Putting on the Reich

Dressed up like a million Storm-y-troopers
Trying hard to look like Menschen Ubers! (super dupers!)

"I know there are many people who fall ill when they see this black uniform; we understand that and don't expect that we will be loved by many people."

— Heinrich Himmler, The SS as an Anti-Bolshevist Fighting Organization^note "Die Schutzstaffel als Antibolschewistische Kampforganisation"

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 Third Reich. 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 if the creator is more daring) to make sure your villains are visibly evil. When a group puts on the Reich, expect to see the classic fascist colors of red background, black symbol, and white circle and an easily recognizable, sometimes swastika-like insignia somewhere... or everywhere.

Incidentally, some of the uniforms for the real SS were manufactured by Hugo Boss using slave labor.^note Though this was before the company specialized in men's suits or became a world-famous brand. 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.

This trope is named after the expression "Puttin' on the Ritz".

Note that this trope covers aesthetic similarities to Nazis. For ideological similarities, see A Nazi by Any Other Name. May result in Commie Nazis. Don't confuse with Springtime for Hitler (which may not involve Nazis at all per se).

Sub-Trope to Dressed to Oppress. For emulations of real-life dictatorships other than Hitler and the Nazis, see that trope.

noreallife

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Aldnoah.Zero: The uniform the Martian army particularly the Deuteragonist Slain's looks like Prussian-variation of this trope.
• 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.
• In Attack on Titan, the uniforms worn by the nation of Marley resemble German military uniforms from the first World War. For bonus parallels, members of an ethnic minority are required to wear an armband to identify their lower status.
• Bleach: Like the Nazis, the Vandenreich modernises the Quincies' Teutonic Knight-themed history by switching the priest-themed tunics to military uniforms, changing the style of their crosses from Latin to Iron, and expanding the German-chanted powers they wield. The Jagdarmee (Hunting Unit) is sent to conquer the Hollows and control them via ethnic cleansing, and The Emperor regularly culls "impure" Quincies from his ranks, retaining only those he deems "pure" or "useful". The elite unit of Sternritters is called the "Schutzstaffel".
• Blue Exorcist: The Illuminati's uniforms are pretty Nazi-ish, and their lead Torture Technician looks a lot like Hellsing's Montana Max, an actual Nazi, only considerably less-respected and sure of himself. Their goal, by the way, is finding or creating a strong body for their resident son of Satan and created a horde of zombies as a by-product.
• A subversion in Dolls (2005): the standard Tokkei uniform worn by the protagonists consists of a Badass Longcoat, a Commissar Cap with a winged skull badge (combining the Reichsadler and the SS Totenkopf) and a red armband.
• Dragon Ball:
  • The Red Ribbon Army 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.
  • Also, one of the movies, Fusion Reborn, features a character known as the Dictator who is quite blatantly an Adolf Hitler expy.
• In Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, the soldiers under the leadership of General Hein.
• While the uniforms in Fullmetal Alchemist are much more French◊ than German, the simple fact that they refer to their leader as the Führer is a tipoff that all is not right. It's made even more obvious in the 2003 anime version, where we eventually learn that the entire series takes place in an alternate universe equivalent to early-20th-century Germany.
• In Girls und Panzer, the Kuromorimine and Anzio sensha-do teams don uniforms based on World War II-era German and Italian tanker uniforms, respectively. Anchovy, the commander of Anzio, even wears an outfit based on Benito Mussolini's.
• The uniforms, weapons and armors of the Kerberos Corps in Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade and the rest of the Kerberos Saga. Justified, considering it's set in an Alternate History timeline where World War II was fought between Germany and Japan, the latter's ass got kicked by the former, and the Corps is a secret police force for the fascist Japanese government.
• Brockenman of Kinnikuman, and his son, Brocken Jr. of Ultimate Muscle.
• 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. Oddly enough, they're the good guys.
• The very Prussian-style uniforms of the Galactic Empire in Legend of the Galactic Heroes. When you see the uniforms their foes wear, it's clearly World War I IN SPACE!
  • Arguably an aversion, as the Empire isn't really any worse than its "democratic" rivals. And on that note, the "Reichswear" is used on both sides. The leader of the said rival has the distinctly SS-like "Patriotic Knight Corps" as his bodyguard and a nice little cult of personality.
  • The first Kaiser of the Galactic Empire had about as few qualms as Hitler and Stalin, but was actually a 18th-19th Century Prussian fetishist.
• The Principality of Zeon and its offshoots from Mobile Suit Gundam's Universal Century, to the point that Gihren Zabi is directly compared to Hitler at one point, and by his own father, no less. Gets more Anvilicious as time goes on, since later series played up the "Zeon = Nazi Germany" metaphor: Zeta Gundam gives us Axis Zeon = Axis Powers. Gundam ZZ gives us Neo-Zeon = Neo-Nazis. Gundam 0080 gives Zeon a fixation on using German words with their mecha, like Kämpfer, Gelgoog Jäger and Rick Dom Zwei. Gundam 0083 introduced battle flags that were based on the Wehrmacht Reichskriegsflagge. MS IGLOO waves that same flag with pride, sticks Reichsadlers on almost every uniform going (replacing the Swastika with a Zeonic symbol), and has Colonel Herbert von Kuspen wearing a leather coat and Iron Crosses (and this is the series showing Zeon as the protagonists!) Gundam Unicorn gives the Neo-Zeon group 'the Sleeves' mobile suits with Stahlhelms. And to cap it off, a later spinoff manga set during the war, The Plot to Assassinate Gihren, is essentially Operation Valkyrie Recycled In Space.
  • In another Gundam example, the uniforms worn by the Mariemaia Army in Endless Waltz were quite intentionally modelled on the Hitler Youth uniforms.
• Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water: Neo Atlantis troops wear red armbands, salute to their leader using the specific shot "Neo Atlan" while using their arms and their pointed hoods sure aren't because they're penitants readying for the Sevilla Holy Week.
• The guards of Impel Down in One Piece look like demons and wear uniforms that bear a very strong resemblance to SS officer uniforms, complete with armbands showing the Impel Down symbol (not quite a swastika, but close).
  • Ironically enough, despite how they look, they're not particularly evil and are rather understandably just trying to stop the prison break initiated by Luffy; it's easy for readers to forget that while Luffy and Jimbei are good guys and Ivankov seems to be too, most of the other pirates who escaped decidedly are not. The head of Impel Down, Magellan, in particular, is often considered a Hero Antagonist. Though it doesn't help that despite Magellan and Hannibal, the other staff members enjoy torturing and killing the inmates even long after said inmates have relinquished their pirate life and just wanted to go home.
  • The Germa Kingdom where Sanji was born is very blatantly inspired by Nazi Germany symbology, such as name, copious amount of eagle statues and unethical scientific experimentation. Their uniforms are based more on Sentai conventions, but this doesn't stop them from being a highly brutal and militaristic organization that once led an entire empire of evil, unlike the law-allied Impel Down.
• Parodied in Ouran High School Host Club where the Zuka club dons SA-like uniforms◊ and begin to preach about the superiority of women. Furthermore, they are once seen with a Nazi flag in the backdrop, except with the Swastika replaced by the kanji for "woman".
• Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt: Scanty and Kneesocks outfit of choice is a dress uniform complete with arm band, which they impose on the entire school in "Les Diaboliques".
• Team Rocket in Pokémon: The Series. Not only do they wear uniforms similar to Nazi Germany, as well as being implied to experiment on sentient creatures, but in one of Team Rocket's boss fantasies 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.)
• Saber Marionette J is rather obviously playing with this, having three evil Marionettes wearing costumes with various degrees of similarity to Nazi uniforms and Big Bad who calls himself Füher.
• Shangri-La: Despite being a MegaCorp, some parts of the Atlas Corporation get in on this, with CEO Ryoko Naruse's Troops, the Z4, wearing SS styled uniforms (Black Tunic, Black Pants, Black Jackboots, and Atlas Corporation armband). In particular, at the end of Episode 8, Ryoko orders the massacre of the girls at the prison after Kuniko and Tomoka escape.
• The uniforms of the Helevetian soldiers in Sound of the Sky. Played with- most of the soldiers are not evil, and while the Clocktower Maidens have uniforms similar to those of the German Wehrmacht, they are the heroines of the story. On the other hand, the warmongering Big Bad Colonel Hopkins and his troops, who are also part of the army, have the most threatening and SS-like uniforms, complete with black color, to signify their villain status.
• The uniforms of the RKO in Trinity Blood are based off the Waffen-SS, probably to emphasize their bad guy image.
• Sunako Nakahara from The Wallflower dressed up as a Nazi in Episode 3.
  • Which is actually inverted since Sunako is the hero of the story, and she dons the uniform to rescue pretty shoujo boy Kyouhei from a host club that had kidnapped him.
• Zoids: The original name of the Zoid Berserk Fury is actually Berserk Fuhrer.

