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Hitler Ate Sugar

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Hitler Ate Sugar (trope)
Who's gonna tell him that Josef Mengele was a dentist?note 
"You know, I shouldn't have to explain this, but sharing one attribute with Nazis doesn't make you one!"

A logical fallacy, specifically a sub-type of Association Fallacy, that assumes that anything done or liked by a bad person must be bad itself, taking things to absurd levels.

The premise seems to be that bad people must have a way to tell if something is evil. Either that, or bad people are repulsed by anything that isn't at least as evil as they are. Whatever the reason, bad people magically will only associate with things that are also bad. Therefore, people claim a thing is bad because bad people associate with it.

This is a concept called the Association Fallacy (or the more well-known term "Guilt by Association"), which often overlaps with Godwin's Law due to how often Adolf Hitler is used (also known as Reductio ad Hitlerum). After all, Hitler has the reputation of being the very embodiment of evil in history. So, he supposedly would only do/like/own things that are as evil as himself. You know, things like sitting on a chair, wearing clothes, eating, taking a walk, and breathing. Hitler did those things, but that doesn't make them bad. Hitler is not the reason things are bad. We don't think committing mass murder is bad because Hitler, Stalin, or other bad people did it. We think those people are bad because they committed mass murder. In other words, this trope is backward. A thing being bad stands on its own as bad. It would be like:

Bob: I want to commit genocide.
Alice: The Nazis committed genocide.
Bob: Really? What was I thinking? I can't believe I was going to do something the Nazis did.

This is also one of the reasons why we are often loath to admit that a person who we hate may actually be right for once. Remember, Don't Shoot the Message. Someone intimidated by this "argument" may invoke No True Scotsman as a "rebuttal" ("Hitler wasn't a REAL vegetarian").

For similar reasons, this trope also has been known to overlap with You Know Who Said That?, when a person says a quote that other people would agree with at face value, but then—gotcha!—reveals Hitler or some other contemptible figure articulated it first. Of course, as explained, that doesn't necessarily prove the idea is immoral on its own merits.

On the other hand, if it's framed very carefully there can be a valid point to be made here. If something is demonstrably evil on its own terms, then pointing out how it's tied to an evil source is relevant not as a proof but as a supporting example. It might even serve as a sort of moral wake-up call. That would be like:

Bob: Greedy Jew isn't a racist stereotype.
Alice: Then how come the Nazis used it in their racist propaganda?
Bob:Hitler's approval fills me with shame.

A particularly insidious individual can invert this to normalize abhorrent behavior. If someone points out that a person or government is carrying out evil actions comparable to the Nazis, the accused can simply claim that their critics are employing this trope. The insinuation is that the Nazis weren't wrong to practice the actions the present party is accused of perpetrating now and that the accusation is spurious.

A Sub-Trope of So Was X, Anti-Advice, and the Association Fallacy.

A Sister Trope to Abomination Accusation Attack (attacking people by accusing them of doing or wanting to do something inexcusably atrocious), Ad Hominem (refuting an argument by insulting an aspect of the presenter that isn't relevant to the argument's content), Chewbacca Defense (attempting to win a debate using an irrelevant logical fallacy), Godwin's Law (insinuating that a person is bad by comparing them to Hitler and the Nazis), Damned by a Fool's Praise (insinuating that something is bad because a stupid or unpleasant person likes it), Space Whale Aesop (a moral that involves bad actions having ludicrously unrealistic consequences), and Bulverism (contesting someone's motives for believing an idea without explaining why the idea is wrong in the first place).

Often used as one of the less spurious links in a chain of Insane Troll Logic.

This trope also has a page on Wikipedia, where it is referred to as Reductio ad Hitlerum.

This trope is based on very similar thinking to No True Scotsman, as both are logical fallacies used to exclude or stigmatize something. It could also be seen as something of an Inverted Trope: No True Scotsman fallaciously excludes one bad example to keep people from identifying the broader group with it, while Hitler Ate Sugar fallaciously goes right ahead and identifies the broader group with the one bad example. An alternate form of inversion is What Would X Do?, when people argue that an action is good solely on the grounds that a good person did it. Yet another inversion would be Even Evil Has Standards, where a widely hated villain's disapproval is taken as evidence that something must be really bad.

Unrelated to Real Men Hate Sugar, where people come to hate something normally considered pleasant due to cultural expectations of what is considered "mature" or "masculine". If Hitler is shown hating sugar, it would likely be a case of Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad, but still counting as this trope if sugar is portrayed as good entirely based on Hitler's dislike of it as a result. As such, unless it is used to demonize sugar and the people who eat it, this trope also has nothing to do with Hitler's well-documented fondness for sweets.

See Villains Out Shopping for examples of evildoers doing innocuous things.


Please note that this page is for examples where one claims X is bad due to being done, eaten, read, watched, or what-have-you by demonstrably bad people. It's not for cases where the meaning is more "Look, just because they do/eat/read/watch X, doesn't mean they are a good person." It's the difference between the fallacious argument "Hitler ate sugar, therefore sugar is bad" and the valid argument "Even Hitler ate sugar. Eating sugar does not automatically make you nice."

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • Bleach: Despite Love Aikawa restraining her before she could have a chance to retaliate, Hiyori Sarugaki was none too keen about putting on a shihakusho, since they're associated with the Gotei 13, the same organization that exiled her for becoming an unwilling test subject in Aizen's schemes that resulted in her becoming a Shinigami-Hollow hybrid, Love and others included.
  • Digimon Tamers: The D-Reaper never Grew Beyond Its Programming after analyzing Juri's mind when she was still depressed over Leomon's sacrifice. It was working as intended, it just thinks that everyone is as depressed and unstable as Juri and thus had to be wiped.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Sayaka Miki adamantly refuses to replenish her magic with Grief Seeds just because Homura Akemi, whom she detests and blames for Mami Tomoe's death, uses Grief Seeds.

    Comic Books 
  • In Batman: Fortunate Son, it is retconned that Bruce's parents told him to stop listening to rock and roll on the night that they were killed. Therefore, he comes to the conclusion that rock and roll is death, crime, and the rage of a beast! Or something like that. He also hates punk rock especially because before he became Batman, a punk musician killed a woman, therefore all the entire genre of music is evil and its fans are all insane. He even takes Robin to Arkham Asylum to show him that several of the of the inmates (including Riddler, Two-Face and The Joker) are all fans of rock music to further reinforce this.
  • Judge Death in Judge Dredd's universe has the logically extreme example. It runs something like "Crime is bad. You know who commits crime? People who are alive!" Therefore, "The Crime isss Life, the Sssentence isss DEATH!!"

    Comic Strips 
  • In a Dilbert strip, Ratbert wins every debate on the Internet by using the argument: "How would you like it if Hitler killed you?" In one of his text books, Scott Adams pointed out you can win any argument by comparing something to Hitler. This works so well, he explains, because Hitler was a surprisingly versatile guy; he did everything from invasions to building autobahns.

    Fan Works 
Ed, Edd n Eddy
  • Rise of the Gourd: Jonny decides to target Kyle, Jenna, Paul, and Rachel in the revenge as well, as despite them not being involved in the Mondo-A-Go-Go incident, they befriended the rest of the cul-de-sac, so Jonny considers them guilty by association.

