I'm not talking about Hitler or Stalin but the person who actually held the club/knife/gun whatever. I can't remember the name but in Red Czar one of Stalins henchman apparently killed over 7000 people and was more or less single handedly responsable for the Katyn Forest massacre which took him about a month to do. From memory his name started with a B if anyone has a better memory than me- he was in the NKVD.

Any others?

Berija. But I think he was also only doing this "job" at a chair. Bomber Harris or Truman are then also good candidates. Nevertheless I don´t know a normal murderer who could be the worst.

Adler

Harold Shipman is Britain's worst serial killer. He killed something along the lines of 200 hundred people I think.

Berija. But I think he was also only doing this "job" at a chair. Bomber Harris or Truman are then also good candidates. Nevertheless I don´t know a normal murderer who could be the worst.

Adler

Beria- not sure how many he personally killed though but I think some of his henchmen were worse than he was. I don't include people like Bomber Harris, Truman, Himmler etc as thye personally didn't kill anyone that I know of

Rudolf Hoess--2nd commandant of auschwitz--2.5--3 million persons killed during his administration

Boulevard papers usually offer the things that you want to talk over in something that is supposed to be a history forum.

Mother Theresa...

...Maybe thread title should be BEST killer? :confused:

Paul W. Tibbets

flew the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima

Rudolf Hoess--2nd commandant of auschwitz--2.5--3 million persons killed during his administration

Did he personally kil them though?

Did he personally kil them though?
as much as harris, truman or beria did.

as much as harris, truman or beria did.

I'm more looking for the trigger man though as opposed to people who gave the orders.

According to the 2004 edition of the Guiness Book of World Records:
Most prolific serial killer The Shipman Commission concluded that family doctor Harold Shipman (UK) murdered 215 of his patients between 1975 and 1988. He killed his elderly (mainly female) victims with the administration of drugs. Found guilty in January 2000, he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Paul W. Tibbets

flew the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima
I would have thought that the guys who actually were in the bomb bay of the B-29 would be responsible, not Tibbets. The man who armed the bomb was a Navy captain, I think his name was Bill Persons or something like that. According to Tibbets, the hardest part was taking off with the bomb in the plane. There was virtually no opposition over the Home Islands, so his job wasn't really to drop it. And that's "only" about 250,000 people anyway...

Hm...
I wonder if not some of the legendary woodsmen and Indian killers of the 18th c. could compete here.

I'm trying to get figures for Lew Wetzell, who had this as his primary occupation for his entire adult life. So far no luck though.

I bet some of the Crusader Kings rank very high...they would usally command at the frontline and be in first up for the rape and pillage of towns and villages.

Gilles de Rais, the original 'Bluebeard', Marshall of France, companion in arms of Jeanne d'Arc, was executed in 1440 for the sodomisation and murder of over 140 children. No exact figure could be established by the court.

Beria actually did a great deal of his own killings, he was a mean s.o.b but he usually let his henchmen do the killing. But for important ones, only he could do it. Supposedly he was one of the NKVD founders, cant remember all that well.

I definitely put some of the crusade knights up here. They killed anyone and anything that moved. Then they'd slit thier stomachs to look for gold. There was a rumor spread that the muslims would swallow thier gold to keep it out of the hands of the infidels.

But i will look into Beria a bit more, I got a book on him somewhere, I just moved so it might take awhile to find it

Speaking of Beria, heres 3 neat links.
http://members.fortunecity.com/stalinmao/Soviet/Beria/beria.html
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSberia.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lavrenty_Beria
this ones good.

Wasn't there some serial killer in South America a few decades ago that killed hundreds of people.

Albert Fish is another good candidate. Easily possible here really killed as much as >100, considering his preferred victims were Black childs, who 'didn't matter much' at that time...

"Pedro Alonso Lopez (300+) Meet the deadliest serial killer of the Archives. Pedro was known as the "Monster of the Andes" after the impressive numbers of hits he tallied in his three-nation killing spree. A native of Colombia, his prostitute mother kicked him out of their home at age eight for fondling his younger sister. Adding insult to injury he was then picked up by a pedophile and sodomized against his will. By the time he was eighteen he was gang banged in prison and retaliated by killing three of his assailants.