Comic Books

• 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 (which quickly becomes an important plot point). Goscinny and Uderzo used a more general stereotype of militaristic, simple-minded, and orderly Germans/Prussians. They later regretted this portrayal and the few Goths appearing later in the series are not putting on the Reich at all.
• They might have been the Third Reich's worst nightmare, but the Blackhawks' uniforms were partly based on the Nazis (specifically, the boots and pants.)
• The Tibetan "Yellow Empire" in Blake and Mortimer comic The Secret of the Swordfish wear Japan-esque uniforms and use German weapons including the Luger and the MG-42. The flag features a red star on a white flag resembling the Imperial Japanese flag.
• In Brother Power the Geek #2, the villainous Hound Dawg and his war hawk cronies appear with uniforms and gadgetry evocative of Nazis.
• One Chick Tract envisions the country run by the secular humanists/atheists/vegetarians/whatever — they dress in a charming mix of Nazi, Communist, and Spanish Inquisition. Oh yes, and their salute is the peace sign. And the swastika stand-in is the "ecology" symbol from ca. 1970.
• In Injustice: Gods Among Us, the soldiers of Superman's One Earth Regime wear armor that looks like a futuristic Nazi uniform. Their helmets in particular resemble the Stahlhelm.
• 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. In-story, it's because the Mega-Cities are successors of the dissolved United States government. The Special Judicial Squad takes this even further, wearing black uniforms with skulls on their helmets.
• Ezquerra's next most notable creation in 2000 AD, Strontium Dog also used this trope for the Kreelers, an SS analogue who hunted mutants. While they were technically disbanded at the end of the mutant uprising, the same people were kept on and just given a slightly different uniform.
• Kayko & Kokosh: The antagonistic robber knights' ("knaveknights" in the Netflix series) tunics are patterned with the coat of arms of The Teutonic Knights; the comics were drawn by a Pole for a Polish audience, to which this counts as obvious villain-coding.
• The Dingoes in the Knuckles the Echidna series were this to the point that the artists were forced to remove the symbols on their uniforms.
• Earth Man in Legion of Super-Heroes is a Terran supremacist and historical revisionist who claims Superman was originally 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. Also the Nazi-style armbands with Superman logos (replaced with Earth logos after their defeat at Superman's hands).
• Luther Arkwright: The puritans in The Adventures of Luther Arkwright and the neo-puritans in Heart of Empire. Includes things like mass rallies, the use of "Hail Cromwell", and black uniforms with simple silver crosses.
• Marshal Law is an ultraviolent fascist cop who wears a black, red, and silver costume with this look. In "The Hateful Dead", he gets mistaken for a super-Nazi by a group of zombie superheroes who were in WWII. Ironically, he really hates actual Nazis.
• The Midnighter (whose look is basically Batman minus the cowl ears and a black leather coat instead of the cape) once got sent back in time to 1945 Berlin and asked by a bunch of kids if he was with the Gestapo. He replied that they had the same tailor.
• 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.
• Done in El Sulfato Atómico, the first story of Spanish comic Mortadelo y Filemón, whose villainous country is an expy of Nazi Germany named Tirania. Several character types and quotes from Those Wacky Nazis are used on it.
• The Vole Imperium from Tank Vixens.
• Tintin: King Ottokar's Sceptre, published in 1939, introduces the nations of Syldavia and Borduria, with Borduria explicitly inspired by Nazi Germany and fascist Italy (the unseen Bordurian leader is named Müsstler), and Syldavia served as an analogue to the pre-Anschluss Austria. Starting in the post-WWII story, The Calculus Affair (published in 1956), Borduria became Commie Nazis, with its Secret Police, the ZEP, modeled after Nazi Germany's SS and the Soviet Union's NKVD.
• The Ultimates: Once they secured their position in SHIELD and seemingly killed the Ultimates, the Chitauri displayed their old Nazi flags. Just for a sentimental thing, the Nazis were their allies, but the Chitauri have their own agenda.
• V for Vendetta's Norsefire party is like the Third Reich IN THE UK!, though the movie throws in bits of Oceania. Unsurprising, what with Norsefire being an extension of the National Front, British Union of Fascists, British National Party, and similar groups. Even clearer in the original comics where Norsefire shares the National Front's "NF" symbol.
  • The original comic does a good 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 gives this a Setting Update of sorts by drawing (considerably less subtle) parallels to the Bush administration (Adam Susan is renamed Adam Sutler in a move that is, ironically, less localized).
• The original designs for the uniforms worn by the X-Corps in X-Men comics had distinct Nazi overtones. This was decided to be a bit tacky and the published version wear vaguely militaristic uniforms, which don't really look that different from the leather outfits the X-Men were wearing at the time, but which, nonetheless, are meant to be a clue that Something's Not Right. When we say "distinct Nazi overtones," we are of course talking about Banshee wearing a barely disguised swastika on his chest◊.

Fan Works

• In Good Omens fic The Viennese Job by A.A. Pessimal, the demon Crowley, with his impeccable sense of style and cool merges into wartime German society by wearing its uniforms. Posing as an SS colonel, Crowley reflects that while the Nazis may be horrendous unspeakable bastards, they certainly cornered the market in well-tailored stylish uniforms.
• Tarkin's Fist: The naval uniforms of the Empire instantly remind many Earthlings of the Nazis. That the Empire has it's own Imperial salute, similar to the Nazi salute, only makes the comparison more apt in the mind of most Earth-born characters.

Film — Animation

• The Chancellor of the unnamed country in 9 was obviously inspired by the Nazis. The flags, uniforms of the soldiers, hell even their combat robots look like stahlhelms with legs.
• The Brand X army from Foodfight!. They even have a Nazi Reichsadler (the eagle emblem) outside their headquarters, just with X replacing the swastika.
• In The Lion King (1994), Scar's musical number "Be Prepared" has the hyenas goose-stepping in front of Scar in a sequence inspired by the famous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will. The German dub of that scene is rather unnerving because of the Nazi parallels.
• Ralph Bakshi's movie Wizards: Black Wolf's troops are explicitly in Nazi uniforms, as his military is a direct copy of the Nazis.
• Due to Chicken Run paying homage to prisoner of war stories, Mrs. Tweedy serves as a clear stand-in for a Nazi prison officer or dictator Adolf Hitler. She initially keeps her chickens for their eggs and only kills the ones that have stopped laying, reflecting how the Nazis initially exploited their prisoners for labour and killed those who couldn't work, but eventually decides she will earn more profits from killing the chickens than keeping them alive, even plotting to put them in a literal gas chamber.

