Nazi
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"I have in this War a burning private grudge—which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler (for the odd thing about demonic inspiration and impetus is that it in no way enhances the purely intellectual stature: it chiefly affects the mere will). Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in its true light."
Historical
Nazi is the commonly used shorthand version of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers' Party), a political party which took over in Germany for 1,000 years from 1933 to 1945. It also refers to people who belong to said party, their ideology and to their regime in Germany during said period of time. Emerging from uncertainty and political upheaval due to the red scare, the end of the German Empire after the Great War, resentment at unfair conditions imposed by Treaty of Versailles, economic uncertainties due to the Stock Market crash of 1929, German Ethnic Nationalism, a desire to blame things on scapegoats, and a belief in militarism popular among many returning veterans, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler took control of Germany, aided by their invention of modern campaigning and propaganda, wide-spread dissatisfaction with the status quo producing protest votes, the strategic seizure of the political positions that controlled the police force, and more dumb luck than anyone has any right to have, let alone a bunch of evil, racist loons.
They soon mobilized their armies and launched a war of expansion. Their goal was to impose their militaristic Social Darwinistic ideology across Europe, outlaw any dissenting school of thought, enslave all the "sub-human" slavs (after starving to death more than half of them in accordance to Generalplan Ost) and exterminate any "undesirables" (Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, etc) which they blamed all their problems on because they felt that they were superhumans without any flaws any any problem which they suffered happened had to be the fault of some subversive other from outside who tried to cause the master race misery for no other reason than "the Evulz". But in doing so, they got into war with the British, the Soviets and the United States which, using their superior industrial might drove them back to germany and then crush the Nazi Regime completely.
To modern western civilization, the Nazis has the role of the Great Foe. The great evil which wrought death and misery on Europe which needed to be stopped by all means possible. They rejected Democracy in favor of Dictatorship, individual freedoms to subservience to the state and brutal repression of any dissenting idea or anything precised to be dissenting (as an example they banned the use of the Fraktur font in 1941 as someone came to believe that it might have been of Jewish origin), equality in favor of a rigid hierarchy with Germans on the top, non German "Aryans" (Scandinavians, French, Italians, English) underneath them, while some Asian races were seem as equal to the Aryans, the Tibetans for example, were believed by the Nazi higher-ups that they and the Aryans had a common root, while their Japanese and Chinese allies (Chinese were very close trading friends back in 1929, Dont'Cha'Know?before you know the mass rape and murder) were hailed as the "Aryans of the East" , Black People and Slavs underneath to be used as slaves with the Jews underneath them in literal "subhumanity," which they viewed as being universally from cradle to grave involved in some convoluted conspiracy to inflict misery on the Germans. They held 'weakness' and 'softness' in contempt, their ideal of an Ayran Ubermench would be forged in war and made hard, merciless and ruthless. They used vile actions towards a vile end. But rather than just being an alien other, they represented the worst qualities of industrial western civilization inflated and turned inward against bits of western civilization. Despite this, they were good at public image, with spiffy uniforms (Design by Hugo Boss no less), distinctive architecture (a rip off a the Roman Empire), cinema and omnipresent iconography (a rip off Asian, namely the Swastika). They also had (for the time) some fairly advanced technology, including developments in rocketry (Panzerfausts and Nebelwerfers), jet engines and computers (see Konrad Zuse).
As such, they have become one of the master templates from which modern writers in some way or another base their villains and evil civilizations on. In Star Wars, the forces of the Galactic Empire employ some Naziesque uniforms. The Daleks are defined for their fanatical hatred of anything that is not a Dalek. In Warhammer the Imperium of Man will often draw from Nazi Germany either indirectly (hatred, bigotry, willingness to use torture, repression and terror to their ends) to overt (The Armageddon Steel Legion). In anime there is the Principality of Zeon, which also has elements borrowed from the WWII Empire of Japan. The most extensive take on the theme of Space Nazis would be the Helghast from Killzone. If you have a fantasy/sci-fi world, it will almost certainly have some sort of Nazi analogue floating around. At the same time, Nazis also figure into a lot of Alternate History fiction. Nazis invading England, Nazis invading America, Nazis successfully conquering the USSR, Nazis getting the Bomb first, Nazis creating an army of mutant uber-troopers, Nazis on the Moon, Nazis using occult powers to summon Demons to aid them, all of these have been done.
Trademarks
TSR had the ™ and © symbols next to the word 'Nazi' where it appeared in their Indiana Jones RPG. This was probably for the sake of the artwork reproduced from the movie, but it's been a source of teasing and flames about TSR trying to claim exclusive ownership of the term 'Nazi.' Same shit happened with Marvel and their WW2 villains, and probably with Fawcett Comics since 'Captain Nazi' was a villain fighting Captain "Shazam" Marvel.