Adolf Hitler: Difference between revisions

When he shot himself with a [[James Bond|Walther PPK]]- the very same one his niece killed herself with (or possibly / probably, the one he killed her with), the remaining senior Nazis burnt his body, but didn't do it successfully. When the [[Red Army]] arrived, they finished the job off and chucked the ashes in a river, deciding that they didn't want a shrine to the guy (though they did keep fragments of what they believed was his skull archived somewhere in Moscow... [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8281839.stm and they seemed to have been mistaken].)

Compare/contrast to [[Josef Stalin]]. See [[Benito Mussolini]] for his less famous and considerably more incompetent Italian counterpart.

* He had no children.<ref>A popular legend asserts that his surviving relatives have vowed never to procreate, in order to seal the entire bloodline, but this is doubtful. William Patrick Hitler's oldest son Alexander attests that he knows of no such pact among himself and his siblings.</ref> Of course, no one's about to openly admit being directly related to Adolf Hitler, let alone be able to prove it. <ref>A certain Frenchman did admit late in his life, as he was apparently believing to be a result of Hitler's wartime romance with a certain cute Frenchgirl. However, the part about it being nigh-impossible to prove (and highly doubtful anyway, as Hitler would most likely disapprove of such a union) remains true.</ref>

* Under the direction of his private brain care specialist, Theodor Morell, he was reputedly on a dozen doses of intravenous meth and cocaine ether a day by the end of the war.

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* [[Asexuality]]: Some documentaries state that in the years that he was with Eva Braun, the housekeepers never saw any signs of sexual intercourse in either of their beds. Although some historians have come up with [[Armoured Closet Gay|different]] [[Depraved Homosexual|interpretations]] regarding this. Distressingly, some have also used these theories in [[Hitler Ate Sugar]] arguments against non-heterosexuals, [[Rule of Cautious Editing Judgment|so please take care when bringing them up]]. He did once say "[[Married to The Job|I am married to Germany]]." He also once said that he ''[[I Am the Trope|was]]'' Germany.

** However, he ''did'' share a passionate and very public kiss with Eva Braun when she refused to leave Berlin and chose to die at his side, which is well-attested to by multiple eyewitnesses.

* [[Awesome McCoolname]]: It must be admitted, unfortunately. His first name stands for ''"[[Big Badass Wolf|noble wolf]]"''. His last name is not particularly notable<ref>It comes [[Irony|from an Yiddish word]] meaning "cap-maker"</ref> (before it became synonymous with pure evil, that is), but the trope becomes apparent when one considers that he might have been named "[[Fail O'Suckyname|Adolf Schicklgruber]]" if his father, then called Alois Schicklgruber, had not petitioned to be recognized as the son of his adopted (and possibly true) father, Johann Hiedler/Hitler, just thirteen years before Adolf's birth. From William L. Shirer's ''The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'':

{{quote| There may not be much or anything in a name, but I have heard Germans speculate whether Hitler could have become the master of Germany had he been known to the world as Schicklgruber. It has a slightly comic sound as it rolls off the tongue of a South German. Can one imagine the frenzied German masses acclaiming a Schicklgruber with their thunderous "Heils"? "Heil Schicklgruber!"? Not only was "Heil Hitler!" used as a Wagnerian, pagan-like chant by the multitude in the mystic pagaentry of the massive Nazi rallies, but it became the obligatory form of greeting between Germans during the Third Reich, even on the telephone, where it replaced the conversational "Hello." "Heil Schicklgruber!"? It is a little difficult to imagine.}}

:: There is a distinct possibility that the name Hitler/Hiedler/Hidler (naming rules were a bit lax in previous centuries) [[Irony|was derived from the Slavonic (Czech) ''Hidlar'' or ''Hidlarcek'']]. Some of his family members attested that that there were Moravians in the family line.

* [[Beyond the Impossible]]: Stands as one of the most influential people.<ref>[[I Thought It Meant|Not]] influential as in "inspiring", [[Nietzche Wannabe|maybe]], but in "''groundbreaking''". Look at the above [[Ruined FOREVER]] list, [[Hitler Ate Sugar]], [[Long List|etc.]] if you ''cannot see it''.</ref> Even ''Time'' considered him as a part of the cover.