Film — Live-Action

• The fascist state attempting to rule the wasteland in 1983 Italian b-movie 2020: Texas Gladiators is commanded by the 'Black One', so-named for his uniform that's just an SS one with the same insignia.
• In Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky, the common soldiers of The Teutonic Knights all wear identical 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 with swastikas!◊ Made five years after Nazism took power, so possibly the first example of this trope.
• In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Superman's troops in Bruce's Bad Future "Knightmare" give off a clear Waffen SS, right down to wearing Stahlhelm-like black helmets.
• The fiercely anti-communist General Midwinter in Billion Dollar Brain marshals his troops in Triumph of the Will-inspired rallies against a background of a symbolic American eagle that looks a lot like a Reichsadler, with his troops' vehicles emblazoned with a logo made to evoke the Nazis' swastika flags.
• The officers of the authoritarian and genocidal Congressional Directorate in Barb Wire wear black SS-style uniforms.
• The Blaxploitation movie The Black Gestapo, which is about exactly what you think. A black mob fighting back against the system becomes increasingly radicalized until they're literally wearing SS uniforms and goose-stepping through town.
• In Bright, Kandomere (the elven federal agent looking for the magic wand MacGuffin loose in LA) wears a metal gorget which resembles those worn by the World War II-era Feldgendarmerie (the field military police for the German armed forces).
• The dystopian America in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is policed by goons wearing what are more or less SS uniforms.
• The two Munich police officers in The Cube, who seem to be wearing altered SS uniforms.
• Matilda the Hun, one of the racers in Death Race 2000, themes herself after the Nazis, with even her car modeled after emblazoned with Nazi insignia. More subtle is how the flag of the dystopian USA now incorporates a lightning bolt.
• Subverted in Demolition Man. The San Angeles P.D.'s leather jackets, jodhpur breeches and jackboots look fascistic, but they're just as ineffectual and wimpy as the regime they maintain; their fiercest weapon is adding 'Or else!' to their commands.
• The dystopian America in 1983 Italian b-movie Endgame: Bronx Lotta Finale is policed by the Security Services; it has a very SS-inspired logo and their soldiers wear black stahlhelms and leather trenchcoats.
• The flag of the Tetragrammaton Council of Libria in Equilibrium is basically the Nazi flag with the swastika swapped for a crutch cross.
• Andy's torture outfit in The Final is an SS uniform.
• Some of the Earth Defense Force uniforms in Godzilla: Final Wars really feel close to this, especially the Mutants' variants being black with red armbands.
• The Grand Budapest Hotel features the Zig-Zag Division, a nationalist movement springing up in Zubrowka, wear armbands with a double 'ZZ' logo a la the SS.
• The power-mad US president in obscure 1972 political satire Hail stages a fashion show of uniforms of historical authoritarian regimes to finalize the look of his new State Sec uniform. Upon seeing a Luftwaffe uniform: "I like those boots!". The disturbing final product is half Nazi, half Captain America, with lightning bolt logos on the helmets.
• Harry Potter
  • The Death Eaters in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Lord Voldemort's following of magical blood purists, wear robes similar to the Ku Klux Klan, not helped that they also organize torchlit riots.
  • In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the Ministry of Magic becomes this after Voldemort takes over, as it's now staffed by thugs wearing black Nazi-style uniforms with red armbands.
• Hunk: As a result of his constant flitting through time, The Devil shows up at one point dressed in an SS uniform: complete witha High-Class Glass to complete the image of a Nazi Nobleman.
• Dennis Hopper's post-apocalypse dictator in Land of the Dead is protected by bodyguards wearing grey buttoned uniforms with armbands, certainly evoking the Nazis.
• The security guards of the evil Virtual Light Institute in Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace all wear black old-timey uniforms worn with German ski caps, making them look like a bargain-bin SS.
• The soldiers guarding M's factory in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen wear black uniforms and stahlhelms; slightly justified as M has been kidnapping German military scientists.
• The future dystopia's police in The New Gladiators wear black uniforms, and is run by a sadistic officer sporting a skull and crossbones badge on his peaked cap
• Schist's oil company logo in Man-Thing is very similar to the Nazi party flag, with its red-white-black composition.
• Inverted with Hydra in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. During the events of Captain America: The First Avenger, Hydra was a research division of Nazi Germany with uniforms and insignia resembling those of the SS. Even after turning against the Nazis, they still retain the black uniforms and fascist imagery. However, by the modern age, they discarded most of their Nazi iconography and appearances which in turn allowed them to infiltrate and hijack S.H.I.E.L.D.
  • Referred to in Thor, when, after the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents "confiscate" Jane Foster's custom-made "tornado" equipment, Eric Selvig calls out Agent Coulson, accusing them of being "jack-booted thugs."
• The Media Police in 1990 cyberpunk obscurity Megaville wear a variety of German military surplus in an attempt to evoke this.
• The Life Corporation's Security Division in Memory Run wear SS uniforms with armband's sporting the corporation's logo.
• 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 swastistar. Oh, and their commander has a toothbrush moustache, too. This subplot was almost completely cut from the film except a sudden appearance at the end.
• In the 1987 Hindi film Mr. India, everyone in the Evil Overlord Mogambo's organisation greets each other with a Roman salute and the cry of 'Hail Mogambo'.
• Michael Radford's 1984 adaptation of Nineteen Eighty-Four takes some visual cues from the fascist regimes that served as partial inspiration for Orwell's dystopia; Ingsoc's flag is an angular 'V' logo made up of red, white and black, and the Spies wear Hitler Youth-inspired uniforms.
• The Nutcracker in 3D: The rats have uniform that reassemble Nazi uniforms, including the signature helmet shape for soldiers, the high collar uniforms for higher officers, and even some Pickelhaubes among top-ranking rats. The rats are also ideologically similar to Nazis, being an invading force and wanting to exterminate toys.
• Played with in Peter Watkins' 1967 mockumentary Privilege; the musician Steven Shorter has his logo be a suspiciously angular design showing off his initials, 'S. S', but by the end of the film the logos emblazoned on red and black banners as he's giving concerts to torchlit parades of uniformed Christian organizations.
• In the 1951 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.
• In the 1995 film version of Richard III (starring Ian McKellen), the titular character's outfit is based off of an SS officer's uniform, with his troops wearing a variety of WWII German military uniforms, His regime's flag is basically the Nazi flag, but with his personal heraldic figure, a boar, in place of the swastika.
• RoboCop has this quite a bit.
  • OCP evokes this slightly in the first film with their grey logo on red background, but by RoboCop 2 the logo is now on Nazi-style red and white disc flags.
  • The Rehabs in RoboCop 3 have a very Nazi swastika-like triskelion logo emblazoned on their grey uniforms; together with their oppressive tactics, no wonder Bertha even outright calls them "Nazi sons of bitches!"
  • Done in an uncharacteristically subtle way (especially for Paul Verhoeven) with Clarence Boddicker, whose gaunt, balding appearance, wire-framed glasses and dark wardrobe were intentionally evocative of Heinrich Himmler.
• Spaceballs has the Spaceball officers wearing uniforms that look more Nazi-like than the Imperial Navy they're parodying. One of the troops responds with "Jawohl commandant", which gets him an odd look from Dark Helmet.
• The Octopus wears an SS uniform, and a samurai costume, and a Russian coat in The Spirit. Why, you ask? Well, why not?
• The uniforms of the Federation Navy in Starship Troopers are designed this way as part of the film's satire or science fiction military narratives. For instance, Neil Patrick Harris' character's uniform looks exactly like a simpler version of a Schuetzstaffel officer's. The "heroes" of this story are functionally Nazis in all but name.
• Star Trek Into Darkness: The grey Starfleet dress uniforms seem to hint at the undercurrent of increased militarism in the alternate timeline, some of them look like something straight out of the Imperial Navy.
• Star Wars:
  • The Galactic Empire's officers wear Prussian-inspired grey or black uniforms, with their soldiers being called "Stormtroopers" (a reference to Stosstruppen and Sturmabteilung). Darth Vader's helmet vaguely resembles a Stahlhelm (though it was also based on the samurai kabuto), with similar stahlhelm-like helmets worn by General Veers and the snowtroopers in The Empire Strikes Back. Even some of their weapons are modified versions of WW2 German Army equipment. For example, the DLT-19 Heavy Blaster Rifle used by the stormtroopers is a modified MG-34 machine gun and the A-280 was made using casts of the Sturmgewehr 44.
    • The Expanded Universe's description of COMPNOR, a SA-SS hybrid. There's even a "Sub-Adult Group"; real subtle.
    • In Star Wars Rebels, the Empire's black emblem is now displayed in a white circle on the center of bright red banners.
    • In Rogue One and Solo the Nazi comparisons are heightened, as now Imperial officers wear German-style greatcoats, and their immigration officers wear Brownshirt-style uniforms◊.
  • Several sequences in the movies had a definite Riefenstahl flair; the Trade Federation droids marching through an arch on Naboo (inspired by actual footage of Nazis marching through the Arc de Triomphe in Paris), Palpatine watching the Clone Troopers marching into their transports (closely resembling Hitler watching Nazi marches), the Rebel Alliance awards ceremony being modeled directly from a scene in Triumph. The one exception was the Imperial inspection parade in Return of the Jedi as it was inspired by the Soviet Union's May Day Parades.
  • By The Force Awakens, the First Order (reformed from what was left of the Empire's military) take this further, down to the Riefenstahl imagery (example pictured). Their uniforms are more inspired by the infamous SS (right down to the thin armbands), with Abrams directly comparing them to Nazis who fled to South America after the war.
• The security forces of the Water & Power corporation in Tank Girl wear old-fashioned grey buttoned uniforms and caps, with the guards also wearing Water & Power logo armbands too.
• The first half of the 1987 French scifi film Terminus takes place in an authoritarian Ruritania whose military wear dark blue versions of WWII-era German uniforms, with caps resembling the older German/Austrian ski cap models.
• In the movieTop Secret!, East Germany is parodied as a bootleg Third Reich, with everyone wearing Nazi-era uniforms and its shops selling Adolf Hitler alarm clocks or such literature as 'Hermann Goering's Workout Book'.
• When the genocidal and authoritarian CLU of TRON: Legacy gives a speech to his soldiers, it's done as a Homage Shot to Triumph of the Will.
• Norsefire in V for Vendetta isn't an explicit neo-Nazi party like in the original comic, but it's hinted at with the party's red and black flag, and Lewis Prothero wearing a SS-esque red and black uniform that he wore when running a concentration camp.
• The logo of the evil 'Omega' regime in Warrior of the Lost World is an inverted red triangle, with a white disc and a black omega in its centre. Oddly though, one of the wasteland gangs helping the freedom fighters struggling against Omega wear actual Nazi uniforms, presumably leftovers from Italian war movies.

