The Greatest (Worst?) Nazi in Funny Books, and Naja-Naja

Kobra- Red Skull

This pairing demonstrates considerable dissonance, in that there is no key, defining Nazi supervillain in the DC universe.

In the period immediately preceding World War II, DC— then known as National Comics— did not much use the Third Reich as an antagonist for their heroes. Superman, Batman et al opposed gangsters and mad scientists, but the menace that threatened America and its allies was mostly ignored. When war was declared, there were pro forma efforts at propaganda, where Superman fucked with Hitler and Tojo (“dirty japs/nips were, interestingly, very popular in comic books as easily caricatured bucktoothed fiends) briefly, members of the Justice Society enlisted, and so forth.

Marvel, then known as Timely, was much, much more aggressive. The cover of Captain America #1, portrayed the titular hero punching “Herr Wolf” square in the jaw: Cap spent the rest of the war combating the Third Reich at home and abroad. Most of the company’s characters did the same.

And the Red Skull was Captain America’s opposite number, emblemizing everything Joe Simon and Jack Kirby could fathom of the Third Reich’s perfidy in the early ‘40s. And when the Marvel Age dawned in the 1960s, the Skull was brought back as a proxy for the worst supervillain ever —one didn’t need to be cooked up by comic book creators— and has since been the bad guy that most of Marvel’s other bad guys hate.

But DC never had a Nazi antagonist that really truly stuck. Captain Nazi, who was created to mess with Captain Marvel in the '40s. never did the trick, and neither did Baron Blitzkrieg, who was created in the 1970s. So I’m going to put the Skull with Kobra, a co-creation of Jack Kirby from the 1970s.

Kobra is not a Nazi, but he has been a very prominent and very, very evil terrorist mastermind whose exploits seemed much more Satanic than the Joker or Lex Luthor. "Naja-Naja" is the leader of a Eastern anarcho-religious cult bent on subjugating the world: doesn't line up precisely with the boogey-men that bedevil the West these days, but it's close enuff.

Commonalities:
Both are pretty much the worst of the worst, as far as mortals born on Earth are concerned.

Differences:
Kobra is not a Nazi. The Red Skull is, barring the obvious example via real world, the Nazi.

Alternate histories:

KO: A sociopath is picked and then personally trained by Adolf Hitler to be the personification of Nazi terror worldwide in World War II: the man is then dubbed Kobra and supervises espionage and sabotage for the Third Reich in Europe and America. His success inspires the United States to introduce Batman as Kobra’s opposite number. Kobra survives the end of the war, and then resurfaces in recent years: he is bent on ushering in an “age of chaos” and subsequent world domination. Despite various seeming demises, Kobra remains Batman’s most implacable foe: He has been opposed by most of the superhuman community and is actively despised by most in the criminal fraternity.

RS: As a child, Johann Schmidt is kidnapped by a organization that has been agitating for the Third Reich’s return to power since 1945. Known as the Red Skull, he is trained to be an implacable combatant, criminal mastermind and sadistic Nazi Ideologue. As the organization rises to be the most feared international terrorist organization worldwide, the Skull is opposed by the majority of superhuman community—notably, he is one of the few to ever defeat Captain America in hand-to-hand combat. After a particularly and wide-ranging deadly act of violence, he is killed by Magneto, although his organization remains dedicated to his aims.