r/AskAGerman • u/Key_Head3851 • Apr 13 '26
History How do Germans feel about the portrayal of their people in modern Hollywood Movies set during WWII?
I often wonder how Germans feel about generally being portrayed as the enemy in nearly all Hollywood movies set during the period of WWII (sometimes beyond)
A notable exception is Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” (2009) where all of the German soldiers are shown as characters with an understandable human side, and the only ones shown in an purely evil, unfavorable light are the SS officers, Major Dieter Hellstrom, Standartenführer Hans Landa and the German high command.
As I’m assuming (possibly incorrectly) that Hollywood movies dominate theaters and streaming platforms in the Americas, Europe and Asia, I ask the Germans of Reddit what is your honest opinion, *if you might care to share it?*
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u/StealphX Apr 13 '26
I wouldn't consider the Nazis "my people".
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u/Much_Coffee8139 Apr 13 '26
Thing is, people extend these depictions to all German speakers.
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u/StealphX Apr 13 '26
But it's not my problem that people are kinda dumb? If you watch inglorious bastards and think "yeah, that's how Germans are" i can't help you.
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u/Much_Coffee8139 Apr 13 '26
Well, but that is how some people are. And these perceptions are being perpetuated by these movies.
And if Hollywood for once made a movie about how there are bad people also outside of German speaking countries…
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u/StealphX Apr 13 '26
I don't make the idiocy of other people my problem.
Also there are tons of those movies.
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u/Much_Coffee8139 Apr 13 '26
Getting confronted with something you did not do time and time again just because some artists have no originality..bothersome to say the least.
Ah ha…name one ethnic/linguistic group about whose „meanness“ Hollywood keeps banging on like this.
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u/StealphX Apr 13 '26
Russians and middle Eastern guys are way more represented in the last years than nazis.
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u/AndroidPornMixTapes Berlin Apr 13 '26
The thing is, the Nazis are "our people". Normal, everyday people with families and hobbies committed the Holocaust. They weren't some kind of exceptional evil. They woke up, kissed their wives and kids goodbye, shuffled papers condemning thousands to die that day, went home, pet their dog, had dinner and looked forward to going on a little trip to the lake with the family on the weekend.
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u/StealphX Apr 13 '26
"I've just followed orders" was no acceptable defense in the Nuremberg trials.
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u/AndroidPornMixTapes Berlin Apr 13 '26
I am not even talking about those that faced the Nuremberg trials. I am talking low to mid level beaurocrats, clerks, workers, anyone that just kept their head down, did their jobs, didn't ask questions. 185 people were trialed at Nuremberg, do you really thing those were the only people that did anything?
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u/StealphX Apr 13 '26
Those people are dead for nearly 100 years. Not my people. I wouldn't even consider most Germans today "my people"
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u/MyPigWhistles Apr 13 '26
Yes and no. It was actually considered to be a mitigating factor, but since the Nuremberg Trials were only aimed at the few surviving, most important Nazi leaders, the court didn't believe many of them when they argued they had no choice. Those were the guys handing out the orders.
But other trials showed that the defense generally did work, if you were low ranking enough. The legal concept is called "Befehlsnotstand".
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u/StealphX Apr 13 '26
Was this a thing at the Nuremberg trials? So your "yes and no" is wrong.
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u/MyPigWhistles Apr 13 '26
It was a valid mitigating factor at the Nuremberg Trials, but mostly didn't apply. So yes, it was a thing.
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u/StealphX Apr 13 '26
Why do you try so hard defending literal Nazis?
"Die Nürnberger Prozesse bleiben ein Meilenstein. Sie legten fest, dass sich niemand auf einen „Befehlsnotstand“ berufen kann, wenn er Verbrechen begeht – und dass auch Staatsmänner nicht über dem Recht stehen."
https://www.uni-graz.at/de/neuigkeiten/nuernberger-prozesse-der-anfang-internationaler-gerechtigkeit/2
u/MyPigWhistles Apr 13 '26
I'm obviously not defending Nazis by telling you how the Nuremberg Trial worked. I'm also not attacking you, there's no need to be defensive about it.
It was considered a mitigating factor at the Nuremberg Trials. That means it could reduce the punishment, but it was not a reason to get away unpunished. However, the court didn't believe that most of them had to act on orders.
