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Why do people even bother using Hitler as a joke when they don't even know jack shit about WWII or the politics behind it?

Joking about hitler is a form of shock humour. It is a really low form of humour but that doesn't mean you can't joke about nazis. For example I made a riff-raff thread towards someone who has revealed himself to be a self-confessed racist. There is no shock humour because we aren't joking about what the nazis did rather we are joking about someone who surprised us when telling us he is racist.

Well, why do people joke about 9/11 for example?

Good point

I can enjoy shock humor (such as casual references to the Nazis, violence, graphic sex jokes, etc) and I've asked myself why. I personally believe no topic is truly off limits, though I think there is a time, place, and audience that you should consider when making a joke about something horrible. I think I personally like the idea of someone making these jokes because I think they're either bold (they don't give a crap about what other people think) or dense (they don't realize that what they're saying is horrible).

I'm of the opinion that certain people enjoy shocking others because they feel like it empowers them. The Nazis were a heinous and cruel regime of racist authoritarians, and Hitler was a mass-murdering psychopath who has been demonized in the cultural consciousness as the closest a person has ever come to being the Devil incarnate (but how we demonize Hitler/Nazis is a whole other topic). Shock jocks make such casual references to them because it forces people to consider that horribleness and the joker gets some gratification out of that; it's the same reasons some people get their kicks out of running up behind someone and screaming in the unsuspecting person's ear.

As a general topic, I think Hitler and the Nazis are very interesting in a historical sense, mostly because they're "forbidden fruit", ie we're not supposed to think about them as anything other than racist despotic thugs. Like many things, the more you're told not to treat something lightly, the more funny it is to make jokes about it (black comedy is founded in the principle that taboos are funny because most people try so hard to think they're not funny).

Acclaimed comedian theater/film director Mel Brooks, a Jewish American who fought the Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge, was asked how he of all people felt it was right to treat Hitler and the Nazis as a source of comedy in his play The Producers. I can't find the exact quote (I'll search for it) but he said something to the effect of "jokes gives us power over things, if we can laugh at the Nazis then we teach ourselves to ridicule their ideas and stop them from becoming some unspeakable boogeymen". So maybe it's the duty of comedians to parody the Nazis, not only for laughs but also to remind us that their ideas were foolish and we can use comedy as a weapon to dismantle their legacy.

The answer to this thread is right in the OP

"Why do people even bother using Hitler as a joke when they don’t even know jack shit about WWII or the politics behind it?"

Because they "don’t even know jack shit about WWII or the politics behind it". Fear of the unknown has uncanny ability of birthing shock humour, this is due to the subject at hand being somewhat taboo and out of their depth.

Unfortunately this is how it's turned out, to see the ideology stamped into the dirt and Adolf Hitler mocked endlessly is no surprise in the slightest. The victor must always make sure that they demonize their defeated enemies thoroughly and often.

If the boot was on the other foot we would see the exact same.

Purely because they are just PLANE wrong.

Flamma said:

Why do people even bother using Hitler as a joke…

What better way to defeat Nazism and fascism than to turn it into a joke that everyone will laugh at?

…when they don’t even know jack shit about WWII or the politics behind it?

Why should the disastrous Treaty of Versailles, Germany's hyperinflation, Hindenburg's senility, or Chamberlain's desperate attempts to delay WW2 have any bearing on joking about Hitler?