The Day My Elderly German Landlord Caught Me Killing Nazis in Wolfenstein: The New Order

Just over a year ago I stepped on to a plane and left behind my friends and family to go and live in Germany. I don’t exactly know why I ditched Wales for Deutschland, but I did it anyway and I’ve not yet been hung for my English heritage - so it’s all gravy. Oh god I miss Bisto gravy. And Sunday dinners, and, to an extent at least, Wetherspoon’s and its cheap beer and loose women.

Moving on… Relocating to Germany came with a few problems, with the biggest being that I’d have to deal with the pesky German ratings board and its strict policies when it comes to gore in video games. Oh, and finding an apartment, but whatever.

See, Germany has a rich and varied history, but unfortunately it has been marred by about six years of bad times: World War II under Nazi rule. Germany is understandably ashamed of its recent past, but it’s still not quite ready to accept it and move on. When it comes to video games, Germany is rather strict; anything that features Nazis, excessive gore or abuse of a human corpse is most likely to be outright banned. Some have gotten around this by censoring content to appease the German authorities. However, some games are still missing from store shelves, the most recent (that I can remember anyway) being Techland’s gruesome Dying Light.

So it was a surprise to see that Wolfenstein: The New Order actually made its way on to German store shelves. When I picked up Id Software’s Nazi-killing simulator I was chuffed - until I got home. Upon booting up the game (and sipping a cup of tea while I waited for the lengthy install to finish) I was disappointed - yet unsurprised - to see that the game had been heavily edited for its German audience. Damn. Naturally, then, I headed to Amazon and imported a British copy of the game. I wanted the authentic experience.

This is where the story takes a dark turn. My game arrived in good time, but I was far too busy to sit around playing games as I work a full-time job as well as running a website, so Wolfenstein found itself on my ever-growing list of games that I’ve yet to finish.

This summer I’ve found myself with a lot of free time, so I sat down and started pouring through my backlog of games where I stumbled upon my dusty, unopened copy of Wolfenstein: The New Order. Then I felt a little giddy: this was an illegal product. Okay, I know it’s hardly ten kilos of guns (guns are dealt in kilos, right?) but I felt quite criminal all the same. The thug life was taking a hold of me.

I booted it up, closed the curtains and sat down with a mug of tea. This was going to be one hell of an afternoon. Cautious that my landlord and his wife lived above me, I kept the volume down low and put the subtitles on. After an hour of slaying Nazis and their strange metal dog things, I needed to stretch my legs.

Off I trotted to the kitchen to brew another round of English breakfast tea. Kettle on, milk out, spoon ready.

The door buzzed. Shoot. I could see through the glass windows on my front door that it was Sigfried, my elderly (though very active in the garden) landlord. He wanted to come in and check the radiators to make sure they would be ready for the coming winter months. I assured him that all was well and that they were working fine (they weren’t) and that I had checked them myself last week (I hadn’t) and that I’d give him a shout if they needed work.

Despite my protests, he insisted on checking anyway and proceeded to march straight into my living room. For three seconds I thought about slipping my shoes on and just leaving for an hour, but I decided against it and followed the little old fella through.

“Was ist das denn?” Sigfried said, pointing at the telly. I explained that it was a game and that you play it. Then he asked what it was about, so rather than turn the telly off and saving face, I sat down and unpaused the game. I’d left it hanging with me and three Nazi’s in the middle of a vicious firefight, so upon resuming the game the first thing in sight was some Nazi dude getting shot.

Cautiously, I looked up to Sigfried’s face to see if there was any indication that he was about to bring that toolbox down on my head. Thankfully, he seemed amused and then sat down on the second sofa, eyes fixed on the screen.

“You’re killing Nazis!” he exclaimed in German, eyes lighting up at the sight of my dual-wielded machine guns emptying into a group of fascists.

Sigfried didn’t have an easy time as a child. He was born a year after the war started and grew up in east Germany with his seven brothers and sisters, but he never knew his father. When the war broke out, men were enlisted to fight for Hitler and defend Germany. Sigfried’s father was one of them and to this day his end has never been resolved, but it’s thought that he died in Russia and that’s where his remains are.

Sigfried told me this while he watched my mow down enemies left, right and centre, but he didn’t seem phased by the sight of countless fictional versions of the SS being killed, though he did note that he never saw any of the robot dogs.

I fully expected that my landlord would be outraged at the sight of Wolfenstein: The New Order, but after sitting and watching me play for half an hour, it was apparent that he kind of liked it. I’m not sure that’s the best way to describe the situation, but he certainly didn’t seem disgusted but instead was intrigued at the notion that you could sit down and shoot Nazis all day long.

He asked why the game was made and when I told him that it’s for fun, he simply nodded his head and continued to watch the flashing screen. He was quick to point out the grammatical errors in the German subtitles, but apart from that, I don’t think he had anything against the Nazi-themed video game.

Sigfried’s upbringing was extremely difficult, and up until the age of ten he and his family all slept in one room. The Nazi regime wasn’t just a hardship for the minorities who were persecuted - the German people suffered, too. It wasn’t until Sigfried was 23 that he saw a banana for the first time in his life. East Germany was so poor during and after the war that everyday things that we take for granted just didn’t exist or weren’t readily available in his part of the country.

Sigfried asked if he could have a go, so I handed over the controller and explained what each button does and away he went.

He died within a minute, but he laughed it off and wanted another go. A few deaths and “sheisse’s” later and he was getting the hang of it and had managed to do away with a few enemies. It made me think, looking at this aged man whose own father fought as a Nazi soldier, that maybe it’s time for the USK to recognise that video-games don’t need all this censorship. Movies can portray Nazis with no issue as they are regarded as an art form. If my elderly German landlord can sit, watch and play a game where killing Nazi’s is the main objective, surely it’s a sign that Germany is ready to accept that it has a horrid past, but that’s it - it’s in the past. Every nation on Earth has something on its record, Germany’s just happens to be much more recent.

Germany will continue to ban or demand heavy censoring of video-games for the forseeable future, but they won’t stop me and Sigfried.

I think he’s going to love Nazi Zombies.