Putting on the Reich: Difference between revisions

[[File:ImpVeers.jpg|link=Star Wars|frame|Gray uniforms with button panels, the fashion of choice for today's [[Mook]] on the go.]]

 

 

A quick and easy way to suggest a group of people are evil in fiction is to give them uniforms that resemble those worn by the [[Those Wacky Nazis|Third Reich]], the Roman Empire, pseudo-Mongols or the Soviet Union. In a broader sense, this can also refer to using other stylistic elements from the Nazi times (like the "Führer" title, goose-stepping "stormtroopers", or swastikas [[I Thought It Was Forbidden|if the creator]] [[No Swastikas|is more daring]]) to make sure your villains are [[Obviously Evil|visibly evil]].

Incidentally, some of the uniforms for the real SS were manufactured by Hugo Boss (father of the famous one) using slave labor. [[Those Wacky Nazis]] were actually pretty snappy dressers despite being evil, which just furnishes another reason for authors and costume designers to borrow their motifs. Very common when [[State Sec]] is around.

 

 

See also [[A Nazi by Any Other Name]]. May result in [[Commie Nazis]].

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* The Principality of Zeon and its offshoots from ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam]]'''s Universal Century. Gets more [[Anvilicious]] as time goes on, since later series played up the "Zeon = Nazi Germany" metaphor, most prominently ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket]]'' giving Zeon battle flags that were one Swastika away from Nazi banners and introducing their fixation on using German words with their mecha (like Gelgoog Jager, Rick Dom Zwei, etc.).

* The Red Ribbon Army from ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' has just about the least oppressive dress code out of any army in fiction, but the effeminate, physically formidable, blond-haired, blue-eyed General Blue seems to dress this way strictly out of personal preference.

** Not to mention the red armbands they wear.

** The first Kaiser of the [[Legend of Galactic Heroes|Galactic Empire]] had about as few qualms as Hitler and Stalin, but was actually a 18th-19th Century Prussian fetishist.

* The original name of the Zoid Berserk Fury is actually Berserk ''Fuhrer''

* The villainous Empire in the H-anime ''Angel Core'', with armored battle robots that look like the Kerberos Corps troopers from ''[[Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade]]'' has SS-style uniforms (including the SS lightning bolt insignia), and experiments relating to the supernatural.

* Parodied in ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]'' where the Zuka club dons [http://www.google.com.ph/images?rlz=1C1DVCL_enPH412PH412&q=SA+uniform&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=629 SA-like uniforms] and begin to [[Straw Feminist|preach about the superiority of women]]. Furthermore, they are once seen with a Nazi flag in the backdrop, [[No Swastikas|except with the Swastika replaced by the kanji for "woman".]]

* The uniforms of the RKO in ''[[Trinity Blood]]'' are based off the Waffen-SS, [[Red Right Hand|probably to emphasize their bad guy image.]]

* Team Rocket in ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]''. Not only do they wear uniforms similar to Nazi Germany, as well as implied to experiment on sentient creatures, but in one of Team Rocket's boss fantasies [http://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/comparisons/houen/ag013/rocket_j.jpg during AG in the Japanese version], they are even doing a pose similar to the Hitler salute, and militaristic footsteps are heard. (This was omitted in the English version presumably due to the implications of the scene.)

* The crew of the ''Silvana'' in ''[[Last Exile]]'' wear black uniforms with silver trim that look vaguely like those of the SS, but more loosely tailored.

* ''[[Bleach]]'': The Vandenreich seems to be closely associated with this trope. It doesn't help that they're quincies and the quincies have been associated with the militant Christian Knights (Teutonic Knights, in particular, but also the Knights Templar and Knights Hospitaller) since the very beginning of the manga. Just like the adoption of certain Teutonic Knight themes and symbols in the Nazi pagentry, the Vandenreich also seem to have evolved from these Teutonic Knight roots into something very reminiscent of the Nazis. They even sent a sub-division called the Jagdarmee (Hunting Unit) to occupy Hueco Mundo and engage in activities that oscillate between assimilation and ethnic cleansing. The Jagdarmee's leader also looks enough like Heinrich Himmler for him to have earned a [[Fan Nickname]] based on this resemblance.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

** The original comic does a better job of localizing its fascist government, and thus making its point that such regimes can emerge anywhere, by extrapolating from traits and tendencies that were supposedly observable in the Thatcherite government of the time of its creation. The movie undermines this by making Norsefire an out-and-out allegory for <s> the Nazis</s> the Bush administration (Adam Susan is renamed Adam Sutler in a move that is, ironically, [[Adolf Hitler|less subtle]]).