Literature

• The Dayao from Always Coming Home. Warlike conquerors, with youth parading through the streets. An Armchair Military Glorious Leader who is considered infallible and accepts no criticism, punishing anyone disagreeing. Attempts to take on every neighbor in sight instead of concentrating on one at a time. Racist ideology which considers themselves alone true humans. Obsession with Awesome, but Impractical superweapons at the expense of regular military.
• In The Dagger and the Coin series by Daniel Abraham, the spider cult that that takes over Antea has as its banner a red flag with a white circle with an "eight-fold" symbol (implied to look like an eight-barred asterisk), which would look a lot like a Nazi flag. The cult engages in a massive propaganda campaign to the effect that there is a massive conspiracy by the entire Timzinae race against Antea—a conspiracy that is entirely imaginary. The cult uses this propaganda to manipulate Antea into launching a war of world conquest, with one of Antea's objectives being the wholesale elimination of the Timzinae. Oh, and the leader of the cult wears a black cape everywhere.
• The later Destroyermen books introduce a new enemy in the face of the League of Tripoli, a political entity created by a large fleet that has crossed over from another parallel world. In this world, the fear of communism (which was quickly crushed) has given rise to fascism in France, Spain, Italy, and Germany. The first three formed the Confédération États Souverains (Confederation of Sovereign States), bringing in Germany as a junior partner, and declared war on the "lesser" nations: UK, US, and Russia (no USSR in that world). The combined fleet that formed the League was on its way to Egypt to take it from Britain. As expected, League naval officers treat Lemurians as little more than animals, disgusted that humans are treating them as equals. They're not stupid, though, and understand that Lemurians can fight, even if their technology and military might is nowhere near what the League has. The League controls the Mediterranean region and is secretly monitoring the Alliance. While the League's interference in the wars with the Grik and the Dominion has led to losses for the Alliance, the League has also lost several assets, including a French Surcouf-type submarine (sunk by the USS Walker), a Spanish Alsedo-class destroyer (ambushed and sunk by a sailing frigate), a German Type XIB submarine (surrendered to the Walker), and a French Bretagne-class battleship (ran aground and captured by Alliance forces). Despite this, it's stated that the League's fleet far outclasses these minor losses. The final book in the series has a major battle between the Grand Alliance and the League, resulting in heavy losses on both sides, but with the League also losing nearly half of their naval assets (either sunk or captured by the Alliance).
• Discworld: Wolfgang von Uberwald's "Werewolf Movement" in The Fifth Elephant sport black leather uniforms with a nickel (not silver, for obvious reasons) insignia of a wolf's head and lightning bolts.
• The Dresden Files: In Ghost Story, the defenses that Evil Bob has set up to protect the Corpsetaker's lair in the Nevernever are deliberately designed around the German defenses at Normandy, complete with wolf-like demons wearing Nazi uniforms and helmets. Evil Bob completes the regalia by wearing a Nazi officer's uniform with black trenchcoat. Of course, seeing as how 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 Evil Bob might've recruited actual Nazi ghosts for his defense force. If so, there may not have been any "Putting On" about it.
• In David Weber's Empire from the Ashes, 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.
• In Norman Spinrad's novel The Iron Dream, the followers of Ferric Jaggar don uniforms similar to Nazis. Of course, the writer of this novel within a novel is supposedly Adolf Hitler himself (who also gets credited in the intro for designing the clothes)! Go figure. The book's editor later notes that the clothing would eventually become very popular with cosplayers in the novel's universe's Comic Con.
• Older Than Television: 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 Ernst Roehm.)
• Mordred's Thrashers in The Once and Future King by T.H. White, even down to wearing armbands with a red emblem, in this case of a whip.
• Overlord (2012): When Suzuki Satoru created Pandora's Actor, he was on a Darker and Edgier kick and based the Chuunibyou Doppelgänger's appearance on Nazi military uniforms (somewhat bowlderized to neo-fascist in the English dub of the anime) due to thinking they looked cool. Having matured past that phase, he now suffers from invoked in-universe Creator Backlash.
• The Concordat, the enforcement arm of Vordan's Ministry of Information in Django Wexler's The Shadow Campaigns series, acts like State Sec and dresses 100% Reich, even down to the black and silver uniform (complete with eagle emblems - though the Vordanai eagle resembles the American eagle, not a Reichsadler) and the black leather Badass Longcoat. However, the Vordanai are not Fantasy Counterpart Germans - that honor goes to Hamvelt, which is a fairly obvious Expy of the Napoleonic-era Holy Roman Empire.
• Star Wars Legends: The Galactic Alliance Guard is shown looking this way in the Legacy of the Force series. Jacen Solo has them created to deal with Corellian terrorist activity on Coruscant but as he turns fully to The Dark Side and becomes Darth Caedus, they turn into “Jacen’s Fist”, paralleling his grandfather’s “Vader’s Fist” 501st Legion. Their helmets especially look like both German helmets and Vader’s helmet. The jackets, pants and high boots are similarly German-styled.
• An unusual (and rather original) subversion occurs in Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory Alternate History series, where while the Confederates (who are supposed to be Nazi Germany in the series) copy almost everything the Nazis do and did—from trials, to their own Expy of Hitler, to even their own salute, party cry, and genocide. The one thing the Freedom Party (the CSA version of the Nazi Party) doesn't copy is the uniforms. The description in the books and some of the covers show them to resemble WW2 US uniforms. The US on the other hand does use German-styled uniforms and helmets because they have had a long-standing alliance with Imperial Germany (to the point of almost hero worship of the German Empire). As for the Germans themselves, Germany is still under the Kaiser. And, ironically, despite TL-191 Confederates eventually becoming an Alternate History Nazi equivalent, they mostly use equipment and uniforms clearly based off of those of their traditional allies, the British and French (tanks suspiciously similar to British ones in WWI and Spitfire-like fighter planes in WWII).
  • 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 an expy of the Me 262.
• The vaguely Fallout-like setting of Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War has a neo-Nazi militia, the Landwehr, who play this completely straight, even using the original Waffen-SS military ranks. Then there's a fascist Lady Land, who are a little more subtle about it. In a rare heroic example, the good guys themselves also do it to some extent — not so much with their uniforms, but they admire everything Prussian, to the point of using quite a bit of Gratuitous German.
• In the Vorkosigan Saga, Barrayaran military uniforms incorporate high collars, peaked caps, capes and jackboots. It makes sense for them to lavish attention on their uniforms, since Barrayarans as a group are all military-mad, and the ruling-class Vor insist they are not an aristocracy but a military caste. In keeping with the spirit of the trope, just before the events of the series, the government employed political officers as military watchdogs.
  