Upon his release he started killing young girls with glee and impunity. By 1978 he claimed to have bagged more than 100 girls in Peru. After a brush with an angry village mob he moved his activities to Colombia and Ecuador where his blood lust averaged about three kills a week. He found killing Ecuadorian girls quite enjoyable because they were "more gentle and trusting, more innocent." Authorities attributed the rash of disappearing girls to active slavery or prostitution rings in the area.

In 1980 a flash flood uncovered the first of his victims. When he was arrested he told his interrogators the frightening tale of his reign of death. At first authorities were skeptical, but all doubts disappeared when he quickly produced more than fifty graves. It is widely believed that three hundred hits is a low estimate for this most prolific serial killer."

http://www.mayhem.net/Crime/serial1.html

And that's "only" about 250,000 people anyway...

ONLY???? :eek: :confused: most people can't kill 100 people without being caught...

Beria is probably the man who killed the most personally.
During his years as Stalin's right-hand, he conduced the torture of all important prisioners and many unimportant ones, and they oftenly resulted in death.

Volkogonov also mentioned in his book that Beria would chase young girls at some nights, and then rape and kill them. He was definately one of the worst human beigns ever to live.

(nevermind)

I'm not talking about Hitler or Stalin but the person who actually held the club/knife/gun whatever. I can't remember the name but in Red Czar one of Stalins henchman apparently killed over 7000 people and was more or less single handedly responsable for the Katyn Forest massacre which took him about a month to do. From memory his name started with a B if anyone has a better memory than me- he was in the NKVD.

Any others?

There is NO WAY Beria single handlely commited the Katyn Massacre. They were shot in groups of about 2-300. One guy against that many officers? NO WAY.

I'm a bit concerned about your motivation - you're not aiming to enter the record books are you?

There is NO WAY Beria single handlely commited the Katyn Massacre. They were shot in groups of about 2-300. One guy against that many officers? NO WAY.

I'm a bit concerned about your motivation - you're not aiming to enter the record books are you?

It wasn't Beria who done the Katryn massacre but a henchman. Apperently they were shot 1 at a time over a period of a month. At the time in 43 when they were found they were found bound and shot once in the back of the head. I'll see if I can find the page number and name etc.

According to Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar page 297.

" This massacre was a chunk of 'black work' for the NKVD who were accustomed to the Vishka of a few victims at a time, but there was a man for the task:Blokhin travelled down to the Ostachov camp where he and two other Chekists outfitted a hut with padded, soundproofed walls and decided on a Stakhanovite quota of 250 shootings a night. He brought a butcher's leather apron and cap which he put on when he began one of the most prolific acts of mass murder by one individual, killing 7000 in precisely twenty eight nights, using a German Walther pistol to prevent future exposure. The bodies were buried in various places- but the 4500 in the Kozelsk camp were interred in Katyn Forest."

Blokhin was stripped of his rank in November 54 and died in February 55. He was assisted by 2 brothers Vasily and Ivan Zhigarev although I don't know if they were the 2 Chekists in the above paragraph. The blood of thousands is apparently on his hands, not just the Katyn massacre.

Blokhin makes Shipman look like a boy scout.

Jack the Ripper :goodjob:

I think that whoever it was that sunk the Lusitania could be a candidate as far as a mass killing.

Qusay Hussein is an excellant candidate. He personally gassed 1,200-1,300 people in Iraqi jails.

Qusay Hussein is an excellant candidate. He personally gassed 1,200-1,300 people in Iraqi jails.

indeed he did. he was almost as ( if not more) sadistic than his father, too bad he wasnt taken alive, that would have made for an intersting "interrogation". not to mention trial.,

but good riddance to bad rubbish

Hans Ulrich Rudel is probably the most effective soldier without superweapons (discounting A bombs and so on). I would say that he probably killed four military divisions worth of soldiers (20 000 each, total of 80 000).

Rudel logged 2,530 combat missions, and was granted almost no leave throughout his four years of active duty. Unlike his Allied counterparts, there was no magical number of missions which would mean a furlough home, once attained. For Rudel, as well as for all German pilots, it was a matter of "fly and fight until the war ends, or you are killed": consequently, almost all eventually fell, and today only a tiny handful survive.