Harry Potter

  • The Accidental Courtship:
    Harry: Why is the Ministry trying to make it so only fourth-years can study Arithmancy?
    Hermione: They claim that some of the Death Eaters were using Arithmancy to predict their enemies' movements. So obviously it's evil and terrible and fourth-years will be so much more mature about it than third-years.
  • Adagio:
    Albus remained silent. Severus didn't roll his eyes, but he did want to. Albus had no reason to hate Parseltongue so intensely, except for its close association with the Dark Lord. He had been reasonable on the subject, as far as Severus knew, until the Dark Lord's ascent.

    Now he seemed to think that anything associated with the Dark Lord was tainted. He had even removed books from the library that the Dark Lord had checked out as a young man.
  • In Blood From A Stone Harry reveals his status as a Parselmouth during Care of Magical Creatures and Sirius regards it negatively.
    Sirius: You-Know-Who is a Parselmouth.
    Remus: He is also a wizard and right handed and enjoys long walks on the beach. Does that make everyone else who shares those traits evil?
  • Harry Potter: Love Bites:
    Dumbledore: Magical enhancement rituals were forbidden by the Ministry. That sort of magical ritual damages the soul and magic of the participant. The last practitioners of it were Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
    Vector: They used wands and toilets too, are we banning those? Going to start my own rebellion if you say yes. Do give us some credit Albus. Filius holds a Charms Mastery, I hold an Arithmancy Mastery, Babbling holds a Rune Mastery and Poppy holds a Medical Mastery and we all have studied the enhancement rituals you are talking about back to Herpo the Foul, and these are not enhancement rituals. They are healing rituals. They undo the damage done by inbreeding in the last three hundred years, the undo the damage of centuries of neglect of proper development of magical channels since the Statue of Secrecy both separated our world from the Muggles and reduced the amount of magic the average witch and wizard needed in their daily lives.
  • Hogwarts Has Had Enough:
    Madame Bones: What evidence do you have, that all rituals are evil?
    Mad-Eye Moody: You-know-who did rituals!
  • In A King's Path Harry balks at performing a fairly innocuous ritual because Voldemort did it.
    Slytherin's portrait: Tom Riddle was a boy, as are you. Does sharing a particular trait with him automatically make you bad?
  • In Nothing Else Matters Lily and Severus decide not to send Harry to Hogwarts.
    McGonagall: They feel our curriculum is lacking compared to Salem Academy's, but mainly it's because they don't want Albus or Potter and Black to have free access to Harry.
    Flitwick: They're right about the curriculum. Albus has been most damaging to it over the years; dropping courses that You-Know-Who showed any interest in as if they were the cause of his turning evil and would cause anybody else to turn evil. I'm glad the board has decided to make changes.

Miraculous Ladybug

  • The Karma of Lies:
    • Adrien runs headlong into this after his father is unmasked as Hawkmoth. Lila further fans the flames by setting him up as her scapegoat, making herself out to be an Unwitting Pawn that Gabriel hired as a model so he could keep tabs on teenage drama that he could potentially exploit, and implying that Adrien had some hand in this as well.
    • Inverted with Marinette's former classmates once she transfers into Ms. Mendeleiev's homeroom. Others swiftly notice that she's cut ties with them and suspect that, since she's such a good person, she must have had ample reason for doing so. All the more so since everyone knows she's Ladybug now.
  • Karma's a Bitch:
    • Adrien manages to avoid this due to being revealed as Chat Noir and publicly denouncing his father upon learning he was Hawk Moth, even after being tempted with the idea of resurrecting his mother using the Wish. Though a minority still believe he might have been involved, most people take these revelations as a sure sign of his innocence, offering condolences and wishing him luck.
    • Zoe is careful to avoid leaving any traceable connection to Lila so that when everything inevitably comes crashing down, no one will have proof that she was involved if and when Lila tries to throw her under the bus.
    • After Gabriel is revealed as Hawk Moth, his employees jump ship en masse, not wanting anything to do with him or his numerous crimes. Vincent the photographer specifically worries that working for a supervillain, even unknowingly, might make it difficult for him to find another job.

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

  • In Equestria: A History Revealed, the narrator reasons that she doesn't understand the scientific process behind baking a cake, and therefore, sees it as something that cannot be explained. She also reasons that dark magic cannot be explained. Therefore, baking must be a representation of dark magic. It gets worse from there on out.
  • In Loved and Lost, Jewelius reasons that the town of Ponyville needs to be made an example of since it's the hometown of the "traitorous" Mane Five. He does this by raising taxes, banning trade with other towns, and sending his soldiers to brutalize the citizens.
  • A somewhat more rational example than the usual in RainbowDoubleDash's Lunaverse. As a result of its association with Corona, the Tyrant Sun, gold is all but taboo.

The Owl House

  • My Brother Cain, My Brother Abel: After discovering Evelyn is a witch, Caleb tries to tell her they can’t see each other anymore because if the other humans discover her they would both be killed. Evelyn is shocked and horrified at the idea that they would kill Caleb just for being seen with her. Later it is proven true when the two of them are caught together and Caleb is put on trial and sentenced to death for consorting with a witch.

Superman

    Films — Live-Action 
  • This is the reasoning behind the title of Bowling for Columbine. Michael Moore notes that media watchdogs and social commentators were alarmingly quick to point to all sorts of societal influences that supposedly caused Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's rampage, including video games, violent movies, bullying, and the like. He suggests in full Sarcasm Mode that they might as well blame the sport of bowling for what happened, as both killers were attending school classes in bowling and played a game the day before the shooting.note 
  • Used in Clerks in a scene where a 'Chewley's' gum representative is trying to stir up anti-cigarette sentiment to sell gum as a substitute. He tells the protagonist that shopkeepers who sell cigarettes are equal to Nazis because clerks like him are Just Following Orders, and so did the Nazis. This is ironic as the Nazis hated smoking. Granted it's a flawed argument considering he obviously has no choice in what he sells and nobody is forced to buy it, but his customers are stirred into pelting him with cigarettes anyway.
  • During one flashback scene in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, wee Hansel is watching his favourite program on Armed Forces Television. He notes that Jesus said that darnedest things, and his mother cuffs him and says "So did Hitler."
    Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
  • In The King of Comedy:
    Rupert Pupkin: I made a mistake.
    Jerry Langford: So did Hitler.
  • The New Tenants: Frank grows increasingly hyperbolic when complaining about Pete hassling him about smoking, eventually moving to vegetarianism and saying "You know, that's how that vegetarian Hitler got started."
  • Played for Laughs in The Nice Guys, where Holland March continuously makes comparisons to Hitler as a Running Gag.
  • Not Okay:
    • After the truth comes out, Danni’s parents start getting accused of being involved in the scam even though their daughter fooled them as well as as everybody else. It's part of the reason why Danni’s mother acts so cold to her after she’s forced to move back in.
    • As part of the uproar that Danni is subjected to, she sees a video of a hairstylist on her computer saying that she wanted to do her hairstyle in a certain way, but she decided not to because it looked too much like the hairstyle that Danni Sanders has. The fact that both have dark hair with some of it dyed white is an addition.
    • Poor Rowan, already a victim of persecution, ends up receiving extra harassment once her friend turns out to be a liar, something she makes sure to scream at Danni.
  • In Office Space, Peter's "you know, the Nazis had 'pieces of flair' they made the Jews wear." However, the employers in Office Space in fact do utilize totalitarian structures and strategies to keep their workers in line. In this particular example, the flair pieces are part of a Double Bind structure. This doesn't make Peter's argument any less fallible, though, and he takes it back to proceed with even more verbal tripping over himself.
  • In Clint Eastwood's A Perfect World:
    Bobby Lee: I love my work.
    Sally Gerber: So did Hitler.
  • Used in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope in the argument between David's father and Brandon on the subject of whether "superior" people should have the right to kill inferior ones.
  • This results in a Wrong Insult Offence in Stolen Kisses. When Georges Tabard mentions learning English from an Australian girl who was married to a housepainter, Fabienne immediately compares the housepainter to Hitler, provoking this response from Georges:
    Georges Tabard: Don't ever say Hitler was a housepainter. That's slander. Hitler painted landscapes.
  • Inverted in the comedy To Be or Not to Be with a running joke. The hero is undercover and talking and joking with a Nazi, Colonel Erndhardt. Erndhardt will mock a feature of his sidekick Schultz (e.g. fastidiousness, vegetarianism, etc.), leading the hero to accuse him of insulting Hitler who had all of these traits.