  In an interesting subversion there's actually very little Germanic element in the Barrayaran culture, which is mostly a British-Russian fusion, with some Napoleonic French and vaguely Greek bits thrown in. And the political officers weren't organic developments, but are a part of the Evil Plan by the then-current Emperor, who mercilessly used and threw them out the moment they fulfilled their task in his plans.
• The Wheel of Time series depicts ex-False-Dragon Mazrim Taim, now ostensibly working for the good guys, building up an army of magic-users using a variety of titles clearly based on Nazi ranks but in the Old Tongue, with Taim himself being simply "the Leader". Possibly lampshaded when General Bashere isn't sure this is the real Taim because he's shaved off his mustache.
• The Gale Force (the Wizard's army) in Wicked, though of course in green.
• The Witcher features an example in the non-human volunteer force of the Nilfgaardian army known as the Vrihedd Brigade, who are essentially a fantasy version of the less reputable elements of the Waffen-SS. The Vrihedd Brigade recruits from most of the known world, wears black uniforms with thunderbolt insignia, and have a reputation for being sent in when you need a victory and couldn't care less about little words like "collateral damage" or "atrocity". Their leader, Isengrim Faoiltearna, went by the very Nazi-esque moniker "Iron Wolf".

Live-Action TV

• In Adam Adamant Lives!, Surveillance Services are a private security firm who make deliberate use of Nazi imagery: black uniforms, Roman salutes, and even SS collar flashes.
• The Adventures of Superboy: The Sovereign's regime in 'Roads Not Taken: Part 2' is policed by soldiers in brown shirts with armbands bearing his logo.
• Episode 6 of American Gods (2017) has Shadow and Mr. Wednesday visit Vulcan, Virginia, a small suburban town full of gun carrying citizens wearing black uniforms and red armbands displaying Vulcan's 'V' logo.
• Angel:
  • The Scourge from "Hero", a group of genocidal pure race demon supremacists were basically demon Nazis, and they definitely dressed the part.
  • In "Why We Fight", Spike literally Put on the Reich in a World War II flashback; he ate an SS officer and put on his uniform because he liked the coat. He still didn't care bollocks for the ideology, though.
• Babylon 5:
  • The Psi Cops, being a secret police force, naturally wear prim black uniforms.
  • The Nightwatch organization all wear black armbands, which when worn with the Earth Alliance' grey or brown uniforms really evokes fascist aesthetics.
  • Daniel, an agent of the xenophobic Politdivision in 'The Deconstruction of Falling Stars', wears a pin on his jacket very similar to the SS logo.
• The Eastern Alliance in Battlestar Galactica (1978) is a xenophobic, militaristic regime on Terra, whose officers wear black uniforms evoking the SS; one of them even goes by the Germanic name of 'Leiter'.
• The Boys (2019): Stormfront. Her design evokes Nazi imagery, with metal American flag armbands, a metal belt with a Reichsadler Eagle for the buckle, SS-shaped earrings, and a military-buzz-cut-based haircut. Perhaps not surprisingly, she's a violent racist plus former subject/wife to a Nazi scientist, with the same beliefs.
• Doctor Who has several examples mostly from the Classic Series, when many of its staff members had living memories of World War II:
  • The Republic of Great Britain in "Inferno" is protected by the Republican Security Force who have English translations of Nazi ranks such as 'Section Leader' or 'Brigade Leader'. Said 'Brigade Leader', the Evil Counterpart to the Brigadier, wears a Brownshirt-style uniform with Nazi rank insignia. It's heavily implied that the regime is the result of Britain losing WWII
  • The Scientific Reform Society in "Robot" seeks to overthrow democracy and replace it with a society ruled by a scientific elite; natch they all wear uniforms with armbands displaying the organization's fascist-inspired logo.
  • The Kaled Military Elite in "Genesis of the Daleks" wear black uniforms consisting of breeches, jackboots and armbands displaying their logo, which is an eye with lightning bolts behind it. Their own bespectacled Himmler allegory, Nyder, even wears an Iron Cross though it was removed partway through the serial, as the show's staff found it a bit too on the nose). No wonder the Kaleds became the Daleks.
  • Varos in ''Vengeance on Varos'' is a militaristic dictatorship policed by solders in grey or black uniforms, with the Governor and state torturer Quillam wearing some especially Prussian-influenced uniforms. Adding to this is that Varos' logo is a red, white and black design inspired also by the Ingsoc flag in the Michael Radford 1984 adaptation.
  • The Caretakers in "Paradise Towers" all wear grey uniforms with peaked caps, with the Chief Caretaker even sporting a moustache like Hitler's. A mild subversion, as the Caretakers are bureaucratic rather than evil.
  • Kane and his Iceworld security force in "Dragonfire" all wear stark-white Prussian style uniforms that are even worn with white pickelhaubes. In the original script, Kane was named 'Hess' after Rudolph Hess, explaining this.
  • The Memory Police in 'The Lie of the Land', who sport a lighning bolt logo and their officers wear black SS-like uniforms◊.
  • The Master wears a SS uniform when meeting the Doctor in the second part of 'Spyfall'.
• The Peacekeepers from Farscape slightly follow this; they have a predilection for imagery involving red, white and black, though their logo was actually taken from El Lissitzky's pro-Bolshevik propaganda poster, 'Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge'. When it comes to uniforms the nearest they get is Bialar Crais' uniform, otherwise its futuristic jumpsuits or BDSM gear.
• The uniforms of the Alliance Navy in Firefly feel very inspired by Imperial Germany, with their soldiers even wearing stahlhelms in some flashbacks.
  • Lt. Womack in "The Message" wears a black leather trenchcoat and a shoulder harness similar to that of an SS officer. Being part of the Alliance's "Allied Enforcement" division isn't doing the Nazi undertones any favors.
• By the end of First Wave, the Gua seem to have adopted this style. When Mabus tries to convince Cade that the latter has been a Manchurian Agent from the get-go, he tries to put images in Cade's mind of Cade wearing a Nazi-like uniform and even giving a similar salute (presumably, to Mabus).
• Garth Marenghis Darkplace. In "The Apes of Wrath" Garth wakes up from a month-long coma to be told that monkeys have taken over the hospital. Disbelieving, he opens the door to see two monkeys in German steel helmets and carrying MP-40 submachine guns marching down the corridor.
• The Wesenrein, the Wesen purity group in Grimm, takes most of its look from the Klu Klux Klan, but when we see their headquarters, sure enough their Wolfsangel sigil is in a white circle on a red banner.
• The titular movement in 1971 dystopian series The Guardians wear black SS-style uniforms, with their logo being an angular red, white and black stylized 'G'.
• Neo-Humans in Inazuman seem to have a fondness for Nazi-esque designs, which fits well with their ideology. Their Phantom Soldiers are clad in gas masks and Wehrmacht-style helmets, while Führer Geisel wears a black uniform evocative of the SS.
• The titular religious order in 1987 dystopia series Knights of God; while their soldiers uniforms are more Space Clothes, their logo is an ominous red, white and black symbol displaying two fists holding swords.
• The Ministry of Time: As a Spanish show, it used The Franco Regime as its fascist reference point, styling Philip II's regime after he changes history as a retrofuturistic mix of The Spanish Inquisition and 1960s Spain, complete with Televisión Española's old logo.
• Kommander Nuveen Kroll in the 1985 series Otherworld is almost always sporting a futuristic riff on a Nazi-era German uniform.
• The Outer Limits (1995) offers some examples
  • :The Commandant and his cronies in "The Camp" wear black uniforms evoking old Prussian uniforms, and are, well, guarding a concentration camp.
  • :In "Star Crossed", the Hing evoke the Nazis with their Prussian-inspired red uniforms and attitude, which is unsurprising considering that the episode is a Whole-Plot Reference to Casablanca.
• The episode 'Usher II' in The Ray Bradbury Theater has a future where the SS-like 'Moral Climates' bans all art and imagination deemed repugnant, and natch their members wear black Prussian-inspired uniforms and their logo is inspired by the SS lightning bolts
• A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017) has the Village of Fowl Devotees, who have flags that are simply Nazi flags with crows replacing the swastikas.
• The Kromaggs in the later seasons of Sliders; their officers wear Nazi-style grey buttoned uniforms, sometimes with greatcoats, and the solders wear stahlhelms.
• Space Precinct
  • The Asteroid A-5 prison in 'Two Against the Rock' is staffed by guards wearing fascistic uniforms consisting of grey buttoned jackets and black trousers and caps.
  • The members of Burl Flak's anti-Xyronite immigrant movement in 'Hate Street' dress in a way evoking Brownshirts except the shirts are in a deep shade of lilac.
• In The Stand (1994), Flagg's mass rally in Las Vegas features vexilloids resembling the Third Reich's flag: red, with a stylized black crow fimbriated in white.
• The Genii in Stargate Atlantis have uniforms that bear a fair resemblance to Imperial German uniforms.
• The Star Trek franchise has numerous examples of this:
  • The Ekosians in The Original Series episode "Patterns of Force", a society deliberately modeled after Nazi Germany. Aliens cosplaying as Nazis would appear again, like the Hirogen in the Voyager episode 'The Killing Game' playing Nazis in a simulation of occupied France, or the Na'kuhl in the Enterprise episode 'Storm Front' travelling back in time to ally with the actual Nazis and joining their ranks.
  • In 'Mirror, Mirror', the military of the Terran Empire uses the Roman salute (aka the Nazi salute) to greet one another.
  • The Borg banners in Star Trek: The Next Generation episode 'Descent' have the Borg's black logo superimposed on red and white banners, echoing Nazi banners.
  • Mirror-Odo's uniform in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode 'Crossover' evokes this. Though still recognizably Bajoran, it is all-black and fitted with a high collar and a belt. Ironically, Rene Auberjonois' liked the mirror uniform's collar enough that he had it added to his main one later in the series.
• Supernatural: The Apocalypse World version of Castiel, who is Heaven's Torture Technician, for some unknown reason wears a Schutzstaffel-like uniform and has a German accent, despite neither his counterpart in the main universe nor his human vessel having one.
• Not so much the uniforms, but the flags of the Phoenix Group in Terra Nova resemble Nazi battle standards.
• In Tin Man, the Wicked Witch has as a Secret Police the black-leather-wearing "Long Coats".
• The uniforms of the Visitors in V (1983) are more in the realm of Space Clothes, but their logo is pretty much a broken-up swastika to show they're still fascists.

