Is Secret Hitler Worth It? Our Honest Review

By Eric Published October 3, 2026

Bottom Line

Secret Hitler is best for groups of six to ten adults who like arguing, accusing and lying to each other for 45 minutes. Skip it if anyone at your table would be uncomfortable with the name or the theme, or if you usually have fewer than five players. Its biggest strength is the policy deck, which gives every liar a believable excuse. Its biggest weakness is that players can be eliminated and have to sit out the rest of the game.

Secret Hitler gets 3/5 Bamboo Plants and 4/5 Pandas from us. We’ve played it a few times. Secret Hitler is worth buying if your group already likes social deduction and is fine with the theme.

The Bamboo is a 3 because there is a lot to explain before the first vote: hidden roles, elections, term limits, a two-step policy hand-off and presidential powers that change with the player count. The Pandas are a 4 because the arguments it creates are some of the best in any hidden-role game. It loses a point because executed players sit out, and because the name alone keeps it off some tables.

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Secret Hitler is a hidden-role game set in 1930s Germany. Most players are Liberals. A few are secretly Fascists, and one of them is Hitler. The Liberals are trying to pass Liberal policies or find and remove Hitler. The Fascists are trying to pass Fascist policies or get Hitler elected Chancellor.

How Secret Hitler Works

Every round, the table elects two players and those two pass one policy. The official rules break a round into three parts.

1. Election. The President’s seat moves one player clockwise. That player nominates a Chancellor, and everyone votes Ja or Nein at the same time.
2. Legislative session. If the vote passes, the President draws three policy tiles, discards one face down and hands two to the Chancellor. The Chancellor discards one and plays the other face up.
3. Executive action. Some Fascist policies give the President a one-time power, like looking at a player’s party card or executing someone.

Nobody else sees the discarded tiles. The President and Chancellor can say whatever they like about what they were dealt, and the rules say outright that they “are free to lie.”

The deck is what makes it work. There are 17 policy tiles: 6 Liberal and 11 Fascist. That lopsided mix means an honest Liberal government will sometimes be forced to pass a Fascist policy.

The Liberals win by passing five Liberal policies or by executing Hitler. The Fascists win by passing six Fascist policies, or by getting Hitler elected Chancellor any time after three Fascist policies are on the board.

If you’d rather watch a teach, the designers’ own How to Play Secret Hitler video covers a full round. Our Secret Hitler rules guide has every power and win condition in one place.

What We Liked

The deck gives everyone an alibi. In most hidden-role games, a bad result means someone at the table is guilty. Here the rulebook’s own strategy notes list three possible culprits for any Fascist policy: the President, the Chancellor or the deck. That third option is what keeps accusations from being simple.

The powers get more dangerous as the Fascists get closer to winning. The first Fascist policies cost the Liberals little. The fourth and fifth hand the President an execution. It gives the game a clear arc from polite suspicion to open panic.

The Hitler-as-Chancellor rule changes every late vote. After three Fascist policies, electing the wrong Chancellor ends the game on the spot. Every nomination from that point on is a real risk, and the table knows it.

The production is excellent. The publisher describes the standard edition as having foil inlays on the boards and wooden placards for the President and Chancellor.

What We Disliked

Players get eliminated. An executed player can’t speak, vote or run for office for the rest of the game. There are two execution slots on every Fascist board, so up to two people can end up watching.

The theme rules it out for some groups. The name is on the box, and there’s no getting around it. Some people will not want it on their table, and that’s a fair position. Stores in Montreal pulled it from shelves in 2020 after a complaint about the name.

It needs at least five players. There’s no way to play it with fewer, and BoardGameGeek voters don’t recommend it at five either.

Who It’s For

Secret Hitler is for adult groups who already like hidden-role games such as Werewolf, The Resistance or Avalon and want one with more structure. It suits a group that plays together often, because knowing how your friends lie is half the game.

It also works for people who say they hate bluffing games. As Ars Technica’s review put it, the game forces players to take actions that reveal information, so there’s always something concrete to argue about.

