So, Space Nazis.

[Irbis]

After witnessing N-th work about 4th Reich in Space/Antarctica/Centre of the Earth/Whatever I started thinking - why it's always Space Nazis and Hitler? Why not Space Franco? Mussolini? Or Japanese Empire? What the Nazis have going for them that other nations of the same period don't?

Same on the flip side - in works of fiction where Nazis won or there was no war, there is never any Allied Nation in space threatening others on Earth. The closest I can remember to that theme is Space Soviets, but even in series where they have outrageously advanced Nazi-like space technology it's almost always written into the context of the Space Race and the technology derived from it.

So, why is that? Are the Nazis the only worthwhile adversaries that can be put into space in series that isn't outright SciFi? Was the perception caused by Me 262? Von Braun? V2? Other? Or am I overthinking it and they just look cool for some reason? Or have I missed works that demolish that perception?

As a bonus, have a picture of Nazi terror railgun IN SPACE. Yes, these things are Maus-like tanks. And yes, it's rail-railgun

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

There was a thread a little while ago that touched on similar issues, and the simple fact is that Nazis are the ultimate villain. Literally, the word "ultimate" in its truest definition -- it is impossible to craft, create, imagine, engineer, or contrive a villain more perfectly villainous than Nazis. They are the pinnacle of villainy, and are thus a natural choice of antagonist in any given work.

Space Mussolini might earn points for being a little more original, but see the WWII Italy thread in History for why Nazis are the preferred option.

[Guardsman Bass]

More important is that your Space Nazis can then be treated as enemies to be mowed down and killed with minimal moral issues, or at least that's how it's supposed to work.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Also, as best I can tell, Nazis are almost universally despised. Anyone with an ounce of common sense/intelligence/knowledge/whatever can tell they were an obscene bunch of people. Hence, bad guys with no redeeming features. Makes the inevitable villain defeat satisfying for the audience. Not only did the good guys win, they were right!

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Nazis are just the most iconic goddamn force of evil in the western world, as brocap described. Their flag was red and black. They had stylish black outfits designed by Hugo Boss with lightning bolts and skulls on them, for fuck's sake. They had crazy pagan secret societies within their secret police that searched for supernatural power in the mystic mountains of Tibet. They could be urbane, familiar, and alien and savage all at once. They are the ultimate white-people enemy.

Also, in popular imagination they got their asses handed to them in the end by the forces of freedom, democracy, and pluralism, so that helps with the thematicz.

[The Yosemite Bear]

how about space inquisition?, oh wait they would never work, they would kill the first people to build a rocket ship, because everything revolves around the homeworld....

[FedRebel]

After witnessing N-th work about 4th Reich in Space/Antarctica/Centre of the Earth/Whatever I started thinking - why it's always Space Nazis and Hitler? Why not Space Franco? Mussolini? Or Japanese Empire? What the Nazis have going for them that other nations of the same period don't?

Napkinwaffe

The Germans were dreaming up some strange military equipment, plus they unleashed the first combat jets and ballistic rockets on the world. Through in popular misconception about Nazi industry and research (which were backed up by Allied over estimations during the war) and Space Nazi's seem plausible.

Fascist Spain and Italy didn't really do anything of note, Franco didn't want any part of the fighting and his issues were towards his people and government. As for Mussolini, Italy's difficulties in North Africa culminating with the Nazi's essentially taking over with Mussolini ultimately becoming Hitler's puppet towards the end, Fascist Italy doesn't exactly come off as the model of competency for a Sci/Fi threat.

With Japan, there's just too much guilt over burning 90% of their major cities to the ground and nuking them for real. Tojo...IN SPACE! would just be in very bad taste.

[Spoonist]

Having read lots and lots of golden age sf the russkies outnumber nazi easily, its only lately its reversed...

[Cykeisme]

I guess from the author's perspective, they're also very flexible. You can have campy Nazi villains or very serious Nazi villains, or anything in between. And, as mentioned, regardless of where they are on the realism scale, you can have them get mowed down and blown up by the bucketload, guilt-free.
Of course, that last part is best savored by folks who aren't aware that the Wehrmacht and Kriegsmarine largely did not support the Nazi political party, but were duty-bound to serve whoever was in charge of Germany..


As has also been mentioned, their dabbling into both superscience and occult black magic means more potential for interesting villainy as well.
Plus, WW2 was the biggest conflict in human history. It was so large that you can sort of fit an obviously fictional "side-story" into the timeline without affecting "canon".