Music

• David Bowie went through a period of this, especially in 1976 with his album Station to Station and his "Thin White Duke" persona. Even more troubling, he began expressing actual fascist ideology during this phase. (As one might expect, this was at the height of Bowie's cocaine-induced Creator Breakdown.) Thankfully he snapped out of this after spending some time in Germany and getting to know people who remembered the actual Nazis, and described that period in his life as an Old Shame.
• The music video to Disturbed's cover of "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.
• In the Gorillaz short "Fancy Dress", each of the band members are dressed up for a photograph. Noodle is dressed as a park ranger, 2D is dressed as an undead mummy, Russel is dressed as Charlie Chaplin, and Murdoc, perhaps not too surprisingly, runs in wearing an SS uniform, complete with a riding crop. Russel reacts rather appropriately.
  Russel: Oh man... where'd you get that outfit? You can't go dressin' up as a God-damned Nazi, you cracker-ass.
  Murdoc: Why not?! I mean, if it's good enough for Lemmy, Keith Richards, and Leonard Nimoy, then it's good enough for me!
• Keyakizaka46 wore costumes that resembled the SS uniforms worn by the Nazi Party during a Halloween event and were heavily criticized for this. Their management eventually apologized.
• The music video for Lady Gaga's "Alejandro" shows the male dancers in this, with Gaga herself wearing a bra with AR-15s attached.
• Laibach. Seriously. That is to say, they have a serious case of this. They are not taking it seriously.
• Nicki Minaj's music video for "Only" heavily uses Nazi imagery.
• In side four of "The Wall" by Pink Floyd, Pink's fragmented negative feelings metastasize into his darkest persona yet, as he hallucinates that he is a fascist dictator during the songs "In the Flesh", "Run Like Hell", and "Waiting for the Worms". Fascist Pink is nothing short of Hitler, and much of the imagery (colours, design and symbols) are taken directly from the Nazi heraldry. This comes off as supremely ironic — as Pink's father was killed during the Battle of Enzio in World War II, Pink has essentially become the same kind of evil that took his father away from him, which laid the first brick in the emotional wall that has led him to this point.
• Raubtier have an official video for Achtung Panzer, which features zombie soldiers in clearly-not-WW2 tanks (they look like Centurions in one view, but the artwork appears inconsistent), led by the Grim Reaper in a beret that looks more like British military than German- but the zombie soldier in command of the lead tank is wearing a rolled helmet which certainly creates the atmosphere (the grey pallette helps with this, plus the appearance of taking over the world) and the machine-gun on his cupola looks rather German WW2 styled.
• Many Visual Kei bands and artists at one point or another. There are almost too many to name, but suffice it to say none (or very few, anyway) are known to have actual Nazi sympathies — it's strictly for shock value and that the Nazis, despite being evil, did have some cool-looking clothes/designs. That said, this was more common years ago — the Unfortunate Implications and the possibility of being banned from touring/performing in places where No Swastikas is in effect has much reduced the appearance of actual Nazi stylings — almost anything a modern Visual Kei artist wears will be an expy of it — and even with that the criticism is often still there, so it's nowhere as common as it once was.
  • One of the worst Visual Kei offenders was Rosenfeld, an early 80s band that dressed as Nazis with actual Nazi memorabilia and made their entire image and even some of their songs about Naziism, to the point where it was arguable as if they actually did have Nazi sympathies. Had they just dropped the Nazi style, they could have possibly been seen as one of the founding bands of Visual Kei (especially because there's an ongoing Flame War as to whether X Japan plagiarized some of their non-Nazi stylings). Instead, they became an Old Shame to the scene, and only remembered/celebrated by elitists or trolls.
• Yellow Magic Orchestra's Concert Film Propaganda centers around a parody of Nazi Germany in which the band are depicted as a trio of dictators leading a rally in the midst of an uprising. Not only do the band's uniforms mix the blackshirts of fascist Italy with the red armbands of Nazi Germany, but faux Nazi flags with silhouettes of the band in place of a swastika are prevalent, and the band's performances are set in an elaborate palace evocative of fascism's neo-Roman predilections.