* Earth Man in ''[[Legion of Super-Heroes]]'' is a Terran supremacist and historical revisionist who claims Superman was from Earth. He leads a movement of fellow Earth natives in a campaign of hatred and bigotry towards offworlders of any kind after he and his cronies were all rejected from the Legion; not only is it established that he's basically a 31st century equivalent of a Nazi, it's the costume (and the fact that he's a statuesque blond) that really ties the image together.

* The Dingoes in the Archie ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog (comics)|Knuckles the Echidna]]'' series were this to the point that the artists were forced to remove the symbols on their uniforms.

* Vril Dox's costume in ''R.E.B.E.L.S.'' in [[The DCU]] bears more than a faint resemblance to a Nazi uniform, including jodhpurs.

* Carlos Ezquerra says he made an eagle a prominent symbol of the Judges in ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' because it was strongly associated with the Nazis and Spanish fascists, the latter of whom he lived under for many years.

* The Goths in ''[[Asterix]]'' wear helmets that look like the helmets of WWI German soldiers. The Goths are pre-unification Germans as they are shown as bickering and prone to infighting (what quickly becomes an important plot point). Goscinny and Uderzo used a more general stereotype of militaristic, simple-minded and orderly Germans/Prussians. They later [[Old Shame|regretted]] this portrayal and the few Goths appearing later in the series are not putting on the Reich at all.

 

== [[Film]] ==

* In the 1987 Hindi film ''Mr.India'', everyone in the [[Evil Overlord]] Mogambo's organisation greets each other with 'Hail Mogambo', and his soldiers wear uniforms that look like SS uniforms.

* Subverted by the uniforms of the Federation Navy in ''[[Starship Troopers (film)|Starship Troopers]]''. These are the "heroes" of our story (though Paul Verhoeven would probably tell you otherwise.) For instance, [[Neil Patrick Harris]]' character's uniform looks ''exactly'' like a simpler version of a Gestapo officer's, hence his [[Fan Nickname]], "Doogie Howser, SS."

** Most blatant of all are the [[Expanded Universe]]'s description of [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Commission_for_the_Preservation_of_the_New_Order COMPNOR], a SA-SS hybrid. There's even a "[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sub-Adult_Group Sub-Adult Group]"; [[wikipedia:Hitler Youth|real subtle]].

** Several sequences in the movies had a definite [[Triumph of the Will|Riefenstahl]] flair:

*** The shot of thousands of troops lined up to welcome the Emperor in ''[[Return of the Jedi]]''.

*** And it's not just the Imperial navy. The Rebel Alliance awards ceremony at the end of Episode IV is modeled directly from a scene in ''Triumph of the Will''.

* In the ''[[Harry Potter (film)|Harry Potter]]'' films, Voldemort's Death Eaters are shown dressed in black outfits that look like those of the Ku Klux Klan and their insignia of a skull with a snake in its mouth has an obvious similarity to the SS death's head motif (though the latter is straight out of the books).

*** They add to the similarity even more via means of the "Magic is Might" statue present after Voldemort takes over the Ministry, the [[Mooks]] are dressed in grey versions of the standard Nazi uniform and those anti-muggle-born leaflets have a very WWII look.

* ''[[Equilibrium]]'''s totalitarian government features a flag that is a direct copy-paste of the swastika, only with the crossbars centered on each radial. [http://flagspot.net/flags/fic-nazi.html This website] has a whole list of fictional flags of Nazi inspiration.

