by Josh Gardner, who believes Britain still rode horses to work until 1979
ME and the Nazis go way back: the Wolfenstein games, the Nazi zombies in Call of Duty and Dead Snow, and of course as a point of comparison on the internet.
Yes, I love the Nazis. We’ve had some good times together. I never once suspected they were real, historical and you know the worst thing? Majorly racist.
It all began in my history lesson, when Mr Holness said we’d be covering the rise of Nazism next week. I was down for that because I remember that period on social media, roughly 2012 to 2016, and it was awful.
Bit weird doing it in A-level, but I figured maybe we’d get to watch Sky Sharks, an incredible movie where the Nazi zombies fly sharks. In fact I suggested it, only to get slapped down. ‘We are going to be covering Nazi zombies?’ I asked.
‘To my knowledge, no Nazi has ever become a zombie,’ Mr Holness replied, ‘because zombies are non-existent and the Nazis, a political party that flourished in Germany between 1920 and 1945, are real. Really real. ‘
Well fuck me. I thought they were a metaphor, like the Devil. Something to call your opponent in Twitter arguments. I thought they had to be made up because no-one’s that evil.
Always shouting and wearing black leather uniforms, torturing people, inventing all the best weapons like flying saucers and mechs. And Hitler? Who’s convinced by him?
But they were real, they actually happened less than a century ago, and they killed six million Jews, which is terrible actually. And they were no better with the LGBTQ+ community. Plus they were ableist.
So all these brilliant characters I loved: Hitler, Red Skull, the clockwork guy from Hellboy – were racists and homophobes. I’m almost ashamed to mention Unteroffizier Renate Richter from Iron Sky because that involved a fair bit of wanking.
Well. I feel like someone just pissed on my childhood. I blame games developers for presenting a sugar-coated version of the Nazis.
I’ve started a Facebook page called ‘The Campaign for Real Nazism’, which I’m hoping will educate people that the Nazis were A) real, and B) not cool. Although my mum says I should change the name.
