# Where Are All the Blond Nazis? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 2, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956 "2006-04-02T16:52:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/1 "2006-04-02T16:52:43Z")
I just read a reference to physicist Werner Heisenberg as having had “classic Teutonic looks, blond hair and blue eyes.” That started me thinking of the Aryan ideal, people whose looks we associate more today with Scandinavians than Germans. And that train of thought brought to the depiction of Nazis in movies. Almost all Nazis were played by dark-haired types. Admittedly, Hitler and some of his top cohorts were dark-haired in reality, but the Nazi stereotype wasn’t supposed to be this way. I can’t think of another stereotype on screen portrayed differently from the stereotype out in the world. Why weren’t there more blond Nazis in films? Is it just because of Hilter’s swarthiness? Is it because Americans have traditionally equated villains with darkness? Were all the blonds too busy playing the good guys? And don’t get me started on white horses, which were never ridden by Nazis. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/2 "2006-04-02T18:08:53Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > I just read a reference to physicist Werner Heisenberg as having had “classic Teutonic looks, blond hair and blue eyes.” I stand to be corrected, but am virtually certain that Heisenberg had _red_ hair. (ha ha - I said “virtually certain” in a post about Heisenberg 🙂 ) ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/3 "2006-04-02T18:13:04Z")
[Red hair](http://www.osiart.com/Physiker/images/Heisenberg_1.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/4 "2006-04-02T18:43:54Z")
IIRC, even the Scandinavians, at least the original ones, like the Vikings, were not blondes but redheads. Blond hair and blue eyes comes from the Slavs-the people Hitler hated most after the Jews. ---
**Author:** ![bonzer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@bonzer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bonzer)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/5 "2006-04-02T18:55:20Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > [Red hair](http://www.osiart.com/Physiker/images/Heisenberg_1.jpg). Except that that’s not the original image - it’s a painting based on a fairly well-known [B&W photo](http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/specialcollections/coll/pauling/bond/pictures/large-portrait-heisenberg.html). Otherwise, his hair colour was always uniformly described as blond. For example, his biographer David Cassidy quotes a passage from Max Born’s autobiography that when they first met he’d looked “like a simple farm boy, with short fair hair, clear bright eyes, and a charming expression.” After childhood, when they show an obvious blond mop, his hair does however tend to show up as dark in photos. As for the general question, it may have something to do with the point that even the Nazis didn’t necessarily think that the prevailing appearance in Germany accorded with the stereotype. Blond and blue-eyed was supposed to be the appearance of the original Aryans. The existing German population was perceived as having been diluted - to a greater or lesser extent - by other races and so, while still better than other nationalities, capable of “improvement”. Their racial policies were then meant to produce a return to this Aryan ideal. Clearly their own propaganda very deliberately focussed on this stereotype as a way of encouraging that. But I don’t think it’s a surprise that foreigners didn’t play along with it. ---
**Author:** ![Argent\_Towers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e8c25b/32.png) [@Argent\_Towers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Argent_Towers)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/6 "2006-04-02T19:32:34Z")
Or just that the Nazi racial ideology was a crock of shit. Example: Jews bad, but Arabs were “Aryan brothers.” Russians bad, but Japanese were “the Aryans of the East.” Serbs bad, but Armenians were “Aryan.” Clearly anyone who was willing to be a political ally of the Nazis was capable of being an “Aryan” all of a sudden. ---
**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:** [April 2, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/7 "2006-04-02T19:52:35Z")
Blond people are a minority in Germany (the typical German hair colour is between light brown and dark brown; children often look blond when young but grow up to be brown-haired). Obviously the Nazis were well aware of that. The stereotypical blond-blue-eyed phenotype was often referred to as “Nordic”, a subset of “Aryan”. “Aryan” in the typical use seems to have been more of a popular antonym to “Jewish” than what Nazi racial theoreticians used the term for. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/8 "2006-04-02T20:18:40Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > **Where Are All the Blond Nazis?** Here they are: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian\_Blue\_(American\_duo)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussian_Blue_%28American_duo%29) > [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > And don’t get me started on white horses, which were never ridden by Nazis. Of course not! Nazis ride on dinosaurs! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/9 "2006-04-02T20:39:32Z")
