As early as 2000, Time did a piece on the country’s Third Reich–themed bars. That trend never fully took off, but it’s still fairly common for Korean teens to cosplay as Gestapo agents.
Known widely as Nazi chic, it’s different from the skinhead or punk swag you find in the West. The trend stretches beyond Korea—in China it was fashionable to dress up like Nazi officers in wedding photos, and a Hong Kong store once hung Nazi banners throughout their shop. In India, a Hitler boutique (with a swastika dotting the i) opened in Ahmedabad in 2012. In Indonesia, Soldatenkaffee, a bar named after a Parisian Nazi hangout and decked out with Hitler quotes and Third Reich flags, has (despite a temporary closure due to outrage) operated in Bandung since 2011; the Indonesia pop star Ahmad Dhani recently performed at a rally for 2014 presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto in Nazi regalia.
But the worst offender in Asia is Thailand. In 2007, some Thai students had a Nazi-themed parade, and in 2012 a school held an SS sports rally. Some Thai language books that use Hitler in their exercises, and a Bangkok KFC knockoff briefly called itself Hitler and used the Führer’s face in place of Colonel Sanders’s. In 2013, the country’s top university had to apologize when students painted a giant mural of superheroes that included Hitler, with which they posed Sieg Heil-ing. And naturally they have Nazi-themed pop groups as well.
And these are only the major, international-headline-drawing cases. From Cambodia to Japan to Myanmar, it’s fairly common to encounter vendors in markets selling swastika-adorned bike helmets, T-shirts featuring Hitler’s mustachioed mug, and Ché-esque Adolf posters of all sorts.
I mean, Asian culture does seem to have an unhealthy fascination with Nazis.