It’s been a big week for doughy Caucasians with delusions of racial superiority. After a banner day spent in Charlottesville ostensibly to defend a statue of Robert E. Lee but really only succeeding in uniting the rest of the country against them, America’s white supremacists are at the forefront of our national consciousness. This is thanks in no small part to our own President, a man allegedly obsessed with #winning who nonetheless soaks up the adulation of adherents of two of the losingest ideologies in history: Nazism and the Confederacy.
Because make no mistake about it, the Nazis and the South got the shit beat out of them. Their armies, literal standard-bearers for the primacy of white people, were both defeated by forces that were at least partially integrated (if imperfectly so). Sure, they can drive a car into a crowd of innocent people or gang up on a defenseless black guy, but punch them back or react in kind to their tactics (?), and they immediately cry foul, proving the only thing this *race* has *mastered* is acting like a toddler when things go against them.
And so, to commemorate this rich and extensive tradition of defeat that white supremacists are inexplicably proud of, here are ten cinematic examples of their historical brethren catching a beatin’. Spoiler warnings for a bunch of movies that are at least eight years old.
Hitler and Goebbels Get Two Thumbs Down
Movie: Inglourious Basterds (2009)
Fiction/Nonfiction: Fiction
The Deets: As luck would have it, the gala premiere of a new Nazi propaganda film is taking place at a theater managed by the only survivor of a Jewish family massacred by the Germans. An ambush is planned by Allied intelligence, resulting in the machine gunning of Hitler and his Propaganda Minister before the entire theater is eventually blown up.
Notes for Neo-Nazis: Getting murdered in a theater is a lot less ignominious than the way these two ferret-faced cowards actually died.
Battle of Gettysburg (1863)
Movie: Gettysburg (1993)
Fiction/Nonfiction: Nonfiction
The Deets: Following his success at Chancellorsville, General Robert E. Lee took the Army of Northern Virginia into Union territory again. Facing the Army of the Potomac near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Lee spent three days attempting to overrun General Meade’s positions on Cemetery Ridge, but ended up losing more than a third of his army. That loss, combined with Ulysses S. Grant’s victory at Vicksburg, irrevocably turned the tide of the war.
Notes for Neo-Nazis: The South losing is a big reason people don’t think you have a right to be commemorated with monuments. We don’t have statues of the Buffalo Bills in city parks, either.
“Major Strasser’s Been Shot!”
Movie: Casablanca (1942)
Fiction/Nonfiction: Fiction
The Deets: Desperate to allow his ex-lover Ilsa and her husband Viktor Lazlo to escape to Portugal, café owner (not major appliance) Rick Blaine shoots local German commander Major Strasser before he can order the control tower to stop the plane.
Notes for Neo-Nazis: “Die Wacht am Rhein” is an empircally worse song than “La Marsellaise.” And I’m German.
Hando Gets the Shaft
Movie: Romper Stomper (1992)
Fiction/Nonfiction: Fiction
The Deets: Australian neo-Nazi gang leader Hando, when not terrorizing Vietnamese immigrants, does his level skinhead best to romance the fetching Gabrielle, but ultimately drives her into the arms of his best friend Davey. When Gabrielle admits to dropping the dime on Hando, he tries to kill her and Davey – in an “ironical” twist – stabs Hando with a Hitler Youth knife.
Notes for Neo-Nazis: Although only inspired by real-life events, the link between white supremacists and domestic violence is well-documented. Shocking that adherents of an ideology predicated on the inferiority of everyone else would have trouble holding down a relationship.
It’s a Dog’s Life for Josef Mengele
Movie: The Boys From Brazil (1978)
Fiction/Nonfiction: Fiction. More’s the pity.
The Deets: After creating 94 Hitler clones and attempting to mimic the circumstances of Hitler’s own childhood (killing their biological fathers when the clones are 13), the “Angel of Death” is killed by Dobermans when one of the clones takes issue with him killing his father. The real Mengele died a year after this movie was released. Sadly, he merely drowned.
Notes for Neo-Nazis: Typical of Nazi strategic thinking, Mengele never explained how he was going to a) make each clone a failed artist, b) enlist them on the losing side of a world war, and c) re-create post-Versailles Germany.
“It’s Beautiful!”
Movie: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Fiction/Nonfiction: A lot of superstitious hocus-pocus.
The Deets: Having villainously seized the Ark of the Covenant, the Nazis – under the leadership of French archaeologist René Belloq – ill-advisedly open the Ark, unleashing the “power of God,” who is unsurprisingly not down with a bunch of anti-Semites.
Notes for Neo-Nazis: Seriously, did no one think this through? Even Deitrich, the lantern-jawed German Colonel, expresses his reservations about the idea of a “Jewish ritual.”
Even the Undead Can’t Help the South Rise Again
Movie: Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter
Fiction/Nonfiction: Fiction…or is it?
The Deets: After the death of their 5,000-year-old leader, a horde of Confederate vampires (vampires feed on slaves, which is why they’re on the side of the South) are defeated by Union troops armed with silver weapons. You’ll have to trust me on this, since I couldn’t find an actual clip of that scene.
Notes for Neo-Nazis: Saying the South fed off their slaves isn’t far off reality.
“I Hate Illinois Nazis”
Movie: The Blues Brothers (1980)
Fiction/Nonfiction: Fiction, maybe.
The Deets: When Jake and Elwood are held up on their way to get the band back together by a Nazi march, they use the only means at their disposal (an ex-police cruiser 1974 Dodge Monaco) to disperse their adversaries.
Notes for Neo-Nazis: Fox News only recently deleted an article advocating just this tactic.
Kroenen Krushed
Movie: Hellboy (2004)
Fiction/Nonfiction: C’mon
The Deets: SS Colonel Karl Ruprecht Kroenen was head of the occult Thule Society, and instrumental in implementing Project Ragna Rok, which brought Hellboy into our world. Unfortunately, he also killed Hellboy’s surrogate father, Professor Bruttenholm, something half-demons tend to take umbrage at.
Notes for Neo-Nazis: By all means, keep fooling around with the occult, you weirdos.
“I Read Your BOOK”
Movie: Patton (1970)
Fiction/Nonfiction: Nonfiction-ish
The Deets: After the embarrassing loss at the Kasserine Pass (and the subsequent organizational shake-up), the II Corps under General George Patton beat back an attack by German Army Group Africa and secured the first American victory against German armor in the war.
Notes for Neo-Nazis: Learn to read.
This article appears in Aug 10-16, 2017.
