Grammar Nazi

Randy Milholland's comments on the phrase "grammar nazi" (Note: two content warnings for this link can be found at the bottom of this entry***) have me thinking about the phrase's origins. I'm wondering if people independently decided to stick the word nazi on various things, or if the phrase originated from Seinfeld's Soup Nazi. Personally, it never occurred to me before the Soup Nazi concept had entered popular culture, but I was 14 when Soup Nazi first aired so my verbal repertoire wasn't quite complete. The phrase's presence in Seinfeld gave me the impression that it wasn't entirely unacceptable, although I have always tried to use judgement about whether or not to use it in a specific context and I'm not going to be a dick and insist that it's unoffensive to someone who does find it offensive. But at any rate, when I do use it, I'm not referring directly to nazis, I'm making a sort of pop-culture reference to Seinfeld. I wonder if this is the same for everyone who uses the phrase, or if older people are actually referring to nazis?

***Warning 1: the kid's language can get offensive, although there's minimal (but not zero) offence in this strip. In the strip as a whole he is not intended to be a sympathetic character and his language is not presented as appropriate, although you can't glean this from this one strip. I don't much like this language, but he's the only character who's in school, so the author had to use him to make this point, and had to keep his character consistent.

Warning 2: This specific strip is clean and the ads I see right this moment are clean, but SP has been known to have ads that are borderline-NSFW. Not X-rated or anything, but not something I'd like my boss to walk by and see on my screen.