** Somewhat stupidly, the movie (which retains the original Shakespearean text, despite taking place in the '30s) continually refers to Richard as "King," even though the Nazis were notoriously anti-monarchist.

* The Octopus wears an SS uniform, ''and'' a samurai costume, ''and'' a Russian coat in ''[[The Spirit (film)|The Spirit]]''. Why, you ask? Well, why not?

* In Sergei Eisenstein's ''[[Alexander Nevsky]]'', the common soldiers of [[The Teutonic Knights]] all wear identical [[Faceless Goons|face-masking]] Stahlhelms. (The Stahlhelm itself was, in turn, probably based on a medieval German style of helmet called a ''Schallern''.) And the archbishop wears a miter [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Nevski5.jpg with swastikas!] Quite possibly the [[Older Than Television|earliest example of the trope]] (five years after [[Those Wacky Nazis]] took power).

* In the movie adaptation of ''[[Quo Vadis]]?'', the scene where the troops march before Nero, who watches from a balcony and salutes them, is directly choreographed from ''Triumph of the Will''.

* The Chancellor of the unnamed country in ''[[9|Nine]]'' was obviously inspired by the Nazis. The flags, uniforms of the soldiers, hell even their [[Mini-Mecha|combat robots]] look like stahlhelms with legs.

* Andy's torture outfit in ''[[The Final]]'' is an SS uniform.

* And of course ''[[Monty Python's Life of Brian]]'' features a Jewish resistance group, the "suicide squad", with uniforms based on the sarazen ones, and their insignia is a... a... a [[Unusual Euphemism|swastistar]]. Oh, and their commander has a toothbrush moustache, too.

* ''[[Super Mario Bros. (film)|Super Mario Bros]]'' provides fascist undertones to Koopa's regime, particularly in regards to the Goombas' "Storm Trooper" inspired uniforms. Additionally, early scripts indicate "lizarddom" and racial superiority as chief motivations for Koopa; he feels that mammals are inferior and need to be kept in check while eating plants (herbivores) is a sign of a race's decline.

* Just barely averted in ''[[Animal House]]''. The Omegas (the "evil" fraternity) are basically styled as "East Coast preppy snobs," but the filmmakers decided to go the extra mile to make them truly despicable by giving them unnecessarily militaristic rituals to practice ("Sergeant" Niedermeyer's drills on horseback come to mind), along with some casual racism and religious intolerance. The head of the costuming department later admitted that she would have dressed the Omega characters in Nazi uniforms if she had thought she could get away with it.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

** What's even funnier about the Confederates in the Second Great War is, in spite of the uniforms and alliances with the traditional Allies, their military hardware ended up resembling German machinery. For examples, their Barrels (Tanks) were based on the Panther and Tiger tanks, their Hound Dog fighters were expies of Bf 109s, their Mule dive bombers were Stukas with Southern Crosses painted on the sides and they also fielded things like Barrel Busters (Tank Destroyers) and Stovepipes (Panzerschrecks). Despite this however, the US would be the one to field the first turbo (jet) fighters, specifically the Boeing-71 "Screaming Eagle", which was pretty much an expy of the Me 262.

* The 1939 Sinclair Lewis novel ''It Can't Happen Here'' chronicles the rise of an American fascist government driven in part by the support of conservative Christians and 'forgotten men'. The supporters of the government form a militia known as the Minute Men or M.M. They have many of the trappings of the Nazi stormtroopers, right down to implied homosexuality in the ranks and at the top (see [[wikipedia:Ernst Roehm|Ernst Roehm]].)

* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' series depicts ex-False-Dragon Mazrim Taim, [[Heel Face Mole|now ostensibly working for the good guys]], building up an army of magic-users using a variety of titles blatantly stolen from the Germans and translated into the Old Tongue. Possibly [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] when General Bashere isn't sure this is the real Taim because he's shaved off his mustache.