[Irbis]

Hmmm, thanks for replies. Some quick counter-points to points raised above:

There was a thread a little while ago that touched on similar issues, and the simple fact is that Nazis are the ultimate villain. Literally, the word "ultimate" in its truest definition -- it is impossible to craft, create, imagine, engineer, or contrive a villain more perfectly villainous than Nazis. They are the pinnacle of villainy, and are thus a natural choice of antagonist in any given work.

Ok, so Spain and Italy are out. But what about Japan? When it comes to villainy, Rape of Nanking and the very existence of Unit 731 easily matches every villainy III Reich did, heck, you can argue Japan should have worse image because first hand witnesses (US/UK war prisoners) in Japan actually suffered through Nazi concentration camp level conditions, no?

That, and when it comes to space, shouldn't Japan's image as fleet power, carriers, battleships and all, be better suited to space villains than Reich's largely land power?

Nazis are just the most iconic goddamn force of evil in the western world, as brocap described. Their flag was red and black. They had stylish black outfits designed by Hugo Boss with lightning bolts and skulls on them, for fuck's sake. They had crazy pagan secret societies within their secret police that searched for supernatural power in the mystic mountains of Tibet. They could be urbane, familiar, and alien and savage all at once. They are the ultimate white-people enemy.

Also, in popular imagination they got their asses handed to them in the end by the forces of freedom, democracy, and pluralism, so that helps with the thematicz.

Wouldn't that count for Japan too, though? Red and white flags? Officers with katanas killing prisoners? Secret societies and religions? Kicked by forces of Freedom after traitorous sneak attack, not boring declaration of war?

Also, katanas. Can't get any more iconic than that. Sorry, P08, you lose

Having read lots and lots of golden age sf the russkies outnumber nazi easily, its only lately its reversed...

Isn't it, like I mentioned, all tied to red scare, space race, and being contemporary opponent than good villain? Once Russkies stopped opposing west, their popularity as space invaders seems to have dropped to nearly zero. Last time I saw Russia with any good space weapon was in Goldeneye, for Einstein's sake, and that was what, 20 years ago, inertia from Cold War?

[fgalkin]

Irbis, there is one problem with Japanese villains- they're not white, and thus are automatically assumed to be inferior and assured to lose to the white protagonists. The Germans are white and claim to be superior- they are terrifying because they treat the white protagonists the way whites have treated nonwhites.

Later, times would change and people would avoid Japanese villains to avoid being accused of the above.

So, we see a lack of Japan in SPAAAACE villains because of racism.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Covenant]

Well, and also the experience of fighting the Japanese was very different for a lot of the author nations in the "___ IN SPACE!!" media business.

For the British, Americans and Russians, the Nazi forces were a visceral enemy whereas the Japanese were, for everyone except the Americans, a secondary foe--and even then the Americans favored the Nazis first. You had our big ego generals battling their big ego generals, heroic war stories about Normandy, and a very relateable land war in very familiar kinds of European city and rural terrain.

The Japanese did a hell of a lot of evil shit, but add the spectre of racism to any kind of "IMPERIAL JAPAN IN SPACE!!" thing and you're still left asking why them? Our cultural memory of the Japanese side of it is tied up in the concepts of a Naval and Air war, fatigue from already slogging through the Germans, leading to a smart but less heroic island-hopping strategy and the eventual "I just want to win this game of civ and I'm bored now" endgame scenario of nuking their cities.

The 'experience' of the story of Japan is more or less America's technical and economic superiority overwhelming a strange, alien nation of short people who use swords (?) and apparently thought Klingons were just the coolest or something because they like Honor and Bushido and something, right? And then they got beat so bad they had to, like, ram their planes into our shit but it didn't matter and then we just nuked them and they gave up. What's up with that? That sounds pretty lame, duderinos. /AverageJoeMode

The fact that the Japanese never seemed to have any chance at actual victory, combined with the fact that they did a sneaky sneaker dirty backstabbing bushwacker bandito attack on sunny ol' American Pearlass Harbor, and a big thick coating of "short non-white person gotta suck at fightmaking" racism in there and they never did get latched onto as legitimate superwarrior existential threats, just cheap fighters who couldn't learn their place--and then they go and ram planes into us or do idiotic and pointless suicide charges, or use swords, and get their asses handed to them. And their big ego generals are more interesting than they are inspiring. So instead you'll see them more as tragic figures, with noble and enlightened admirals or whatever on their side knowing that defeat is inevitable but doing their all to die with honor or meet their end as best they can--partially backed up by the famous quotes from Yamamoto playing down their chances. Leaving aside the possibly false "sleeping giant" quote, he just lets the air out of the "supreme evil" balloon with stuff like this:

"In the first six to twelve months of a war with the United States and Great Britain I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."