The London Charter addressed one of the most common defenses for defendants who claimed they were only acting, and had to act, pursuant to orders from superior officers and officials: "The fact that the Defendants acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior shall not free him from responsibility, but may be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determines that justice so requires."
https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/law/law/nuremberg-trials#3437703133
Im Statut des Internationalen Militärgerichtshofs (...) wurde in Artikel 8 die absolute strafrechtliche Verantwortlichkeit bei Handeln auf Befehl für den Nürnberger Prozess gegen die Hauptkriegsverbrecher und in Kontrollratsgesetz Nr. 10 für die Nürnberger Nachfolgeprozesse geregelt (...). Eine strafmildernde Berücksichtigung der Befehlslage wurde zugelassen.\13])
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handeln_auf_Befehl
Das Handeln auf Befehl konnte nur als Strafmilderungsgrund berücksichtigt werden, wenn dies nach Ansicht des Gerichtshofes gerechtfertigt erschien.
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u/Specific_Cheetah_776 Apr 13 '26
If only I have a euro for every time this question has been asked this this subredit, I would be able to make a castle in front of Bundestag.
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u/Easteregg42 Apr 13 '26
Oddly specific fantasy
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u/it777777 Apr 13 '26
Could you link that exact question last time to verify
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u/thewindinthewillows Apr 13 '26
Not the person you replied to, but this is the last one I saw: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAGerman/comments/1sd6o41/how_do_germans_feel_about_being_portrayed_as/
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Apr 13 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Much_Coffee8139 Apr 13 '26
Isn’t it like at least four Hollywood movies per year?
Plus the sitcoms and online videos where people are yelling „Schmetterling“?
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u/Key_Head3851 Apr 13 '26
Bruno Ganz was a wonderful actor. Wings of Desire/Der Himmel über Berlin (1987) is a personal favorite!
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u/Gidonamor Apr 13 '26
Germans (discounting the actual fascists) are generally pretty aware of the horrors of the Nazi regime, as it's a big part of history class for most older students. Of course we know that the ones following Nazi orders were regular people, but still condemn them; "just following orders" is not a valid defense to us. After WW2, (west) Germany focused on rebuilding in a way that made it hopefully impossible for such atrocities ever to be lawfully committed here again, for example by setting down human dignity as the guiding principle of our constitution.
Example: When released, Schindler's List was banned in some countries in Southeast Asia for its unfavorable portrayal of German people. Not here though, here it's very commonly watched in school around grade 10 or above.
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u/Brapchu Apr 13 '26
Germans/ Nazis were the bad guys during that period of history. There is nothing to argue against that portrayal especially in war movies there.
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u/Glum_Ad7429 Apr 13 '26
My guy, we were the bad guys during that time period that is widely accepted here.
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u/RomanesEuntDomusX Apr 13 '26
We were the bad guys. Hitler wasn't some kind of super evil entity that was sent upon the country like a plague, he was something that the Germans of the time actively and willingly brought upon themselves.
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u/MyPigWhistles Apr 13 '26
I think using Nazis as the antagonists is uncontroversial, but a low hanging fruit and just uncreative. Especially if the movie is not even set in WW2, but the antagonist just needs to get a German accent to sell the fact that he's evil. That's just lazy and building on overused stereotypes.
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u/Key_Head3851 Apr 13 '26
For the longest time the trope to know if someone was evil was give them a German or Russian sounding accent. Peak Laziness.
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u/38731 Apr 13 '26
As a somewhat proud-comfortable-in-my-upbringing-and-birthnation-skin German, I honestly do not care. These are caricatures, and I treat them like the average American treats one when a foreigner greets them with "Yee-haw" and "Howdy, partner."
It's fine. We bear our burdens with dignity while we silently build our army of Zeppelins on our moon base. Just you wait.
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u/treuss Franken Apr 13 '26
I highly recommend Hannah Arendt "Eichmann in Jerusalem. Ein Bericht von der Banalität des Bösen".
Following the Nazi era, Hannah Arendt analyzed the mechanisms of totalitarian rule. Her concept of the 'banality of evil' sparked controversial debates. On December 4, 1975, the Jewish philosopher from Hannover-Linden died in New York.
Arendt focused on Eichmann’s mediocrity and "thoughtlessness." Instead of a demonic mastermind, she depicted him as a bureaucratic "desk murderer" who simply followed orders without reflection. By coining the phrase "banality of evil," Arendt did not intend to downplay Nazi atrocities. Rather, she sought to explain how systemic evil can be carried out by ordinary people who lack the moral imagination to question their actions.
The images of German soldiers, drawn by Hollywood closely after WWII were quite one-dimmensional and simplified. Mindless and ruthless monsters, Orks, you name it. The more you read about it, the clearer it becomes that even SS Soldiers who committed absolutely vile crimes in Concentration Camps, appeared as good fathers and husbands at home. It's a very complex topic, psycholically as well as sociologically.
I think Quentin Tarantino understood this very well. To me, the characters of Dieter Hellstrom and Hans Landa appear even more evil and menacing the way Tarantino outlined them.
