In fashion, architecture, aircraft and weapon design, etc. the design aesthetics of industrialized WWII Germany still have a resonant power decades after the fact that most other armies and political movements lacked.
Is it simply the power and resonance of the memories of the evil they were associated with that make them such iconic totems, or was there an underlying power to the design aesthetic of the German WWII zeitgeist that’s coming through on some level?
Long before Hitler came to power, there was the Bauhaus style.
You also have to remember that prior to Hitler, Germany was also a hotbed of decadence and style.
The fashion, film, theater and literature were world renowned. Add to that their design of cars: Mercedes, BMW and even the lowly VW.
Having lived in Germany (Berlin mostly) for many years, I was amazed at some of the amazing architecture, interior designs and fashion both pre-war and after.
Even today, if you Google interior design, architecture and fashion in Germany, you might be surprised to see new designs and fashions you don’t see in the US today.
I am aware it is unpopular to praise Germany for almost anything, but in terms of design and technology, well - take a look at what they had, and what they have, and you might be impressed.
I don’t immediately think of any German aircraft from WWII that were particular aesthetic triumphs. I think the real classic of that era was the Spitfire, and perhaps a few others like the P-38 and B-17. The Germans certainly advanced the technology, though.
Nazi-approved painting was terrible portentous neo-classical stuff. The architecture was nearly as bad.
The stuff they labelled Degenerate art was far better than anything any Nazi-approved artist made.
The Nazi era was a big step backwards for art for the Germans. After all, if Hitler had been a GOOD painter…
I wouldn’t entirely say that in achitecture. Albert Speer was a lot of things, but he was no hack. In fact, it would really have been quite good save they had to pump everything up into a gigantic predeccesor of brutalism. And some of Hitler’s architectural ideas were stretching into the mind-blowingly-gigantic-just-because.
However, in all things, it wasn’t really just what the Nazis themselves had, but that they forbid anything except what they had. Thus, they drove away most of the culture of Germany, and pushed what remained underground.
I always thought the Me-262 looked pretty snazzy.
The Stuka was pretty terrifying. And the V-2 was certainly a trendsetting design.
Nazi architecture was just Art Deco on Steroids. (The Texas State Fairhas buildings from the same era.)
It isn’t the designs themselves that are compelling, it’s that they are associated with the Supreme Evil of modern history. The compellingness comes from their summoning all the psychological associations that come with that.
The FW200 Kondor airliner/bomber was a pretty graceful design too.
As a Jew, I must admit that the Nazis had the coolest, snazziest dress uniforms of any modern military.
You should see the (unbuilt, though planned) high-speed variant.
I think the attractiveness of Nazi stuff is being overstated, especially in terms of their art, cinema and architecture, which was mostly pretty terrible. I also don’t see how their planes and tanks were any prettier than Allied weapons. What Nazi planes were more gorgeous than the Spitfire or Mustang?
But there’s certainly something to the idea that their uniforms and political stuff were very compelling. The thing is, that was very much the point. Nazi Germany was a totalitarian state in the true sense of that word. The state’s intent was to control all aspects of German lives. Part of accomplishing that was getting the German people to buy into the Nazi mythos. If you’re trying to convince the people to engage in endless racial holy war, you want to convince them they really are the master race, and to control their minds and wills to the greatest extend possible.
So the Nazis intentionally militarized the state, and then the people. Making the military as sleek and as awesome-looking as possible was a deliberate step towards making the process attractive to common Germans. That sort of thing wasn’t especially important to, say, the Americans, who weren’t trying to permanently militarize the people.
My late uncle (US Army WWII veteran) liked the German “feldgrau” uniforms just fine-they made excellent targets!
The Mustang is one of the most boring looking planes ever built. But that was deliberate as North American kept the design as simple as possible using straight lines and avoiding compound curves. This simple design made the Mustang very easy to build and allowed for mass production. The Spitfire for example, had an aerodynamically brilliant design but required lots of complex jigs and tools to produce.
Them’s fightin’ words 
But seriously, even though this isn’t GQ, it would be cool if you had a cite for the remainder of your statement. I have not heard that assertion before (though it may be common knowledge to everyone who knows Spitfires and Mustangs).
This.
When we think of sleek, stylistic military fashion and design today, it’s almost inevitably informed by the look of fascism, especially Nazism. Why? Because in most ways, they created that look, and achieved the pinnacle. It was supposed to be impressive to the folks at home, and intimidating to their adversaries. It worked.
Alas, the Nazis ruined the aesthetic for all time, and what was naturally the most effective (read: cool) is now indelibly associated with evil.
What’s interesting to me is when their aesthetic overlapped with functional design, and how replicating that aesthetic today even for purely functional reasons can be controversial. For instance, when the U.S. armed forces introduced the Kevlar helmet in 1985, I recall some civilian observers complained that it looked too much like a Nazi helmet. Fact was, that design provided more effective protection than traditional U.S. helmets.
I’m digging through my bookshelf to find the reference I was thinking of, but in the mean time I tried to find an online cite, suprisingly difficult to find a comprehensive cite but here you go.
This page, paras 11 and 13 just past the twin mustang line drawing, make reference to the fact that the Mustang was designed for ease of manufacture. It must also be remembered that the plane was designed and built in under 120 days by a company with limited fighter design experience. The result is that the Mustang had to be simply designed in order to get it built and flying within the deadline. These attempts at simplicity had another side effect, they made the Mustang one of the cheapest fighters of the war and in terms of performance it was probably therefore the best value for money.
It still looks boring though, especially compared to Vought F4U Corsair - Wikipedia.
The whole Nazi aesthetic was promoted and displayed and choreographed like no others before or since. I’m referring to the incredible propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will and Olympia. Then there were all those tremendous victory marches of Hitler and his armies through the capitals of Europe after destroying all opposition.
Never before or since has a design theme been spread by conquering armies and extensive newsreel footage.
I have never been fond of the nonretracting landing gear, but mrAru says that it makes the Stuka look like a stooping hawk.
I think a lot of them were made, if not designed, by Hugo Boss. So it’s no accident.
I like Mitchell and Webb’s take on the whole thing:
