# 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:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/21 "2006-04-03T19:35:01Z")
In _Stalag 17_… Handsome, tall, flaxen-haired Peter Graves turns out to be a German-born Nazi spy set in among the prisoners. However, for most of the movie, you’re supposed to believe he’s a typical wholesome, red-blooded American boy from the mid-West, so I think he’s cast with that stereotype in mind rather than the Aryan ideal. ---
**Author:** ![Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@Chance\_the\_Gardener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chance_the_Gardener)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/22 "2006-04-03T21:05:01Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > 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. I’ve got (anecdotal) proof of this. When I was an infant, I had blond hair and blue eyes. My Polish grandmother was thrilled. “He looks like a little Polish boy!” she is said to have exclaimed. I was the only one of us four kids to have started out life that way. When I was two, my hair started to darken, becoming the dark brown that it is today, just like my Wasp mother’s. My eyes never changed, though. What a disappointment I turned out to be! My Great-Aunt Helen was a Polish national who had fair skin, fair hair and I don’t know what color eyes. She married a German army officer during the 1920s and moved to Germany. When Hitler came to power, her husband either divorced her or the marriage was dissolved on account of a German army officer not being able to be married to a Pole because, as the Führer pointed out in his 1924 bestseller, Slavs are basically animals. She went home to mother in Sosnowiec and was then sent to Auschwitz. I’m not sure why they singled her out, except for maybe the potential for embarrassment she carried, having been married to a German army officer. She contracted diabetes in Auschwitz and died in 1946. Needless to say, my Slavic relatives were never sweet on Nazis, but there was a definite fondness for the blond hair and blue eyes. But even that crazy wallpaper hanger would have to admit that my Polish relatives were pretty ideal-looking for genetic garbage that needed to be exterminated for lebensraum. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/23 "2006-04-03T21:20:01Z")
> [@Can Handle the Truth](#): > > 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. There’s a point that needs to be brought up. Many Nordics are towheaded (extremely fair-haired) as children, but gain melanin with maturity, their hair becoming darker & duller. Those with red pigmentation may be luminously redhaired as children, but merely coppery as adults. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/24 "2006-04-03T22:10:15Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > 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. OTOH, I’ve never seen the Virgin Mary portrayed as a blonde. (On the gripping hand, I’ve never seen her portrayed as noticeably Jewish, either.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/25 "2006-04-03T22:12:11Z")
> [@Ponder Stibbons](#): > > You _have_ heard the “I am Not A Nazi Polka”, I assume … No, but I’ve heard Tom Lehrer’s song about Wehrner von Braun. ---
**Author:** ![Mississippienne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d2c977/32.png) [@Mississippienne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mississippienne)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/26 "2006-04-03T22:32:09Z")
> [@Sal Ammoniac](#): > > 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. How about Marvel Comics? HEROES Tony Stark/Iron Man: Tall, dark, and handsome. Steve Rogers: Blond, blue-eyed all-American. Peter Parker/Spider-man: Fairly non-descript brunet fellow. Matt Murdock/Daredevil: Red-headed of Irish descent. Logan/Wolverine: Short, dark, and hairy. VILLAINS Victor von Doom/Doctor Doom: In pre-mask days, dark and somewhat exotic looking, as befits his gypsy background. Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto: white-haired, blue-eyed handsome fellow. Helmut Zemo/Baron Zemo: When he’s not scarred, he’s the blond and blue-eyed Aryan ideal. Loki, God of Lies: Dark-haired and wore a funny hat. ---
**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:** [April 3, 2006, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956/27 "2006-04-03T22:43:06Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > 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? Blond and blue-eyed was the _Nazi’s_ own stereotype for themselves. For others, Hitler was the archetypal Nazi, so he became the stereotype, to some degree. And the equation of darkness with evil probably had something to do with it. However, I would disagree that this was a universal stereotype. There were a fair number of blond Nazis in movies, such as [Wolf Kahler](http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0082971/Ss/0082971/IJ1_IA_193_R.jpg?path=gallery&path_key=0082971). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-are-all-the-blond-nazis/350956.md?page=1)