* In [[David Weber]]'s "Heirs of Empire" series, when the humans from Earth re-establish the empire and incorporate the various national militaries into a new united one, one general, an American, reflects briefly on his discomfort at wearing an Imperial Marine uniform, which is black with silver trim. In the first book of the series it was established that corrupt mutineers from the original Empire had been secretly influencing human society over millennia, including inspiring the SS uniform which was based on the Imperial Marine uniform, as a [[Take That]] to the mutineers who had repented and were secretly fighting them.

* The eponymous student movement in ''[[The Wave]]'' does this deliberately, as it was part of a [[High School]] history teacher's experiment to demonstrate how easily the German people had been led astray by [[Those Wacky Nazis]].

* In the [[Vorkosigan Saga]], Barrayaran military uniforms incorporate high collars, peaked caps, capes and jackboots. It [[Justified Trope|makes sense]] for them to lavish attention on their uniforms, since Barrayarans as a group are all military-mad, and the [[Blue Blood|ruling-class Vor]] insist they are not an aristocracy but [[Insistent Terminology|a military caste]]. In keeping with the spirit of the trope, just before the events of the series, the government employed [[State Sec|political officers]] as military watchdogs.

* In ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' novel ''Ghost Story'', the defenses that {{spoiler|Evil Bob}} has set up to protect {{spoiler|the Corpsetaker's lair}} in the [[Spirit World|Nevernever]] are deliberately designed around the German defenses at Normandy, complete with wolf-like demons wearing Nazi uniforms and helmets. {{spoiler|Evil Bob}} completes the regalia by wearing a Nazi officer's uniform with black trenchcoat. Of course, seeing as how {{spoiler|Evil Bob}}'s last conscious memories were from World War II, it only makes sense that he'd use the most recent and advanced military defenses he knew of.

** Note that it's never confirmed that the "wolfwaffen" are constructs, in which case {{spoiler|Evil Bob}} might've recruited ''actual Nazi ghosts'' for his defense force. If so, there [[Subverted Trope|may not have been any "Putting On"]] about it.

 

* The black uniforms of the Psi Cops in ''[[Babylon 5]]''. And the brown shirts of the Nightwatch.

** The Centauri soldiers wore uniforms that evoked the [[wikipedia:French Republican Guard|French Republican Guards]] in some ways.

* In ''[[Tin Man (TV series)|Tin Man]]'', the Wicked Witch has as a [[Secret Police]] the black-leather-wearing [[Badass Longcoat|"Long Coats"]].

{{quote|'''Jack''': The way you guys are blending in with the local color- I mean [[Wearing a Flag on Your Head|Flag Girl]] is bad enough, but ''U-Boat captain''?}}

** Played straight with the Republic Security Forces in "Inferno", the organisation being an SS-like doppelganger of UNIT in a parallel world.

** A more subtle example can be seen in ''The Idiot Lantern,'' in which the TV antennae are shaped like swastikas.

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager|Voyager]]'' episode "The Killing Game" featured hunter-race the Hirogen capturing the Voyager crew and forcing them to re-enact a [[WW 2]] holoprogram, with the Hirogen taking the part of the Nazis in occupied France. They wore their Nazi uniforms when outside the holodeck too. Somewhat averted, in that only one of them actually believes in the Nazi philosophy - the leader is ready to strike a deal with Janeway in exchange for the holodeck technology.

** Averted by the remake, which takes a different tack. The enigmatic but charismatic Vs suddenly arrive with messages of hope, change, and universal health care.

* Mirror-Odo's uniform in the ''[[Deep Space Nine]]'' episode "Crossover" evokes this. Though still recognizably Bajoran, it is all-black and fitted with a high collar and a belt.

* Not so much the uniforms, but the flags of the Phoenix Group in ''[[Terra Nova]]'' resemble Nazi battle standards.

* The Peacekeepers from ''[[Farscape]]'' are pretty much Space Nazis. Fascism, racial purity, the uniforms, color scheme, everything.

 

* The music video for [[Lady Gaga]]'s "Alejandro" shows the male dancers in this, with Gaga herself wearing a bra with AR-15s attached.

