Nazis, please stay away from Warhammer

Games Workshop has published a warning that real-world hate groups are not welcome. It’s been a thorny issue for decades. Racists, xenophobes, and extremists have always been attracted to the fictional racism, xenophobia, and extremism in the Warhammer universe. Like real organizations founded on hate, the Warhammer 40,000 Imperium of Man apes the symbols and vocabulary of ancient Rome. Then it coats it all with authoritarian nihilism and some thin sci-fi trappings. In the fiction of the game universe, the Imperium is a home for cowards, opportunists, and the insane. Even the vaunted Space Marines are genetically manipulated freak warriors that are little more than brainwashed tools of the insane emperor. It’s a brutal and merciless future, and according to Games Workshop, it’s not meant to be aspirational. Please take your swastikas and go away.

The Imperium of Man stands as a cautionary tale of what could happen should the very worst of Humanity’s lust for power and extreme, unyielding xenophobia set in. Like so many aspects of Warhammer 40,000, the Imperium of Man is satirical.

In fact, Games Workshop is making their stance quite clear. If you come onto a Games Workshop property, like one of their retail stores, or show up to one of their gaming events while espousing or wearing the symbols of a real-world hate group, they’ll ask you to leave. They just don’t want you around if you’re one of those jerks.

We won’t let you participate. We don’t want your money. We don’t want you in the Warhammer community.

Maybe find another hobby? Something a little less on-the-nose for Nazism. How about vegetarian cooking? There was a certain Nazi leader that was big into being a vegetarian, after all.