Rudel's personal victories as a ground-attack pilot were achieved exclusively against the Soviets, and despite the most primitive conditions imaginable, including operations solely from dirt, mud, and snow covered airfields, his confirmed victories (those witnessed by two or more fellow pilots) include:
+ 518+ Tanks
+ 700 Trucks
+ 150+ Flak and Artillery positions
+ 9 Fighter/Ground Attack Aircraft
+ Hundreds of bridges, railway lines, bunkers, etc.
+ Battleship October Revolution, Cruiser Marat, and 70 landing craft

Through direct action, he saved tens of thousands of German infantrymen from certain encirclement and annihilation during the long retreat which began in July 43 and lasted until the war's end, almost two years later.

+ Shot down 32 times.
+ Innumerable aircraft brought back to base that were later written off, due to heavy combat damage.
+ Wounded on many occasions, including the partial amputation of his right leg in the Spring of 45, after which he continued to fly with a prosthetic limb.

March 44: Disaster struck when Rudel landed behind Soviet lines to retrieve a downed German aircrew. Snow and mud bogged down the airplane, making it impossible to take off. Approaching Soviet troops forced everyone to flee on foot, but barring their escape was the 900 foot wide river Dnjestr. The Germans stripped to their longjohns, and swam across the ice-clogged river. Rudel's close friend and crewman, Erwin Henstchel, drowned a few feet from the far shore. They had flown 1490 missions together at the time of Hentschel's death. His body was never recovered.

Rudel was pursued by hundreds of Soviet troops who were intent on collecting the 100,000 ruble bounty which Stalin had placed on his head, and he was shot in the shoulder while they chased him with dogs and on horseback. Through incredible ingenuity, audacity, and raw determination, Rudel escaped and made his way, alone and unarmed, back home, despite being more than 30 miles behind Soviet lines when he began his 24 hour trek. He was barefoot and almost naked in the sub-freezing winter weather, without food, compass, or medical attention. His escape stands as the single most legendary example of personal bravery and luck during the Second World War, but he never fully recovered emotionally from Hentschel's death, for which he blamed himself throughout the remainder of his life.

Masterchief!!!!!!!!!! :lol:
:ar15: :ar15: :ar15: :ar15:
What about Manfred von Richtofen? Shot down quite a few planes in WW1, and probably some other kills.

Richthofen shot down 81 planes. Rudel´s kill list is indeed impressive. Also he was indeed a very brave man. He deserved the Golden Oak Leave totally. But his political ideas were not so good, since he was a supporting the Nazis, although never being in any of these parties.

Adler

Killing 81 pple in war isn't impressive. And Richthofen indeed wasn't a pathologic character.
Rudel...well, something completely different.

Killing 81 pple in war isn't impressive.
No, a real man kills 200!

;) (bad joke)

Since we're on the topic of war, I'm sure everyone's heard of Vassili Zaitsev, a sniper in the Soviet army. He killed anywhere between 250 to 400 Germans (I often hear different amounts) and killed over a 100 at the Battle of Stalingrad. The 30 (approximating) snipers he trained for the Soviet army in total killed about 3000 Germans.

Albert Fish is another good candidate. Easily possible here really killed as much as >100, considering his preferred victims were Black childs, who 'didn't matter much' at that time...
No... Albert Fish ate like only 15 kids, and I can think of atleast 2 that were white (the only two I know). Sick man, he was.
Jeffery Dahmer was the one who killed younger African American Boys.

The worst as in most devastating?
John Wayne Gacy killed the most people in the US that we've counted. 33 little boys, I think.
Harold Shipman killed over 200 old women in Britain I think.
Jack the ripper was the worst of his time, keeping women off the streets of London.
Ed Gein and Jeffery Dahmer were the ones who did the sickest things with they're victems.

BTW, if you're wondering how I know this, it was a book I got for my birthday (100 most infamous criminals) :eek:

If we talk about Worst I'd still like to submit Gilles de Rais.

140+ children raped and murdered. Gilles especially liked to keep and 'play' with the heads for a while. Gein and Dahmer didn't have much on this guy.

