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|'''Erik Maria Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn''', ''Leftism Revisited''}}
Ah, yes, the '''Nazi Nobleman'''. This [[Aristocrats Are Evil|arrogant aristocrat]] has wholeheartedly and enthusiastically embraced the [[Those Wacky Nazis|Nazi ideology]] of [[Might Makes Right|"might makes right"]] and [[Social Darwinist|"the strong should dominate the weak"]]. No doubt this is a result of his [[Blue Blood|superior breeding]] and privileged upbringing, during which he was raised to believe himself [[Nietzsche Wannabe|superior to all those lowly proles]].
Naturally, of course, this enthusiastic Nazi hates democracy, probably because it threatens the superiority of the noble class, and is almost certainly [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money|wealthy]], and trusts the Nazis to help him keep his wealth. He is probably a good pal of [[Adolf Hitler|old Adolf himself]]. In some stories, he is a [[Morally-Ambiguous Doctorate|leading scientist]], or perhaps a [[Torture Technician|sadistic jailer]], but more often, he is a [[Cultured Warrior]], or some variant thereof. [[Good-Looking Privates|His uniform will be immaculate, starched and pressed]], [[The Von Trope Family|his last name begins with "Von"]], and of course [[High-Class Glass|a monocle]] is mandatory.
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* Averted in ''[[The Sound of Music]]''. Captain von Trapp hates and despises Nazis, tears up their flag contemptuously, destroys them with his [[Death Glare]] and escapes across the border.
** This could just as well fit in the [[Real Life]] section below, as the Captain really did exist; he was a well-known Austro-Hungarian war hero in World War I, commander of several U-boats (yes, Austria-Hungary did have a navy, based in the Adriatic) in which he executed several highly successful war patrols.
* Averted big-time in ''[[Valkyrie (film)|Valkyrie]]'' (for [[Real Life|real-life]], see below), which depicts a Swabian Catholic Aristocrat and army officer who masterminds a plot to assassinate [[Adolf Hitler]]. A huge portion of the other plotters depicted are also aristocrats, both Protestant and Catholic, and from a variety of different parts of Germany.
* Baron von Sepper ([[Richard Burton (actor)|Richard Burton]]) in ''Bluebeard'' (1972).
* ''[[Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid]]'' features as its main villain a "Field Marshall von Kluck" (Carl Reiner), whose surname, in combination with his starched-and-pressed uniform and neatly shined boots, suggest a probable aristocratic background. He is also an enthusiastic Nazi, referring to the heroine's family as members of an "inferior race", and trying to destroy the Third Reich's enemies long after the war has ended.
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* Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont became a senior SS officer and served as High Commissioner of Police in German-occupied France. He served three years in prison after the war. Himmler was godfather to his son.
* [[Ass in Ambassador|Franz von Papen]] was an opportunistic supporter of the Nazis. He was a widely disliked figure and German political exiles compared him to Judas or even to [[Satan]]. Furthermore he had the dangerous combination of a delight in intrigue with an overestimation of his strategic talent. When an attempt was made on his life in Ankara the Turkish investigators were presented with a problem well known from detective novels: [[Everyone Is a Suspect| anyone might have wanted to kill him.]]
** He was notably an outspoken opponent of the Nazis (though [[With Friends Like These...|counterproductive]] to say the least) prior to the Night of the Long Knives when various associates of his including his personal adviser were [https://web.archive.org/web/20120529204804/http://books.google.com/books?id=xvZmPB8W1WwC&pg=PA171&dq=von+papen&hl=en&ei=06mNTYCuFZSssAPY05WOCQ&sa=X were killed], and he personally only [http://books.google.com/books?id=zjkcgDyJPmsC&pg=PA112&dq=narrowly+escaped&hl=en "narrowly escaped"] Hitler's purge by the SS.
*** In the previous war, Papen had been the head of Imperial Germany's intelligence effort in the US, where his recommendation that German submarines should start sinking American merchant ships [[Take That|did so much to keep America neutral and win the war for the Kaiser.]] He was appointed Hitler's deputy by [[General Failure|President Hindenburg]], who figured that a man with [[Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped|Papen's record of success]] would be just the fellow to keep this damned Bohemian corporal in line.
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* While he supported German nationalism and the Nazi goals of making Germany great again, Wilhelm II, the last German Emperor, refused to meet with Hitler and condemned the Nazis near the end of his life. Several of his sons and other family members, however, did join the Wehrmacht. His second wife [[Horrible Judge of Character|was also quite a fan]] of [[Adolf Hitler|that Austrian corporal]].
* German spy Princess Stephanie Julianne von Hohenlohe was close the Hitler and Göring. She was also Jewish.
* Colonel Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg did get a bit of a [[Historical Hero Upgrade]] in the 2008 film ''[[Valkyrie (film)|Valkyrie]]'', but it is indisputably true that this Swabian Count was a mastermind behind one of the biggest plots to assassinate [[Adolf Hitler]]. While he didn't exactly have [https://web.archive.org/web/20130630093921/http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/GENOCIDE/reviewstr12.htm the highest opinion] of non-Germans, and endorsed some planks of the Nazi political platform, he also didn't just go along quietly after the Nazis crossed the [[Moral Event Horizon]]. Many of the other real-life plotters were aristocrats of one stripe or another as well.
* The Duke of Windsor is only rumored to have been a Nazi sympathizer—odds are more that he was more just stupid in accepting the attentions of anyone who would give his wife the recognition he thought she deserved - and Hitler was smart enough to realize this.
** With minor exceptions though the British nobility from the King himself to the most piddling Younger Son, were as loyal to Britain as during any war and thus were anti-nazi by default-and left their bones on battlefields all over the world. If the Duke of Windsor is to be mentioned these also are to be mentioned.
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* Gustav Mannerheim, Field Marshal of Finland and former Czarist flunkey was an ally of convenience of the Nazis. He did not particularly like them so much as he disliked Communists.
* The military proper (as opposed to the [[Praetorian Guard|SS]]) was more sympathetic to the old traditions and had a number of old-style nobility in it who were [[Just Following Orders]]. This was a great bother to [[Adolf Hitler]] who couldn't get along without them but absolutely hated officers; partly because he had once been an enlisted man, partly because they often had minds of their own within the confines of their profession, and partly because they deflected loyalty away from ''him''.
**[[Reconstructed Trope]]: However the military in general went along with the thing including often cooperating directly with atrocities. A lot of that was from simple bribery and [[I Have Your Wife| other methods]]. And of course an old-school officer that was to horrified at the whole thing would simply have done a [[The Sound of Music| Captain von Trap]] long ago and ended up gambling away the war in some [[Casablanca| neutral city]] somewhere. Moreover the number of atrocities done by the Wehrmacht is not always telling. Out of hundreds of thousands of armed adolescents, hungry, horny, and frustrated at hardship you can always find someone willing to take it out on civilians if professional standards are not enforced rigorously especially if they are actively encouraged by the regime in power. There [[Zig Zag|
* The German tennis player Gottfried von Cramm, despite playing Davis Cup matches for the Nazis, was did not represent the "Aryan ideal" that the Germans sought from their athletes. Von Cramm, openly opposed the Nazis' dismissal of his Jewish doubles partner Daniel Prenn from the Davis Cup team. Furthermore, he lived his life as a closeted gay man and narrowly avoided being sent to a concentration camp because of his sexuality.
* Lazlo Almasy, the Hungarian Egyptologist, came from a family with a castle of it's own and an exploring tradition, as well as a curious legacy of occult speculations (one could bet on one of his family being a vampire if one believed in such things and wanted to bet on that for anyone). He served as the Hungarian liason to the Afrika Korps as an expert in desert special operations. There is no evidence that he was ever a Nazi or even an Arrow Cross (the Hungarian version) and the likelihood is highly improbable. Insofar as he had an ideology it probably would have been monarchism, and the main reason he served with German forces was that Hungary happened to be allied to Germany.
* Raoul Wallenberg is the most famous Righteous Gentile. It is hard to find a Wallenberg Patent of Nobility in the other Wiki though there is at least one knighthood. However the Wallenberg's status as Old Money was so sound that it might as well have been noble.
* The Sultan of Morocco protested against new Vichy Race laws and continued to receive audiences from Jews. And he may have given secret support. In general he seems to have considered the new laws a personal affront to his jurisdiction as it was his understanding that older laws should apply and he held to a rather easy going interpretation of Sharia. Conceivably he could have done more but he was in the unhappy position of being puppet to a puppet.
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