    Literature 
  • The foreword to Harry Potter parody Barry Trotter and the Shameless Parody inverts this while playing it for laughs. It includes a message from the publisher describing the work as 'satanic', and a message from Satan who thinks the book is utterly terrible and refuses to take the blame for it. A message from the church follows, stating that anything so reviled by Satan must be the ultimate work of good and encouraging the public to buy it en masse.
  • Penn Jillette, in his foreword to Greg Gutfeld's The Bible of Unspeakable Truths, uses this as an argument against believing in God (which he identifies as a major point of disagreement between himself and the author).
  • In The Chosen, which focuses on American Orthodox Jews in the waning days of World War II, Danny says that he's learning German in order to read Freud. Seeing that Reuven is disturbed by this, Danny notes that the language didn't become corrupt just because Hitler speaks it. In actuality, Reuven is concerned because this reminds him of what his father told him about Solomon Maimon, another Teen Genius who abandoned his religion and family in pursue a career in Germany.
  • The Dresden Files book Blood Rites has this used as an excuse by a vapid porn actress who's upset that her ex-husband divorced her when she was engineering the death of another actress. Harry points out that the soon-to-be victim has kids, and the woman replies "So did Hitler." Harry then points out that Hitler had dogs.
  • The film historian, Siegfried Kracauer, a refugee from Nazi Germany himself, accused German Expressionism and various films made during the 20s for inspiring the rise of Hitler in his book, From Caligari to Hitler. He noted that many of these films had authoritarian villains who subverted society and manipulated the masses. Fritz Lang (who was very anti-Nazi, to the point he fled the country) memorably criticized Kracauer for blaming his generation for being the bearers of bad news. Lang especially objected to Kracauer criticizing his film Die Nibelungen for feeding into Hitler's Wagner fetish, when he pointed out that his film was specifically based on the original German source and not on Wagner at all.
  • Richard Dawkins addresses the "Hitler was atheist, so atheism is evil" argument in The God Delusion. Aside from Hitler's ambiguous religious beliefs,note  Dawkins points out that none of the twentieth-century dictators (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.) waged wars and engaged in various forms of genocide and democide in the name of atheism, but radical ideologies such as Nazism and Communism. Oddly, he also plays this trope straight by claiming that God is evil because Christianity was used to justify certain wars and tyrannies in the past.
  • Project Itoh played this trope straight in his sci-fi novel Harmony, where a professor connects the book's healthcare-obsessed false Utopia with the Nazis because the Nazis starting looking into ways to cure cancer, being socialists, and being politically correct. Those last two are kind of eye-rollers, but the cancer thing gets especially weird seeing as the author was dying of cancer while writing the book. Wonder what that means.
    • Itoh probably learned a lot about cancer during his illness, then he needed an explanation for that in-universe professor and wrote what came first to his mind.
  • Harry Potter: Parseltongue, the ability to communicate with snakes, is widely regarded by witches and wizards as a Dark Art, simply because most of the well-known Parselmouths have been Dark wizards (including Salazar Slytherin, the originator of the Fantastic Racism against Muggle-borns, and his descendant Voldemort). This isn't a hard-and-fast rule by any means—Dumbledore expressly states in book 6 that there have been plenty of good Parselmouths—but many still believe the reverse. In book 2, after Harry himself is revealed to be a Parselmouth (Voldemort gave him the ability by accident), half the school promptly becomes convinced that he must be evil; this is brought up again in book 4 as part of a smear campaign against him.
    • In book 3, when the Whomping Willow destroys Harry's broomstick, he has to get a new broom before his next Quidditch match and when Oliver Wood suggests he get a Nimbus 2001, Harry vehemently shoots that idea down on the grounds that he refuses to buy anything Draco Malfoy thinks is good.
  • In Death series: Origin In Death reveals that the Icoves and their partner Wilson essentially espoused eugenics. Naturally the opposition played this trope. It stopped them from doing things publicly. Privately, they engaged in cloning, genetic manipulation, and a lot of ugly stuff!
  • Played with in A Series of Unfortunate Events, a few times. (Only a villainous person places his cup on the table without using a coaster or enjoys the works of Edgar Guest.)
  • Spenser often comments "Hitler liked dogs" when noting that an otherwise villainous character performed a Pet the Dog. Of course, Spenser is using this to point out that what can look like a Pet the Dog moment is often just a Bait the Dog moment, instead. In other words, his logic is actually sound.
  • In I, Jedi, a novel overlapping with the Jedi Academy Trilogy, Corran Horn uses his ability to absorb energy and channel it into telekinetic feats to save the life of another student. Luke cautions him against using his power that way in the future, because Darth Vader used that technique (the Cloud City scene in The Empire Strikes Back, where Han tries to shoot him and he stops the blaster bolts with his hand). Corran accepts this argument, despite the fact that no reason is given why the technique should be regarded as morally problematic aside from the fact that Vader used it one time. (This doesn't actually stop Corran from using it when necessary for the remainder of the novel.) And it's a particularly hypocritical argument on Luke's part, since he had himself used Force skills associated with the Dark Side for benevolent purposes, such as using Force-choke—a much more common technique of Vader's—to intimidate some Gamorrean guards into letting him pass when he invaded Jabba the Hutt's palace.
  • Villains by Necessity: In the opening chapter, Arcie gets arrested after getting caught red-handed lifting purses. Sam is arrested as well for… sitting next to Arcie while dressed in black. Yes, Sam was a villain, but the guards had no proof of that, and even after finding all his weapons, could not prove he'd killed anyone, much less any specific person, with them. However, it would be enough to show he was a criminal, which is all they cared about, as they're now just being brainwashed into becoming good citizens, and not punished for anything.
  • In A Wolf in the Soul, Greg's father reacts this way to Greg's becoming a vegetarian.
  • Warrior Cats uses a variant with Tigerstar, the series equivalent of Hitler. All apprentices must serve the elders. When apprentice Tawnypaw Tigerstar's daughter is slightly late bringing moss to the elder Smallear, Smallear says, "Tigerstar didn't want to serve the elders either when he was an apprentice! You're going to turn out just like him!"