* [[Big Badass Wolf]]: He seemed to have had an affinity of some sort for wolves. His first name derives from ''Athalwolf'', Old High German for (as stated above) "noble wolf", and for this reason "Wolf" [[Card-Carrying Villain|became his childhood nickname]]. He later used it as a pseudonym for himself in the 1920s, ostensibly for security reasons. When his sister Paula Hitler asked him for financial support around 1930 (she was fired from her job in Vienna when her employers found out who her brother was) he granted her request, but insisted that she go under the assumed name "Paula Wolf" from then on. Some of his military headquarters were named ''Wolfsschanze'' ("wolf's lair"), ''Wolfsschlucht'' ("wolf's chasm"), and ''Wehrwolf'' (lit. "defense wolf", probably a play on words with ''Werwolf'' i.e. "[[Werewolf]]").

* [[Brilliant but Lazy]]: One of his teachers described Adolf as "having unlimited talent" but he was too much of a dreamer.

** His doctor from the late 1930s claimed he must have been an IQ "around 140 or better"<ref> on the standard IQ scale of the 1930s, Stanford-Binet</ref> and he had the reputation of a photographic memory, able to learn entire books<ref>if they aroused his interest</ref> by rote.

* [[Broken Pedestal|Completely Smashed Pedestal]]: Most Germans were probably aware that their Jewish neighbors had not simply moved on to happy new lives in a faraway land of peace and prosperity, but even many who were glad to be rid of them were horrified when the full story of what had been going on in the camps came to light. That especially goes for the German local civilians who were forced by Allied soldiers to tour nearby death camps to see what their government had been doing.

* [[Chosen One]]: He considered himself as one for the German people.

* [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]]: It would probably be easier to name the groups he ''didn't'' throw under the bus on his climb to power. Most notably, he did it to the left wing of his own party, and the USSR.

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** This trope was standard operating procedure by the Germans throughout Occupied Europe, although it varied somewhat from region to region (Poland would for instance be treated far more brutally than say, France). If a single German soldier, army or security officer or local official was killed (sometimes even for merely wounding them) by resistance groups they tended to round up anything from 10-200 people to be killed in reprisals.

** Reinhard Heydrich certainly applies in that regard. In retaliation for his assassination via a car bomb, the towns of Lidice and Ležáky were ''annihilated''. Lidice in particular was horrifically disproportionate -- all male residents over 16 were executed, the town was demolished and burned to the ground, and even the graveyard was dug up and all buried remains destroyed. Hitler's original orders were even more extreme. They called for the rounding-up of 50,000 random Czechs and executing them before the rest of the nation, which ''Himmler'' (the architect of the friggin' Holocaust mind you) [[Shocking Swerve|advised him to downgrade]] to "just" completely razing two villages and killing its inhabitants, but only so that [[Pragmatic Villainy|economic productivity in the region would be maintained]].

* [[Doomsday Device]]: Hitler ordered development of many of these, because he was in love with the [[Rule of Cool]]. Unfortunately for his army, all were [[Awesome but Impractical|inefficient and expensive]], and did not secure any strategic advantage.

* [[BFG|The Dora Gun]] was an artillery battery so huge, one shell could level 4 city blocks, 23 miles away. Too bad it could only move on specially built parallel railroad tracks, and took days to be assembled for use. [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_9mlahWKCkv4/SH48W08spsI/AAAAAAAAAXI/49uucrln-B0/s1600-h/6f9771a0d06154374733ea069233e69d_full.jpg Here it is.].

** Dora was only one of two, the other was called the Schwerer Gustav(Heavy Gustav). They were designed to take down the French Maginot Line, but the Germans passed it anyway so it was turned against Russia. Their eventual fate was that Dora was scrapped to keep the Russians off it and Gustav was captured by the US.

** Not to mention the slave labor used to make, assemble, and launch it. Meaning some of them would explode on the launchpad. More people were killed constructing V2s than were killed by its deployment.

* [[Driven to Suicide]]: Abridged:

{{quote| ''Congratulations! You just entered the residence of the world's most insane madman! What are you going to do next?!''<br />

{{quote| '''[[Angel (TV)|Angel]]''': You're a Nazi?<br />

'''Spike''': What? Oh, no, I just ate one. }}

** The clothing for the SS was made by top German clothing company [[Awesome McCoolname|Hugo Boss]], so there's a reason they looked cool despite being linked with such horrible things.

* [[Evil Is Hammy]]

** Hitler specifically refused the publication of ''Mein Kampf'' in France, given it clearly sets up the goal of taking revenge upon it (and contains some racist opinions about French people, too). In 1934, a French editor tried and published it to warn his fellow citizens. Hitler sued him... and won ''[[Lawful Stupid|upon violation of copyright]]''. There was finally an approved translation published in 1938, which was of course ''heavily'' edited, to the point of falsification. Logically, ''Mein Kampf'' was also completely banned in France under German military occupation, for fear of feeding [[La Résistance]].

* [[Just the First Citizen]]: The title of "Führer", which Hitler adopted when he became leader of the Nazi Party and elevated to a government title when they took power in Germany can be simply translated to "guide", although it is generally translated as "leader", which is more in line with fascist philosophy. Note that it was styled as ''the'' leader (Der Führer) when referring to Hitler in the third person, not just "leader" by itself. Although not even nearly as ubiquitously used as Führer, Hitler also awarded himself a number of bombastic titles over the years designed specifically to invoke this trope, including "First Soldier of the German Reich", "First Worker of the New Germany", and "Supreme Judge of the German People". In something of an overlap with [[Modest Royalty]], Hitler's ceremonial uniform was also much more staid than you would expect from a man in the process of conquering the world. He wore a plain uniform with only the awards that he earned in [[World War One]], which looks funny in contrast to, say, Goering, who swanked it up with silks and furs and every medal and ornate bling he could lay his fat hands on.

* [[Know-Nothing Know-It-All]]: While he was quite knowledgeable on some topics (architecture and oratory, for instance), he feigned aptitude in numerous other fields of which he had only surface mastery, and had an arrogant opinion on virtually everything, which he usually insisted on lecturing his cohorts on. He seriously maintained for instance that the inhabitants of New Zealand were a tree-dwelling species of humanoid. [[Critical Research Failure|Without irony]].

* [[Large Ham]]: As any video of his speeches shows, he screamed and gestured like there was no tomorrow in public appearances.

* [[Made of Iron]]: Despite being the target of around 40 assassination attempts and lots of idiotic medical and dietary decisions, ''[[Why Won't You Die?|and this guy still refused to die]]''! He eventually had to do himself in, and he apparently had to redo his own death because he botched the first half, and his own men had to finish the job.

* [[Lucky Bastard]]: History's most infamous example, to the point where the term "Devil's Luck" was coined because of him.

** His policies for getting Germany out of the Great Depression were actually quite asinine. The Keynesian-style economics employed was actually the brainchild of Hjalmar Schacht, the Economics Minister, but he protested because Hitler focused too much on public works and especially military re-armament. Since both are run by the state, this meant that though unemployment was driven down the German economy wasn't actually gaining all that much capital and was set for another economic disaster a few years down the road. Conquering other countries and stealing their resources was the only way the army could pay for this. Of course, Hitler planned for war all along, so that wasn't a problem for him, but the economic imperative -- if he even understood it -- was not his reason for wanting war. In fact Hitler said on more than one occasion that he did not care about economics and considered that fact one of his strengths -- his economic policy was pretty much based around [[It Seemed Like a Good Idea At The Time]].

* [[May-December Romance]]: Eva Braun, who was 23 years his junior. Allegedly, as a 28 year old German soldier in World War I, with a 16 year old French girl, Charlotte Lobjoie, which produced a son, Jean-Marie Loret. Had a short relationship with Maria Reiter in 1931, whom he had met when he was 37 and she was 16.

* [[Ruined FOREVER]]: [[Hitler Ate Sugar|Everything he touches, to the extent that it has its own trope]].

