Adolf Kaufmann is the deutoragonist and antagonist of the manga Adolf.
He was a young man that was the son of a nazi war official stationed in Japan and a Japanese woman. While initially a kind, sweet boy, he was sent to Germany and gradually learns racial hatred before being recruited to the Nazi military, where he slowly becomes a ruthless genocidal murderer that mows down Jews in the thousands. While initially holding Adolf Kamil and a young Jewish girl named Elisa as exceptions, he comes to despise them as well, and later rapes Elisa even despite having saved her initially from the Holocaust. He becomes a fleeing nazi POW who joins the PLO in order to escape capture, where he commits numerous atrocities before coming back into contact with Kamil, who works for the Israeli military, and the two have a fight to the death that Kaufman loses.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Close to Being Pure Evil?[]
- As a young child, he murders Adolf Kamil’s father that had been sent back to Germany despite Kamil living in Japan at the time. While is forced to do so and hesitates, this is but one of the numerous crimes he ends up committing.
- Becomes Nazi soldier that rounds up thousands of Jews and political allies and has them approved to be brutally tortured and killed.
- Has a march where he directs Jews to a concentration camp, shooting the weak and elderly, and shooting a man just for playing a funeral march on his saxophone.
- Is assigned to kill Togo and attempts to do so despite the mission essentially being pointless with Germany’s failure, and he is in reality doing so out of spite for him marrying his mother and soiling his feelings of racial purity due to Togo being Japanese. He tries to kill him by luring him out into an open field and is only barely stopped by him. They appear to make up afterwards, only for Kaufmann to spitefully chant “Heil Hitler”.
- Rapes Elisa, a Jewish woman he had saved from the concentration camps by having her go live in Germany, due to feeling spited by his childhood friend Adolf Kamil having gotten engaged to her in the years he was away and feeling he was owed her.
- Repeatedly insults his mother for going back towards Japanese cultural traditions.
- When Kamil attempted to very justifiably kill him, he chooses going to the Germany embassy over staying with her.
- Has Akabane lure Toge into a secluded building where he reveals that he and Akabane have been torturing Toge’s friend Miss Ogi and Kamil, and states he will continue to torture them unless he provides information.
- Joins the Palestine Liberation Organization out of convenience, as a method to continue his escapade in destroying the jews and to escape fleeing as a former Nazi and commits numerous atrocities in the interim.
- Murders the PLO members he had worked with after they refuse to let him leave.
- Attempts to set up a meeting to murder Adolf Kamil after he kills his wife and daughter. He indicates he despises him and jews as a whole to the very end, chanting “You damn Jew” as his final words after he’s shot.
What Prevented Him From Pure Evil?[]
- He is slightly tragic, as he was influenced into being a supremacist due to being born into and raised by a Nazi officer as a father, had the lessons of brutality beat into him from an early age until he was conditioned into being an ideal nazi soldier, and felt a sense of inferiority as a result of his Japanese heritage. However, the narrative makes it clear this is no excuse for his actions as he begins acting out of cruelty in ways that were never ordered or required from him.
- He never subverts his care for his mother as he uses his influence to save her as soon as he was informed that she was in critical condition.
- Additionally, he grew to have a family in Palestine he genuinely cared for, and was enraged and saddened by their deaths.
- He's affable as he let Toge take the documents that reveal Hitler as part Jewish for historical archiving after realizing it was now irrelevant due to Hitler committing suicide.
Trivia[]
- He is one of two NPEs to also be protagonists written by Osamu Tezuka, the other being Michio Yuki.