    Live-Action TV 
  • Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report often uses this as a means of argumentation, for example thinking that it's not OK to be a vegetarian because Hitler was one or celebrate Mother's Day because Joseph Stalin had a mother. On the other hand, Colbert did defend Michael Jordan for his sporting of a toothbrush mustache in Hanes underwear commercials. This could be because Jordan is black (and, therefore, couldn't possibly be Aryan and thus has, if you will, N Mustache Privileges), although the reason Colbert explicitly gave is that Jordan has a soul patch as well. Colbert pointed out that if Hitler had had a soul patch too, he'd have looked less like, well, Hitler, and more like a beatnik.
  • Community: Being a Soapbox Sadie social justice warrior, Britta LIVED for this trope. In "App Development and Condiments" (when people’s social standing and popularity were based on ratings) she's FINALLY shut down by Annie, of all people:
    Jeff Winger: Britta. Please tell me you're not using this app.
    Britta Perry: Uh, I liked the idea at first, giving a voice to the unheard, but then Annie just told me that the rating system is exponentially weighted. As your ratings go up, your ratings of other people become more important.
    Jeff: (Mockingly) No.
    Annie Edison: It just means the more others like you, the more likeable you can make others. It makes sense to me.
    Britta: You know who else it made sense to?
    Annie: Say "Hitler" one more time, and I'm giving you a two.
  • In Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry is accused by a neighbor of betraying his Jewish heritage by whistling Richard Wagner, since Hitler frequently used his music during the Nazi era.
  • The Daily Show:
    • Jon Stewart once used Glenn Beck logic to prove that Bert—yes, the one from Sesame Street—is actually Hitler. Seen here.
    • He also showed a clip of Glenn Beck using it himself, not as a parody: since both the Nazis and Dirty Communists used "social justice" as a leitmotif, everyone asking for it is either of them (or maybe both).
    • From another of his Glenn Beck segments:
      You know who else didn't answer medical questions? Hitler.
    • Another time was when a mention was made to Glenn Beck connecting the word "empathy" which was what Barack Obama said America needed more of (or something like that) to Hitler. As Lewis Black said, he'd just connected one of the most positive words in the English language to Hitler and that Glenn Beck had "Nazi Tourette's."
      "Oh, can I play? Let's see. Mother Teresa: Mother Teresa had a mustache, Hitler had a mustache. Mother Teresa is Hitler!"
    • And in what may be his final Glenn Beck riff, on April 7, 2011, Jon Stewart managed to link the announced cancellation of Glenn Beck's show on Fox News to the apocalypse predicted by the Mayans in 2012. "Do we want to live in an America where what we watch is determined by a shadowy mix-and-match collective of so-called 'Nielsen Families'? You know who else had a family that anyone could join? Charles Manson."
    • Jon brought Jonah Goldberg onto his show to talk about his book Liberal Fascism and asked him to explain why organic foods are fascist. Goldberg said Hitler made his troops eat organic foods (which aren't even "liberal" in the traditional sense, either. Goldberg apparently got "left-wing" confused with "alternative lifestyle"). Jon's response to this was "That is literally like saying mustaches are fascist. Hitler had a mustache."
      • At one point, Goldberg said that liberals use accusations of fascism to discredit all conservatives. Basically, accusing liberals of using this trope. While this is the case among some liberals, Jon held up the author's own book to show him he's doing the same thing.
    • After discussing and showing instances of people and events being compared to Hitler and Nazi Germany, he concludes that this kind of metaphor would even be demeaning to Hitler because of how much effort he put to earn his infamy.
  • From Dexter:
    • On Dexter's advice about Cody's school assignment:
      Rita's mom: Dexter does drugs. He is wrong.
    • On Agent Lundy's walking style:
      Masuka: That's exactly how Hitler walked.
  • A Running Gag in the pilot of Freaks and Geeks is Harold Weir constantly knocking down his children's proposals or scolding their behavior with the argument "[Celebrity Name]/[A friend of mine growing up] did that, and you know what happened? They DIED!"
  • In the ABC mini-series The French Atlantic Affair (1979), a cult leader played by Telly Savalas seizes an ocean liner for ransom. A member of the cult argues that their glorious leader is Not Evil, Just Misunderstood, citing how when she first met him, he was involved in helping people in hospitals and orphanages and so on. The rebuttal? Hitler started out the same way!
  • Murr on Impractical Jokers used this logic to convince a man not to buy a brand of baby wipes.
  • A bizarre inversion is discussed on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. One senator argues that the death penalty is a good thing because Jesus died that way.
  • In Search of...: In "Astrology", when he disputes the legitimacy of astrology, astronomer George O. Abell claims that the Nazis used astrology to guide their wartime strategy.
  • Parodied in John Safran's Music Jamboree, where it explained, in depth, why Dr Seuss books and Christina Aguilera CDs are bad, because their publishers are owned by a company that "used slave labour" during the Nazi era. Based on that logic, Ebenezer Scrooge is an evil man because he once hated Christmas.
  • In John Safran vs God, the titular presenter (who is Jewish) mentions an anecdote from his youth. He was a big fan of Beastie Boys and to emulate them, got a big Volkswagen logo pendant. This led to his mother ranting about how he was showing support for a product of Nazi Germany.
  • Craig Ferguson uses a variant of this a lot in his Late Late Show monologues. "You know who else doesn't like _____ ? Al-Qaeda!"
  • Inverted on an episode of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, where a skit mentioned news that US tobacco companies were being required by law to start making anti-tobacco ads. One of the "ads" shown on the show involved Heinrich Himmler walking up to Hitler and offering him a cigar, to which Hitler responded with a quick "Nein!" The ad ended with the tagline: "Be Like Hitler: Don't Smoke!"
  • Discussed in the Louis Theroux documentary Louis and the Nazis, where the mother of Aryan singing duo Lamb and Lynx has them dance around a swastika. She claims that anyone who would take offence to such an act is merely invoking this trope, as the swastika existed for thousands of years before the Nazis appropriated it. Louis tells her that excuse is a little hollow coming from her, however, since she openly calls herself a Nazi.
  • In an episode of Mad About You, Paul insists on using Nazi comparisons when having arguments with Jamie (mostly about the mayor, for whom she worked), to the point where she claims he would be unable to have a discussion if the Nazis didn't exist.
  • Inverted on Mad Men. Bert Cooper argues that Roger should stop smoking because it's a sign of weakness, claiming that when Hitler met with Chamberlain in Munich, he made sure it was in an old non-smoking building so that after a few hours Chamberlain would have agreed to anything to get out of there. Roger replies, "All I can get from that story is that Hitler didn't smoke, and I do."
  • On Married... with Children, Marcy visits the Bundys with a bunch of political signs to put in their yard, and Bud notices that one reads "Support toxic waste dumps." Marcy explains that if the neighbors see something in their yard, they'll be instantly driven to the opposite.
  • An episode of M*A*S*H sees Hawkeye yelling at a soldier whose deep guilt over a lack of bravery on the battlefield has given him psychological paralysis, on the theory that if the soldier doesn't overcome his guilt now, he never will. When Trapper asks afterward if it was rough, Hawkeye says, "Did you know Hitler and I have the same answering service?"
  • Cam and Mitchell on Modern Family point out that Hitler had straight parents when they believe people assume the worst from them for being gay parents.
  • QI discussed the trope at one point, along with Godwin's Law. Stephen Fry is of the opinion that anybody who uses this trope immediately loses whatever argument they were having.
    Hitler liked that therefore it's bad. Or Hitler didn't like that therefore it's good. Hitler, for example, was massively opposed to fox hunting; he thought it was cruel and terrible. And so, he banned it. So, therefore, it must be right… that's just a mad argument.
  • Saturday Night Live had a parody commercial for a sneaker company where they showed members of the Heaven's Gate suicide cult wearing Nike sneakers, with the implication that if a suicide cult wears them they must be evil.
    • In their 1976 debate, Jimmy Carter (Dan Aykroyd) is asked about his personal attacks, and replies that Hitler also criticized people for their personal attacks, and he doesn't think that his opponent, "Mr. Ford would purposefully kill 50 million people, but his lack of leadership may lead to a total fiery, demonic holocaust."
  • On So Random!, in one skit, in a school presidential debate, Layla points out that she looks good in hats, and Mark responds "You know who else said they looked good in hats? Attila the Hun."
  • Detective Delahoy from The Unusuals is supposed to be doing paperwork but refuses and instead hangs at a Chinese restaurant. When his partner confronts him about it, he says that the Nazis did a lot of paperwork.
  • The Young Ones but ever so slightly inverted:
    Rick: Vyvyan, stop being so sexist! They're called breasts and everybody has them.
    Vyvyan: Well I don't!
    Rick: Yes, and nor did Adolf Hitler.

