and it looks like I'll be able to in Rising Storm. That's it.

Then again, I've been looking for another World War II game as I really wasn't overly sickened by them when everyone switched to Modern War. Then again again, I'm also a History major with an emphasis on World War II so...

 

[blackrave]

Battlefield1942
Had Allies and Axis sides

Anything else? Maybe some WW2 strategy games?

 

[dyre]

The thing is, the vast majority of WW2 games don't "tell" a story from any perspective; they just involve one uniformed side shooting another uniformed side, occasionally with funny accents involved. If you're playing on the side of the British, you're not going to hear about the soldiers' thoughts about fighting on the same side as Stalin, or on the guilt over shafting Germany in the Treaty of Versailles, or bitterness about the Battle of Britain, or their thoughts on George VI or Churchill.

You're just going to hear, "Jerry infantry trying to take that bridge! Hit them with the Bren" or w/e. There's no point of view, and therefore there's really no point in playing as the Axis side of the conflict anyway. All you'd have is different uniforms and different accents.

That said, I have nothing against playing as a German. I just don't particularly care, because I don't think there's a WW2 game in existence that even tries to explain the political differences of every side.

 

[Mr F.]

There are some Axis Campaigns in Company Of Heroes and you can play as the Germans in one of Earned In Bloods extra modes.

I don't think we'll ever get one from a Nazi perspective, maybe a Wehrmacht soldiers perspective.

Ninja xD

And the Wehrmacht missions in CoH were brilliant. Not quite sympathetic but not the reverse, it really started to show the desperation and the cost of the war on the Home Front from a German perspective.

But you said it right, games from the perspective of a man in the Wehrmacht can exist (And should exist) but games directly from the perspective of a bonafide Nazi should not, and hopefully will not, exist.

As many have already pointed out, the soldiers in the German army were conscripts, were ordinary men forced to the front lines. Some deserted (Although doing so was a shooting offence), some enjoyed what they were doing (Different time, you have to think logically) some were evil, without a doubt. But many were brave.

When people think of Omaha Beach they think of the nearly unlimited bravery of the men sent forward in landing craft to assault that beach. And that is right, those men were brave. But it is rare to see things from the other perspective, the bravery of the men who did not flee from their posts, who were woken up one morning by one of the largest artillery bombardments in history (Dunno if it was the largest or not) and stood their ground as a seemingly unlimited force of men and boats assaulted them.

No, I do not think it is right to glorify men who committed crimes against humanity. But I do think it is right to remember that bravery is not only an American, British, French, Canadian, Polish, Aussie (etc etc etc) trait.

I dunno, I think that says my peace. I think that its about time a war game was produced that highlighted the more human stories of the war. The German soldiers who deserted and were hidden by the French, the members of the Polish Resistance who died in Warsaw, the stories we like to forget because they go against our histories.

Hell, a game set during the Warsaw uprising would be amazing. Brutal, horrific and in its own way educational. Its about time more people learnt about the horrors of one of our greatest mistakes of the war.


EDIT:

I seem to have a very different opinion about the war to the people i meet on-line.

I am from Ukraine, my grandfather fought in the 14th SS division "Galician". Germany did a great thing liberating our country from the Bolshevik pigs, if only for a while. I am proud that my grandfather helped them. I do not understand why many forigners hate the Nazi.

To discuss video-games, i cannot say that I play them, so i am not sure about Germany and war-games.

Many foreigners hate the Nazi's because it was fascist ideology that brought on hopefully the largest conflict in human history. We hate them for their ideology, for the slaughter of innocents, for the Blitz, for France, for Belgium, for Poland. We hate them for causing a rift in the world that has not yet healed and may never heal. We hate them because their entire ideology was based on science which has now been disproven, we hate them for what they did to Eugenics, we hate them for causing the deaths of millions, both directly and indirectly.

We hate them because our grandfathers fought against them and some of them died in that fight. We hate them because they demolished entire nations.

And most of all we hate them because they still exist, we hate them because their policies are not equal, we hate them because you cannot live in both a facist and a free state. We hate them because many of us would not exist under Nazi rule, we hate them because we have friends who would be destroyed.

You know what?

We hate them because they are so fucking easy to hate. Now, let me be clear that I have nothing whatsoever against your grandfather, it was a different time and I treat everyone I meet as my brother until proven otherwise. I have plenty of international friends and at some point our ancestors probably tried to kill each other. But Nazism, Nazi's and Fascist ideology is indefensible.

So whilst you might be happy that Germany "Liberated" Ukraine from the Communists, it is still inarguable that they did far more harm than good throughout the war.

