Ask me about Adolf Hitler.

[boomshakalaka]

[ QUOTE ]
A better question might be to ask what this hate accomplishes. If it makes people better, kinder, less fascist, more racially sensitive or whatever, then it is skillful. If it closes our minds to a greater knowledge of the depths of human depravity and stifles intelligent discussion about history then it is not skillful.

[/ QUOTE ]

bingo.

This is why Im kinda appauled that the german people censor themselves from wwII. I remember hearing that german kids arent taught about nazism and hitler in school. I know that video games depicting nazi's are banned from being sold in germany, I wonder if its true of movies too.

[Bond18]

Slater, good thread, like many others i expected it to be bad.

Questions:

Was Hitler the most influential man of the 20th century?

Who was the "worst" of these despots/people during their darkest times:
1. Hitler/Germans
2. Stalin/Russians
3. Mao/Chinese
4. Tojo/Japanese
5. Pot/Cambodians
6. Other/

And why? It seems whenever you discuss a people more awful and murderous than the Germans (and the argument can be made) people will accuse you of insensitivity.

For that matter, why are the atrocities of Hitler/The Germans so much better known than the others?

How much do you think Hitlers syphilis affected his decision making?

How much did Hitlers officers fear/respect him?

[A_C_Slater]

Was Hitler the most influential man of the 20th century?


From this list http://www.adherents.com/adh_influ.html Hitler is ranked 39th most influential person in world history. But Einstein, The Wright brothers, and Guglielmo Marconi are ahead of him in the 20th century in terms of influence.

[A_C_Slater]

How much do you think Hitlers syphilis affected his decision making?



It is not known for certain that he had syphilis, it's only believed he was more likely than not to have it. And I doubt the syphilis would affect his decision making more than the 3 daily amphetamine injections and the never sleeping.

[WhoIam]

[ QUOTE ]
Who was the "worst" of these despots/people during their darkest times:
1. Hitler/Germans
2. Stalin/Russians
3. Mao/Chinese
4. Tojo/Japanese
5. Pot/Cambodians
6. Other/

[/ QUOTE ]
I'll try and rank these for the hell of it and provide a brief explanation. I could obviously write pages and pages on this but have better things to do with my time. From worst to "best":
Stalin
Hitler
Pol Pot
Tojo
Mao

I put Stalin before Hitler which should surprise some people. The reason for this that both were evil insane men, but Hitler's insanity was more orderly and rational. If you accept the tenets of the Nazi party, Hitler's actions make sense in context, at least until maybe 1944 where he totally loses his mind. As long as you weren't a member of certain groups and stayed out of trouble, you would generally be left alone. Stalin's actions generally made no sense at all, his orders were personally responsible for millions of Russian deaths. Living during The Terror with all of the purges would have been almost unimaginably horrific. Anyone could be taken away in the middle of the night simply because someone didn't like them or made an accusation against them. People were taken away simply because they didn't make enough accusations. Stalin engaged in the genocide of millions during "de-kulakization" and even widely persecuted jews which is what Hitler is most infamous for. This is a man who murdered his own wife after an argument with her. It's close, but I'd have to go with Stalin as the worst. The odd thing is, if you showed up at a Halloween party dressed as Stalin, almost everyone would laugh.

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge are one of the most effed-up things in history. Period. In a period of just a few years, 1/3 to 1/4 of the population was dead, intellectuals were wiped out, and the entire population forced into what was essentially slavery. The only reason he isn't higher is that this occurred in a small country.

I don't really know enough about Mao to rank him. The Japanese did horrible things during WWII, but I don't think they're as bad as the previous three.


[ QUOTE ]
For that matter, why are the atrocities of Hitler/The Germans so much better known than the others?

[/ QUOTE ] The German propaganda machine made Hitler a god, and there's a long-standing judeo-christian tradition of turning the enemy's gods into demons. Sorry, Hitler was not the living incarnation of evil, he was just an evil and [censored]-up person who liked dogs and had bad gas.

Quite frankly, Hitler was responsible for the deaths of a lot of white europeans. Stalin killed a lot of Russians, but they were our enemies in the cold war. Everyone else on the list had atrocities that involved non-white people. Sorry, that's the way it works, I didn't make it that way.

[ QUOTE ]
How much do you think Hitlers syphilis affected his decision making?

[/ QUOTE ] This was never proven, it's more likely he suffered from Parkinson's. He also received a daily "vitamin" injection which included methamphetamine.

[ QUOTE ]
How much did Hitlers officers fear/respect him?

[/ QUOTE ]
His officers didn't respect him. Unlike Napoleon who was (often) a military genius, Hitler was a terrible general and often didn't understand even basic concepts. Because he got lucky in the beginning, he assumed destiny was on his side. Also, his officers tried to kill him.

[MaxWeiss]

How would he have been different if he had gotten into art school?

[DcifrThs]

how accurate was the movie DownFall?

i loved it!

Barron

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
How would he have been different if he had gotten into art school?

[/ QUOTE ]


I don't know, but he still might have gotten drafted into the army for WW1 and that may have still led him down the same path.

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
how accurate was the movie DownFall?

i loved it!

Barron

[/ QUOTE ]


The movie was based on eye witness accounts mostly the secretary and from the big SS bodyguard/adjutant of Hitler's. He was the one to whom he ordered "Get me Fegelein! Fegelein!! Fegelein!!!"

Also Joseph Goebbel's diary was used as source material. Albert Speer obviously witnessed the scenes he was involved in as well.

[AJW]

[ QUOTE ]

This is why Im kinda appauled that the german people censor themselves from wwII. I remember hearing that german kids arent taught about nazism and hitler in school. I know that video games depicting nazi's are banned from being sold in germany, I wonder if its true of movies too.

[/ QUOTE ]

Former West Germany had a very thorough de nazifacation policy The people were shown the horrors of the concentration camps and forced to face their role in the war.
West Germany fully acknowledges it past. Nazi symbols and insignia are banded because Germany has some of the most repressive anti fascist laws in the world.
The only place the Nazi sympathisers were safe was the commercial sector where rich powerful industrialists who had supported the Nazi project were allowed to retain their positions and even given financial help to rebuild as securing a strong economic base for Germany was considered a necessity to stop any encroachment of communism.
East Germany is a different matter the soviets concentrated on re-education the German people in class conciseness rather then making them painfully aware of the Nazi atrocities and there are a lot of neo Nazis from former East Germany.
The charges you’re making against Germany are much more applicable to Japan where the semi official line is that war is hell and atrocities were committed by all sides the worst of which was the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.