    Music 
  • According to The Axis of Awesome song "Do They Know It's Pizza?", Joseph Kony cuts pizzas into 8 slices. (Spoofed by an issue of MAD that has a fake Williams-Sonoma mail-order catalog offering a rusty steel "African Warlord Pizza Machete" that customers can use to cut uniform slices and then lop off the hands of anyone who tries to take some pizza.)
  • Because the music of Richard Wagner was so commonly used by the Nazis in their propaganda, fans of Wagner can expect to hear this from the ill-informed when they announce their admiration for Der Ring des Nibelungen. Granted, the situation is more complicated than usual since Wagner himself was antisemitic and pushed for a united Germany. Yet, he still died before Hitler was even born. And his only work of music which references his antisemitism at all is Parsifal, which the Nazis banned for being too pacifistic since Wagner wanted Jews to convert to Christianity—he was not in favor of genocide. Despite all this, though, if people know one thing about Wagner and his music, it's that he was a "Nazi composer," to the extent that his music is quite verboten in Israel.
    • Fans of Wagner themselves are sometimes called antisemitic just for liking his music. Said Fan Haters are ignorant of Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, and a huge Wagner fanboy.
    • In some lovely Irony, as Wagner's Opera The Flying Dutchman is based off a recording of the legends by the poet Heinrich Heine, who was Jewish.
    • Averted with Anton Bruckner. Hitler was a huge fan of Bruckner (who was a huge fan of Wagner, for that matter). When Hitler's death was publicly announced on German radio, they played the second movement of Bruckner's 7th Symphony (which Bruckner wrote to memorialize Wagner). Hitler even planned to create a museum to Bruckner at St. Florian's Monastery in Linz (including kicking all the monks out) and paid for the first critical editions of Bruckner's works to be published. Thankfully, Bruckner's reputation seems unharmed by the association.
  • This even extends to guitar tunings—according to an urban legend, a leading Nazi officer set the concert pitch of the A note to 440 Hz, leading some guitar experts today to prefer alternative frequencies such as 432 Hz.

    Mythology & Religion 
  • Christianity:
    • In regards to sin in general, I John 3:8 states that anyone who has committed a sin is considered of the devil, who had committed a sin by rebelling against God. This is paraphrased as "If you do something bad, no matter how bad it is, you're following the example of Satan." This isn't saying that committing a sin makes you as bad as Satan, but rather that like him, you're willingly going against what God said to do.
    • Jehovah's Witnesses take a dim view of birthdays because the Bible mentions pagan rulers (Pharaoh in Genesis and Herod Antipas in the Gospels) having people (the Baker and John the Baptist respectively) executed on their birthdays.

    Radio 
  • There's a That Mitchell and Webb Sound sketch about this sort of thing. There's a debate about killing pizza-flyer delivery guys and one of them reduces all the other's responses to comparisons with Hitler, and the other constantly compares his opponent to Stalin. Which culminates in the exchange:
    "You're like Stalin…"
    "You are Hitler."

    Stand-up Comedy 
  • Comedian Andy Kindler says he uses this trope to break up the "Astrological love-fest" between people with the same Zodiac sign (ie. "Hitler was a Sagittarius"). If it isn't true, no one's going to call you out on it. For the curious, Hitler was a Taurus.
  • Lampshaded in a tongue-in-cheek fashion in Bill Bailey's stand-up: asking the audience for famous vegetarians, someone yells out "Hitler!", with Bailey replying: "You're absolutely right, Hitler was a vegetarian. It's very unseemly to think so, but there he was. Just goes to show: vegetarianism—not always a good thing. Can in some extreme cases lead to genocide."
  • The entire premise behind Richard Herring's "Hitler Moustache" show is that he is reclaiming the toothbrush moustache. He points out that Charlie Chaplin had it first, but it's become evil by association with Hitler. The toothbrush moustache was also a popular fashion accessory for German World War I veterans who joined the postwar Freikorps, a right-wing paramilitary organization formed to restore order in the wake of the political violence in Germany immediately after the war. While many of the Freikorps troops did become Nazis, various others were Jewish—and one was even murdered by his fellow troopers for it! Of course this neglects that Chaplin reclaimed his mustache himself in The Great Dictator by openly embracing the surface resemblance between Hitler and the Tramp, and clarifying the differences once and for all.

    Tabletop Games 

    Video Games 
  • Dragon Age:
    • Series-wide, this may be the true character of Blood Magic—a tool, not an inherently evil force. A Player Character can be absolutely upright and selfless and still practice blood magic with no ill effect. The most vilified ability of blood magic is the ability to Mind Control others, but comparing it to certain non-blood magic spells is a good reminder that other magic can also be seriously nasty. For example, Immolate, which allows a mage to "…unleash a massive explosion, leaving enemies in the area burning in agony. There's also magic of some kind which rips a hole in reality, sucking spirits into this world while turning them into insane demons."
    • Another, in-universe example comes up in arguments over mage rights: Do you know who else is against preemptively locking up mages and cutting them off from their families? Tevinter, that's who!
  • Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy at least makes some effort to avoid this trope in its tutorial level. Kyle at one point tells you "Force powers aren't inherently good or evil — it's how you use them". Sure enough, since which ending you get is based on a single choice, whether to kill a specific NPC who's at your mercy near the end, you can get the light-side ending after having played the game with nothing but Dark Side powers. That said, Kyle and Luke will still worry about you in the intermissions between acts if you invest in too many Dark powers, and it also doesn't help that the earlier Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II did have which ending you got determined by whether you had more Light or Dark powers, with the only variation (i.e. Light-focused power set but Dark Side ending) done by way of killing too many innocents.
  • The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel does this in the first game during the field study in Heimdallr. The terrorist group known as the Imperial Liberation Front makes an attack at the garden party that is being attended by Carl Regnitz, who is a political ally of Chancellor Osborne, and the main objective of the Imperial Liberation Front is Osborne's death. During the attack, Gideon, one of the leaders of the group, confronts Carl and tells him even though he has no personal grudge against Carl, he is guilty by association for working with Osborne and is ready to kill him. Carl survives because Class VII manages to arrive at the party in time to stop Gideon.
  • In the Metal Gear series:
  • A borderline Insane Troll Logic variant appears in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Justice For All. A witness states that a bellboy is suspicious because he had stitches on his face and wore non-uniform leather gloves. Phoenix, grasping at straws and trying to stall the trial for as long as possible, points out that baseballs have stitches, and footballs are made of leather. Does that make all baseballs and footballs suspicious?
  • Postal 2 includes a group of protesters first showing up on Tuesday, whose slogan is "save a tree, burn a book". One of their placards reads "Achtung! Hitler wrote a book!" Which, of course, is Comically Missing the Point in that the Nazis also burned books.
  • Witch on the Holy Night: Aoko Aozaki hates Runes just because her sister and bitter rival Touko uses Runes.