I mean, shit, that's totally not moustache twirlingly evil, and it's kinda sad that he's not listened to, for everyone involved. It's like the Romulan from The Balance of Terror--he's a worthy adversary, he's bound by honor and duty, and he comes off as a sympathetic figure. Plus, then we shot down Yamamoto's aircraft, denying the enemy of even the dignity of a good sequel tie-in.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Also, with the Nazis, they were into so much weird stuff you have masses of ideas for films/games/books. Need some kind of occult investigation? Use Nazis. Advanced weaponry development? Use Nazis. Horrific medical experimentation? Nazis. And so on.

And thats all stuff you can use for your plot of "one spy/agent behidn enemy lines" stuff, a la wolfenstein, but evenf or actual wars you can square of against the SS who were a nasty bunch anyway.

[lord Martiya]

why it's always Space Nazis and Hitler? Why not Space Franco? Mussolini? Or Japanese Empire?

Actually, the Space Fascists has been done: it's called Fascisti su Marte, and tells the story of a group of Italian Fascists being sent to claim Mars (described as "Red, Commie and traitor"). It is, of course, a parody of Fascist propaganda movies.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Now that I think about it a bit more, I think it's more than just literary/thematic preference. NUA mentioned the Hugo Boss uniforms, but I think even that is just the aesthetic appeal of the Nazis in microcosm. While most of the major players in World War 2 were starting to dabble in the trappings of what would become late-20th century warfare, a lot of those concepts were put to use slightly earlier, more visibly, and more widely by the Germans. Elaborate camouflage patterns and uniforms (which wouldn't be a common sight again until the 1980s!), jet fighters, rocket artillery, the assault rifle, a very (in)famous machine-gun, and the Germans' own unique brand of tank design all give Nazis a very iconic and "classic" brand image that, for example, the Japanese don't even come close to. Other than katana-armed officers and Zeroes, what did the Japanese have that really made them stick out? Again, I point to the History forum: there's a recent thread chock-full of examples of the Japanese' lack of quality equipment, and their poor performance in many tactical, organizational, and logistical matters.

The Germans, by comparison, had a lot of high-quality equipment and had relatively few failures of tactics, organization, and logistics, and in many cases were quite sophisticated in those things -- and everyone loves a competent villain. Most memorable villains are very good at what they do, and have a very distinctive aesthetic style: Darth Vader, Jon Irenicus, Hannibal Lecter, and so on. The Nazis (in a general sense; Hitler himself usually tends to be portrayed as the butt-end of jokes and other comedy) very much have some claim to being in that same category.

[Stark]

Is that a serious post? 'Relatively few failures of tactics and organisation'?

Saying ignorant fiction consumers have a bunch of wrong ideas about TEH NAZZIES (from the nazi recycling industry itself, usually) is one thing, but then stating these things as fact is something altogether more amusing.

[fgalkin]

Well, less failures of tactics and organization than Italy or Japan, both of which had second-rate armies.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Blayne]

We have the Space Japanese trope sorta in Red Alert 3 and Gundam in general; but as heroes in Space Battleship Yamato which is literally a Japanese Battleship IN SPACE.

A way you could get Space Japanese and avoid the spectre of racism is to reinvent the Pacific War IN SPACE between two space empires; space is huge and many of the purely logistical and technical aspects of the Pacific Theatre can easily fit in a interstellar (or maybe even interplanetary) conflict. At that point having parallels and analogues are not adversed but expected part of the genre. You however as the writer have freedom to avoid the obvious pitfalls.

Really the Haloverse strikes me as pretty much that but with the roles reversed, the UNSC is Japan fighting a numerically and technologically superior enemy; constantly on the defence and had their major cities nuked to bring about peace. (yes yes, I know that's not really what happened in Halo 3 but its pretty close if you ignore the details)

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

Is that a serious post? 'Relatively few failures of tactics and organisation'?
Saying ignorant fiction consumers have a bunch of wrong ideas about TEH NAZZIES (from the nazi recycling industry itself, usually) is one thing, but then stating these things as fact is something altogether more amusing.

Well, less failures of tactics and organization than Italy or Japan, both of which had second-rate armies.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Yes. The key-word there is "relatively" (which you even quoted, Stark). Of course the Nazis had failures of tactics and organization, every damned nation involved in WW2 had god-only-knows how many. The point is that their track record is notably better than the other examples the OP was wondering about.

[Zixinus]

So, why is that? Are the Nazis the only worthwhile adversaries that can be put into space in series that isn't outright SciFi? Was the perception caused by Me 262? Von Braun? V2? Other? Or am I overthinking it and they just look cool for some reason? Or have I missed works that demolish that perception?

This:

Von Braun? V2?