At his trial the court officials thought it necessary to veil the crucifix when he gave his full confession. And he still had the affront to think he was a good Christian and went to his death like one.

Richthofen shot down 81 planes. Rudel´s kill list is indeed impressive. Also he was indeed a very brave man. He deserved the Golden Oak Leave totally. But his political ideas were not so good, since he was a supporting the Nazis, although never being in any of these parties.

Adler

Rudel was also a soldier and most of his kills were in wartime combat. Perhaps the thread shoulf be called History's Greatest Personal Killers (as opposed to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot who gave orders)

Richthofen shot down 81 planes.
80 homologued victories, + some non-homologued. One at the beginnig of the war, one he gave to his brother and his last one. never anybody elses victory (shot down twice, his death (EDIT:ground shot) and majorly wounded before (EDIT: landed in his territory)) this gives us at least 83, probably more. And I think he is a german military leader in civ3, but i'm not sure.

Masterguy, Richthofen had indeed 80 confirmed victories. I showed it up in a book about Richthofen written for a PC game, which name I forgot. 3 others were not officially confirmed, one of them where he was observator in a scout plane. Also indeed Richthofen is a military leader in civ 3.

Adler

Nitpick:
"Richthofen" is not a (M)GL in Civ3. There's a "Richtofen" in that list, but I have no idea who that is ;).

The leader is not Manfred, it is is brother, or is cousin (which I don't remenber the name). :lol:
Actually, I think I have the game you are talking about. Is it Red Baron?
I liked this game, but it doesn't work on my computer. Something about MS-DOS I don't really understand. PM me please.

According to the 2004 edition of the Guiness Book of World Records:
Most prolific serial killer The Shipman Commission concluded that family doctor Harold Shipman (UK) murdered 215 of his patients between 1975 and 1988. He killed his elderly (mainly female) victims with the administration of drugs. Found guilty in January 2000, he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

According to CrimeLibrary.com, Pedro "Terror of the Andes" Lopez is attributed with 300ish murders.... and some estimate that it might actually be as high as 600. The difference is, of course, that Lopez was only convicted on 53 counts of murder.

-V

I think we could narrow this question to be mass murderers, best professional killers (soldiers), serial killers and so on. The question is too broad.

well theres murederes and then theres soldiers following orders. I personally have been in combat and I can tell you that its a different story. If you are following orders and u have to take a life, thats different. If you are a cowardly s.o.b and have to use thugs to grab little girls off the street so u can rape and murder them... then thats just sick. My own opinion is the worst mass murderer ive heard about was Timothy McVeigh... That man was a nut. Now that was murder, not following orders.

I recall a a married couple who used their house a hotel and killed a few hundred people

Here's a female contender:

Countess Elisabeth Batory, Hungary 16th c. Reputedly personally killed 600+ of her servants and peasants over a 40 year period, mostly young girls. In Carpathian vampire-style she drank the blood of her victims, bathed in it etc.

That must have been Dracula´s wife!

Adler

She wasn't. Darcula (Vlad Tepes) lived couple of hundred years before. But people joined Tepes and Elisabeth Batory in one person: Count Dracula.

I think the one is vlad the impaler. He is a great murderer and also he is crazy noone can be mad enough like him

I think the one is vlad the impaler. He is a great murderer and also he is crazy noone can be mad enough like him
Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler, son of Vlad Dracul, the 15th c. prince of Valachia, yeah...

Dunno if he was exactly mad though? Painfully good at terror politics though. Most of the people impaled were captured Turkish troops, diplomats, common criminals etc.
It seems he was pretty popular with his own Valachians — he beat back the Turks, restored law and order (the extremely heavy-handed kind), shut the German traders out of his principality etc.

Some historians I've read claim that his bloody reputation is largely an effect of the fact that the German traders hated him with a vengance (for economical reasons) and spread all kinds of propaganda against him.

Vlad Tepes, Vlad the Impaler, son of Vlad Dracul, the 15th c. prince of Valachia, yeah...

Dunno if he was exactly mad though? Painfully good at terror politics though. Most of the people impaled were captured Turkish troops, diplomats, common criminals etc.
It seems he was pretty popular with his own Valachians — he beat back the Turks, restored law and order (the extremely heavy-handed kind), shut the German traders out of his principality etc.