My guess is, peroxide was severely rationed during the war. ---
**Author:** ![Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Can\_Handle\_the\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Can_Handle_the_Truth)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/10 "2006-04-03T00:59:27Z")
The Anglo-Saxons were blond and blue-eyed. When Pope Gregory the Great first saw a group of Angle children for sale in the roman slave market, he was so struck by their looks that he said, “Not Angles, but angels!” and sent St. Augustine (of Canterbury) to convert them to christianity in 597. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/11 "2006-04-03T02:05:00Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > Almost all Nazis were played by dark-haired types. Admittedly, Hitler and some of his top cohorts were dark-haired in reality, but the Nazi stereotype wasn’t supposed to be this way. I remember seeing a political cartoon about “THE ARYAN IDEAL” from just before WWII (pretty sure it was American, but perhaps British) which read BLONDE like Hitler WELL-SHAPED like Goering HANDSOME like Goebbels …with appropriate caricatures of each. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aca169/32.png) [@The\_Piranha\_Brothers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Piranha_Brothers)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/12 "2006-04-03T12:51:49Z")
> [@Argent Towers](#): > > Or just that the Nazi racial ideology was a crock of shit. > > Example: > > Jews bad, but Arabs were “Aryan brothers.” > Russians bad, but Japanese were “the Aryans of the East.” > Serbs bad, but Armenians were “Aryan.” > > Clearly anyone who was willing to be a political ally of the Nazis was capable of being an “Aryan” all of a sudden. Yes, after all, the whole idea was flawed. Just like skull measuring. It wasn’t scientific, it was bullocks. Also: do people never move or mix with other people during hundreds of years? ---
**Author:** ![saoirse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@saoirse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/saoirse)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/13 "2006-04-03T12:54:48Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > I remember seeing a political cartoon about “THE ARYAN IDEAL” from just before WWII (pretty sure it was American, but perhaps British) which read > > BLONDE like Hitler > > WELL-SHAPED like Goering > > HANDSOME like Goebbels > > …with appropriate caricatures of each. I thought it was “TALL like Hitler, BLONDE like Himmler, SLIM like Goering.” Same point, though. ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/14 "2006-04-03T14:19:47Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > Is it because Americans have traditionally equated villains with darkness? Were all the blonds too busy playing the good guys? I actually think you’ve put your finger on it. I’d love to see somebody create a pigmentation index, and see how good guys versus bad guys stack up on it. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/15 "2006-04-03T15:37:33Z")
It’s certainly true for females. All female villains are dark-haired. Many dark-haired (or redheads who showed up dark in b&w like Myrna Loy) later stars got their starts playing bad girls or even “Oriental” vamps. The problem is that it’s hard to think of many true blond male stars of the era. Alan Ladd was blondish but not extremely fair. But this would open the doors for character roles for blonds, and allow them to play villains and get work. It’s a puzzlement. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/16 "2006-04-03T17:05:05Z")
Well, just off the top of my head, two female blond, blue-eyed villains: The woman in the third Indiana Jones movie and the one in Bullet Proff Monk. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/17 "2006-04-03T17:09:27Z")
Sorry, I’m discussing 30s and 40s b&w films. Nothing modern or in color. ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/18 "2006-04-03T17:22:43Z")
_“Where Are All the Blond Nazis?”_ Am I the only one who is hearing this as sung by Peter, Paul and Mary? I’ve been watching too many public television pledgathons, I think… ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/19 "2006-04-03T18:30:08Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > [Red hair](http://www.osiart.com/Physiker/images/Heisenberg_1.jpg). > [@Professor Farnsworth](#): > > No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Ponder\_Stibbons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponder_stibbons/32/343_2.png) [@Ponder\_Stibbons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponder_Stibbons)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/20 "2006-04-03T18:33:07Z")
> [@Plynck](#): > > _“Where Are All the Blond Nazis?”_ > > Am I the only one who is hearing this as sung by Peter, Paul and Mary? I’m imagining a sextet with Peter, Paul, Mary, and the Chad Mitchell Trio … You _have_ heard the “I am Not A Nazi Polka”, I assume … [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956.md?page=2)