| “ | The guy is like a hypnotist — a madman who can make a whole country nuts. | „ |
| ~ Indiana Jones on Hitler. |
| “ | The Ark belongs in the Reich. Something of such antiquity belongs in Germany. | „ |
| ~ Adolf Hitler to René Belloq. |
| “ | Heil Hitler! | „ |
| ~ Hitler's salute. |
Adolf Hitler is the overarching antagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise.
He is, like in real-life, the leader of Nazi Germany, but has an interest in ancient and supernatural relics such as the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. To acquire both artifacts, Hitler hires people like René Belloq, Walter Donovan and Jürgen Voller to find them for him and has many fierce officers like Herman Dietrich, Ernst Vogel and Colonel Weber, willing to accomplish his orders.
He was portrayed by the late Michael Sheard, who also played Admiral Ozzel in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.
History[]
His interest in the occult and in archaeological artifacts prompted Nazi research and recovery expeditions into artifacts to either support his views of Aryan racial superiority or to be used as weapons against Nazi enemies.
Hitler met with archaeologist René Belloq in 1936 to hire his services in acquiring the lost Ark of the Covenant. After Indiana Jones thwarted Hitler's plans on numerous occasions, including his desire to claim the Ark, the Führer personally assigned Hans Degen to assassinate Jones but the attempt ended in failure, as Degen opted to give up his life to save Jones and his friends from Ben Ali Ayoob.
In 1938, Hitler recruited Walter Donovan to recover the Holy Grail. During this enterprise he presided over a book-burning rally in Berlin outside the Institute of Aryan Culture. As he was being escorted from the forum, he came face to face with a man in a Nazi officer's uniform who held a book in the cover of Mein Kampf in his hands. Not knowing the man was a disguised Indiana Jones or that the book was the Grail diary his agents needed to find the Holy Grail, Hitler took the book, motioned one of his aides for a pen, signed the book, and returned it to the startled 'officer' before continuing on his way.
Towards the end of the war, Hitler sent Dr. Jürgen Voller and Colonel Weber to retrieve the Lance of Longinus, the lance which pierced Jesus on the cross, in the belief it would give him godlike power and allow him to turn the tables on the Allies. The two of them managed to retrieve what was thought to be the lance from a castle in the French Alps before attempting to retreat back to Germany with all the antiques they could get their hands on, only for Voller to realize it was a fake. However, he also realized they had accidentally recovered half of Archimedes' Antikythera mechanism, which they could use to travel through time and delete their failure from history. Voller intended to give the mechanism to Hitler, but he was defeated by Indiana Jones and Basil Shaw and the train was stopped by a British air raid before it could reach Germany. The Nazis were defeated soon after, with Hitler presumably suffering his historical fate of committing suicide to avoid capture.
Decades later, Voller planned to use the Antikythera Mechanism to travel back to 1939, usurp and kill Hitler and take over the Third Reich to lead them to victory, blaming him for the German defeat. However, Voller failed, instead travelling back to 212 BC, where he was killed and was left to be forgotten by history, with Hitler's fate left untouched.
Trivia[]
- Over the years, many fans have assumed that had Indy not retrieved the Ark, Adolf Hitler and all his inner circle of officers would have all died as a result of the Ark of the Covenant's powers once they opened it (René Belloq only opened it at the Tabernacle to check it with the pretext of not risking Hitler's life), therefore making Indiana Jones unnecessary to the plot. In the wake of this, both Steven Spielberg and George Lucas revealed that Hitler would have been savvy enough to not open the Ark, merely aiming to use it symbolically to win the incoming war, cementing Hitler as a more threatening and calculating antagonist than Belloq.
- LucasArts originally intended to revive Hitler for the story of Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix, an intended sequel to Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis which ultimately never got to be made due the inability of selling the game of Germany for its Neo-Nazism depictions. Hitler would have been resurrected by the German scientist Matthias Jäger as a zombie with the Philosopher's Stone, only for Hitler to kill Jäger for bringing him back with no military to reclaim his power, leading to a final confrontation with Indiana Jones which ended with Hitler exploding due to holding the Stone.
- Although the game was cancelled, Dark Horse Comics later made a comic book adaptation of it, though with several alterations. Among them, Hitler wasn't revived nor featured, instead a disfigured Matthias Jäger bearing a resemblance to Hitler and suffering his planned fate of dying due to holding the Philosopher's Stone.
- Ironically despite many fictional stories claiming otherwise, the actual Adolf Hitler had very little interest in magic or the occult, ultimately deeming it a waste of his time and resources (though several of his inner circle had more interest and the Nazis did indeed try to locate the Holy Grail for propaganda purposes).
- This version of Adolf Hitler was possibly referenced by the one from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the Phase One film Captain America: The First Soldier, which was directed by Raiders of the Lost Ark special effects supervisor Joe Johnston and which inspired itself on the first Indiana Jones film to not feel like a "period piece". In the film, the Red Skull mentions how Hitler spends time "looking out for trinkets in the desert" upon claiming the Cosmic Cube.
- Michael Sheard had played Hitler three times in his careers.
- Michael Sheard's portrayal of Hitler in The Last Crusade was among the most praised portrayals of the dictator, rivaling those of Bruno Ganz (Downfall), Alec Guinness (The Last Ten Days), Anthony Hopkins (The Bunker), Frank Finlay (The Death of Adolf Hitler), Steven Berkoff (War and Remembrance), David Bamber (Valkyrie), Ian McKellen (Countdown to War), Noah Taylor (Max), Charlie Chaplin (The Great Dictator), and Robert Carlyle (The Rise of Evil).
External Links[]
- Adolf Hitler on the Near Pure Evil Wiki
- Adolf Hitler on the Indiana Jones Wiki
[]
 Villains
| ||
|
Nazi Party Thuggee Soviet Union Others | ||