HBO’s Westworld season III debuts on March 15th. One of the theme parks featured this time is a WWII/Nazi World, but this is far from the first time when alternate Nazi dominated worlds have been used as plot devices in TV and film.
Let’s take a look at some of them- including Man in the High Castle, SS:GB, An Englishman’s Castle, Fatherland – and of course multiple episodes of Misfits and no less than five Star Trek stories (Patterns of Force in the original series), Star Trek: Voyager (The Killing Game two-parter) and Star Trek: Enterprise (Storm Front double episode).
Why so popular? I guess the perennial appeal of the ‘what-if’ and to some, the whole Nazi uniform aesthetic/fetish (Hugo Boss etc). And the fact that, in a world where there are many shades of grey, WWII Nazis are always identifiable as the bad guys. Death’s Head/Lightening Strike symbols, Swastikas, armbands, high shine jackboots and Bible-black uniforms being a bit of a giveaway…