* The music video to [[Disturbed]]'s cover of "[[Genesis (band)|Land of Confusion]]" has the oppressive, money-driven soldiers looking like this, going so far as to make their insignia a stylized dollar bill similar to a swastika.

* [[Laibach]]. Seriously.

** That is to say, [[Refuge in Audacity|they have a serious case of this.]] [[Troll|They are not taking it seriously.]]

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* In ''[[Rifts]]'', the Coalition soldiers are called Dead Boys because of their skull motif, ripped from the SS. Their dress uniforms are SS-based as well.

** Older (metal) Cadian units, on the other hand, wear obvious Wehrmacht-inspired uniforms, right down to the bread-bags, Y-straps, jack boots, and cylindrical ribbed gas mask cans.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

* ''[[Nintendo Wars]]'': The Green Earth, in some part a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]] of [[World War II|WWII]] Germany. And they're good guys. This is the same series that had "Hatler" as a playable character, by the way.

** ''Battalion Wars'' has the Xylvanians, who are a cross between WWI Germans, Nazis, and, of course, vampires.

** The UED gets bonus points for using the same interior decorators as Nazi Germany. Both have red flags with similar symbolism; the UED shows an eagle atop the Earth, echoing the Third Reich's eagle atop the swastika.

* Concept art for officers of the United Earth Federation in ''[[Supreme Commander]]'' has a Nazi-like appearance, though none of the UEF officers in the game have any particular nationality associated with them.

** Strangely though, the U.S. Military seemed to have used those kinds of uniforms even before the nuclear apocalypse, as evidenced by General Chase's overcoat.

** In ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'', Caesar tried to make Caesar's Legion as much like the real Roman Empire as possible. [[Shown Their Work|He succeeded spectacularly]].

* Artwork of the two pilots you play as from the [[Bullet Hell|danmaku]] [[Shoot'Em Up|shmup]] Under Defeat for the Dreamcast have them wearing Nazi-like uniforms. Also, PA announcements from your enemies is in [[Surprisingly Good English|perfect English]] and dialogue between your pilot and her CO is in perfect German. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVGDuGJkNyQ Subbed for your convenience.]

* The enemy officers in ''[[Shadow Complex]]'' have a combination of "armored super-soldier" and "Nazi" that includes armbands with their logo on it.

* The Imperial Troopers in ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'', who wear stahlhelms and give what appears to be a Nazi salute to the Emperor during a cutscene.

* Good guy example: the Furoia Army forces in ''Madou Souhei Kleinhasa" wear SS-style uniforms, reinforced by the fact that all of the named Furoian soldiers have [[Gratuitous German|vaguely German-]][[As Long as It Sounds Foreign|sounding names]].

* An interesting version of this occurs in ''[[Metro 2033 (video game)|Metro 2033]]'', combined with [[No Swastikas]]. The Nazis use a flag with the same red foreground and the white circle in the middle, but instead of a swastika, there is a big Gothic capital letter C.

* ''[[Akatsuki Blitzkampf]]'''s main ''hero'' pus Akatsuki, Kanae, Adler, Elektrosoldat and Murakumo.

* In ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'', the Galbadian army has elements of this. While the enlisted men and noncommissioned officers primarily consist of soldiers in red and blue uniforms with fairly high-tech looking helmets and gear, General Caraway wears a black uniform with long coat. Ironically, he's one of the ''good guys''.

* The Thalmor in ''[[The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim]]'' has elements of this in their uniforms, sans their elven armor.

* Kirkwall's Templar order under Knight-Commander Meredith shows signs of this in the third act of ''[[Dragon Age II]]''.

