Hans Landa
The 'Jew Hunter'
Charm as the mask of evil.
Reactionary NaziOne of 729 ideologies · enter the Nazi hall →- Role
- SS officer (fiction)
- From
- Inglourious Basterds
- Region
- Germany
- Social band
- Reactionary
- Placement
- +24 · +95 · −78
§ Where Hans Landa stands
3 axesLanda's economics are those of a self-interested operator inside the Nazi security state. He treats his talent for detection as capital and, in the final chapter, sells out the regime for the best price he can get from the Office of Strategic Services: a full pension, American citizenship and land on Nantucket Island. That transactional opportunism, inside a war economy that kept property private, places him just right of centre.
Landa is the police state at its most effective. He questions a frightened farmer over a glass of milk until the man betrays the Jews beneath his floor, then has his soldiers fire through the boards. As security chief at the premiere he holds the power of life and death, strangling the actress and double agent Bridget von Hammersmark with his bare hands once her lost shoe exposes her.
Landa voices the regime's racial worldview with fluent ease, likening Germans to hawks and Jews to rats as he interrogates the farmer, yet he claims to care more about his craft than about ideology. That combination is the film's subject: a refined European who serves genocidal persecution with relish, which makes him a reactionary figure whatever his private cynicism.
How close are you to Hans Landa?
Three statements, one per axis. Answer them and we’ll drop you on the compass next to them.
§ The story
FictionHans Landa is the SS colonel at the centre of Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, played by Christoph Waltz. Nicknamed 'the Jew Hunter', he is a multilingual, impeccably mannered detective who in 1941 tracks the Dreyfus family to their hiding place beneath a French dairy farmer's floor and has them shot, letting only the daughter, Shosanna, escape. By 1944 he is in charge of security for the Paris premiere of a Nazi propaganda film that Hitler himself will attend.
Landa dramatises how cultivated charm and intelligence can serve terror as readily as brutality. A pure opportunist, he uncovers the plot to kill the Nazi leadership at the premiere, then lets it proceed in exchange for immunity and rewards from the Americans, only to be branded with a swastika by Lieutenant Aldo Raine. Waltz won the best actor award at Cannes in 2009 and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and Landa is widely ranked among cinema's great villains.
Notable for
- 01Antagonist of 'Inglourious Basterds'
- 02The charming-villain archetype
- 03Oscar-winning portrayal
Key works & moments
- 2009Inglourious Basterds premieres at Cannes; Christoph Waltz wins the festival's best actor award as Landa.
- Chapter OneIn 1941 Landa interrogates a French dairy farmer and has the Jewish family hidden under his floor shot.
- Chapter FiveAt the premiere he unmasks Bridget von Hammersmark by her lost shoe and strangles her.
- Chapter FiveHe strikes a deal with the Americans to let the plot against Hitler proceed in return for immunity.
- Chapter FiveLieutenant Aldo Raine carves a swastika into his forehead.
- 2010Waltz wins the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role.
In Hans Landa's words
“Au revoir, Shosanna!”
§ Minds closest to Hans Landa
All minds →
§ Also in the Nazi hall
Enter the hall →§ Common questions
4 answersWhat is Hans Landa's political ideology?
Hans Landa is an SS officer serving Nazism: on the 99ideologies three-axis compass, a Reactionary Nazi. Economically he sits slightly right of centre (+24), a self-interested operator who in the end sells his services to the highest bidder. On governance he is near the authoritarian maximum (+95), the cultivated face of the Nazi police state, and socially he is strongly reactionary (−78), hunting Jews in hiding and speaking the regime's racial language with polished fluency.
Is Hans Landa left-wing or right-wing?
Right-wing, in the sense that he serves the far-right Nazi state with skill and enthusiasm. Landa is less a believer than a careerist: he enjoys the hunt, prizes his own cleverness and switches sides the moment the regime looks doomed. But his work is the persecution of Jews for an ultranationalist, racist dictatorship, and his readiness to betray it for a pension and an American estate shows opportunism rather than any move to the left.
Was Hans Landa a real person?
No. Landa is Tarantino's invention, and no SS officer of that name ran security in occupied Paris. His work does echo real history: SS and Gestapo officers in occupied France hunted Jews in hiding and sent them to their deaths, among them Klaus Barbie in Lyon, whose men seized the Jewish children of Izieu in 1944. The film's ending, in which Hitler dies in a Paris cinema, is deliberate counterfactual fantasy, and Landa's charm is a cinematic device rather than a portrait of any individual.
Which minds are closest to Hans Landa?
On the 99ideologies three-axis compass, the minds closest to Hans Landa are Joseph Goebbels (99% alike), Frederick Zoller (99% alike) and Reinhard Heydrich (99% alike). The furthest is Emma Goldman (0% alike).