The Germans had fairly good technology at their time and were actively interested in space. Von Braun was (supposedly) more interested in rockets because of space travel rather than warfare. Add to the fact that the losing Germans were trying pretty silly/insane ideas towards the end of the war, and you have a great potential plothook.

Mussulini comes across as a loser if you only read the surface-level history books. Francisco Franco didn't even really participate in WW2 and doesn't ring much bells to the average person, unless they are Spanish. Japan is better, but they are asian and an enemy that is not-very-familiar to non-US westerners. US people are not that eager to see the Japanese as Big Bad Evil, due to bombing the shit out of Japan and there is a bit of guilt left over from the past.
Hungary joined in the Nazis, but fairly reluctantly and most westerners will be confused where the country even is. Plus, historically, out military aid to the Nazis were minor at best and laughable at worst (not only did we still have cavalry units but a good deal of them used bicycles).

Really, it's all about popular imagery. To the average westerner, the Nazis were these big, bad, evil masterminds. While actual history shows them doing various mistakes (attacking the industrial giant that was the soviet union, for example, I am sure that WW2 buffs can name more), they did have victories (early on anyway). Their atrocities are strong in the average westerner's mind and inspire fear and hatred.

The key to a good villain is that they pose a serious threat (whether it's to little Billy's pride or to the world as a whole). If you say "space nazis", the resulting image is threatening. You can work with that. If you say, "Hungarians from Space!" or "Space Italians" most people would laugh if not be simply utterly confused.

[Formless]

But what about Japan? When it comes to villainy, Rape of Nanking and the very existence of Unit 731 easily matches every villainy III Reich did, heck, you can argue Japan should have worse image because first hand witnesses (US/UK war prisoners) in Japan actually suffered through Nazi concentration camp level conditions, no?

Most people aren't very aware of Japanese atrocities; but if you don't know about the Holocaust, you've been living under a rock all your life.

Pretty simple.

Edit: naturally, the exception to this is Pearl Harbor, at least in the US. I wonder how many stories take inspiration from that event?

[Lord of the Abyss]

The Japanese did a hell of a lot of evil shit, but add the spectre of racism to any kind of "IMPERIAL JAPAN IN SPACE!!" thing and you're still left asking why them? Our cultural memory of the Japanese side of it is tied up in the concepts of a Naval and Air war, fatigue from already slogging through the Germans, leading to a smart but less heroic island-hopping strategy and the eventual "I just want to win this game of civ and I'm bored now" endgame scenario of nuking their cities.

The 'experience' of the story of Japan is more or less America's technical and economic superiority overwhelming a strange, alien nation of short people who use swords (?) and apparently thought Klingons were just the coolest or something because they like Honor and Bushido and something, right? And then they got beat so bad they had to, like, ram their planes into our shit but it didn't matter and then we just nuked them and they gave up. What's up with that? That sounds pretty lame, duderinos. /AverageJoeMode

The fact that the Japanese never seemed to have any chance at actual victory, combined with the fact that they did a sneaky sneaker dirty backstabbing bushwacker bandito attack on sunny ol' American Pearlass Harbor, and a big thick coating of "short non-white person gotta suck at fightmaking" racism in there and they never did get latched onto as legitimate superwarrior existential threats, just cheap fighters who couldn't learn their place--and then they go and ram planes into us or do idiotic and pointless suicide charges, or use swords, and get their asses handed to them. And their big ego generals are more interesting than they are inspiring. So instead you'll see them more as tragic figures, with noble and enlightened admirals or whatever on their side knowing that defeat is inevitable but doing their all to die with honor or meet their end as best they can--partially backed up by the famous quotes from Yamamoto playing down their chances.

I also think that part of it is the fact that Japanese villainy in fiction has moved on; I think "Japanese villain" and I think of various evil corporate executives, possibly with cyberpunk overtones. That's replaced the old "Imperial Japan" even in real life fears of Japan; the last big wave of anti-Japan paranoia was about them taking over the world economically, not with armies. German villainy in fiction though is largely stuck on the Nazis, with the occasional mad scientist or Bond villain thrown in.

[Jedi Commisar]

why it's always Space Nazis and Hitler? Why not Space Franco? Mussolini? Or Japanese Empire?

Actually, the Space Fascists has been done: it's called Fascisti su Marte, and tells the story of a group of Italian Fascists being sent to claim Mars (described as "Red, Commie and traitor"). It is, of course, a parody of Fascist propaganda movies.

Just from that poster alone I would want to see a clip

[The Yosemite Bear]

do space Gurka exist?

[Lord of the Abyss]

do space Gurka exist?

Well, the Gurkha of the Sten series are actual Gurkhas from Nepal, but they spend most of their time in the series on other planets or in spaceships, so they should qualify.