* [[Skullgirls]] has the Black Egrets fit the bill... Except they're good guys, since their boss, [[Badass Princess|Parasoul]], actively seeks the destruction of the [[Be Careful What You Wish For|Skull Heart]]. By proxy, this ALSO includes [[Power Fist|Panzerfaust]], who's a Black Egret himself.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* [[The Empire|The Sirenen Reich]] from v2-v4 ''[[Open Blue]]'' was practically [[Nazi Germany]] {{smallcaps|[[Recycled in Space|IN]] [[The Cavalier Years]]}}, complete with a ([[God Save Us From the Queen|female]]) Führer, an SS-ish intelligence agency, a tendency to [[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|research advanced tech]], and a [http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/3272/ser02.jpg flag] that looks eerily like the Nazi battle insignia. The only difference is that they wear red coats like [[The British Empire]]. v5 toned this down by replacing the Führer with a Board of Directors, but it's still pretty heavy.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* In the ''[[Veggie Tales]]'' video ''Josh and the Big Wall'', the people of Jericho are all shown wearing Roman Centurion helmets. This is especially humorous given their French accents.

* [[Alfred J Kwak|Alfred Jonathan Quack/Alfred Judocus Kwak]] had the Crow party, led by a crow named ''Dolf'', whose logo was a red flag with a white circle in it, with a crow's foot (most likely a reference to the Germanic "Algiz" rune). Subtle it was not.

** It was nonetheless chilling to watch Dolf grow from a naughty schoolboy into a fascist dictator. Also notable for the little details it threw in: Dolf was actually ''not'' a crow, but the half-breed of a crow and a blackbird, who disguised his origin by darkening his yellow beak - a sly allusion to Hitler failing to live up to the Aryan virtues he espoused.

* [[Ralph Bakshi]]'s movie ''[[Wizards]]'': Black Wolf's troops are explicitly in Nazi uniforms, as his military is a direct copy of the Nazis.

* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' seems to play with this trope in the first season, where the Fire Nation wear mongol-derived armor and designs that even include skulls for face plates. And yet, then, at numerous points after that, we're shown that other cultures can be just as bad, and that the people behind the armor are sympathetic. Bonus points for actually using the (somewhat silly) skull-face masks to further the plot.

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

* The uniforms of the [[East Germany]] ''Volksarmee'' and ''Volkspolizei'' for a while. That could just be due to uniform shortages, but [http://www.tridentmilitary.com/EG-Uniforms.htm yeah].

** In a similar fashion, the East German railway system had to keep its name [[Artifact Title|Deutsche Reichsbahn]], [[Loophole Abuse|as to not risk losing the West Berlin railway operating rights to the Allies.]]

* The Nazis ''themselves'', surprisingly, used this trope, adapting many of their motifs and insignias from the Roman Empire. (They also copied from the very short lived Free State of Fiume, a kind of early fascist regime set up [[It Makes Sense in Context|by Italians in Croatia.]])

** Many of the minor Axis nations had fascist militias or police units who wore uniforms inspired by either the Nazis or the Italian blackshirts (e.g. Croatian Black Legion, Romanian Iron Guard...)

* The Iraqi Ba'athist Party, to some extent, though given Saddam's predilections and mustache, that was more "Putting On The Stalin." The party structure of the Ba'ath Party was more communist than Nazi, and the Iraqi uniforms more Soviet than German [of course, the insignia is still British inspired]. And of course, Saddam's mustache resembles Stalin's more than it resembles Hitler's. The reason for this is that while the early Ba'athists were (small-d) democrats and more or less left-wing, Saddam eventually subverted the Ba'ath to his own ends, doing deals with the USSR (Iran, Iraq's natural enemy, was a firm US ally until 1979) even as he slaughtered thousands of Communists. For their part, the USSR was vaguely cool with them because the other Arab governments were conservative US-backed monarchies. So the Kremlin didn't really care whether Saddam (or Nasser or Sadat or Hafez al-Asad) was killing all the Communists in their country as long as they were buying Soviet-made arms and were generally Soviet allies.

* [[Marilyn Manson]]'s [http://wallpapers.free-review.net/84__Marilyn_Manson_-_The_Love_Song.htm late 2000s style] is/was described by Manson as "[[Oscar Wilde]] [[X Meets Y|at the Nuremberg Trials"]].

* [http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/8458/0001zhe69623801yt8.jpg The New Jersey State Police uniforms]. Funny because parts of the American gun community [[Affectionate Nickname|call New Jersey]] [[People's Republic of Tyranny|The People's Republic of New Jersey.]]

