Quotes / Godwin's Law

Comic Books

"You know the rule — all debate ends when it gets to Hitler."

— Gotham Central

Comic Strips

Ratbert: I'm debating on the internet! Ha ha! I'm winning every argument by saying the same thing!
Dilbert: What's that?
Ratbert: "How would you like it if Hitler killed you?"
Dilbert: Hey, I debated you last night!

— Dilbert, 10-28-2006

Calvin: I'm going to hang around the drugstore all afternoon and eat candy and read comic books!
Calvin's Mom: Oh, no, you're not!
Calvin: Why not?!
Calvin's Mom: Because I'm your mother and I said so. Get back in here. AND YOU CAN STOP GOOSESTEPPING AROUND THE HOUSE!

— Calvin and Hobbes, 9/6/1986

Rosalyn: It's my job to watch you, and that's what I'm going to do, even if I have to strap you to a chair. Got it?
Calvin: Jawohl, mein Führer!

— Calvin & Hobbes, 10/9/1987

Live-Action TV

Judge Greenspan: Mr. Soprano, do you have a problem with wearing an electronic bracelet?
Uncle Junior: It sounds like Nazi Germany to me!
Judge Greenspan: Obviously you need a history lesson, sir.

— The Sopranos, "Do Not Resuscitate"

Mr. Corman: The last time I was here, you tried to torture me to prove a point, Doctor...Doctor...Doctor...Doctor—
Dr. Cox: Cox.
Mr. Corman: Mengele!

— Scrubs, "My Fault"

Britta: None of us would've met if Hitler hadn't been born.
Dean Pelton: Also, none of Britta's arguments would have a default analogy...
Britta: Excuse me?!
Jeff: He's saying you go to the Hitler well a lot.
Britta: What are you, Hitler Hitler?

— Community

I don't wanna bring up the Holocaust
(I know, I know, the Holocaust)
But the Holocaust was a really big deal

— Naomi Bunch, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend "Remember That We Suffered"

"Please stop calling people Hitler when you disagree with them. It demeans you, it demeans your opponent, and, to be honest, it demeans Hitler."

— Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Frank: Oh, I'm sorry I forgot. I live in this world, you live in a psycho bunker where 9/11 was an inside job and the government are all Nazis.
Bill: THE GOVERNMENT ARE ALL NAZIS!
Frank: Well, yeah, now! But not then!

— The Last of Us (2023), episode 3

Music

Don't call people Hitler,
Unless you're calling Hitler Hitler,
Because only Hitler was Hitler
It's a pretty exclusive list
And don't call people Nazis
When they vote for other parties
Unless you mean actual Nazis
Who unfortunately do exist

— Mitch Benn, "Shut Up About Hitler"

Everyone I don't like is literally Hitler,
Literally Hitler, literally Hitler,
Everyone I don't like is literally Hitler,
Let's have a look and see!
You got Donald Trump, PewDiePie, and Pepe The Frog,
Hand signs, free speech, follow godwin's law,
Pro Life conservatives, grammar police,
White men, youtubers, people who eat meat.
Yeah everyone I don't like is literally Hitler
Everyone except for me!

— Rusty Cage, "Everyone I Don't Like is LITERALLY HITLER"

Print Media

"When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler! Join a Car-Sharing Club TODAY!"

— 1943 informational poster by the U.S. Government Printing Office

”If I were sitting in a tube train and all the people opposite me were reading Mein Kampf with obvious enjoyment and approval it probably wouldn’t disturb me much more than if they were reading Heinlein, [Tolkien], or Richard Adams.”

— Michael Moorcock, “Starship Stormtroopers”

Radio

Duncan: This is outrageous, Angus, you're just trying to lead me into the sort of self-incriminating argument that frankly wouldn't be out of place in one of Stalin's show trials.
Angus: I take exception to that, that's the sort of meaningless smear used by Goebbels under the Third Reich.
Duncan: You're like Stalin.
Angus: You are Hitler.

— That Mitchell and Webb Sound

Stand-Up Comedy

My dad is a lawyer and he was a debate team champion. So he would pick us apart psychologically. One time I was at the dinner table when I was like six, because I had to be. My dad goes, “How was school today?” I said, “It was good but someone pushed Tyler off the seesaw.” “And where were you?” “I was over on the bench.” “And what did you do?” “Nothing. I was over on the bench.” “But you saw what happened?” “Yeah, ’cause I was over on the bench.” “So you saw what happened and you did nothing?” “Yeah, ’cause I was sitting over on the bench.” “Let me ask you this. In Nazi Germany, when people saw what the Nazis were doing and did nothing, were those good people?” “No, those are bad people. You gotta stop the Nazis.” “But you saw what they were doing to Tyler and you did nothing!” “Because I was over on the bench.” And then my dad said, “Just explain to me this. How are you better than a Nazi?” And then my mom said, “I made a salad with Craisins!” And the conversation ended.

— John Mulaney, Kid Gorgeous

"My friend said to me, 'So, you're saying, if you saw Hitler walking down the street, you wouldn't kill him?' ...[An extremely old guy] who kinda, sorta, looks like Hitler? Based on my vague recollection from grade school? I'm not gonna kill that guy, because I am often wrong! Like, I kill him and everyone goes: 'Hey, you just killed that old, old man!' 'He looked like Hitler!' 'Yeah, a LITTLE!'"

