Hans Landa

"You are now in the hands of the SS. My hands to be exact."

- Hans Landa to an incapacitated Lt. Aldo Raine

Hans Landa is a Nazi officer of the SS and the main antagonist in the 2009 Quentin Tarantino film Inglourious Basterds.

He is portrayed by Christoph Waltz, who won the Academy Award for the role.

Film
In the film, he is portrayed as a highly intelligent and cold-blooded SS officer ordered to hunt down any European Jew hiding out in France. As such, he has been given the nickname "The Jew Hunter", which he claims to take pride in having.

He is a cunning, expert detective who is able to manipulate answers out of others with hard-pressing interrogations. However, despite his deadly nature, he has a very light and outgoing personality, showing child-like enjoyment for things such as sweets and milk. Although he enjoys his high rank within the Nazi Party, it is later revealed he holds little care for anything except himself and is willing to turn on his own country as long as it benefits him personally.

Landa eventually becomes aware of an assassination plot against Adolf Hitler inside of a French cinema, and uses this to his advantage. Having predicted the Third Reich was bound to fall and wanting to evade Jewish tribunal, Landa makes a deal with the group of American soldiers known as the Basterds and their commanding officers to be granted American citizenship as well as partial credit for the destruction of the Third Reich in exchange for letting the assassination attempt follow through. Wanting to end Hitler's reign of tyranny, the Americans make the deal with Landa and Hitler is killed in the cinema.

Sometime after the assassination, the Basterds drive Landa out into the woods where their leader, Lieutenant Aldo Raine, allows Landa to live, but with a price. Much like he had done to previous Nazis in the film, Raine proceeds to slice a swatzika-shaped scar on to Landa's forehead, permanently branding him with the symbol. It is unknown what Landa's fate is after this.