Tabletop Games

• In BattleTech, Malvina Hazen, the Ax-Crazy khan of Clan Jade Falcon in the 3140s institutes the Mongol Doctrine, which abandons the Clans' usual single combat and dueling for massive scorched earth tactics including the use of nuclear weaponry ad deliberately targeting civilian populations for genocide. Just in case this wasn't enough to make it clear how evil a character she is, she also designs a new dress uniform for Falcon warriors that's very obviously based on the ones worn by the SS.
• Centrum from GURPS: Infinite Worlds is really closer to Communists with parachronics but they're drawn wearing snazzy Nazi-esque uniforms.
• JAGS Wonderland has the Army of No, an enormous legion of Wild Things created by the Caretakers to destroy humanity. Everything else they've done is also to destroy humanity, but the sponsors of the Army wanted homo sapiens to be punished for the crime of existing first. So, they quite deliberately made the Army out to be the most gleefully Always Chaotic Evil force they could, making them as fascist as possible. The uniforms (many actually have their snappy blue jackets and leather fatigues sown into them on the manufacturing line so they won't screw up the dress code) was the first step.
• 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.
  • For that matter, Emperor Prosek is (in addition to the above dress stylings) consciously modeling much of his empire's political organization, propaganda tactics, and social engineering on the Third Reich itself — he's a historical scholar with a specialty in Nazi Germany, and has explicitly taken Hitler as his role model.
• In Warhammer 40,000, the ruthless commissars of the "Imperial Guard" go for the twofer by taking the name "Commissar" from the Soviet Union and the greatcoat and high-peaked cap from the Third Reich. Furthermore, some planets' regiments, like the Armageddon Steel Legion, Attilan Rough Riders and Death Korps of Krieg, wear outfits resembling those of the aforementioned villains of history. The Armageddon Steel Legion's use of gas masks is at least justified by their home planet's chokingly polluted atmosphere, and the Death Korps of Krieg by their homeworld being subjected to atomic bombardment, the radiation of which has yet to clear. Though the Death Korps of Krieg have a German-sounding name, their uniforms take inspiration from German, French and Belgium WWI uniforms. The Death Korps of Krieg are also known for using spiked helmets that the basic design were infamously used by German troops in World War I, along with the coal-scuttle helmets usually associated with the Wehrmacht but actually first used by German troops in the First World War. They go even further - Krieger horses wear gasmasks and black/silver spiked barding while having one of the aforementioned Death Korps riding them. AND to go even further. The men of Krieg are clones. Though they don't hold a candle to a group of mercenaries who use cloning technology to keep their "perfect genetics" intact.
  • 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.
  • A bunch of platinum-blonde, white-as-snow women in red-on-black armor with white and gold highlights, all fanatically devoted to an empire with an eagle motif, who are fanatically concerned with genetic and ideological purity? The Sisters of Battle combine this trope with a healthy mix of horror tropes, Amazon Brigade, Combat Sadomasochist and Jeanne d'Archétype, though more recent depictions have started to switch the skin colors around a bit (the Imperium is very Equal-Opportunity Evil as long as you aren't a mutant) and the perfect skin fell by the way side in favor of horrific scarring.
  • Even Orks used to put on the Reich back in The '80s: Goffs had their iconic spiked Stahlhelms, while Bloodaxes imitated Imperial uniforms and paraphernalia down to the rank insignia and Commissar cap. The Stormboyz were the most egregious example, though: originally, they were a sub-culture of malcontent youths who rebelled against mainstream Orkish society by doing "un-Orky" stuff such as drilling, parading and being all disciplined and hierarchical. They even wore lightning bolt badges closely resembling the SS-rune.
  • In an odd case of... well, it's not exactly defictionalization, but let's call it close enough, the Games Workshop headquarters in Nottingham is allegedly known among the local cabbies as "the Reichstag"◊.
• On a related note to 40k, above, many aftermarket manufacturers of Games Workshop-compatible bitz and figures seem to like making Ork proxy miniatures with copies of historical uniforms and equipment, only oversized and cobbled together, Ork-style. Of particular note here is Kromlech.eu, who have greatcoated and Afrika Korps Orks wielding Ork-styled versions of MP 40, MG 42, Panzerschreck and Flakvierling.

Video Games

• Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony has Kokichi Oma, whose official art depicts him wearing a Nazi hat to affirm his talent as the Ultimate Supreme Leader.
• Kirkwall's Templar order under Knight-Commander Meredith shows signs of this in the third act of Dragon Age II.
• In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the standard (non-armor) uniforms of the Thalmor invoke this appearance. Despite being called "Robes", they're designed to look more like a longcoat than a robe, and are actually unable to closed in the front. Very fitting, as the Thalmor are essentially Nazi Elves.
• Enclave Officers from Fallout 3 wear a uniform that feels like a scifi hybrid between a Nazi and Confederate uniform - both inspirations are fitting due to the Enclave being a xenophobic, ultra-nationalist organization seeking to purge 'mutants' and all things un-American.
• 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.
  • Note also; in said cutscene, the three Generals (i.e. the soldiers considered the best of them all) behind the Emperor are Kefka, Celes and Leo. They all have blonde hair and blue eyes (then again, so do most of the heroes).
• In Final Fantasy VIII, SeeD's men's formal uniform is essentially a Nazi SS uniform with shoulderpads.
• The Turd Reich from Hell Pie are a race of sentient turds that launch a genocide against the munchers as an invading force with black gestapo hats for uniforms.
• The soldiers of the Rahmos empire◊ from Iron Grip: The Oppression wear a mashup◊ of a German WWI uniform and a Napoleonic era musketeer's jerkin, plus a very Stahlhelm-esque helmet. Hardly surprising, since Rahmos is a Culture Chop Suey of All the Little Germanies, Imperial Germany, and Glorious Mother Russia. And they're also very militaristic and expansionist and prefer an atheist ideology over any forms of religion.
• It can't get more overt than the Helghast from Killzone. Their basic Mook comes with a helmet, gas mask and trench coat, and they're all about the militarism and xenophobia. And that's just scratching the surface. Even their origin strongly resembles the birth of the Third Reich.
• In Luftrausers, your faction does this up to eleven with their uniforms, logos, and generic nazi looking scientists. Although the salutes are normal salutes and instead of a swastika they use a picture of a Rauser plane.
• In Mega Man X4, the Repliforce, an army of Reploid soldiers and the most powerful military in the world, give a Nazi salute under direction of their leader General in the opening cutscene of the game.
• Metal Slug has this going on with the Rebel Army, though only General Morden actually dresses like one (nevermind that he's Canadian). The mobile game Metal Slug Attack however has unique Rebel units like Abigail and Dion who actually dress like this.
• An interesting version of this occurs in Metro2033, 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.
• Nintendo Wars:
  • While Black Hole soldiers look like astronauts, several Black Hole COs dress in a manner specifically intended to recall Nazis — namely, Flak (a stahlhelm-and-greatcoat sporting grunt soldier), Adder (an officer in jodhpurs and epaulets), and Sturm himself (a general with a Commissar Cap and a gas mask).
  • Battalion Wars has the Xylvanians, who are a cross between WWI Germans, Nazis, and, of course, vampires.
• In Path of Exile, the Blackguards you encounter in Act 3 are heavily implied to have very Nazi-like agendas, and wear intimidating black armor that show hints of it. The Oriathan officers and templars you see encounter in Act 5 really bring out the Nazi◊ imagery◊.
• PlanetSide's Terran Republic doubles it up with Red and Black Totalitarianism Gas Mask Mooks, and in the first game are a republic in name only. Come the second game, they are just dirty socialists and drop the black in favor of white/gray, but the cosmetics make them even more like Third Reich, Soviet, and Russian soldiers, with nice hats in the form of peaked caps and a Soviet side cap, a huge selection of gas masks (both fantastic and based on real designs) and a helmet designed specifically to look like the heavy-duty visored helmets favored by modern Russian soldiers.
• Rail Chase 2: The EKKL empire is the Third Reich in all but name. They use the same uniforms, vehicles, and everything. Even the flyer◊ depicts a guy wearing a Nazi-esque uniform and helmet.
• Shadow Complex: The enemy officers have a combination of "armored super-soldier" and "Nazi" that includes armbands with their logo on it.
• Skullgirls: The Black Egrets, Princess Parasoul's personal guard, has this going on. German weaponry, stereotypical Pickelhaube helmets, grey outfits, and bright red armbands bearing an umbrella symbol, eerily similar to a swastika. Unlike most examples, they're the good guys — this trope was deliberately used as Fan Disservice to the otherwise-attractive Parasoul, instilling a sense of uneasiness in the audience.
• StarCraft: The uniforms worn by United Earth Directorate officers resemble Nazi uniforms, right down to the grey overcoats and hats. Oddly, their bosses are a Frenchman and a Russian. The UED were basically Space Nazis. 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. Hell, Admiral DuGalle kills himself with a Luger which was the WWII German officer's main pistol.
  • The UED is more a Culture Chop Suey of various authoritarian regimes throughout Earth's history. Dugalle is more The Napoleon with his strategic approach, while Stukov evokes Soviet general Georgy Zhukov, who was a hero of WWII before falling out of favor with Stalin after the war was over.
  • Inverted with Matt Horner in Starcraft II, who has a uniform inspired by fascists, but serves as the idealistic second-in-command of Jim Raynor. Possibly played straight in that he may have kept it from his confederate days.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic adds to the "reich" theme for the Sith Empire with large red banners with the white hexagonal Imperial symbol hanging everywhere.
• Street Fighter's M. Bison◊.
• 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.
• Artwork of the two pilots you play as from the danmaku shmup Under Defeat for the Dreamcast have them wearing Nazi-like uniforms — though it's a zigzagged case, as this time, the Union is violating the ceasefire while the Empire that the protagonists serve is acting in self-defense. Also, PA announcements from your enemies is in perfect English and dialogue between your pilot and her CO is in perfect German. Subbed for your convenience.
• The Imperial army foot soldiers in Valkyria Chronicles wear more medieval looking armor, but the officers such as Gregor have the Reich look going on.
• Yager has an entire Nation with obvious German and Third Reich influences. Not only do they wear uniforms, but they have distinct German accents, use German ranks, and the unit showcase mode shows a squad of their footsoldiers exploding on command and reassembling to very loud, German orders like "AAAACHTUNG", accent free, even.

