Nazi Party (Indiana Jones)

The Nazis were members of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (commonly shortened to Nazi) of Germany, which rose to political power of the country in the early 1930s under the command of Adolf Hitler and are a primary antagonistic faction in the Indiana Jones series. They are the primary antagonistic faction of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Role

They believed in Aryan racial superiority, and rejected democracy, which prompted a desire to manifest itself through the control of other countries, and the purging of "inferior" races, which they believed had weakened Germany and whom they blamed the disastrous outcome of World War I.

As the Nazi party grew in power, they set up a paramilitary group, the Schutzstaffel (SS) which was directly loyal to Hitler, unlike the regular German military. The SS was seen as part of the Master Race, even purer than regular Germans.

Indiana Jones recognized the growing threat of the Nazis, both to archaeology and to the United States of America. He frequently found himself in conflict with Nazi agents and archaeologists, who saw him as a threat to their goals; they wanted to use historical and mystical artifacts to support their theories of racial superiority or to gain mystical powers to use on behalf of their goals of conquest.

Nazi ideology, ambitions, and finances also lured many foreigners to work on their behalf, such as Rene Belloq, a Frenchman, and Walter Donovan, an American (though it is noteworthy that both held a very low opinion of their employers, seeing them as "necessary evils" rather than genuine partners). After defeating Hitler's plans in several archaeological races, Jones would again face them in World War II, this time as a member of the American Office of Strategic Services which sent him on several missions to Europe with his friend George McHale.

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