— John Mulaney

Theatre

Wickfield: Your father is a realist.
Breed You call it Realism here. You call it Fascism over there!
Wickfield: Now, now, Madison!

— Kiss the Boys Good-bye

You were going to say Hitler or Stalin or Nero … the argument always gets back to some lunatic tyrant, the reductio ad absurdum of the new ethics, and the dog-eared trump card of the intuitionists.

—Archie, Jumpers (by Tom Stoppard)

Webcomics

"This conversation proves that the only thing dumber than an argument on the internet is the same argument in real life."

—Marten, from Questionable Content, here

General: As I expected. This is a foolish move by Mussolini, but like Hitler he will no doubt force his commanders to—
Informant: Hey, Godwin's Law.
General: Dammit. You know, this may become a problem.

— xkcd, "Regarding Mussolini"

"People who compare every petty evil to Hitler are worse than Dracula!"

—A Softer World, "803"

Web Original

Re, re, re your post,
Gently down the thread
Hitler and Stalin and Godwin and Nazis
Now the horse is dead

— "ClassicDrogn", on the Drunkard's Walk Forums, 2/26/06

"But that's good because 'Godwin' includes 'God' and 'win'. So, when you post a picture of Hitler in front of an article, you can say 'In the name of God, I win the argument.' Godwin's point."

—Rational Wiki

Hitler: We must rid ourselves of ze Jews. We will go after their businesses, burn their synagogues. We will move them into ghettos and ultimately death camps, killing millions.
Officer: So it will be like in 2014 when someone isn't nice to a rich guy?
Hitler: That would be ze most appropriate comparison I could think of, yes.

—Political cartoon by Matt Bors

...I’m reasonably sure that no one in Ohio was crushed to death under a pile of stones for refusing to admit that they bought Grand Theft Auto. Then again, it just wouldn’t be Funky Winkerbean without a conversation turning inevitably to historical murder.

—Chris Sims on Funky Winkerbean

Lois also calls Lex Luthor a fascist. Good grief...Fascists burn people in ovens and take over countries. Lex, if anything, is a lasseiz-faire businessman with questionable ethics who once tortured a semi-aquatic superhero that anyone with any respect for what such cheesy characters do to the comic genre might have tortured as well.

—Neal Bailey on Smallville ("Fanatic")

Kanye doesn’t compare the paparazzi to Hitler, but he does say that being a celebrity today is like being black in the 1960s. Either I wasn’t totally paying attention during the lesson on the Civil Rights Movement in the 6th grade or Kanye’s brain has been switched with that of a dead sloth, because I somehow missed the part where black people were given Givenchy gowns to wear to their protests and instead of getting attacked by police dogs and beaten by racists, they had their picture taken and were asked to sign autographs. I was taught wrong!

—Michael K., "Kanye West Spit Up A Lot Of Kanye West Shit During An Interview With GQ"

Oh. My. God. Jeff Tweedy IS a Nazi!! Oh crap, now I see that the people condemning him were absolutely right, he has sold us all out! I bet marrying my Jewish sister was just a ruse to further his white supremacist agenda. All that liberal twaddle he spouts at his concerts is just a front...Dammit, that’s the last time that turncoat comes to our Yom Kippur services!

—Danny Miller

Fun fact: While Barber was ditching his wife, he and his mistress hid from the media in his agent's attic. Did Barber use an Anne Frank analogy to describe this situation? Of course he did.

—Drew Magary on Tiki Barber, "The 25 Biggest Sleazebags in Sports!"

"If it's one thing the internet has taught me it's that anyone with an opposing view is literally Hitler!"

— Terrible Writing Advice, "Shipping"

"Yes, this is a form of association fallacy, but you know who else accused others of association fallacies? Hitler!"

—Terrible Writing Advice, "Propaganda"

Hagrid: First thing you wanna know about Hippogriffs is that they're very proud creatures. Very easily offended.
Bill Corbett: Very quick to compare you to Hitler online.

— RiffTrax of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Ian Malcolm: Oh, what's so great about discovery? What you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world.
"Weird Al" Yankovic: If they were online he'd have called him Hitler by now.

— RiffTrax of Jurassic Park

Web Video

Mustached Euro-Anglan male
Greedy big nose guy is bent on betrayal
Wait! Hitler's Mein Kampf told the very same tale
Oh snap, Tumblr was right
They hate Jews

—brentalfloss, "Super Mario Land 2 with Lyrics"

Arthur says DW^[sic] "DW" is supposed to be spelled with two periods, but the creator of the series spells it without them, so it can be assumed that if he were to make closed captions or transcripts for episodes of the series, they would spell it that way too sometimes gets carried away, which is like saying Hitler once got carried away in Poland.

— FU DW

Bugdorf: The Democrats call conservative activists "brownshirts" and claim they wear Swastikas!
Hitler: Fucking hell! The people with those little "Don't Tread On Me" flags?
Bugdorf: And everybody draws your little moustache on their political opponents.
Hitler: You cannot be fucking serious.

— Hitler Rants, "Hitler finds out Americans are calling each other Nazis"

Western Animation

Hey! How many times have I told you kids not to bring up Nazi Germany when you don't get something you want?!

—PC Principal, South Park, "Pajama Day"

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