Introduction

Cinema, video games, comics, and novels continue to deal with the Second World War, National Socialism (NS), and the Holocaust. The foci of these media products range widely from historical documentation aimed at enlightening the audience about the inhumanity of the Holocaust (e.g. Maus; Schindler's List ), to films spicing their plot with Nazi antagonists (e.g. Raiders of the Lost Ark; Captain America ), to mere “Nazisploitation” that amplifies exploitation and splatter with “factual horror” (e.g. Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS; Inglourious Basterds ).

Regardless of exploitative characteristics, any such media products offer an interpretation of the past. Due to their distinctive influence on popular culture, the Wolfenstein video games have been argued to be a “site of mass-schooling” about the Second World War. Despite their use of retro science fiction elements, the games also feature many historically accurate elements and a meticulously designed Second World War backdrop. The games’ production company filters these factuality signals in two ways. Firstly, when games are designed or redesigned for a broader audience (in the case of the Wolfenstein 3D SNES version and Wolfenstein RPG ), and secondly when they are localized for the German market, where legal restrictions exist regarding the display of NS symbols and NS rule. This process can be called institutional filtering, meaning that production companies and social institutions set constraints on media content.