    Web Animation 
  • In the comedic flash parody The Matrix Has You, Neo gives a lecture on car safety, specifically to buckle up, and points out that both Agent Smith and Hitler don't wear seat belts.
    Neo: Why, Agent Smith never buckles up. [a mustache appears over Smith's face] And neither did Hitler. You don't want to be like Hitler… do you?

    Web Comics 

    Web Original 
  • Parodied in The Agony Booth review of TRON: Legacy.
    You know who else was a genocidal maniac? Hitler!
  • Parodied by the satirical news website the Babylon Bee: "Reminder: Adolf Hitler Also Wanted To Go Outside And Do Things."
  • Children's Daycare is Evil (no longer subtitled, but you get the gist from the keywords and tone).
  • In The Cinema Snob's review of Troll 2, he points out "You know who else threw parties? GACY!"
  • Used for comedic effect in Coldmirror's Gag Dub "Harry Potter und der Plastikpokal":
    Barty Crouch Sr./Candyman: Good day, it's me the candyman. From now on I am going to come to your school with my food trolley every morning and sell candy. No stupid cheese rolls like in your cafeteria. No, just sweets, sugar… lots of sugar.
    Pupils: Whaaat?
    Ron: Sugar is evil!
    Girl: Sugar makes hyperactive!
    The Wesley twins: Hitler ate sugar!
  • Episode 11 of Comeuppance, a series that runs on strawmen, has this little bit:
    Sian: From Miss Scatcherd and the Trunchbull, to Pink Floyd and The Demon Headmaster, you [teachers] command a unique notoriety in the cultural psyche, don’t you?
    Mrs. Pascal: But you’re forgetting Miss Honey, John Keating and Dewey Finn. A good teacher inspires like no other.
  • Lampshaded and parodied in the D&D PHB PSAs by Creative Juices 7 in D&Debate #6 (PSA #39), when Mialee discovers that she's being sued for his mistreatment of Displacer Beasts:
    Lilith: Do you know who else made sweaters out of an oppressed species?
    Mialee: (pause) …no?
    Lilith: Hitler.
    Mialee: Um, I… yeah, um, Hitler did a lot of bad stuff, but I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Mr. Burns from The Simpsons.
    Lilith: (Death Glare)
    Mialee: Uh, no offense.
  • The Drunk and The Ugly podcast group dropped this one during their play-through of Road Trip.
    "You know who ELSE used teamwork? The NAZIS!"
  • Used in Epic Meal Time:
    "If you're getting tired of all this bacon there's something wrong with your brain! You know who else didn't like too much bacon? Hitler. You don't want to be Hitler, do you? No. He's got stupid hair.
  • "Everyone I Don't Like Is Hitler: A Child's Guide to Online Political Discussion."
  • Used and inverted in Channel Awesome' 2-year anniversary special, Kickassia. When Linkara expresses doubts about the upcoming invasion of Molossia, The Nostalgia Critic responds:
    Critic: You know, there's another group of people who thought like you, Linkara, they were called NAZIS! They were closed-minded, hate-filled people who only wanted things their way! Are you a Nazi, Linkara? ARE YOU?!
    […]
    Critic: Good. Now let me tell you about a group of people who didn't give up. They were called Nazis…
  • A Parodied Trope in the HeadGum channel Off Days skit "Not Illegal," where Amir Blumenfeld defends smoking by saying, "Hitler smoked!"
  • The Hittle parodies this way of thinking. A vegetarian and a meat-eater argue about which side is morally superior. So they actually bring Hitler in to resolve the dispute by blindfolding him and giving him a bat. Whoever Hitler attacks is clearly in the right, making the other side wrong.
  • An episode of "Hope Is Emo" had the main character disapprove of babies because Hitler was a baby.
  • Jacksfilms uses this once or twice. In his jeggings parody:
    "You might be thinking, "Hey! I like pants!" Well that's fine. You know who else liked pants? Hitler."
  • The Matt Walsh Show, on the subject of birthdays:
    "Think about this, and it should be enough to put birthdays to rest: Hitler had birthdays. Dozens of them. So if you're now turning 27, well, congratulations. Even Hitler did that. In fact, I find it rather suspicious that Hitler had birthdays and so do you. What else do you two have in common?"
  • This parody political ad for My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic villain Ahuizotl takes this trope and runs with it hilariously:
    Announcer: "Daring Do has consistently shown a desire to steal, plunder and destroy ancient artifacts for nothing more than greed. You know who else was greedy? Al Capone. In fact, have you ever seen them together? That's right: Al Capone and Daring Do are most likely the same person."
    Ahuizotl: Also, have you ever seen me and Mother Theresa, or Batman in the same room together? I'm not saying I am Mother Theresa or Batman… but I'm implying it shamelessly!
  • Parodied in one of many Pokémon Abridged Series.
    Officer Jenny: You know who else claimed he wasn't a Nazi? Hitler!
  • From the RiffTrax of High School Musical during a romance pop-song called "Start of Something New":
    Bill Corbett Yeah, you know what else was new at one time? Hitler.
    Mike Nelson: Easy there! A bit early in the film to go full Godwin!
  • In the Scott The Woz episode "You're Not an RPG Guy", Scott's friends chastise him for not liking RPGs by comparing him to Stalin.
    Rex: Stalin f**king hated RPGs, but loved Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.
  • Also used for comedy in an old Seanbaby review about the NES game Wall Street Kid, concluding with "To keep it in perspective, though; all this game really was was a simple bad idea. But you know who else had some simple bad ideas? Hitler."
    Seanbaby: I know the word "Hitler" gets thrown around a lot when someone's angry, but cutting 15 minutes of Booger from a movie is exactly the kind of thing Hitler would do. Exactly.
  • Todd in the Shadows does this with Jason DeRulo, of all people, in response to Meghan Trainor talking about shaking her butt "like I'm supposed to do." He even uses the exact words "You know who else…" Granted, he's not necessarily wrong, assuming she meant the line as literally as he interprets it.
  • This is basically a meme on the liberal political humour blog Wonkette: "You know who else…?" Invariably, when someone asks such a question in the comments, people will respond with nonsensical answers (although the intended answer is usually, of course, "Hitler"). Presumably it started by means of mocking Glenn Beck.

