They really struggled to make it seem much different or worse.
I feel like Wolfenstein at least acknowledges this more than most alt history scenarios would. In the first game Jimi Hendrix says something like “before the nazis came you were the nazis” when he talks about his experiences growing up. The second game has BJ recruiting a bunch of leftists in Louisiana and an analogue of the Black Panthers both of which were presumably not fans of pre-war USA.
Also it’s a series where you shoot Nazis with laser guns on the moon. It’s great.
I don’t know how to think about there being an actual worldwide ancient secret Jewish society controlling advanced technology. I feel like that part could have been done more gracefully.
Why do the KKK wear robes anyways? Curious, I’m not from the US (thankfully)
The earliest Klansmen after the Civil War didn’t really have a standard outfit but they did wear masks sometimes. The white robes and pointed mask was literally invented by the MOVIE “The Birth of a Nation” (technically the book first but movie was more popular) that put the Klan in those robes because they thought it made them look cool. Then real Klan Members started doing because they thought it looked cool in the movie. The Klan would actually go to movie showings in those robes like fucking harry Potter LARPers lol
The US was basically the role model to the Nazis. Delousing others, using Zyklon B, manifest destiny/lebensraum, genetic superiority BS.
Delousing
What’s wrong with getting rid of head lice, or is there a different meaning I’m not familiar with?
Zyklon B was originally a delousing agent, IIRC. Also when speaking about the nazis the word takes on some unsavoury race hygiene connotations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1917_Bath_riots
By others I mean “others”
Sometimes they used Zyklon B, sometimes kerosene. One time it caught fire.
This game series also has you fighting Nazi warlocks and zombies so I mean
The funniest shit ever was that japans plan for the war with the US was to capture Hawaii then ransom it for various US holdings in the South Pacific
Really? I haven’t heard that one. I didn’t think they had any plan to take Hawaii, even if they had won at Midway. Their objective was to destroy the American fleet and then make peace from a position of strength.
At any rate, Oahu was swarming with American troops and there was no way the Japanese could have taken it. They would have had to dedicate every cargo ship in their fleet to carry supplies and men, and those were needed to take oil from the southern resource area to the homeland. You know, the whole reason they started the war in the first place.
That moment in the game when the Nazi is talking to the KKK members and inquiring with them about whether or not they’re ready for the official day that German becomes the official national language, and it’s clear that learning a new language is far beyond the KKK members’ capability. Little details like that went a long way for me.
Man in the High Castle has this problem. too.
“Oh no, they’re learning about how the Founding Fathers had slaves - in a good way - instead of it being swept under the rug…”
“Oh no, the cops are all racists…”
"Oh no, the 1960’s US is eradicating people with disabilities…
“Oh no, the ghetto of Black Communists is being strong-armed by violent secret police…”
Props to the show for doing a 1-to-1 comparison between a child handing himself over to be euthanized and a child handing himself over to fight in the Vietnam War, though. Probably the only good thing to come out of it. The rest of the show is just “Return to the Normal of 1940’s America”.
PKD’s Man in the High Castle should at least be commended for having one of the only examples of an alternate-alternate history. There’s an in-universe novel, The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, that describes an alt history of the Nazi’s defeat and then a kind of glorious American future. I think PKD knew what he was doing here, because the alt-alt post-war America instantly starts colonizing Africa, the USSR is dissolved, and half the world gets American factories built within them. This is all described in positive terms and the book is read for comfort in Nazi America. Also there’s a Cold War… But it’s with the UK.
I haven’t seen the show though, only read the book.
