Nazi Nobleman: Difference between revisions
m
no edit summary
Jason taylor (talk | contribs) |
mNo edit summary |
||
| (12 intermediate revisions by 3 users not shown) | |||
Line 2:
[[File:monocle 9159.jpg|frame]]
{{quote|''During my wartime years in the United States, I heard not a single "morale-building" story about Central Europe that did not involve a "Nazi nobleman."''
|'''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.
Line 11 ⟶ 12:
Note that this does not apply to noblemen who happen to be in the ranks of the German army during WWII, or German aristocrats who express un-PC opinions about some ethnic group; this trope refers to noblemen who enthusiastically endorse and specifically promote the Nazi Party and its ideology.
{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* Prince Gihren Zabi of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'' is what happens when this trope meets [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]]. He's a [[Social Darwinist]] who sees [[Adolf Hitler]] as someone to look up to, going so far as to take being compared to him as a complement ("I'll show you what a man who follows in Hitler's footsteps can accomplish). He's also [[The Evil Prince]] and a member of the ruling Zeon nobility.
Line 47:
* 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.
** It may be worth mentioning that von Kluck was an actual German general in [[World War I]], whose inability to coordinate with von Bülow's signaled the failure of the Schlieffen Plan and led to the extended trench warfare of that conflict.
Line 90:
== Real Life ==
=== Straight examples ===
* Successful tank commander and nobleman Hyazinth Graf Strachwitz von Gross-Zauche und Camminetz nicknamed by his troops der Panzergraf (Tank count).[
* Hermann Göring started styling himself as one once in power, and by the end of the war he had made it the last [[The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything|"job"]] he actually did.
* At least one aristocratic German relative of Britain's Prince Philip attained a high position in the Nazi Party. Prince Christopher of Hesse-Cassel was an intimate of Hermann Gōring and became head of the wiretapping unit organized by Gōring that became the forerunner to the Gestapo.
Line 98:
* 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.
Line 108:
* 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.
Line 115:
* 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]].
* 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
* 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.
* Abdullah of Jordan was a political rival of the Zionists rather then a racial enemy and possibly no more a rival then with many Arabs. While this claim is something of [[Some of My Best Friends Are X|a cliche]] it seems to have been true in his case. Moreover his army kept order in parts of the Middle East the British could not spare troops for. And it actively assisted in the conquest of Syria from the Vichyites (one of the few instances where Jordan and Israel were fighting on the same side).
* Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia (perhaps High King might be a better rendering given the political set up in Ethiopia) took sides with the British to reclaim his throne from the Italians. Obviously he had no interest in being a Nazi.
* Indian Kshatriya (roughly the counterpart of knights) often enrolled in the [[Kipling's Finest|Indian Army]] and fought the Germans. Usually for [[Punch Clock Hero|money]] or [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|tradition]] rather then active anti-naziism but they were hardly pro nazi. And the best pf them were fearsome foes indeed.
* American old-money were not aristocrats as patents of nobility were (and are) unconstitutional, and there was too much land in America for an enclosed clique to get an oligopoly. They were, however, often dynasties and often indistinguishable from nobles proper. They had a record as mixed as any. Joe Kennedy seems to have backed positions that with the benefit of hindsight look like collaboration. But John (the later President) was a well-known naval officer. Bush senior was a Navy pilot. And a number of old money sorts got into the OSS; being an entitled traveler or an apprentice to a multinational was a great cover for doing strange things in a strange city. One of these was the famous Alan Dulles, who spent large parts of his career intriguing with anti-Nazi conspirators in Germany from his Swiss base. He was from a "Boston Brahman" family and had an ancestor on the Mayflower.
* Basically nobles sided with either their country or their political convictions. Or followed their interests. Or just got out of the way as best they could. In other words they kind of behaved like, [[Captain Obvious|everyone else in the entire world.]] There was no inherent reason for Nazis and Nobles to gravitate toward each other. Nobles had more then enough flattery for their bloodline anyway. And they would have been biased against the idea of an erratic state that might not protect their property.
** Moreover the aristocracy had an ideology of its own that was entirely different. It was more cosmopolitan and less nativist; aristocrats often went to the same parties and schools and even when they were on opposite sides in war preferred [[Let's Fight Like Gentlemen|to fight like gentlemen]]. They also did not possess the insatiable racial hatred of Nazis. Which is not to say they couldn't be horribly bigoted both about race and class -- just that it was a more lazy sort of bigotry which was not inclined to commit atrocities [[For the Evulz]], though an evil aristocrat might do so [[Pragmatic Villainy|to get something he wanted.]] There was really no reason an aristocrat would find a place in Nazism to tempt either his ambition or ideological convictions and plenty not.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Royalty and Nobility Tropes]]
| |||