438 NAZIS
When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941 the mood of the nation
changed overnight. America declared war on the Japanese, Nazi Germany and the
United States declared war on each other, and popular culture, which had been acting
as a form of unoffi cial propaganda for so long, was fi nally vindicated. Primed and ready
to fi re, mass culture became a weapon against the enemy. Roosevelt knew that while
the American people were eager for revenge against the Japanese, the war would not
be won if the Nazis prevailed in Europe. In propaganda and popular culture images of
the Nazis, and to a lesser extent, the German people, became increasingly aggressive.
Superheroes took particular delight in attacking hordes of Nazi troops, or attacking
Hitler himself, encouraging Americans to see the Nazis as the epitome of evil. Th is
was not diffi cult, and comics also off ered Nazi supervillains, such as Captain Nazi
( Master Comics ), Th e Red Skull ( Captain America ). Th ese villains were usually cruel,
monstrous, and perverse. In comics, as in other forms of popular culture, Nazis were
particularly interested in assaulting women and poisoning children, or else destroying
American industry. German offi cers were sadists and German troops were mindless
automatons or ogres. Indeed, much of the imagery, especially in Timely comics, was
drawn from horror fi lms. For some reason Nazi strongholds were invariably gothic
castles, and they employed medieval torture methods on helpless victims. Th e level of
hatred and ridicule directed at the Nazis was challenged only by the levels of hatred
directed towards the Japanese. In comics, as in reality, the war against Japan took on
the hateful aspects of a race war, and propaganda and popular culture were extremely
racist and irresponsible in promoting hatred of the Japanese as a people. Th is did not
happen in terms of the German people. Th e Nazi leaders were despised, offi cers and
troops were dealt with violently, but by and large the German people were presented as
victims of their own government. As Western Europeans, the Germans had a similar
racial heritage to the majority of Americans, so there was little mileage in presenting the
Germans as a corrupt race of people.
While most superhero comics were content to deliver propagandist messages that
were quite blunt and obvious a small number off ered something more considered. One
example is Will Eisner’s Th e Spirit story, “Th e Tale of the Dictator’s Reform” (1941),
which imagined Hitler coming to America and being impressed with its people. Vowing
to end the war, he returns to Germany only to be murdered by his lieutenants and
replaced with a double. Th e story went beyond images of Hitler as a monster and
suggested that rather than Nazism being driven by one madman it was instead a
corrupt system, and that fascism was the actual enemy that had to be defeated. Such
stories were rare, with most comics preferring to simply utilize the war as a convenient
backdrop for adventure stories, or else, to make a simplistic point about combating the
evils of the Axis.
Nazis appeared in other genres besides superheroes, notably war comics. Some of
these comics were aimed directly at troops fi ghting overseas, so were particularly scath-
ing about the enemies’ courage and equipment, often suggesting that the Nazis and the
Japanese were poorly trained and badly supported. Th is was intended to boost morale,
