Six has stated that "The Human Centipede" is, to an extent, a reflection on fascism. Dieter Laser, who played the antagonist Dr Heiter, said during the promotion of the film that he felt the guilt of Nazi actions during the war had haunted ordinary Germans for generations, and that as a German whose father participated in the war, he often felt "like a child whose father is in jail for murder." The inclusion of a German villain came from this, with Six citing both the German invasion of the Netherlands during World War II and the Nazi medical experiments as inspiration. Laser stated in an interview with Clark Collis for "Entertainment Weekly" that he considered the film a "grotesque [parody] about the Nazi psyche". Heiter's name was an amalgamation of several Nazi war criminals, his surname (literally meaning "cheerful" in German) a combination of the names of Nazi doctors Fetter and Richter, and his first name coming from Josef Mengele, who carried out experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp. World War II also played an influence on the nationality of the other main characters who were American and Japanese. Six includes many horror film clichés in the first act, such as a broken-down car, lack of phone signal and very naïve victims. Six did this in an attempt to lull audiences into thinking they are watching a conventional horror film, therefore making Dr Heiter's treatment of his victims more shocking.