Here Are All Attack on Titan & World War II Connections

Even though Attack on Titan is a Japanese manga, we know that the storyline’s setting and characters are anything but Japanese. The storyline has a steampunk style as far as the Eldians living on Paradis Island are concerned. However, we know that the people living in other parts of the world have civilizations that resemble the same ones that were prevalent during World War II in real-world history.

Of course, the thing about Attack on Titan is that, while it may be Japanese, it draws its inspiration from events that happened in real life, particularly during WWII. As such, it is a storyline that parallels the real world when you look at our world’s history and what happened to the world during WWII. Then again, supernatural elements are going on in Attack on Titan, and we know that there was nothing supernatural during WWII. Still, let’s look at the parallels between Attack on Titan and World War II.

Marleyans Are Nazi

During the end of the third season and the Return to Shiganshina arc, we learned that the people living on Paradis Island were not the last people on the planet. Instead, they were called Eldians and could turn into titans because they were the Subjects of Ymir. And Ymir was the first to hold the Power of the Titans.

However, the people of Eldia retreated to Paradis Island with the Eldian king, who became fearful of what the Power of the Titans could do to the world and wanted to repent for all of the things that Eldia did to other countries. But there were Eldians left in the old Eldian country, which was annexed by the country of Marley. 

The Marleyans started treating the Eldians as second-class citizens that needed to be segregated from the rest of Marley. They didn’t have the same rights as others because they were seen as monsters that needed to be kept in check. This is similar to how Nazi Germany treated the Jews during World War II.

Nazi Oppression Towards The Jews

We know that Nazi Germany had a thing against the Jews for one reason or another, and this led to a widespread attempt to quell Europe of Jews by capturing them, rounding them up, and killing them all simultaneously. In that regard, the fact that the Nazis hated Jews is one of the biggest hate crimes in human history, leading to millions of innocent people dying.

In a way, the hatred of Nazi Germany towards the Jews is similar to how the Marleyans hated the Eldians. There was a good reason why the Marleyans hated the Eldians, as they were part of the people that used the Power of the Titans to conquer entire nations and kill millions of people. However, the fact that there were still innocent people among the Eldians didn’t justify that the Marleyans hated them. This is part of the cycle of hatred that Hajime Isayama wanted to show, as the Eldians used to kill other nations, only for the Marleyans to do the same to them when the Eldians were now weaker.

The Subjects Of Ymir Have German Names

It is also worth noting that the Subjects of Ymir or the Eldians all have German names. Of course, we did mention that they could also be the Jews of this storyline and that they are the ones that are being oppressed by the Marleyans, who are also the Nazis in Attack on Titan. It’s interesting to note that the Eldians have German names, which means that they probably represent two sides of Germany here: the Nazi side and the ones that were never complicit in the war crimes committed by Nazi Germany.

Of course, the entire mythology of Ymir, the first giant in Norse mythology, is Germanic in nature. Even though the Germans are not Norse, most people living in Germany have roots traced to the Nordic people.

Pearl Harbor Attack

While a good part of Attack on Titan focuses on the Nazi Germany aspect of WWII, it is also worth noting that Japan was also a huge part of WWII as, aside from Germany and Italy, it was the only other Axis superpower that had huge roles during the events of that period. Of course, Japan’s war on the US and the other nations of the Pacific is well-documented.

The attack that essentially jumpstarted Japan’s war on the US was when Pearl Harbor was bombed. This event is similar to when the Eldian warriors in the form of Reiner, Bertholdt, and Annie attacked the Shiganshina wall. This led to countless deaths that eventually jumpstarted the war between Paradis Island and Marley.

Kamikaze Titans

Another thing to note here is that there are parallels between the way that the Marleyans (who represent both Nazi Germany and WWII Japan) used people for their own sake. In that regard, we are talking about how they used the Eldians as dispensable weapons. They could simply weaponize at will by turning them into mindless titans attacking their enemies. We saw this in episode 1 of the final season when a bombardment of mindless titans took over an entire fort.

This is similar to how the Japanese used their people to remove their enemies. While the Japanese pilots believed they were doing it for honor, they still threw their lives willingly by crashing their planes right into enemy ships and weapons, as they were called Kamikaze pilots.

The Nuclear Retaliation

One of the things that we know was able to help end WWII was when the United States officials decided to take matters into their own hands by using nuclear weapons against Japan. This involved the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which flattened entire cities due to the sheer power of the nukes. As a result, Japan had no choice but to accept its defeat.

In a way, this is similar to the nuclear retaliation by Eren when he had no choice but to use the Rumbling to flatten the entire planet and destroy the enemies of Paradis Island. The nuclear bombings and the Rumbling are very similar because they used mass murder to make their enemies give up. But the difference here is that Eren wanted to flatten the entire planet, whereas the US bombed Japan both in retaliation to their attacks and as a show of force that was enough to make the Japanese surrender.

Germany And Japan Demilitarizing

We all know that Germany and Japan didn’t end up victorious in World War II. However, ever since losing, both countries have tried their best to move on from the inhumane acts committed during WWII while also demilitarizing. Right now, Germany and Japan are better known as countries with strong economies that focus more on technology and manufacturing instead of having powerful militaries.

This is similar to what the King of the Walls did in Attack on Titan when he decided to be the one to make up for the harsh things that the Eldians did using the Power of the Titans. As such, he ended up taking his people to Paradis Island and using the power of the Founding Titan to erase their memories of the past so that they would forget everything that their ancestors did to the rest of the world using the Power of the Titans. This was the Eldian king’s way of making up for the war crimes committed by his people, who had the Power of the Titans at their disposal.