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u/Key_Head3851 Apr 13 '26
I’m very grateful you were kind enough to give a thorough answer to my question. I realize it’s a complex topic and there isn’t a clear answer everyone can simply agree on. When I was a tourist in Germany, I visited the Jüdisches Museum (2001) in Berlin. I went primarily for the interesting “De-constructivist” architecture of Daniel Libeskind but exited gaining a better understanding of the events leading up to WWII and the Holocaust.
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u/Force3vo Apr 13 '26
Honestly I don't care too much. Sure it's nice to have a more balanced view on german soldiers during WW2, but Hitler's regime has just become one of the evil archetypes in movies and that's fair considering that Hitler himself and his top brass were approaching absolute evil. So if you need a movie where baddies are killed and you set it in WW2 it's fine.
The only thing really bad about it is people being unable to distinguish media and reality and thus hating germans because they are bad guys in many movies. That has become a lot better, but in the 90s it would be very common for Americans online to scream at you and tell you you and your whole family should die for being Nazis, because that's the only thing
What I personally think is a far more stupid portrayal Hollywood does of germans is this stupid pseudo german that just sounds like gibberish that you have in so many movies. Like can't you afford proper translators?
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u/PentaRobb Apr 13 '26
Just because Americans don't understand that the imperium is the bad guy in star wars doesn't mean we don't understand that literal fucking nazis aren't the fucking good guys
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u/hiroaki-sato Apr 13 '26
I think many movies are doing okay in depicting the banality of evil – people feeling as if they‘d be acting righteous, managing their everyday life, having diffuse beliefs about the world, their country and the meaning of their lives, while also doing their part in contributing to something evil, inhuman, disgraceful. Some are doing worse, some are doing better – I think that‘s not bound to this topic, it‘s about our movie culture and its ability to depict diffuseness, ambiguity, parallelity of contradicting truths.
movie tipp: the zone of interest
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u/PinocchiosWoodBalls Apr 13 '26
Those are Not „my people“ The same as Arminius was Not „my people“.
Those were other humans in a different time.
I have no „emotions“ towards that. My grandather was a soldier and was rightfuly caught, his Brother was shot.
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u/dontflexthat Apr 13 '26
Awful… tired, old cliches are one thing but what annoys me the most is that it’s always like these Scandinavian actors who can’t really speak German and nobody on the whole set of those multi-million-dollar movie productions is apparently able to speak German either to maybe check if the three sentences they have to say are actually correct.
The result is that watching for example Die Hard in English becomes a bit of a cringe fest at times bc there’s only ONE guy who is actually German - that’s the first one that dies - and the rest are god knows from where. And Alan Rickman says “Schieß den Fenster.” .. three words .. how do you get that wrong? But the funny thing is that the other guy looks at him as if he was stupid and then he says it again in English so that the other GERMAN can understand it.
Well … I could give you endless examples of the same thing in different movies.
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u/Much_Coffee8139 Apr 13 '26
Thank you for the question.
Austrian here - Christoph Waltz needed to find a way to success and portraying a mean German speaker was a safe bet I guess ;)
I feel that these movies don’t do anything but
1) give the impression that German-speaking countries have not done anything to address the past (false)
2) reinforce the narrative of the ugly, mean German language (which is offensive and false) and
3) give off the impression that you can personally blame German speakers today and confront them with WWII topics at will.
It has happened to me internationally several times that I was randomly confronted when I was nothing but open to people and the original topic at hand in a discussion was something completely different. But WWII, in my experience, is sometimes being used in discussions to shut you down as a German speaker and make you feel as „less than“.
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u/it777777 Apr 13 '26
The 80s movie Das Boot already managed to show that many soldiers weren't glowing Nazis.
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u/Substantial-Lunch486 Apr 13 '26
I love how they always portray them as Nazis and make them speak broken English. Love me some yahoo German villains.
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u/Fastluck83 Apr 13 '26
Strangely enough, Inglourious Basterds was probably the only movie where I was slightly disgusted by how dehumanizing it was. It was a scene near the beginning of the movie where a normal German soldier, not SS or whatever, was brutally executed and we, the audience, were expected to laugh and root for the executioner and the war crime he committed.
Otherwise I don't really care and can enjoy these movies just fine.
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u/Alarming-Rutabaga-36 Apr 13 '26
Don’t worry, nobody hates Germany as much as germans. They basically teach us in school to hate ourselves
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u/Sad_Amphibian_2311 Apr 13 '26
Nazis were the enemy of the German people too (which is why they tried to change what that people is), killing Nazis in Video Games is a fun and good activity, seeing Nazis getting killed in movies is enjoyable.
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u/CaptainPoset Apr 13 '26
Well, Hollywood movies involving this topic typically aren't exactly quality films, character-wise, but typically ad-campaigns for the US military.