* [[Secret Police]]: The Gestapo. And the SD. Heck, there was a whole ''network'' of [[State Sec|private security forces]] such as the SS and the earlier SA, largely given the job of eliminating social "undesirables" and dissenters. But above all, they were created to protect Hitler's power.

* [[Soldiers At the Rear]]: As outlined above, he had a cushy messenger job that kept him out of danger.

* [[Start of Darkness]]: Probably his [[World War One|war experiences]]. Maybe his childhood.

* [[Villain By Default]]: Name ''one'' non-White Supremacist work made after 1945 which portrays him as a hero unironically. We'll wait.

* [[Visionary Villain]]: As horrific as it was, he did have a vaguely coherent plan for restoring Germany's former great prestige and power, and did achieve quite a lot domestically before the inevitable defeat.

* [[We Can Rule Together]]: To [[Josef Stalin|Stalin]]. Although both were deeply suspicious of the other.

** The Nazi's original idea was of a grand alliance with Britain, and that the English and the Germans would "share" the world: the English holding supremacy on the seas with an overseas empire, while the Germans would hold supremacy on land with a continental empire. The Nazis had this view because the inhabitants of the United Kingdom are, after all, Anglo-Saxons and ''Germanic'' in origin (barring the Celtics of course), and so in Hitler's view they would of course be natural allies. In fact, Hitler saw the success of the British Empire as proof of the superiority of the Germanic race. Not only did this ''not'' happen (turns out the British were not at all interested in this arrangement) and the Nazis wound up going to war with their ideological ally, but Hitler found himself, at least at first, in an alliance with the Soviet Union, his ideological ''enemy''. Even so, Hitler never really gave up on the idea of an alliance with Britain, and thought that after he had won the war they could still become allies.

* [[You Are a Credit To Your Race]]: Used the trope early in his life. His mother, to whom he was devoted, was dying of breast cancer when Hitler was still a teenager. Struggling financially, he begged her incidentally Jewish-Austrian doctor to help his mother, who then did most of the medical examinations and assistance for reduced prices or pro bono. Although his mother did die, he granted the doctor eternal gratitude, describing him as an ''Ehrenjude'' ("noble Jew"). It's a historiographically contested issue whether Hitler had already decided on exterminating the Jews at this point in his life, but by that time he had already been violently hostile towards them in general for several years<ref> He had written in ''Mein Kampf'' he held sympathy for the integrated Austrian Jews of his childhood, but traditional Jews he met in Vienna horrified him to the point of nightmare.</ref>. When the Nazis' persecution of the Austrian Jews began in 1938, he placed the doctor under SS protection and allowed him to emigrate from Germany after Bloch contacted him. This ability to allow for exceptions to his violent racism only serves to make him an even ''bigger'' bigot.

* [[You Are What You Hate]]: Hitler might have had Jewish ancestry.

* [[You Have Failed Me]]: Hitler believed ''Germany'' had failed him and tried to make sure Germany didn't survive him. Apparently losing all their young men in battle, having all their cities burnt and blasted to a pile of charred rubble, and having [[All Germans Are Nazis|their reputation ruined]] for generations wasn't loyal enough service for such a [[Fridge Logic|magnificent creature as him]].

* [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness]]: Again, to Stalin (though it turned out to be ''Hitler'' who had outlived his usefulness to Stalin). And later on (just before his death) to the entire German people.

* During World War II Hitler was mocked repeatedly in several [[Looney Tunes]] shorts, most notably ''Russian Rhapsody'' in which his plane is hijacked by gremlins.

* ''[[Wolfenstein 3D (Video Game)|Wolfenstein 3D]]'' and its sequels, obviously. All of them featured Nazis, and part 3 of the original had [[Authority Equals Asskicking|Hitler himself as the]] [[Final Boss]].

