History Main / FourthReich

** ComicBook/RedSkull has made multiple attempts to take over the world in the name of the Nazi cause.

* ''Film/TheBoysFromBrazil'': Doctor Josef Mengele has already made multiple clones of Adolf Hitler, and covertly embedded them with select couples abroad. He deems the time right for phase two: assassinate the adoptive fathers, who are all civil servants, leaving the boys to be raised by their doting mothers. TheBigBoard in Mengele's lab indicates that he has housed almost sixty clones, so he's certain at least one will develop into the zealous, charismatic Fuhrer for a new generation.

* ''Film/LookWhosBack'': At the end, [[spoiler:it's implied that Hitler uses his immense popularity to return to politics and rise to power once again.]]

* ''Film/TheSumOfAllFears'' is a global political thriller wherein an Austrian tycoon obtains a nuclear device that was lost by the Israelis during the Syrian incursion of the Golan Heights. The villain plans to detonate this device in Baltimore, Maryland and expects this to trigger nuclear warfare between the United States and the Russian Federation. After a coup for the German chancellery, Dressler aims to seize all of Europe and establish an enduring Fourth Reich. (The film is an adaptation of [[Literature/TheSumOfAllFears the novel]] by Creator/TomClancy, but with considerable changes to the plot; among others, this trope is not present in the book, where the villains were overall more realistic, and Arab terrorists rather than Nazis.)

* Robert Ludlum's 1995 political thriller ''The Apocalypse Watch''.

* ''Literature/TheBoysFromBrazil'' by Creator/IraLevin has an elderly Josef Mengele proclaim that the Fourth Reich ''will'' emerge in the future, which is later revealed to be due to him [[spoiler:having created 94 clones of Adolf Hitler more than a decade before the events of the book take place.]] The anti-Nazi protagonists also realize that several [[spoiler:Hitler clones]] potentially teaming up in the then-future 1990's is a ''very'' scary prospect. The book ends with [[spoiler:an unnamed Hitler clone drawing a picture of himself giving a Hitler-esque speech in front of a large audience.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Spoofed in "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS4E9MrPlow Mr. Plow]]" with the German car company "Fourth Reich Motors", founded 1946 (i.e. just after World War Two ended). After a crash test demonstration, Lisa notices the "dummies" are ''moving'', and the salesman immediately closes their exhibition.

* One ''Series/TheNewAdventuresOfWonderWoman1977'' episode in its Season 1 was called "Anschluss '77" with this story.

* In Creator/RobertLudlum's ''The Holcroft Covenant'' (plus [[TheFilmOfTheBook the film it's based on]]), a group of high-ranking Nazis placed millions in a Swiss bank and sent German children across the world to be used later for creating a new Nazi world order. More realistically than most depictions, it also has them do this by infiltrating governments, having people who get into various influential businesses, militaries, intelligence services etc. Then they can engineer a series of {{false flag operation}}s blamed on terrorists which make the First World governments band together to stop terrorism with these covert Nazis manipulating them all into establishing authoritarian policies, including mass executions of criminals and what are strongly implied as concentration camps under different names. However, there's a [[RayOfHopeEnding ray of hope at the end]] as Israeli commandos are given their names and set to assassinate them. Ludlum later penned a spiritual successor novel named the ''Apocalypse Watch'' and set in the 1990s where a band of neo-Nazis also infiltrated governments using Nazi-born children and try to poison the Western countries' water supply as a pretext, and the protagonist is sent to stop them after his CIA brother was captured and forced to become the mole for the neo-Nazis.

->'''Random Man:''' You have to learn from the past. Something like that should never be repeated.

* Douglas Muir's 1985 political thriller "American Reich", whose front cover's U.S. Presidency symbol has a black swastika against a red backdrop in the symbol's top center with a plot set in a post-Reagan-presidency near future.
* Robert Ludlum's 1995 political thriller "The Apocalypse Watch".

* One ''Series/TheNewAdventuresOfWonderWoman1977" episode in its Season 1 was called "Anschluss '77" with this story.
* One ''Series/MacGyver1985'' episode in its 4th season centered around a cabal led by [[NaziGrandpa elderly Nazis]] trying to manipulate their way into power in the U.S.; this episode debuted on the 100th anniversary year of Adolf Hitler's birth (1889) and 50th anniversary of the start of World War II (1939-1945).
* The 1997 ABC television miniseries of Robert Ludlum's 1995 political thriller novel, "The Apocalypse Watch".

->'''Random Man:''' You have to learn from the past. Something like that should never be repeated.\\

* One ''Series/MacGyver1985'' episode centered around a cabal led by [[NaziGrandpa elderly Nazis]] trying to manipulate their way into power in the US.

