“Bethesda covers its arse in anticipation of a bunch of terminally online American teenagers who just learnt the word ‘nazi’ and would use it to describe a fuckin nun if it made them feel a bit morally superior for ten seconds”
I’ve heard plenty of people try to say WOLFENSTEIN glorifies nazis
I’ve had one idiot tell me ANY media that paints them as competent or successful is glorifying them. And setting anything in a world where they succeeded and progressed technologically instead of collapsing is basically saying Hitler’s world view is valid.
I still don’t know how to respond to that beyond “if you think the nazis were incompetent you don’t know history, and if you think showing a future where fascism took hold is unrealistic I have some bad news for you”
It’s fantasy, and specifically a fantasy in which you get to go on a massive killing spree against some of the worst people in history, how you can somehow pull “this game is making these guys look good” from that, I’m not sure.
It should be noted that a lot of their blunders later in the war can be traced back to Hitler (or one of his sycophants) getting involved and overruling far more experienced Generals, many of whom were not party members. It could also be argued that the economy they set up, while impressive given the state of Germany post-WWI, was an entirely unsustainable war economy that relied very heavily on slave labor. That’s not to say they were completely incompetent, but they did vastly overestimate their own abilities and made many mistakes as a result.
It’s worse than that. Hitler’s entire economic plan relied on heavily burrowing money from other countries with the intent to pay it back with money plundered from conquered nations.
As for the people having better lives, well, not really. Earnings increased for workers but mainly from working even longer hours. The actual hourly wage fell on the level of the Great Depression. And due to less imported goods, consumer products like food and clothing also had to be rationed.
Who was better off by a lot however were large cartels and monopolies crushing small businesses thanks to the eridications of unions and, later, forced labor in the concentration camps.
So, while the (war) economy did boom, that didn’t really translate to better lives for common people (even before the war started).
Indeed, they made plenty of mistakes, otherwise they would have won the war.
But it’s less about whether they could have sustained their empire afterward and more people trying to say that portraying them as such is “glorifying” them or propping them up in some sort of idealistic way.
Indeed, they made plenty of mistakes, otherwise they would have won the war.
Therein lies the problem, because even if they somehow executed an absolutely perfect strategy they would not have won the war, not in the long run at least. I agree that Wolfenstein doesn’t glorify them since its reasoning for them winning is outlandish sci-fi technology, but a lot of media that assumes they could have won is glorifying, even if indirectly.
“It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not weakness, that is life.” - Jean-Luc Picard
You make valid points. I know I’ve heard enough people who start off with “the nazis sure were bad, BUT…” and proceed to fangirl over every technological achievement made by Germany, even those that came after the allies.
There’s certainly a line where it goes from “fantasy parody of real life” to “someone wrote a fan fiction about the fourth Reich and clearly has a crush on Hitler whether they want to admit it or not”
Literally the only way they would have conquered the world is through the wonders of “Sci Fi Magic Bullshit” ™️
Well, that or America not electing FDR in 1936.
Yeah they were an empire run like and by meth addicts. Terrifying to face, shockingly clever, and headed directly to destruction with the only question being whether they or someone else landed the killing blow on them.
These were not hyper competent tacticians, it was a society that hyped itself into a blood frenzy, convinced of their own superiority and that they’ll be destroyed if they don’t destroy everyone else first. That’s a terrifying threat, but so’s a meth addict with a knife and paranoid delusions.
They were hemorrhaging competence through their Nazi bullshit. Yeah they had some people like von Braun, but they lost people like Einstein (and special shout-out to Fermi who defected from Italy because his wife was Jewish). Additionally their behavior in held territory actively fostered partisan resistance and encouraged fighting to the death.
And that’s ignoring the fact that they broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact while at war with France and England and at war in Africa and while leaving Italy to defend itself. The Soviets were a force unto themselves having been the only army to trounce Russia in centuries.
I’ve had one idiot tell me ANY media that paints them as competent or successful is glorifying them. And setting anything in a world where they succeeded and progressed technologically instead of collapsing is basically saying Hitler’s world view is valid.
And people still wonder why I pick so much on the wishful thinking fallacy… I mean, that’s basically it, right? “Nazi are morally bad, I hate them, thus they must be incompetent”. And if you correctly highlight that this is fucking stupid, you’ll get some kid saying stuff like “I dun understand, why are you defending Nazi?”.
You’re misunderstanding the argument, but that’s just the nature of brief forum exchanges.
Think of it as a continuous depiction of the Nazis as hyper-competent or full of geniuses unintentionally playing into the supremacy narrative, even when Joe Everyman is gunning them down. I don’t agree that Wolfenstein is pro-Nazi but it is a factor in public perception that creators need to consider when repeated in a hundred different games or movies.