    Western Animation 
  • The trope is discussed in Adventure Time.
    Finn: Hey, Ice King seems way into ninjas. Even more than we are.
    Jake: Yeah, so?
    Finn: So, doesn't that mean that ninjas must be kinda lame?
    Jake: Nah, they're still cool. But Ice King's still lame because he hides his ninja love. We wear our ninja on our sleeve!
  • In The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius episode "Maternotron Knows Best", Jimmy's robot caretaker modeled after his mother refuses to let him and his father go outside because "Outside is where the Civil War was held!"
  • The Trope Namer is Daria, episode "Pinch Sitter", with this little exchange from two kids repeating stuff their parents told them about eating sweets.
    Tricia: Sugar is bad.
    Tad: Sugar rots your teeth.
    Tricia: Sugar makes you hyper.
    Tad: Hitler ate sugar.
  • On The Boondocks, after Riley finds out his idol Gangstalicious is gay, he comes to the conclusion that since he likes Gangstalicious he must be gay himself.
  • Family Guy:
    • Dialogue from a PSA made to make weed illegal again in Quahog:
      Peter: All right, Carter, I've finished cutting together our anti-pot video. Take a look. (a live-action Adolf Hitler is shown with a cartoon marijuana joint)
      Adolf Hitler: (in Peter's voice) Hey, I've got a great idea! Let's kill 6 million Jews!
      German People: (in Carter's voice) Hooray! Yeah! Yeah, I'm on board! How did you come up with that?
      Adolf Hitler: (in Peter's voice) I got the idea from… from… while… from while I was smoking pot. Anyone else who likes pot, reach for my joint.
      German People: (in Carter's voice) Oh, there it is. Give us some of that!
      Adolf Hitler: (in Peter's voice) Ha ha ha! Perhaps later. Now let's go to France and steal all their Objects D'arte!
      German Soldiers: (in Carter's voice) Yeah, alright! Let's go to France!
      Peter: Not bad, eh?
      Carter: (after receiving a call) Aw, dammit. That was Fox News. Apparently they own the rights to Hitler's likeness and they won't have him slandered.
    • Inverted in "No Meals on Wheels", where Peter's argument for handicapped people being uncool is that Mark Harmon is cool and doesn't have a wheelchair.
      Peter: What do you see here, Lois?
      Lois: A picture of Mark Harmon.
      Peter: A picture of Mark Harmon, the greatest actor who ever lived! Do you see a wheelchair under Mark Harmon?
      Lois: Peter…
      Peter: Lois. Do you. See a wheelchair. Under Mark Harmon?
      Lois: No.
      Peter: No you do not, because Mark Harmon is cool.
    • When Peter gives up television, one of his arguments against it is that Charles Manson likes it.
    • In "Trump Guy", Donald Trump responds to Peter Griffin's dissing of Bob's Burgers by revealing that it is his favorite animated show, to which Peter responds by remarking that the Emmy voters should vote their conscience. Given that the entire episode is a Take That! at the Trump administration, the obvious insinuation is that Bob's Burgers should be considered bad if Trump likes it.
  • Invincible: In Season 2, Mark tells Cecil that he won't be stop from re-engaging in hero duty even if he is ordered too. Cecil immediately replies that Nolan, who had already went renegade, said the exact same thing.
  • In the King of the Hill episode "Movin' on Up", Luanne finally moves out, but her new roommates are stereotypically lazy college students who invoke Godwin's Law whenever anyone attempts to assert any sort of authority over them. For example, when she asks them not to smoke in the house:
    Girl Hipster: You know who else was anti-smoking? HITLER!
    • This didn't pan out at the end when the male roommate made the same accusation against Grandpa Cotton, a grizzled World War II veteran:
      Cotton: WHO ARE YOU CALLIN' A NAZZY?! (headbutt)
  • Buck Rockgut from The Penguins of Madagascar.
    "Like nuts do ya? You know who else likes nuts? THE RED SQUIRREL!"
    "Your friend there has a big fluffy tail. You know who else has a tail? THE RED SQUIRREL!!"
    "Read any good books lately? Read? Red? THE RED SQUIRREL!!!"
  • Spoofed to high heaven in the Robot Chicken sketch "Hitler Is Stealing Sandwiches" with Adolf Hitlarious himself. A Nazi soldier asks his office mates, Hitler and Himmler, which one of them stole his leftover sandwich from the fridge. Himmler doesn't want to accuse Hitler but points out meaningfully that "only one of us murdered six million Jews." Hitler proudly replies, "Yes! Exactly! I murdered six million Jews. Clearly I'm a good person! I wouldn't steal a sandwich!" After more discussion, however, Hitler gives himself away by saying something about the sandwich he would only know if he ate it, upon which he has a Heel Realization: "I stole your sandwich, Fritz. Therefore, I am a bad person. Therefore, a bad person killed six million Jews. Therefore, maybe killing six million Jews was wrong! What have I done?!" Fritz consoles him: "Mein Führer, only a bad person would kill six million Jews, but only a good person would feel bad about it."
  • The Simpsons:
  • South Park:
    • "Weight Gain 4000":
      Cartman: You guys, guess what? After I'm on television, I'm gonna be totally famous.
      Wendy: [as she passes by] Hitler was famous, too.
    • Invoked in Chef Goes Nanners. In order to ensure the town flag is kept the same, Jimbo and Ned infiltrate the KKK and convince them all that nobody will vote for the side they're on and whatever side they're on is guaranteed to lose. Therefore, if they want the flag to stay the same, the Klan should vote that they want the flag changed so that everyone will vote against them.
      Jimbo: Look, we have to accept the fact that most people in the world hate us, right?
      [murmurs of agreement]
      Jimbo: So whatever side we're on is the side that's gonna lose, right?
      [more murmurs of agreement]
      Jimbo: So why don't we all say that we want the flag changed? That way, most folks will vote to keep it the way it is!
      [Beat]
      Klan Leader: That's a great idea, brother!
      [Klansmen cheer]
      Klan Leader: All right, it is decided! We will officially tell everyone that we want the flag changed, so that they will all vote against us!

