# What was the "Nazi" cliche before, ya know, the Nazis? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 22, 2010, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589 "2010-07-22T13:23:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/21 "2010-07-22T17:04:11Z")
On a related question I’ve been waiting to ask, who was the go to guy for evil comparisons before Hitler? Or in other words how did people Godwinize before Hitler. I would guess that Judas would be in the running, but was curious if there was anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Mops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mops/32/16494_2.png) [@Mops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mops)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/22 "2010-07-22T17:08:32Z")
> [@In\_Winnipeg](#): > > I remember reading about a case where a man in Prussia impersonated some VIP, and no one ever questioned him about it because he was wearing a uniform – does anyone recall more about it? It would have occurred in the late 1800s. That would be the [Captain of Köpenick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Voigt) case in 1906. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/23 "2010-07-22T17:09:15Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > On a related question I’ve been waiting to ask, who was the go to guy for evil comparisons before Hitler? Or in other words how did people Godwinize before Hitler. I would guess that Judas would be in the running, but was curious if there was anyone else. The Devil? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/24 "2010-07-22T17:11:02Z")
The Nazis really raised the bar for evil empires. Like the Prussians on steroids. It wasn’t just the uniforms, pagentry and scary accents. The Nazis also brought mechanized warfare to a new level with the Blitzkrieg and industrialized genocide. No one ever did that before. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/25 "2010-07-22T17:19:02Z")
Interesting **cjpson**. Though it sounds from that quote like pre-war Germans weren’t so much oppressed as willing to take orders. The OED gives these examples of using the word “Tsar” as a person of tyrannical authority that seem close to what we want: > [@](#): > > 1866 in Sperber & Trittschuh Amer. Political Terms (1962) 111/1 There wuz an immense crowd, but the Czar uv all the Amerikas didn’t get orf his speech here. 1893 McClure’s Mag. I. 375 He was being held up as ‘The Czar’{em}a man whose iron heels were crushing out American popular government. 1899 Daily News 20 Apr. 5/5 It is unlikely that any successor will be found able to dominate..as ‘Czar’ Reed could do. 1931 E. LINKLATER Juan in America IV. vii. 338 Red-eye was a czar at whose anger the household grew faint. 1959 Listener 5 Nov. 784/1 The Czar{em}as we say{em}or President of the Motion Picture Producers’ Association. > [@](#): > > 1889 Fortn. Rev. XLVI. 285 This frightful régime of innumerable Tsarlets. 1905 DILLON in Contemp. Rev. Aug. 280 They are sharers of autocratic absolutism, provincial tsarlets. Which makes sense, the Tsars were arguably the most oppressive pre-WWI rulers in Europe, with their own famous secret police, and half the Russian population working basically as slave as serfs on farms. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/26 "2010-07-22T17:30:19Z")
Before the Prussians it was the [Turks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Turkism). Calling someone “a regular Turk” indicated they were cruel and authoritarian. From the Wiki article: > [@](#): > > They [the Turks] were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity. Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track behind them, and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization disappeared from view. They represented everywhere government by force, as opposed to government by law. > > - William Gladstone, 1876 ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/27 "2010-07-22T17:43:50Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > Arabs? The Ottomans had a considerable empire back then. The Ottomans weren’t Arabs; they were Turks. ---
**Author:** ![Saltire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saltire/32/553_2.png) [@Saltire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saltire)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/28 "2010-07-22T18:13:29Z")
While in many ways they are the opposite of Nazis, I would think that **anarchists** would have been a touchstone of evil behavior through the century before Hitler’s rise. But I don’t know if the term would be used to paint an opponent the same way. ---
**Author:** ![awldune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@awldune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/awldune)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/29 "2010-07-22T18:28:54Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > The OED gives these examples of using the word “Tsar” as a person of tyrannical authority that seem close to what we want: This. Czar is the best analogue to the “Soup Nazi” usage the OP is looking for. Ivan the Terrible being the exemplar. ---
**Author:** ![code\_grey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@code\_grey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/code_grey)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/30 "2010-07-22T18:56:29Z")
don’t forget the Inquisition and the evil Vatican, especially in British popular culture. The evil Papists were not quite as openly out to get them at the turn of the century as in late 16th century, but suspicion dies hard. And the Protestants back then were no less prone to exaggerating Inquisition impact than the atheists today. ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/31 "2010-07-22T18:56:43Z")
Certainly, the seat of the empire was Turkish, but they covered a great deal of ‘Arab’ land. ---