Even just repeating things like “At least Mussolini made the trains run on time” plays into it, especially when it’s a lie, just like the Wunderwaffe programs or the Nazi “miraculous economic recovery” which was just making people work longer hours and deficit spending.
I’m not. We’re talking about different things.
Backtrack to Miles O’Brien’s comment. They’re clearly talking about individual depictions, and my comment focuses on that. To assume that people with shitty worldviews must be necessarily incompetent is wishful thinking.
The reason why the Nazi worldview is invalid has jack shit to do with efficiency or competence, it’s as simple as “that worldview oppresses the lives of innocent people into living hells”.
In the meantime you’re talking about the social impact of continuous, somewhat consistent-ish depictions of the Nazi in media, not individual depictions. What you’re saying is valid but another can of worms.
Even just repeating things like “At least Mussolini made the trains run on time” plays into it, especially when it’s a lie, just like the Wunderwaffe programs or the Nazi “miraculous economic recovery” which was just making people work longer hours and deficit spending.
Note that, if people are less eager to play along that fallacy, this sort of argument doesn’t roll any more. Suddenly if Merdolini made the trains run on time or not doesn’t matter, and can be safely called out as a distraction. Just like the Nazi economic recovery.
Here’s my problem with wolfenstein. The daat yichud or whatever was a little too close to the secret Jewish cabal that real life Hitler believed/claimed was working behind the scenes manipulating society for is own gains. I don’t think the series is pro Nazi, I’d have to be stupid to believe that, but I feel this particular plot point was a little tone deaf in a historical context.
But their while point was that they were super-smarties who made shit through communion with God directly, and the devices they made weren’t to be used
They’re an ancient Jewish group yes, but otherwise nothing at all like Hitler’s cabal bullshit and way closer to something like an ancient “secret cult”, made Jewish because it’s a series about the Nazis and them only winning due to Jewish technology (and also losing eventually because of it) is part of the catharsis of the whole thing
I read them a lot more like a group of ancient nerds. Which describes Jewish people pretty well if the friends ive had in the faith are anything to go by
I guess I kinda get your point but it feels so explicitly cathartic to make what IRL we credit to Nazis usually (in media their magic is usually them diving sadistically into what others won’t, for example) that I think it’s the opposite of tone deaf
How exactly does he think…
checks list
…a whole shitload of things exist? Everything from microwave ovens, to nasa space rockets, to jet engines? Shit! If the nazis weren’t so god damned evil they would have been pretty awesome…but they aren’t. You know, because of the whole evil facist racists thing.
But damn they knew how to invent stuff, and have stylish military uniforms while doing so.
If they think that, they may have a problem with what they consider glorified. They may want to avoid recognizing parallels that are far more personal to them.
Maybe it’s a skill issue. They never could make it past level one so the nazis are programmed to be too good!
If they didn’t have at least a few competent nazis, they wouldn’t have been such a threat; WW2 would be over in a month. I’m sure there were even competent Talibans and North Koreans.
I take your point but I wouldn’t class nuns as the ideal opposing example to Nazis, either.
EDIT: And yes, I know I’m doing the thing.
Putting the “God” in Godwin’s law
No way…what about wolfenstein??
Whaaa Don’t you remember the scene where they said nazi made things better? /s https://youtu.be/3tJRVRx66GI?sT6VlEsv8uESpiuK
Damn I gotta play that one it looks fucking dope
I randomly played the first cause it was on psplus and I got hooked. I really liked this new series and want more
It’s worth it for the story alone (both main games since the reboot). Such a wild collection of outrageous twists and turns, but with characters that you actually care about. They managed to write a main protagonist who - in between eviscerating Nazi mechas and blowing up secret bases while using improbable tech - is actually an emotionally vulnerable human being. This is such a stroke of genius that suddenly makes the entire scenario so much more believable and the story so much more impactful, because he and many of the other characters feel like real human beings, despite the almost exuberant embracing of clichés (only to then tear them up). It’s still campy as all hell, but it somehow works. I don’t think I’ve ever seen games juggle so many different balls without dropping any of them. Even if you don’t care about any of that, the shooting alone is second only to the recent DOOM reboots.
Heavily censored in Germany apparently, which kinda seems odd and protective of Nazis
Yeah they have a blanket ban on Nazi iconography with no carve outs for art, even if antifascist.
Almost correct, but artistic depictions of Nazi iconography actually are exempt from the ban (falling under “Kunstfreiheit” - artistic freedom).
The reason why Wolfenstein still had to be censored was because video games were not really seen as a form of art for quite a long time. But AFAIK that has fortunately changed in the last years and you can now legally obtain uncensored Wolfenstein versions in Germany.