    Real Life 
  • The phrase "reductio ad Hitlerum" (derived from the Latin phrase reductio ad absurdum, "reduction to absurdity"), closely associated to Godwin's Law, was first used in an article written by University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss in 1951. The fallacy is essentially synonymous with this trope: if Hitler or the Nazis did or believed something, that automatically makes it wrong. Historian Simon Schama's term "the obscene syllogism" captures a similar idea: that anybody who shares a belief or action of any kind with the Nazis is a Nazi.
  • The trope itself is much older than Hitler himself, with the most popular predecesors as stand-ins for evil being the Devil himself and the Pharaoh of the Book of Exodus, and discussion about it dates back to the 17th century. In the Baroque, Baltasar Gracián addressed the trope and tentatively ruled it out, establishing that one should not choose the wrong stance solely because a bad person happened to choose the right one; in many cases he will abandon it out of foolishness, and if he doesn't, then it would be worse to have him being right about something you are not.
  • A few consider Hitler to be the poster boy of Evil Vegetarian, in fallacious arguments that often try to make vegetarians look like an Animal Wrongs Group. It doesn't help that lots of modern white supremacists are vegan and vegetarian as part of the "blood and soil" ideology.
  • Hitler's religious and spiritual beliefs, which neutral observers and historians consider highly syncretic and idiosyncratic, are used to denounce both the inevitable moral bankruptcy of atheism and the oppressive, intolerant nature of Christianity.
    • The TL;DR version: Hitler was raised Catholic (unsurprising, as he was born in Austria), but after childhood expressed little interest in organized religion and never attended any church. During his public life he identified himself as a "Christian," but not as a member of any pre-existing denomination. Rather, the Nazis established a church called "Positive Christianity"—a Christianity deeply infused with Nazi ideology that rejected the "heresies" of the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches. While Hitler was happy to manipulate religion for his own ends, privately he expressed so much revulsion and contempt for Christianity that he was really no Christian. He also considered the interest in the occult and Pagan revivalism of some Nazis (such as Heinrich Himmler) to be ridiculous. But Hitler was no atheist either—at least, not entirely. He was a profound believer in "Providence" and "Destiny," and believed himself to be "chosen" for a great task and purpose. However, he did not see himself as chosen by a theistic or personal god, but rather as implementing Nature's law, which, according to him, was survival of the fittest.
  • As said above, one of the arguments used by some creationists to reject Evolution and Charles Darwin was the Nazis' obsession with Social Darwinism, scientific racism, eugenics, and survival of the fittest, arguing that the Theory of Evolution led directly to the Holocaust.
  • J. R. R. Tolkien was a scholar who had a great attachment to Germanic and Nordic culture and art. With the rise of Nazism and the outbreak of the Second World War, he knew exactly what would happen, and wrote bitterly to his son Michael that Hitler was "making forever accursed that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe."
  • Adolf Hitler disapproved of smoking, was an anti-smoker, and hoped that in his lifetime every cigarette packet in Europe would come with a warning label (a practice that has indeed become widespread by the 21st century). For this reason, anti-smoking campaigns or cigarette bans have on occasion been accused of "fascism," particularly by tobacco industry front groups. The association with opposition to tobacco and Nazism was one reason it took so long for scientists in the former Allied nations to acknowledge a link between smoking and lung cancer, which had been already found by Nazi scientists.
  • There is, of course, nothing inherently good or evil about how one styles one's facial hair, but the toothbrush moustache, highly popular and perfectly uncontroversial in the decades leading up to the Second World War (being sported by the likes of Charlie Chaplin), became so strongly associated with Adolf Hitler that, almost a century later, it remains socially radioactive.
  • Anti-porn activists like to point to historical figures who were sexual deviants, among them, allegedly, Hitler.
  • Fascism, in its original meaning underlined by Benito Mussolini, as well as Nazism, are discredited as defendable political movements, not without good reason. However, besides the cultural aspects most unique to early twentieth-century Germany, almost all the traits and crimes that led to said discreditation are shared by several other ideologies and systems which, while sometimes condemned, remain largely free from the same unredeemable connotations. Hitler is simply such a potent example of evil to modern people that, in western culture and oftentimes beyond, it seems that even things like mass murder and genocide are generally felt as less evil as long as it's not Hitler or someone associated to the Nazis doing them.
    • For example, the Mongol invasions under Genghis Khan in the Middle Ages were a series of brutal conquests and genocides that rival if not surpass any of the Nazis', but historians often say Genghis Khan has a "complex" legacy, while they are unlikely ever to call Hitler's legacy "complex". This is partially because in many Central Asian countries, including his home country of Mongolia, Khan is commonly seen as a national hero not unlike Alexander the Great, to the point where monuments and airports are named after him.
    • As another example, in Europe and the Anglosphere at the height of the colonial era in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, mainstream political figures of various ideological stripes, including liberal democracy, tended to take for granted a lot of the white supremacist assumptions that also underpinned Nazism. So while Axis atrocities may have largely discredited "scientific" racist theories and other overt expressions of racism after the mid-twentieth century, earlier white colonizers (and even the Nazis' contemporaries, like Winston Churchill) sometimes still get a pass for racist or even genocidal actions; at the very least, as with the Mongols, they're more likely to be acknowledged for good accomplishments as well as bad, instead of just roundly condemned like Those Wacky Nazis tend to be.
    • The opposite is also true. Hitler and the Nazis (and other 20th-century dictators like Mussolini, Stalin and Mao) did much to discredit the notion of a Benevolent Dictator or well-meaning dictatorship, and retroactively tainted all non-democratic forms of government back through history, even though they existed centuries before Nazism or Communism were ever conceived.
  • German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was condemned as a forerunner of Nazism and German Fascism when the Nazis taught a very cleverly edited interpretation of his works to support their own philosophy. It's true that Nietzsche condemned the traditional virtues of compassion, kindness, humility, and patience as "Slave Morality," believing they stemmed from an innate sense of self-loathing, and resulted in the elevation of the weak, the inferior, and the undeserving at the expense of the strong. Nietzsche instead extolled "Master Morality": bravery, self-discipline, integrity, decisiveness, and most importantly independence—not bowing to any external law or restraint. It's easy to see how this appealed to followers of Nazism. However, Nietzsche was no German Nationalist nor antisemite. The "Master Race" of Nietzsche's imagination did not belong to any single culture or ethnicity, but was international—the "Übermenschen" of ALL nations would rule the world. The philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand once wrote: "Nietzsche fascinated men and prepared the spiritual ways for the unheard of and shameful perversion of man, which we witness today in Nazism, although he certainly subjectively never would acknowledge such gangsterism as his legitimate child."
  • All weapons used by the Nazis are de facto "evil" weapons, especially the famous ones such as the MG-42 machine gun or the Luger pistol. Director George Lucas of the Star Wars franchise equipped the stormtroopers of the evil Galactic Empire with an MG-42 lookalike.
    • Averted with the Walther PPK, which was used frequently by high-ranking Nazis and officers, and with which Hitler committed suicide. In addition, an upgraded variant served as the basis for the post-war Makarov pistol, becoming the Soviet (and therefore "evil") counterpart to the American M1911. Despite this, the Walther PPK has avoided the label of "evil gun," possibly thanks to being the primary firearm of James Bond.
    • In a bit of irony, the Nazis fell victim to a version of this, and thereby handicapped their own attempts to create an atomic bomb, because they considered nuclear physics to be "Jewish science" and refused to use the ideas of the likes of Albert Einstein.
  • Hitler spent some of his younger years as a painter, which is sometimes brought up in discussions over whether it's okay to enjoy the artistic output of morally questionable people (another go-to example being Roman Polański). A joke or prank which is sometimes pulled is presenting one of his paintings (which are passable) to an unsuspecting victim, and asking their opinion. If the person responds in any way positively to the painting, the trap is sprung and they are told they just liked something made by Adolf Hitler!
    • Art critics have actually acted out this exact scenario from time to time. While their responses vary, they generally conclude that Hitler had some genuine skill in drawing defined structures and buildings, so much so that they believe he would have had more luck applying to be an architect. His greatest weakness was that he could not, or in most cases, would not, draw humans and facial expressions, giving his paintings an overall cold, dull, and flat appearance. This obsession with capturing static, pristine structures and disinterest in humanity are seen in retrospect as early indicators of his later governance style.
  • A strange variant of this trope occurred in Jaslo, Poland in July 2009. A group of local people campaigned to have an oak tree cut down after learning that Hitler had had it planted in celebration of his 53rd birthday.
  • British newspaper The Daily Mail once used Charles Manson's belief in climate change to ridicule the idea.
  • In April 2012, US Representative Allen West (R–FL) said that members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus were members of the Communist Party, because the Communist Party praised some of their policies. PolitiFact called this "Guilt by Association on steroids."
  • Any time there's a national tragedy, the killer's hobbies and musical interests are always demonized for having "turned" him into a killer. Video games, movies and hardcore rock/rap are almost always the first to take the heat.

Rest easy, Hitler never browsed TV Tropes. As far as we know.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Guilt By Association, The Hitler Card, Hitler Was A Vegetarian, Hitler Breathed Oxygen, Reductio Ad Hitlerum

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Homeland Insecurity Ad

Cam Brady's team comes up with an agenda that very flimsily connects his opponent to Al Qaeda.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (3 votes)

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