What do Germans think of Portayal of Nazis in Video Games?

[Ted Striker]

OUCH!

[Proteus_MST]

I don´t have any scruples to kill a german soldier in a game (as well as I wouldn´t have any sruples to kill a russian or american soldier, if he is the enemy in the game )
But as I rarely play any Ego Shooters I don´t have to kill my own country men often and within Strategy games you are able to choose the german side most of the times (so I choose them, as I like Hi-Tech-tanks and -weapons [well, at least for those times they were ])

Oh and btw. Medal of Honor can also be bought in Germany and I never heard (or read) of anyone in Germany complaining of having to play the allied side (or shotting germans).
Of course, it would be nice to be able to play the german side, too, as long as certain things are left out (Hueij mentioned one of them )

[ravagon]

I'd be rather surprised if there were much resentment over it, to be honest.
After all, it isn't as though many Germans today empathise with, or have much in common with the Nazi's of the 30's and 40's.

Now if you'd based it on the Chinese civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists however ...

[laurentius]

Why is that german soldiers are always automatically seen as nazis? When in fact most of the soldiers and their commanders were the most sane in the Reich.

[bipolarbear]

Did the kid realize what he was doing or did he intentionally trying to shock the German kid and was bragging about it?

He knew full well what he was doing.

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by laurentius
Why is that german soldiers are always automatically seen as nazis? When in fact most of the soldiers and their commanders were the most sane in the Reich.

Good point.

Many of the same commanders realized that the man in charge and his minions were doing some crazy things and tried to stop him.

[Frankychan]

I think it would be comparable to a game where you play an American Indian and are fighting and killing all the American settlers invading your lands.

[ravagon]

Most of that was 2-3 centuries ago though. WW2 was barely 2 generations.

[Harovan]

I don't play real time shooters, and it's not because of the killing of Germans, but for my general dislike of them. As far as turn based and strategic real time games go (PG, TOAW, HOI etc.), I usually start playing with the Germans and end up playing the other sides in the scenarios too. Nation doesn't matter, it's just like a game of chess, so no feelings here. Most games have names and symbols gimped anyway, either for PC reasons or because they are banned here (like the swastika; and yes, I know about your version of freedom of speech; and no, I don't care and still believe it should be banned).

[Combat Ingrid]

I always played as the Germans in Wolfenstein
Of course, I was not the only one, so many servers ended up with like 2 Americans "storming" a fortress guarded by 14 Germans. But everyone had a great time trying to kill those two poor guys before someone else got to them

[Slaughtermeyer]

Originally posted by Hueij

There has been recent debate at Electronic Arts, over whether to build a mission in the shooter game, Call of Duty, from the perspective of the German soldier. Only recently, because of the now long ending of the Cold War with Russia, have we seen missions built from the perspective of the Russian solider. Battlefield 1942 lets you play the role of both German and Japanese.

Cool. Do they let you round up the Jews from Polish villages?

Around 1991 a computer game called "KZ Manager" was making the rounds in which the player was in charge of a concentration camp. I've never seen it but I suppose it could be available somewhere on the net.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r102:S21MY1-857:

When I was in the USSR in 1979 I bought a copy of "Krokodil," the Communist humor magazine put out by the government. I got a good laugh from one of the cartoons I saw there. The caption read "In W. Germany, toy concentration camps are becoming popular." It showed a child playing with a barbed wire enclosure and human figures. The cartoon showed his mother saying "Hans, time for dinner." The child replied: "OK mom, just let me finish exterminating a few more subhumans."

[bipolarbear]

I always played as the Germans in Wolfenstein
Of course, I was not the only one, so many servers ended up with like 2 Americans "storming" a fortress guarded by 14 Germans. But everyone had a great time trying to kill those two poor guys before someone else got to them

good fun!

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by laurentius
Why is that german soldiers are always automatically seen as nazis? When in fact most of the soldiers and their commanders were the most sane in the Reich.

Probably cause at the time Americans always said they were fighting the Nazis, killing Nazis, etc, rather than killing Germans. We were actually trying to emphasize the ideological rather than national aspect of the war, surprisingly enough (in stark contrast to our internal propaganda wrt the Pacific war). Post war, when Germans were definitely our friends, it again was important to emphasize that we only fought "Nazis".

In fairness it should be said that German officers took loyalty oaths to Hitler. Even if some, like Canaris, were consistently in violation of those oaths. Not too many were like Canaris, though.

[BeBMan]

The Wehrmacht-Nazi thing is still a kind of sensible topic here. Because generally the army was of course one of the main instruments in Hitler's hands to reach his goals. Without Wehrmacht no Lebensraum. So I am not willing to draw a clear line between nazi-rule and the Wehrmacht as institution. And the Wehrmacht was clearly involved in war crimes etc., it wasn't exclusively done by SS or else (although the army mainly did not the killings, but gave logistical support to the SS in such cases).

Otoh, on an individual level of course it would be stupid to say that all soldiers were really nazis. Many may have thought it was their duty to serve the country, some may have been ignorant or may have been active nazi-supporters (esp. after the first victories), and some resisted, although many of those in the higher ranks often only after some years of serving the regime, but nevertheless....

The problem with nazis in movies or games is IMO more that they often appear as simple cliches. For games - I think similar about it as Sir Ralph does. I don't play shooters, but in strategy games or in flight sims like European Air War (some years ago) I usually play both sides.

[The Emperor Fabulous]

The first thing my sister says she's going to do when she comes back from Germany is play videogames. They don't play much in East Germany, she says.

I wonder if her fiance knows one of my favorite games is Medal of Honor