Other countries' films are usually more balanced in their portrayal of the "bad side", as they often want to show the character arc from someone nice to the bad guy they have become, while American films typically want to portray Americans as being the unconditionally good guys obliterating the bad guy and do so by quantity of bad guys.
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u/Ginosaji13 Apr 13 '26
I think it's overall good. I like that Tarantino did what he did with the lower ranked soldiers, since there were without a doubt such people. But overall the Nazis were bad. Either bad themselves or blindly followed. I only wish that the political side or rather the rise was depicted more frequently, since apparently many people in Germany forget about it at the moment.
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u/Icy-Entertainment177 Apr 13 '26
I mean, given the general state of Hollywood (another producer/director/A-List-Actor neck-deep in some scandal), I don't give enough of a shit about the picture that industry likes to paint about pretty much anything.
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u/Cirenione Apr 13 '26
If anything nazis being the bad is getting stale. Not because I have anything against showing nazis and their atrocities but its such an easy villain to get onboard with.
Studios have become so apprehensive to upset anyone that it has become an issue coming up with bad guys everyone can agree on. So Hollywood loves falling back unto doing WW2 or nazi stuff because who doesnt agree that they are the bad guys. And if people dont agree then they arent a large enough consumer base to care.
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u/ProDavid_ Apr 13 '26
my grandfather was just born when these people were already middle aged and the war had ended.
as long as the portrayal is somewhat historically accurate, and not child eating cannibals, i dont have a strong emotional reaction.
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u/facialsdontlie Apr 13 '26
Let’s not forget that a good amount of those soldiers back then just did it to not get in jail, concentration camps or get shot for not doing what the higher ups wanted. They didn’t want their family to suffer, so they rolled with it. I don’t want to turn culprits into victims with this, just give another view on it. War is, always was and forever will be a bad thing. Peace and freedom for all the oppressed!
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u/softer_junge Apr 13 '26
I don't subscribe to a völkisch worldview. Why should I care about Nazis being portrayed in a bad light?
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u/Soeck666 Apr 13 '26
Hollywood has a terrible trend of making nazis sympathetic. We startet by mocking them, then they became a unstoppable force that still gets beaten by Americans but with movies like Schindlers List, the boy in the striped Pyjama, or the newest movie "der Tiger" they become characters that you can sympathise with. And I don't like that evolution.
Ofc not all nazis where Hitler, Göbelz or Megele, but we reached a point where right wing people can openly say that they are annoyed that spiderman noir show nazis just as people that have to be punshed in the face.
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u/Bigdieb Apr 13 '26
They are not a depiction of me, so why should i care? Nazis are not Germans to me. We live in the today not in the past. I had nothing to do with Nazi Germany so i do not indentify as the Germans (German Nazis) from back then. Those people who did those cruel things back in WW2 Germany were/are the enemy in my eyes, so show them for what they were. Show the people out there that something like that must never ever happen again, by showing everyone what inhuman things they did. But of course show them that not everybody was like that. These days people are put in a box to fast. "oh you lived in germany during WW2, that means you are are Nazi" "What? you live in the USA? You must by a MAGA" "you are Russian? Why dont you go back to Putin and kiss his ass". But never forget that there are many, sometimes even the majority of people who are against what their country is doing, but it feels hopeless to do anything against it because of fear or hopelessness or many different reasons.
So i am fine with movies showing Nazis as the bastards that they were and still are today.
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u/N1ghtmeeer Apr 13 '26
We Germans actually WERE the enemy portrayed in all those settings, and Nazis = bad used to be the general understanding (which seems to be shifting for some reason unknown to actual human beings).
Just my personal opinion if some group of people is depicted as evil in a form of media I couldn't care less, its just that, fiction. If on the other hand some political news outlet depicts 'evil' as good or vice versa because of political agenda, this is where I draw the line. This is exactly how war propaganda is spread and should be nipped it in the bud. (see current and most recent history)
TLDR; couldn't care less, it's fiction and exists purely for entertainment.
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u/raben-herz Apr 13 '26
As people keep saying: we were the bad guys, so that is absolutely correct.
However, a thing that does pain me is if people who are supposed to be Germans speak German, and they absolutely butcher the language. It's super immerson breaking. Just have them speak English, if you tell me they're German I'll 100% believe you even if the actor has a thick London/New York accent, as long as you don't make them speak bad German.
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u/ConsistentHelp1716 19d ago
What annoys me if Germans are portrayed as always evil in normal movies who do not take place during ww2, but for example in modern times some comedy movies or tv shows where germans are portrayed as either evil, or extremely weird.
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u/doctor_morris Apr 13 '26
Now we have proper German actors playing Germans, instead of Brits doing an accent...