Wonder if that’s harmful in the long run, cause you’re not allowed to make the bad guys look like what they were, bad guys.
They changed it but you could always just have them as definitely-not-Nazis.
That statement is not true and it never was.
[off topic]
One of the biggest mind fuck novels I ever read was "The Iron Dream’ by Norman Spinrad.
On one level it’s a ‘hero’s journey’ story about an exiled prince who returns to his homeland and defeats a bunch of evil mind controlling wizards. Lots of excitement and adventure and terrific battles.
The fucked up part is that it’s the last novel Adolph Hitler wrote after migrating to America in 1921.
Hitler was a popular illustrator who eventually felt confident enough to start writing in English. He was a popular figure at conventions and had a huge fandom.
https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-iron-dream-norman-spinrad/7751155?ean=9781490439457
I’m very confused, but I have to go into work. Can someone summarize for my lazy ass what the fuck is going on here?
From wiki
The Iron Dream is a metafictional 1972 alternate history novel by American author Norman Spinrad. The book has a nested narrative that tells a story within a story. On the surface, the novel presents a post-apocalyptic adventure tale entitled Lord of the Swastika, written by an alternate-history Adolf Hitler shortly before his death in 1953. In this timeline, Hitler emigrated from Germany to the United States in 1919 after the Great War, and used his modest artistic skills to become first a pulp science fiction illustrator and later a successful writer, telling lurid, purple-prosed, pro-fascism stories under a thin science fiction veneer. The nested narrative is followed by a faux scholarly analysis by a fictional literary critic, Homer Whipple, which is said to have been written in 1959.
You picked the wrong guy to ask.
Read the wikipedia article. It makes more sense but still a mindfuck
Hard glance at Frank Miller.
Apparently, Miller had some serious problems that he’s been dealing with.
I give the guy who created Martha Washington a lot of leeway.
Murder?
I think not. Murder is a crime. And it’s bad. (crime doesn’t necessarily mean bad, see Robin Hood for more details)
Nazis don’t count, all you’re doing is cleaning up the trash.
You can’t murder a nazi. You can certainly kill them though.
It’s an important distinction, in my opinion.
The scariest thing about Nazis is that they’re human and even pretty smart sometimes. To reiterate what others are saying: dehumanization leaves you in a blind spot for the humans around you who can silently undergo vast transformations from people you thought you loved into Nazis. They throw away their humanity yes, but they had to be human to throw it away. Dehumanization is also how the process of becoming a Nazi starts. Don’t even mirror it in jest, try on radical empathy and face the truth: humans are horrifically complex. Nazis are unfortunately humans.
Nazis are incredibly mechanical honestly. They lose empathy and then others become mearly disposable objects. You might commit murder just like you would throw away a plastic bag. There is a totally absence of care which leads you to inflict terrible things to others.
I also doubt how many actual Nazis there are. It is often thrown around which leads it to lose the horrible meaning. I’ve seen people shout Nazis over much less deadly things. Don’t confuse systematic mass murder with someone having a questionable character. They can be a terrible human but they haven’t committed the level of crimes as mass murder of millions. The level of death and suffering caused by the holocaust is not a joke and certainty not something to use when your upset.
Sorry for the rant I just needed to get that off my chest. I’m not really addressing anyone in particular.
Why can i not murder a nazi? A murder is the deliberate ending of someone’s life. Why is that not applicable to Nazis?
Murder is a crime. And it’s bad. (crime doesn’t necessarily mean bad, see Robin Hood for more details)
Nazis don’t count, all you’re doing is cleaning up the trash.
Justifying the murder of someone by dehumanizing them is exactly what the nazis did. It’s what Israel is doing in Gaza, etc., calling everyone Hamas and dehumanizing them. Nazis may be terrible people who need to be fought against and whose ideology needs to be stopped, but it’s never good to start dehumanizing groups of people over any criteria. All that said I love playing Wolfenstein and Indiana Jones games and killing hordes of nazis.
"> Murder is a crime. And it’s bad. (crime doesn’t necessarily mean bad, see Adolf Hitler for more details)
Jews don’t count, all you’re doing is cleaning up the trash."
🤔
He’s fine with nazi dogs though…
“Who’s a victim of moral luck? Who’s a coerced actor? Is it you? It is! It is you!”
Off with his head!
Germany be like, “Nazi symbols, NEIN!”, showing it is totally not missing the point, specially given whom they support.
There are no more restrictions on Nazi symbols in videogames, except that glorifying Nazism remains illegal regardless of the medium, of course.
What
Don’t tell them about speeding