Who should skip this game:
– Any group where one person would be uncomfortable with the name or the setting.
– Couples and groups of three or four. It doesn’t work below five.
– Families with kids. Retail listings put it at 17 and up.
– Players who hate being accused, or who take lying personally.

Who Should Buy This?

Buy Secret Hitler if you regularly have six or more adults at a table and they enjoy arguing. The official store lists it at $50, which is a lot for a box of cards and boards, so check the Amazon price.

Try it before you buy if you’re unsure about the theme or the group. The publisher gives away a free print-and-play version on its site, and that’s a no-cost way to find out whether your table likes it.

It’s a situational game. It needs the right number of people and the right kind of group, and when you have both, Secret Hitler earns its shelf space.

Check Secret Hitler price on Amazon →

Best Player Count

Secret Hitler is best with 8. The box says 5 to 10, and the game changes more between those counts than most people expect.

BoardGameGeek’s community poll rates it best with 8 and with 10, and recommended from 6 to 10. Five is the one count voters don’t recommend.

The rules explain why. At five or six players there is only one Fascist besides Hitler, the two of them know each other, and the first two Fascist policies give no power at all. At seven or more, Hitler doesn’t know who the Fascists are, and the President gets to investigate a player early. Our Secret Hitler player count guide has the role numbers for every count.

Replayability

Secret Hitler has a lot of replay value for a game with one deck and no expansions. Roles are dealt at random, the policy deck is shuffled, and the same group will argue differently every time depending on who gets caught lying first.

The limit is the group. The game is only as good as the people playing it, and a quiet table will get less out of it than a loud one.

There are no official expansions on sale. The publisher released a cosmetic Trump Pack in 2017, which swapped the art on the Fascist role cards and didn’t change the rules. It’s no longer on the official store.

Awards

Secret Hitler was a nominee for the 2016 Golden Geek award for Best Party Game on BoardGameGeek. Its Kickstarter campaign raised $1,479,046 from 34,565 backers in late 2015.

Similar Games

If you like Secret Hitler, try The Resistance: Avalon — it’s the game Secret Hitler’s designers started from, with no player elimination and no random deck. It’s shorter, and the theme won’t cause problems. Our Secret Hitler vs Avalon comparison covers which to buy.

If you like Werewolf, try Secret Hitler — you don’t need a moderator, and votes produce hard evidence instead of pure guesswork. Our Werewolf review explains where the older game falls short.

If your group is too small, try Coup — it’s a bluffing game for two to six that plays in 15 minutes. See our Coup review.

Tips & Tricks

Count the tiles. The deck starts with 11 Fascist and 6 Liberal tiles, and policies on the board never go back in. If two Liberal policies are down and a President claims to have discarded a third, there are only three Liberal tiles left to find.

After three Fascist policies, don’t elect anyone you aren’t sure of. That’s when electing Hitler as Chancellor ends the game. The rulebook’s own strategy notes say the Fascists “most often win by electing Hitler, not by enacting six Policies.”

Watch who a President picks to investigate. The President sees a party card and can lie about it. If they accuse someone, one of those two players is on the Fascist team, and the table should treat it that way.

A Chancellor who is elected after three Fascist policies and isn’t Hitler has just been cleared of being Hitler. Use those players as safe Chancellor picks later. Our Secret Hitler strategy guide goes further on all of this.

Want to go deeper?

• Secret Hitler Rules — setup, elections, every presidential power and all four ways the game ends. Read it here
• Secret Hitler Strategy — the deck odds, and how to play as a Liberal, a Fascist and Hitler. Read it here
• Secret Hitler Player Count — the roles and powers at every count from 5 to 10. Read it here
• Secret Hitler vs Avalon — which hidden-role game to buy for your group. Read it here

Verdict

Buy it if you have six or more adults who like to argue and nobody minds the theme. Skip it if your group is small, includes kids, or has anyone who would rather not play a game with this name. Try before you buy with the free print-and-play if you’re not sure.

Secret Hitler official site: secrethitler.com