*** A bizarre sort of inversion: In the late 1990s, mullet hairstyles briefly became popular in Germany, so much so that some German police departments permitted officers to let their hair grow long. This led ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' cast member Colin Quinn (who was fond of taking potshots at New Jersey) to joke that these precincts would probably be recruiting in the bars of New Jersey next.

* Subversion in [[Doctor Steel|Doctor Steel's]] "Toy Soldiers", who mimic fascist uniforms, flags and propaganda to satirize armies that seek to crush free will and freedom of expression... all in the name of fun.

** On the other hand the Nationalists' Burma-based [[World War II|Chinese Expeditionary Force]], which fought alongside the Anglo-Indian Army, received American training equipment and weaponry such that they looked and acted the part of a U.S. Army formation. The Nationalists' main forces also received large quantities of American uniforms, helmets, and weapons such as the Thompson submachine gun - which was sorely needed, given their lack of automatic weaponry. For the most part, the NRA's various factions were outfitted with various locally-made copies of all of these, some of them (such as the Thompsons) being produced legally and under foreign supervision. What made things even ''more'' complicated was when the Japanese surrendered and their million-strong army and occupation force destroyed or left behind all of their equipment and weaponry. As if that wasn't bad enough, when the People's Liberation Army (the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party) defeated the NRA in the Civil War, they then received Soviet-made weapons, equipment, and uniforms - again a mixture of imports and local products - as part of the Sino-Soviet Alliance, but continued to use their existing stuff too. Consequently, most Chinese forces in the early-to-mid '40s looked German with American bits, which came closer to Nazi-American hybrids as the war dragged on until, by the mid-to-late '40s, they became weird [[Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot|Nazi-American-Japanese-Soviet hodgepodges]]. Only in 1953 were the PLA's uniforms and equipment finally standardized along Soviet lines.

* The Ethnocacerists in Peru are nationalist, ally themselves with communists, and their banner/standard is the nazi black eagle replaced by a condor. Essentially, [[Commie Nazis]].

** Especially bizarre when Asian cosplayers dress up in Nazi regalia, [http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/nazi-chic-cosplay-chinese-netizen-reactions.html such as for a wedding]. The bride in these pictures even had blonde hair for the occasion!

* The [[Imperial Germany|German Empire]] itself did this with [[The Roman Empire|ancient Rome]], as did [[Imperial Russia|the Russian Empire]]. The titles of "kaiser" and "czar" are, respectively, German and Russian translations of "caesar", with the former being how it's actually pronounced in Latin.

** Black uniforms have long been standard in traditionally working-class occupations, or in occupations in which a worker was liable to get something disgusting (mud, blood, etc.) splattered on him.

* Rich Iott, a Tea Party candidate for Congress in Ohio during the 2010 elections, made national news when it was discovered he does (did?) Nazi [[Cosplay]] as part of a [[War Reenactors|World War II reenactment group]] that specialized in taking on the roles of a Waffen SS division. Apparently, he got into it "as part of a father-son bonding experience."

** Military history buffs are famously non-judgmental in their attitudes toward different countries and factions, measuring an army's greatness by how ingeniously and bravely it fought rather than by its moral motives. This may be a holdover from [[World War I]], where the participants mostly had national rather than ideological motives and soldiers from enemy nations were known to fraternize off the battlefield.

* The Chilean army was restructured according to Prussian military tradition in the 1890's, right down to the spiked pickelhauben helmets. Now their parade uniforms are the same as those of the Wehrmacht...[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xorK15uzvOg&feature=channel_video_title They even goosestep!]

* The real-life incidents behind [[The Wave]] (fictionalized) were dramatic cases of this trope in their own right.

* Jane Elliott, about the "social experiment" of racism she first performed with third-graders and continues to perform with college students, stated in the documentary ''The Angry Eye'', "I didn't invent this exercise. I learned this from Adolf Hitler."

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Villainous Fashion Sense]]

[[Category:Obviously Evil]]

[[Category:Alternate History Tropes]]

[[Category:Costume Tropes]]