Some historians I've read claim that his bloody reputation is largely an effect of the fact that the German traders hated him with a vengance (for economical reasons) and spread all kinds of propaganda against him.


Yeah I was reading up on some middle ages Romanian stuff yesterday, and actually Vlad seemed kind of typical. They were all nuts. His younger brother Radu, was king for awhile, and also suspected to be gay with the Turkish sultan. His father and elder brother were buried alive by local Boyars. Vlad's cousin, Bogdan of Moldavia, made Turkish fingers and ear usable currency.

Bubonic Plague, Influenza and Malaria are the worst killers in history.

Soldiers were throwing nuclear bombs to Nagasaki and Hirosima.

How many did Timothy McVeigh kill?

I'd say Josh Ketchem. He killed like 250 indians in that ammytiville house.

"Pedro Alonso Lopez (300+) Meet the deadliest serial killer of the Archives. Pedro was known as the "Monster of the Andes" after the impressive numbers of hits he tallied in his three-nation killing spree. A native of Colombia, his prostitute mother kicked him out of their home at age eight for fondling his younger sister. Adding insult to injury he was then picked up by a pedophile and sodomized against his will. By the time he was eighteen he was gang banged in prison and retaliated by killing three of his assailants.

Upon his release he started killing young girls with glee and impunity. By 1978 he claimed to have bagged more than 100 girls in Peru. After a brush with an angry village mob he moved his activities to Colombia and Ecuador where his blood lust averaged about three kills a week. He found killing Ecuadorian girls quite enjoyable because they were "more gentle and trusting, more innocent." Authorities attributed the rash of disappearing girls to active slavery or prostitution rings in the area.

In 1980 a flash flood uncovered the first of his victims. When he was arrested he told his interrogators the frightening tale of his reign of death. At first authorities were skeptical, but all doubts disappeared when he quickly produced more than fifty graves. It is widely believed that three hundred hits is a low estimate for this most prolific serial killer."

http://www.mayhem.net/Crime/serial1.html


That is a very sad story. Had his past not been so extremely traumatic he would probably have lived a normal life. Insert a horrible childhood and you get 300 murders (ofcourse if other stuff about his personality were different he would have probably just commited suicide)

When a woman is a mass murderer you can bet she is either retarded (with violent parents), psychotic or schizophrenic. Unlike men, who always have another aspect due to male psychosomatic anatomy, women on the one hand become ultra violent far less easily, but once they do become that it is a lot more difficult for anything to change.


http://www.btinternet.com/~auntiekate/CC1_CountessElizabethBathory.jpg

#51
blindside
formerly god

Bubonic Plague, Influenza and Malaria are the worst killers in history.

And smallpox.

On another tack, the worst killers in history may have been Rasputin's murderers. Most of the people mentioned before were good at killing, but these guys were pretty incompetent.

Me.

They just haven't caught me out yet ;)

Another topic might be who was the most vicious/apalling murderer.

Whoops... redundant.

id say it would be the guys who pressed the button that dropped the A bombs on Hiroshima and nagasaki

id say it would be the guys who pressed the button that dropped the A bombs on Hiroshima and nagasaki
so are you saying that they are murders?

actually during the japanese occupation of nanking, japanese officers had killing contests to see who could kill the most people at once. one officer is said to have beheaded 300 people in one sitting and by the end was to exhausted to stand.

What about executioners?

Pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia groups.

Pro-abortion and pro-euthanasia groups.Now now, let's not get fresh :nono:

To add my 2 cents:

Afaik the proper name of the blood countess (Blutgräfin) is Elisabeth Batthány. Her castle is located in Austria in Lockenhaus (belonged formally to Hungary pre 1918). They have a nice Hotel with restaurant there, I think you can make medieval dinner parties there. In the cellar they have an exposition with torture instruments. A great ambiente when you are the goth type of guy...;)

I think that the medieval hangmen had a lot of 'work' , too.

Does it count when people kill in war? If it does then probably Samson is the biggest, with over 1000 Philistines killed single-handedly. And Adino the Eznite deserves to be up on the list, he killed 800 in a single battle.

Paul W. Tibbets

flew the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima

Who pushed the button?