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Almost all WWII movies depicts Nazi officers and soldiers as well-dressed and handsome.

On the other hand, allied officers and soldiers are always shown wearing torn uniforms, etc.

Why?

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    For one thing, Nazi uniforms were supplied by Hugo Boss.
    – System Down
    Jul 14, 2013 at 11:06
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    Meh, a bit overgeneralizing. Could you point to some examples? I'd argue that most officers of any army are usually well-dressed, they're officers in the end. And Germans being handsome? Well, I cannot deny that. ;)
    – Napoleon Wilson ♦
    Jul 14, 2013 at 12:00
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    Never mind the war, I've never seen an American dressed up properly anyway :)
    – Andrea Mori
    Jul 14, 2013 at 17:45
  • @SystemDown Not all of them. But it is true that Germans put more effort into their look, even for fighting units and uniforms. Why? Maybe because they thought they didn't just do a job but fought for some higher ideological goal and this had to be represented.
    – his
    Sep 7, 2014 at 20:17

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My answer here is to the point of history and not movie making ... Please remember what Hitler was trying to build and exemplify, that of the "master race". His Nazis would have fit that mold to a tee. Blond, blue eyed, blah, blah, blah. You get the picture. This may now be a bit over done in movies, but it is what it is. The dress may very well just be an extension of this. Allied troops overseas would not have the supply chains available to them to keep their uniforms freshly pressed and tidy.

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    Yep, plus, being movies, the emphasis is on the visual storytelling, so dressing your 'heroes' as underdogs adds much more gravitas to their efforts.
    – Nobby
    Jul 14, 2013 at 13:37
  • @Nobby ... Good point. This idea works both ways.
    – Pᴀᴜʟsᴛᴇʀ2
    Jul 15, 2013 at 9:48
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@Paulster2 well you have a point, which is true. The 1st reason is that half of the time these movies are about what they did rather about the war so mostly they were captors of some people or whatever the situation was germans were in much safer locations. The 2nd reason is the color of the uniforms. Allied uniforms were often brown (dark or light brown), but the germans wore black / dark green / olive green uniforms, so the color affects you thinking that brown is less formal than black and dark green. The 3rd reason is that you often see less allies commanding officers than german officers. And pay attention to any other movie, usually the badguys are richer, well funded and the good guys are poor or not well-funded. And this fact applies to the majority but not all, regardless if the fact it's about a war, about mafia, or drug dealers. These plus what our friend said about Hitler's Agenda.

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  • The most common colour for German uniforms was grey (Feldgrau), the colour of the fighting troups except for some exceptions. Black is for SS which in movies typically is used for especially evil opponents. Navy and airforce of course used blue (correctly used in movies and shows, e.g. Hogan's Heroes), some party organisations brown, some fighting troups camouflage. Plus there were unique uniforms like Goerings white. Olive or dark green existed, but were quite unusual - it was a colour of American fighting units.
    – his
    Sep 7, 2014 at 20:14
  • @his yes black was for ss , usually in half of the movies you will see at least one ss officer! and if you look closer all these colores were too close , the grey had a little dark green (wehrmacht if i'm not mistaken and remember) , the blue also had a little gray , and the fact more than 75% of the movies included wehrmacht or ss , i don' recall any movie featuring german navy forces or airborne forces (i don't mean there isn't, i mean i haven't seen any) , and the camouflage color of choice for snowy terrains were white , as you mentioned, usually soviet territory and belgium
    – Hitman2847
    Sep 8, 2014 at 5:56

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