With the alt-right’s nighttime, torchlit march on Charlottesville, where chants of “Jews will not replace us!” could be heard, and the disruption of European soccer matches by neo-Nazis thriving across the continent, Nazis — the original brownshirts, not the modern-day wannabes — have reentered the public imagination. And with that, so, too, has the idea of vigilante justice.

In the broader culture, the Third Reich never actually left us. The evil of Nazism and depictions of its steadfast servants have always been en vogue, at least in popular culture. Whether Hogan’s Heroes in the 1960s, the television miniseries Holocaust in the 1970s, the feature films Sophie’s Choice and Schindler’s List in the 1980s and 1990s, respectively, the smash Broadway musical The Producers, which set a new Nazi-mocking tone for the millennium, or countless other artistic and documentary representations, the image of jackboots and high-handed salutes has continued to fascinate artists and audiences alike.