* In the Archie-published ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (Comic Book)|Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures]]'' comic book, Hitler's brain is used by villain Armaggon in order to power a time machine. In a latter arc, the brain is revealed to be capable of independent function, and it activates the time machine in order to travel to the tail end of World War II, where he teams up with...Adolf Hitler. After the turtles arrive to retrieve the brain, Raphael punches out Hitler Classic while saying "This small gesture is for the millions, perv... For the millions!" Afterwards, as the turtles are preparing to leave, Hitler holds them at gunpoint, accusing them of being demons, and leading to the following conversation:

{{quote| '''Leonardo''': Welcome to hell.<br />

* In the alternate [[Magitek]] universe novel ''Operation Chaos'', the protagonists are in Hell and at a loss to understand the identity of a mustached man with a strange armband who speaks with a strong German accent, and why the most powerful demons tremble at sight of him, or why he uses the "ancient and honorable symbol of the fylfot (swastika)". Their alternate history never had a Nazi Germany.

* [[Invasion of the Neptune Men|"They took out the Hitler building!]] [[Mystery Science Theater 3000 (TV)|Where's everyone going to go to see Hitler memorabilia?"]]

* ''[[The Simpsons (Animation)|The Simpsons]]''. Bart wrecked Hitler's car. Cue Nelson's question "What did he ever do to you?"

** It was also implied (in the episode Bart makes a crank phone call to Australia) that Hitler is living in Argentina.

* In the short story "Southern Strategy" by Michael F. Flynn, in which Germany won [[WW 1]], Hitler has become a major political leader in Germany, and has gained massive support for his cause through his speaking skills and charismatic personality. His cause is the furthering of animal rights and the banning of tobacco.

* ''[[CSA Confederate States of America]]'': The Confederecy is an Axis power, but Hitler is unable to reach an agreement on whether or not to go through with the final solution or keep its victims alive as slave labor.

* Hitler's dog Blondi is a [[Historical In-Joke]] in ''[[Pet Shop of Horrors]]'' {{spoiler|He's actually a Kirin, a magical animal that gurantees victory, in the form of an exceptionally handsome German Shepherd. Unfortunately for Hitler and the Nazis he can also be very fickle.}}

* A dystopian [[Alternate History]] Europe where Hitler won the war is the premise of Brad Linaweaver's novel ''Moon Of Ice.''

** ''[[AH Dot Com the Series]]'', in the episode "Dinos and Nazis and Deroes, Oh My", had a surviving Third Reich in the centre of the [[Hollow Earth]], led by an aged Hitler plugged into a cyborg throne. He gets killed at the end by an exploding robot herald reprogrammed by Landshark.

* The core of Len Deighton's novel 'XPD' is the conceit that Hitler and Churchill had a conference to negotiate a cease-fire in France in 1940. This secret can not be allowed to spoil the history as agreed upon, so we get a settling of old scores in a thinly-disguised James Bond-ish romp through Europe, London and Hollywood.

* A one-off joke in ''[[Ansem Retort (Webcomic)|Ansem Retort]]'' explains Hitler's anti-Semitism...well...

{{quote| '''DiZ''': You turned into a rabbi and laughed at Hitler's paintings. YOU FUCKED UP PRETTY BADLY!}}

* Appears in Herman Wouk's [[The Winds of War and War And Remembrance|''The Winds of War'' and ''War and Rememberence'']] epic. He is shown giving speeches, and Victor Henry meets him at least once.

* There's a doujin called ''Mein Kampf'' out now.

* In one story included in ''Pet Shop of Horrors: Tokyo'', We find out that Count D's grandfather (who was mentioned in ''[[Pet Shop of Horrors]]'' as having sold a rather creepy teddy bear to a Jewish girl in Germany during the Holocaust) met and became friends with Eva Braun. He gives her a pet that will grant her her greatest desire, which is a golden kirin that Eva and Hitler both see as a blue-eyed, blond-haired boy that they name Blondi. [[It Got Worse|This gives Hitler the idea to kick-start the Aryan race thing]]. At the end of the story, when Eva accepts Hitler's marriage proposal, the kirin narrates that "Eva Braun got her wish. She was the devil's wife...for three days."

* In [[The Movie]] to [[Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime)|the 2003 anime version of]] ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Hitler makes a few appearances and apparently is the one behind the invasion of Amestris.

[[Category:Historical Domain Character]]

[[Category:Reichstropen]]