* In Creator/RobertLudlum's ''The Holcroft Covenant'' (plus [[TheFilmOfTheBook the film it's based on]]), a group of high-ranking Nazis placed millions in a Swiss bank and sent German children across the world to be used later for creating a new Nazi world order. More realistically than most depictions, it also has them do this by infiltrating governments, having people who get into various influential businesses, militaries, intelligence services etc. Then they can engineer a series of {{false flag operation}}s blamed on terrorists which make the First World governments band together to stop terrorism with these covert Nazis manipulating them all into establishing authoritarian policies, including mass executions of criminals and what are strongly implied as concentration camps under different names. However, there's a [[RayOfHopeEnding ray of hope at the end]] as Israeli commandos are given their names and set to assassinate them.

* While obviously no Fourth Reich has ever come about in the real world ([[AllGermansAreNazis aside from the occasional joke about modern Germany's dominant position within the EU]]), comparisons of the length of each of the three previous Reichs has projected that if the Fourth Reich were to ever come about it would only last about [[EpicFail 2-3 weeks and could've already come and gone.]] There are minor Neo-Nazi groups within Germany to this day, but they are so superbly infiltrated by the federal authorities that they have no hope of ever attaining any real power.

* In Creator/RobertLudlum's ''The Holcroft Covenant'' (plus [[TheFilmOfTheBook the film it's based on]]), a group of high-ranking Nazis placed millions in a Swiss bank and sent German children across the world to be used later for creating a new Nazi world order. More realistically than most depictions, it also has them do this by infiltrating governments, having people who get into various influential businesses, militaries, intelligence services etc. Then they can engineer a series of {{false flag operation}}s blamed on terrorists which make the First World government band together to stop terrorism with these covert Nazis manipulating them all into establishing authoritarian policies, including mass executions of criminals and what are strongly implied as concentration camps under different names. However, there's a ray of hope at the end as Israeli commandos are given their names and set to assassinate them.

* * ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyVanguard:'' The BigBad of the game, [[SecretPolice SS Oberst-Gruppenführer Heinrich Wenzel Freisinger]], [[NoHistoricalFiguresWereHarmed based off]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_M%C3%BCller_(Gestapo) Heinrich Müller]] seeks to bring back a Fourth Reich right from the ashes of the Third [[GovernmentConspiracy from the underground.]]

* * ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyVanguard:'' The BigBad of the game, [[SecretPolice SS Oberst-Gruppenführer Heinrich Wenzel Freisinger]], [[NoHistoricakFiguresWereHarmed based off of]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_M%C3%BCller_(Gestapo) Heinrich Müller]] seeks to bring back a Fourth Reich right from the ashes of the Third [[GovernmentConspiracy from the underground.]]

* In ''VideoGame/HeartsOfIron IV'' if West Germany somehow becomes fascist it's literally named Fourth Reich.

* ''Film/TheSumOfAllFears'' is a global political thriller wherein an Austrian tycoon obtains a nuclear device that was lost by the Israelis during the Syrian incursion of the Golan Heights. TheVillain plans to detonate this device in Baltimore, Maryland and expects this to trigger nuclear warfare between the United States and the Russian Federation. After a coup for the German chancellery, Dressler aims to seize all of Europe and establish an enduring Fourth Reich. (The film is an adaptation of [[Literature/TheSumOfAllFears the novel]] by Creator/TomClancy, but with considerable changes to the plot; among others, this trope is not present in the book, where the villains were overall more realistic, and Arab terrorists rather than Nazis.)

* This trope took off just about as soon as it was chronologically even possible; ''Rocket Ship Galileo'', the first of the "[[Creator/RobertAHeinlein Heinlein juveniles]]" science fiction novels, features a [[SpaceBase secret Nazi base on the Moon]] dedicated to establishing a Fourth Reich, and ''Rocket Ship Galileo'' was published in ''1947''.

* ''Literature/MagicMetahumansMartiansAndMushroomCloudsAnAlternateColdWar'': A few years after WWII ends, Otto Skorzeny and other surviving Nazis carry out a contingency plan of Himmler's and awaken Frederick Barbarossa and his knights from their slumber under the mountain in order to retake control of Germany. Their combined forces declare the Holy Fourth Reich and launch a campaign that conquers Thuringia and marches on Berlin... where they're wiped out by the [[RealityEnsues vastly technologically superior Allied and Soviet occupational forces]].

* While obviously no Fourth Reich has ever come about in the real world, comparisons of the length of each of the three previous Reichs has projected that if the Fourth Reich were to ever come about it would only last about [[EpicFail 2-3 weeks and could've already come and gone.]]

* In Creator/RobertLudlum's ''The Holcroft Covenant'' (plus [[TheFilmOfTheBook the film it's based on]]), a group of high-ranking Nazis placed millions in a Swiss bank and sent German children across the world to be used later for creating a new Nazi world order.

** The first modern incarnation of ComicBook/{{Hydra}} attempted to establish a new Nazi government. Of course, later incarnations have gone back and forth on Nazism.