Varun Patel
Ummm….Ja. How naive of us mortals to think the Nazi threat was over. How naive of us to think that the snake had been decapitated when we didn’t even confirm where its head went rolling to.
The Amazon Prime show, ‘Hunters’ presents a deep, heavy tale about a crew of Nazi hunters who set out to find WWII war criminals in 1977 USA and bring them justice. While the first half of the show tests the viewers’ patience, the second half, especially the last two episodes, pays off every single Reichsmark that it owes.
Hunters Plot Summary
It is 1977. Logan Lerman plays Jonah Heidelbaum, a young man (or “boy,” if you must) whose Holocaust-surviving grandmother gets shot by a Nazi living in the United States. Meyer Offerman (Al Pacino) takes him under his wing and makes him a part of his team of Nazi hunters.
Several Nazi scientists and geniuses were brought to the United States by the American government after the Second World War, with the intent of nosing ahead of the USSR in the space race and competition for technological superiority that ensued during the Cold War (read more about Operation Paperclip and Nazis in the United States here). In the show, most of them have joined hands to bring about the Fourth Reich in the United States and Offerman’s team seeks to stop them. A Nazi referred to as “The Wolf” is also one of their prime targets.
What follows is an intense cat-and-mouse game between the two factions: Offerman & co. vs. the Nazis living in America, commanded by a woman called “The Colonel.”
The Ending: Is Hitler Alive? Is The Colonel Alive?
The final scene of the first season of ‘Hunters’ is set in Argentina. Joe, who was kidnapped earlier, is shown to have been taken to South America. He is greeted by none other than The Colonel. The last time we saw The Colonel, she was in a car with Offerman after the burning of the Schindler Corp. plant. She retrieves a concealed gun from the car’s seat and shoots Offerman. Meyer loses control, and the car falls off the bridge into a water body.
However, in the final scene, The Colonel is shown to be alive. She is the one who had ordered Joe to be kidnapped. She is very much alive and itching for Nazi supremacy after her failure of the poisoning plan. Towards the end, she shouts “Adolf” and a man in a khaki uniform joins them at the dinner table.
His face is not shown completely. However, his iconic mustache (whitened with age) is depicted, confirming the fact that the man who started the Second World War has been brought back to life in ‘Hunters.’ Sure, the writers can pass off the revelation as being another man with the same first name as Hitler. That would be quite a cheap trick though.
Moreover, the show constantly skirts the lines of conspiracy and truth. The fact that Hitler might not have committed suicide and escaped to Argentina is one conspiracy that received some notable public attention. It is NOT a confirmed fact. In fact, several historians have rubbished it. However, Joseph Stalin has been recorded (source) saying that the Fuhrer might have escaped to Spain or Argentina at the 1945 Potsdam Conference.
So there you have it: both Adolf Hitler and The Colonel are very much alive on ‘Hunters.’
Who is The Colonel? How is she related to Adolf Hitler?
Throughout the show, viewers have not been acquainted with the actual name or identity of The Colonel. However, in the end, Hitler refers to her as “Eva darling.” This implies that she could be romantically involved with Adolf Hitler. In fact, the actual name of Hitler’s wife, in reality, is Eva Braun. She was married to Hitler for less than 40 hours, just before the two committed suicide. Eva was 33 years old when she died. Hence, in all probability, she plays a fictionalized version of Hitler’s wife!
On the show, Lena Olin, who essays the character of The Colonel, certainly appears to be in her thirties. The conspiracy theories surrounding Hitler having escaped to Spain/Argentina also speculate that Eva Braun might have accompanied him there. On top of that, in the final scene, four extremely Aryan-looking boys also sit at the dining table. Eva calls them “darlings” implying the fact that they might be Hitler and The Colonel’s kids. Throughout the episode, these were the boys who had been shown running in the field, playing with a red ball, one by one.
Is Sister Harriet A Nazi?
This has been one of the recurring questions on ‘Hunters.’ One of the members of Offerman’s team is Sister Harriet. In the fifth episode, she was seen defying the team’s plans and escorting a Nazi scientist in her car, leaving Joe and Jonah behind. However, she returns later and gifts the Nazi (Kenneth) to Mindy and Murray (Kenneth had killed their son during the war).
In the final episode, she is seen speaking on the phone to someone. The woman at the other end of the phone calls The Colonel “Queen.” The woman also asks Sister Harriet how she plans on fooling “Meyer’s bandits.” Hence, she is definitely playing some form of a backstabbing game. However, she does get fooled by Kenneth when he asks her a trick question regarding a Nazi superior. So, she is probably not with the Colonel. However, that has not been confirmed yet. The truth will only be revealed in future seasons.
Who was Offerman?
Another major moment in the first season finale of ‘Hunters’ is when Jonah kills Meyer Offerman. Well, Meyer Offerman is not really Meyer Offerman. He is actually the Wolf that the team had been chasing! Apparently, he had undergone cosmetic surgery to change his appearance.
He had been killing Nazis as an exercise of personal repentance. How did he fool Ruth, Jonah’s grandmother, then? The two did share a very personal relationship with each other. Well, he had killed the actual Meyer Offerman. He tattoed his hand the same way that Meyer’s was. Then, he sent a note to Ruth, along with her necklace, on behalf of Meyer, telling her that he could not be with her any longer.
Plus, in a flashback scene in the final episode, Ruth is shown telling “Meyer” that she has lost memory of her relatives who were killed in the war. This also reasonably explains why Ruth would believe that Al Pacino’s character was actually Meyer. They did meet after a gap of several years and one cant ascertain what aging might do to a person’s physical appearance with certainty. There’s the cosmetic surgery too.
Where is Travis Leich?
Travis Leich, one of the handymen of The Colonel, is imprisoned towards the end of the first season of ‘Hunters.’ He calls for a Jewish lawyer to represent him. Then, he kills the lawyer in the prison, in full view of the other inmates. He wants to continue the Fourth Reich plan. For that, he wants to recruit other men to be a part of his crew. Leich believes that prison is the perfect place for him to do so. Hence, he kills the Jewish lawyer as a show of power so that the other inmates would start to respect him.
In the next season, we can expect him to amass power in the prison and build a team of white supremacists. We can also expect him to break out of prison with his crew to advance his plans of a Fourth Reich.
Remaining Nazi Hunters
Only four people remain on the Nazi-hunting team: Jonah, Roxy, Lonny, and Sister Harriet. Joe has been kidnapped by the Colonel, and Mindy has left town to live with her relatives for the rest of her life. Sister Harriet informs them of ‘Die Spinne:’ a covert regime surrounding eight of Hitler’s top brass hatching a plan in Europe. The team then decides to head to Eastern Europe to hunt and kill them.
Hence, we will see the Nazi-hunting team head to Europe to find and kill the eight Nazi men. On the other hand, we can expect Travis Leich’s prison story to advance side-by-side. The FBI agent, Morris, is still in the USA. She gets approached by a Congresswoman who wants her help in setting up an official task force to track and hunt Nazis. Hence, we can expect her to be going against Travis in the next season. Travis Leich did threaten to kill Morris’ partner, Maria.
So there you have it. The Nazi Hunters are gonna go globe-trotting the next season. So strap your boots and pack your bags!
Read More: Is Hunters a True Story?