Any man who defends their ideology is not a man I wish to meet.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

I was writing a play in the perspective of a Wehrmacht soldier in WWII during the invasion of france.
It focused more on a mental perspective over the "Let's commit mass genocide and laugh" perspective a lot of designers, atleast in my oppinion, would put onto the Germans.

 

[Chives on top of me]

snip

During the end german civilians tried to defend their homes in a milita called "The Volkssturm" we pretty much murdered them to a man, and anyonethat was run into for fear of being a sympathizer, they were dumped into mass graves. The Hitler Youth, we killed them, kids as young as six who never took the field were being executed by GIs simply for Nazi affiliation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkssturm


"It was set up, not by the traditional German Army, but by the Nazi Party on the orders of Adolf Hitler on October 18, 1944. It conscripted males between the ages of 16 to 60 years who were not already serving in some military unit as part of a German Home Guard."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth

"By 1945, the Volkssturm was commonly drafting 12-year-old Hitler Youth members into its ranks. During the Battle of Berlin, Axmann's Hitler Youth formed a major part of the last line of German defense, and were reportedly among the fiercest fighters. Although the city commander, General Helmuth Weidling, ordered Axmann to disband the Hitler Youth combat formations; in the confusion, this order was never carried out. The remnants of the youth brigade were "mowed down" by the advancing Russian forces; only two survivors remained."

Or maybe...Google this: Eisenhower's death camps

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses

...Holocast...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial

The French resisance being largely a myth, based on small groups of french patriots and hardliners backed by Russian intelligence. France gets insulted as being "surrender monkeys" because basically what happened is they surrendered to Hitler in part because fighting him was relatively unpopular, they then backed him as they saw him as the winning side, but when the tide turned France realized it was in the way and even if it turned around for Hitler it would be smashed by the allies. The whole "surrender monkey" thing is the allegation that they surrendered twice in the same war, once to each side, and the acceptance of German occupation and French resistance is kind of a political fiction that everyone would agree to when things finished.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheese-eating_surrender_monkeys

The awkward moment when I learn more about WW2 in an internet post, than in a history book....

I'd stick to the books if I were you.

 

[maninahat]

snip

You've probably been told already, but the Silent Hunter u-boat simulator games are mostly from a Nazi perspective. No actual nazi propaganda or politics come up though - you're essentially torpedoing ships with Allied ensigns, and not ranting about Jews or the master race.

I agree it would be interesting to play from the perspective of a losing side with an attached reprehensible ideology. I don't know if you could get away with making the protagonist a nazi, but some kind of stand in culture in a fantastical setting could do the same job without causing offense. That's probably already been done - assuming the devs give the player enough credit to get the point.

 

[Bad Jim]

There is a turn based strategy game called Panzer Corps Wehrmacht.

http://www.slitherine.com/games/panzer_corps_pc

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Pretty good stuff!

I can definitely see that happening. The problem is, decades of literature and general mythification of "The Nazi" as an easily exploitable Big Bad have reinforced the notion that you're just not supposed to humanize certain historical characters. Bruno Hirschbiegel's "Downfall" did pretty good on the international scene for its VERY humanized portrayal of Hitler, but some people in the US and Canada took serious umbrage to the movie. A lot of people are absolutely convinced that most Nazis were slavering bastards à la Tex Averey, and Pulp sensibilities didn't help either. The Narm in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is utterly phenomenal in this regard - and I love that movie to bits.

Any game that would smartly go about taking a Wehrmacht or SS footsoldier and making the character relatable would have to be utterly and completely preachy in its approach, to appease certain types of people. You know, "War is Bad", "We Were Just Following Orders", "I'm Tortured as all Hell Because of What I Did", etc.

A simple texture swap, though? Taking Call of Duty II and just switching things around completely? Nobody would swallow that. I'd give that project a few months in the press before it goes the way of "Six Days in Fallujah" - because some people are so caught up in being PC that fresh avenues of study are ignored.

And why are they ignored? Because "I know a guy who knows a guy who has a grandfather who fought in the Bulge and I won't tolerate any kind of guff on the memory of the honourable sacrifice of a man I hardly ever knew!"

You just can't reason with these people.

 

[saintdane05]

No official game, but you can always play the god awful Zog's Nightmare!

<youtube=mR1Jme2AuNw>

 

[The White Hunter]

If it were handled the right wqay and didnt feature genocide too much in an immature way (do NOT let Treyarch within the same room as it, nor EA) then I'd actually enjoy such a game, it'd be different to say the least.

BUt then I play Killzone feeling sad that I dont get to be a British Space Nazi.