Nazi is a Political party, not a military force!
 

Remember this when updating or making IMFDB pages concerning the Armed Forces of World War II (whether it be movies, tv, anime or Video Games). The Correct term is either the branch of service or the generic "German".

Everyday people spouts the term "Nazi" when describing anything to do with the Third Reich, but "Nazi" was a Political Party, not a military force. The Heer (German Army) and the Waffen SS (as well as the Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, etc) were all military forces that answered to the government in power, which was held by the Nazi Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterparte, abbreviated as NSDAP). Plus the fact that many Germans were not Party members, one cannot ascribe the term to all Germans in the armed forces of the time.

So I cringe when IMFDB users describe a German WW2 soldier as "a Nazi Soldier". That's like calling ALL American GIs "Democrat Soldiers" as the American administration immediately before and after the war (from Roosevelt to Harry Truman) was in the hands of the Democratic Party.

Sorry, it's the WW2 historian in me that rants about this. :)

Also if I am not mistaken, I believe it was against the law to be in a political party if you were in the German military as well.

Yeah, that bugs me, too.

Even though the Nazis were a political party and not a military force, we can all agree that Nazis needed a dose of hot lead to the brain ASAP

I've always defer to the generic term "Germans"

I'm less polite about it. I call them Krauts.

Simplistic unfortunately. Remember that John Rabe was a Nazi party member. Early on many people joined the Party as a matter of course. The Party was itself defined by the twisted actions of many of its leaders. I know of other Nazi Party members who were hailed after the war as being one of the most famous being Oskar Schindler. I don't suppose you support the shooting of Oskar Schindler even though HE was a party member now ;)

Don't forget that MANY and I do mean, most of the military leaders of Germany near the end of the war wanted to fucking hang Hilter before he brings the end of the world on them, but it was already too late to do that anyway. The movie Valkyrie on that there were many Germans that wanted Hilter's reign to end and that everything the man was doing was not just madness, but stupid...despite the movie cast with Tom Cruise of all people as the main character. Oh yeah, he looks and sounded as German as Sean Connery looked and sounded Russian in Hunt for Red October

I heard a lot of the people who wanted hitler dead were military who thought his tactics were wreckless and wanted to win the war, not all were humanitarians who wanted to save lives or what not

It's hard to say. The German military had many professional soldiers who still adhered to a 'code of conduct'. The entire idiocy that Hitler did was an anathema to many of them, but they dared not comment on it.

1) I was surprised (and gratified) to learn through research that in the early years of World War II, Soldiers of the Waffen SS were appalled at their orders to massacre civilians. In fact early on, many complained, and were promptly rotated to the Russian Front, whereas more compliant (i.e. brainwashed into the Aryan Superiority propaganda) young men were screened and sent to do the Waffen SS's dirty business of rounding up Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, etc as well as many other atrocities against civilians. American history never mentions this intriguing fact.

2) There are many instances of Germans who hated the Nazis and wanted Hitler out. Some were naive, non violent and got wiped out early, take the Members of the White Rose for example.

3) There were Seventeen Assassination attempts on Hitler's life, not just the Valkyrie one.

4) History of the 'losers of a war' is always written by the winners. I remember early history books which pretty much painted the WW2 Germans as barbarians as a whole, with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Reality, as we all know, is much more complex than that. :)