**Author:** ![Indistinguishable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/90ced4/32.png) [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/32 "2010-07-22T19:08:52Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > Certainly, the seat of the empire was Turkish, but they covered a great deal of ‘Arab’ land. Sure, but one doesn’t consider the emperor’s subjects the “tyrannical” ones. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/33 "2010-07-22T19:13:58Z")
Centurions? Or Spartans! ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/34 "2010-07-22T19:48:17Z")
> [@Saltire](#): > > While in many ways they are the opposite of Nazis, I would think that **anarchists** would have been a touchstone of evil behavior through the century before Hitler’s rise. But I don’t know if the term would be used to paint an opponent the same way. In pre WWI UK, Russian anarchists would fit the bill: > **[Tottenham Outrage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tottenham_Outrage)** > > The Tottenham Outrage of 23 January 1909 was an armed robbery in Tottenham, North London, that resulted in a two-hour chase between the police and armed criminals over a distance of six miles (10 km), with an estimated 400 rounds of ammunition fired by the thieves. The robbery, of workers' wages from the Schnurmann rubber factory, was carried out by Paul Helfeld and Jacob Lepidus, Jewish Latvian immigrants. Of the twenty-three casualties, two were fatal and several others serious, among them s... > **[Siege of Sidney Street](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Street_Siege)** > > The siege of Sidney Street of January 1911, also known as the Battle of Stepney, was a gunfight in the East End of London between a combined police and army force and two Latvian revolutionaries. The siege was the culmination of a series of events that began in December 1910, with an attempted jewellery robbery at Houndsditch in the City of London by a gang of Latvian immigrants which resulted in the murder of three policemen, the wounding of two others, and the death of George Gardstein, a k... ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/35 "2010-07-22T20:24:17Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#): > > The Ottomans weren’t Arabs; they were Turks. I think, technically, Turks are from Turkmenistan. Most of the “Turks” in Turkey were not really Turks, at least before the Ottoman Empire was broken up. At one point, their domain even included Egypt. At least according to David Fromkin’s book. Back to the OP: Until the Nazis went global with it, evil was pretty much a regional thing. One person’s Pilate was another’s Attila. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/36 "2010-07-22T20:49:04Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > Interesting **cjpson**. Though it sounds from that quote like pre-war Germans weren’t so much oppressed as willing to take orders. > > The OED gives these examples of using the word “Tsar” as a person of tyrannical authority that seem close to what we want: > > Which makes sense, the Tsars were arguably the most oppressive pre-WWI rulers in Europe, with their own famous secret police, and half the Russian population working basically as slave as serfs on farms. It’s oddly appropriate that in Hebrew, _tzar_ means distress, enemy, or confinement. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/37 "2010-07-22T20:51:42Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > Certainly, the seat of the empire was Turkish, but they covered a great deal of ‘Arab’ land. Hijack: Arable land is land that is only actually tilled by Arabs. Sorry. But it’s one of my all-time favorites. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/38 "2010-07-22T21:19:04Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > One person’s Pilate was another’s Attila. Hey, Jesus willingly gave himself up to death, so He has as much to do with the killing as Pontius did. In fact, you could say that God is my Co-Pilate. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2010, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/39 "2010-07-22T23:24:48Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > The Nazis really raised the bar for evil empires. Like the Prussians on steroids. > > It wasn’t just the uniforms, pagentry and scary accents. The Nazis also brought mechanized warfare to a new level with the Blitzkrieg and industrialized genocide. No one ever did that before. Yes and no. While the Third Reich was the first to truly industrialize mass murder (and this as official policy only relatively late during the regime, dating to the Wannsee Conference of January 1942) the elements of modern fascism date back to the era of Napoleon Bonaparte with the French Consulate and the succeeding First French Empire. Among the nations of Western Europe and the various Cossack groups “Bonapartist” had roughly the same connotation as “Nazi” does today, evoking the image of brutal, autocratic organized repression and arbitrary application of terroristic violence to strengthen the position of a centralized government beholden to a cult of personality. And while very little in the way of weapon technology changed during the Napoleonic reign, he implemented mobile artillery and what we could now call combined arms into campaigns in a manner which was not done so widely previously, which allowed attacks with his _Grande Armée_ to be more coordinated than previous mass army campaigns, which was itself a predecessor to the _Blitzkrieg_ campaigns of the German Third Reich. And while these campaigns, like the _Blitzkrieg_, were very effective against enemies with a poorly concentrated or logistically supported force, they were ultimately self-defeating when applied to extended campaigns (and hence, the reason for the old saw “never fight a land war in Asia,”). Stranger ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2010, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589/40 "2010-07-23T02:35:25Z")
Well, when (British) commentators were discussing Nazis in the early 1930s for a (British) audience, a common comparison was the Black and Tans, i.e. living in Germany in 1934 was like living in a country governed by Black and Tans. But I doubt that the reference would work very well outside Britain and Ireland. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-nazi-cliche-before-ya-know-the-nazis/547589.md?page=3)