Web Animation

• Murder Drones: The Disassembly Drones wear uniforms reminiscent of those worn by Nazi officers, complete with armbands with a symbol. Since they're tasked with exterminating a group that they see as lesser, it's fitting.
• Terrible Writing Advice: Episode 81 - "Evil Lackeys" advices writers to give the mooks in their stories uniforms that resemble those of the Nazis, because Nazis are the default villains for any story.
• RWBY: Adam Taurus dons a grey, Nazi-esque bodysuit after usurping Sienna Khan as High Leader of the White Fang. It marks how while the White Fang was harsh but fair under Sienna, under Adam they're far worse.

Webcomics

• Marionetta: Downplayed, the Kalgratt military's uniforms resemble Waffen-SS officer uniforms, though with a palette-swap and with most of the insignia removed.

Web Originals

• Item 21 on the Evil Overlord List: "I will hire a talented fashion designer to create original uniforms for my Legions of Terror, as opposed to some cheap knock-offs that make them look like Nazi stormtroopers, Roman footsoldiers, or savage Mongol hordes. All were eventually defeated and I want my troops to have a more positive mind-set." Despite their shameless theft of Roman iconography almost everywhere else, the practical necessities of uniform design for twentieth-century warfare meant that the Nazis mostly followed this rule and kept to Prussian or Wiemar-era design sensibilities.
• Jim Sterling, host of The Jimquisition, originally styled their character as an over-the-top caricature of a fascist dictator with a God complex, using the motto "Truth, Pride, Garme Jurnalizm" and at times standing in front of a Norsefire-inspired flag. Their original intro, later changed due to copyright concerns, was filled with authoritarian imagery lifted from Gears of War and Fallout. They later changed the character in 2017 to a sleazy carnival showman, as they felt that the growth of actual neo-fascist activism in 2016 had made the character far more difficult to use for a joke.
• The Sirenen Reich from v2-v4 Open Blue was practically Nazi Germany IN THE CAVALIER YEARS, complete with a (female) Führer, an SS-ish intelligence agency, a tendency to research advanced tech, and a 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

• Alfred J. Kwak: The Crow party, led by a crow named Dolf, whose logo is 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 is not. It's nonetheless chilling to watch Dolf grow from a naughty schoolboy into a fascist dictator. Also notable for the little details it throws in: Dolf is actually not a crow, but the half-breed of a crow and a blackbird, who disguises his origin by darkening his yellow beak — a sly allusion to Hitler failing to live up to the Aryan virtues he espoused.
• The Amazing World of Gumball: In the episode "The Safety", Darwin goes overboard about safety. "Overboard", meaning monitoring everyone around town via security cameras, replacing police batons with blow-up replicas, and chaining people to their seats. When Gumball reaches his "evil lair" to stop him, Darwin is dressed like this. He also has these flags hanging, which look suspiciously similar to a rather well-known piece of Nazi symbolism. A rare example in which it's Played for Comedy. Disturbing comedy, but still comedy.
• Fire Nation troops in Avatar: The Last Airbender wear Mongol-derived armour with designs that even include skull-shaped face plates. Bonus points for actually using the (somewhat silly) skull-face masks to further the plot, and for establishing that the Fire Nation isn't inherently worse than anyone else (the same way not All Germans Are Nazis, and other countries have dark pasts too).
• Even though Standards and Practices forbade the writers of The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes from showing any Nazis onscreen in Captain America's introductory episode, the Red Skull wears an SS uniform and an Iron Cross, albeit with the Swastika replaced with a HYDRA emblem.
• Batman: The Brave and the Bold: The troops of General Zahl in "The Last Patrol!" wear uniforms that are very strongly reminiscent of Nazi stormtroopers. Of course, in the original comics Zahl was a former Nazi.
• Il Était Une Fois...: The military personnel of Cassiopeia in l'Espace'' carries armbands styled as Nazi ones except that have instead of a swastika a "W", that represents that constellation. In addition to this, General Pest is said to have been chosen as leader because of how the masses follow him, echoing Hitler.
• The Legend of Korra:
  • Troopers in Kuvira's army have helmets that resemble stahlhelm helmets.◊
  • Equalist biplanes are painted in a grey shade with black insignias set inside a red circle, looking very similar to Luftwaffe paint schemes. Bonus points for the insignias resembling the Balkenkreuz cross.
• Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated: Frau Bluke's robots in "The Midnight Zone" have a strong resemblance to Nazi stormtroopers. Then you remember that she was German and was alive during WWII. So in all likeliness she probably was a Nazi Scientist.
• The first season finale of Superjail!. Ohhh boy. Future-Warden mixes it up a little, going for the Otto von Bismarck look.
• Superman: The Animated Series: In "Brave New Metropolis", the Superman of an alternate universe is a Knight Templar who takes a more authoritarian approach against crime, shown by wearing an all-black costume with his Superman "S" logo resembling those from the SS logo.
• The nation of Thembria in TaleSpin is based off of the Soviet Union.
• The Cola Secret Police in the Taz-Mania episode "We'll Always Have Taz-Mania" (which was a parody of Casablanca).
• In the VeggieTales 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.
• Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?: Principal Madman has a mustache that is similar to Adolf Hitler's own.

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