Interjecting Historical Perspective into Modern Fictional Media

This is a follow-up response to Jonathan's post "A Hero and the Nazis".

All in all, I did not enjoy this episode. However, I can look past the obvious holes in Cordelia's logic, Doyle's lack of reasonable motivation for martyrdom, and the lack of Angel's presence. One thing I cannot forgive is the vague back story and terrible character model of "the Scourge". If these guys are so scary they can wipe out entire races of demons, then why haven't we heard of them before? The worst part about them is that before I even saw them embodied on screen, I knew they were going to be modeled after the Nazis. I felt like they were a villainous cop-out, like Whedon thought, "let's make these guys like Nazis...except with demon faces, so they will fit the theme of the show". Everything was copacetic with the Nazi archetype, from the marching to the uniforms, and the Scourge's intense desire to fulfill the mission at any cost. This all made me wonder. Do the characters of Angel have the same historical perspective as we do? Or am I just throwing my own history knowledge all over fiction that I have no business making historical assumptions about? In other words, in the world of Angel, was there a Holocaust? Was there a Hitler? I'm watching the episode, and sitting here wondering if Doyle or Angel are going to be like, "so these guys are like the undead Nazis, right?" I had to step back and wonder if I should be taking my own species' history into account when I watch/read science fiction or fantasy media. Although they are supposed to live in a real city, and there are real humans with real jobs, should we as an audience be assuming they have had the same historical experience that we have as a species?

Hitler: just as scary with a normal face, the first time around.