A Sad Thought

[stratego]

It's inevitable that sometime in the future historians will reanalyze history. Maybe several generations later when the horrors of WWII is not strong in people's mind, some wise-guy historians will reanalyze Hitler not as an evil man, but as a great man, and the public might begin to agree. It has happened with Hannibal Barca, and Genghis Khan, both of which struck fear in people of their time, because of the deaths they cause. But now, people seem to be admire them rather than hate them.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Moved to History...

Perhaps, but the horrors of the Hitler regime are too well-documented for it to be so.

 

[Al Zan]

i don't think that will happen!

 

[Evie]

Of course Hannibal and GK were feared. As the English feared or loathed Washington. As the Europeans of the 19th century hated Bonaparte. As their enemies feared Alexander, or Caesar.

It is a hallmark of great conquerors and military leaders of history that they make their enemies shake before them. Those who did NOT leave a swath of fear were those that had nothing to make people afraid of them - those who didn't meet success.

And yes, in that sense Hitler figure among the great conquerors of history - as would any man who carved out an empire of most of Europe. It changes nothing to the terrible nature of his deeds, but the terrible nature of those deeds change nothign either to the fact that from a purely historical standpoint, he is one of the greatest figure of the 20th century - as in, one of the most defining, memorable ones.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Originally posted by stratego
It's inevitable that sometime in the future historians will reanalyze history. Maybe several generations later when the horrors of WWII is not strong in people's mind, some wise-guy historians will reanalyze Hitler not as an evil man, but as a great man, and the public might begin to agree. It has happened with Hannibal Barca, and Genghis Khan, both of which struck fear in people of their time, because of the deaths they cause. But now, people seem to be admire them rather than hate them.

People are already doing it. Much of current world war ii historiography will point to continuities between Hitler's and previous German foreign policy, the ingeniousness of Hitler's political strategy and the fact that many of the atrocities probably happened without Hitler's knowledge (not that Hitler would have objected mind you); well, not so much without his knowledge, as he might well have known about most things, but without his initiative. Laying it like that de-emphasizes the Holocaust. But, really, it doesn't. It just puts into perspective that, until 1942, Hitler's regime was like others...like Genghis Khan's, etc, and that it didn't do anything that even compares to the Holocaust in terms of "evilness" until 3 years until it came to an end. The Holocaust is the only thing which marks Hitler's regime out from nasty other regimes; the purely ideological nature of such an organized, efficient system of mass murder. The only way people will ever forget that is if it happens again on similar or larger scales. Then people will say "oh, the Holocaust wasn't so bad, I mean, Hitler wasn't as bad as that XXX leader from a few years ago". Such a future, I hope, will never come upon this world.

I don't think we should be ascribing everything to Hitler though. Hitler seems to have been much more sane than many of the people he placed under himself - like Himmler for instance. Or the the German officers serving in the dehumanizing conditions of eastern front; or the provincial commanders. If Hitler was really that evil, why did he not commit atrocities in the West? Stalin seems to have been just as ruthless, perhaps more so, than Hitler, but the people serving under Stalin weren't the insane fanatics serving under Hitler. I tend to think badly of the Nazis who devoted their personal attention to such policies, rather than one man like Hitler who spent most of his "insane period" (1941-45) watching silly films and engaging in childish romantic fantasies. I think it takes much more evil to carry these things out on the ground than to ignore them in an environment of isolation. We, for instance, live happily while much of the planet periodically starves to death, even though we could easy prevent such things; or we contentfully sit on our bums growing carbunkles while millions get tortured to death by horrific illnesses for which we have cheap remedies.

Attributing the Holocaust merely to Hitler's evil is Disney level simplicity. The people who actually carried it out are the ones that give me the chills. We never forget that kind of evil. The only thing that might change is that it will cease to be the political issue and taboo that it currently is...but we'll never forget the evil of the Holocaust.

 

[Enemy Ace]

It is more probable that an event in the future will erase history rather than change how it is viewed.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Like XIII said, its too well documented. Those films of mountains of dead victims being bulldozed into pits will be with us forever. Noone will ever be able to explain them away, no matter how much time passes.

 

[Patroklos]

Hello,

I would suggest that the future will not show a revision of history, but rather a realization that Hitler was hardly the worst despot of the last century. Stalin and Mao were far worse, killing several times more people each and statistically is less time.

One might say the Nazis had the worst methods (I would also suggest that a gulag is little better than a concentration camp, especially as the truth about them is now slowely leaking out). However, remember that the vast majority of deaths during the Nazi regime were in the war years when much can be attributed to ideologic struggle, war madness, and the inevitable dehumanizing of everybody during a war of that scale, which is of course no excuse. What is much more disturbing to me was what China and Russia did during the peace years where nothing but cold blooded power was on their minds. We just glaze over these two though because we have "mountainds of evidence" on the Nazis.

-Pat

 

[yaroslav]

I think that probably he'll though to be a criminal in the future... The problem is the 'standard behaviour' of your age. Sure, Genhis and Barca were fierce, but so was their enemies (for instance, Romans for Barca). Hitler, compared to the 'standard behaviour' of the allies is nothing but a criminal, bloodthursty dictator of the worst kind.

Just my humble opinion.

 

[Patroklos]

Hitler compared to Stalin was nothing more than a pupil, The Soviets perfected mass murder by the millions long before Hitler was even in power, but we ignore that because he was one of the "Allies."

-Pat

 

[MCdread]

I don't think that will happen. The effort of denazification after WWII does not have equal in the history of mankind and it was very successful.
Also, his world and the probable future world doesn't have anything to do with Hannibal's world for example. Firstly, there is the overwhelming documentation, particulary the image, that isn't comparable with anything of what we have to other History mass murderers. Secondly, there is the public conscience of the atrocity. The world was much more violent many centuries ago because there wasn't a strong opposing idea. Since a few centuries ago the perception and acceptance of violence has changed gradually for the better, and unless some apocalyptical event takes place, I'm not convinced the world is gonna experience the reverse process.

 

[Kryten]

I'd like to think that in the future, intelligent readers of history (I know that sounds smug, and I could have phased it better, but you know what I mean), would realise that there is nothing 'great' about murdering millions of your own helpless defenceless citizens, who had no way of fighting back.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think why most people identify Nazism more than say Mao or Stalin was because there was never any war with China or the USSR on the scale of WW2. They also done it to their own people as opposed to say Jews from all over Europe. Apart from the scale of the deaths Mao and Stalin seem to just be despotic dictators- nothing to different from some of todays regimes. However systematically rounding up millions of jews and gassing them and burning them from 41-45 seems to be worse than the 30 years or so it took Mao and Stalin to inflict their carnage .

 

[Patroklos]

Yes, but Mao staved 200 MILLION!!!! to death in a decade, statistically that is many times more per year than the Nazis could ever have accomplished or even wanted too. And that was just from the atrocities of the Great Leap Forward without taking into account the rest of his "programs." I fail to see a moral differance between purposely gassing and purposely starving people do death.

They were all sadistic ******s but number don't lie. And I refuse to ignore the attrocities of Stalin and Moa because they had more time to "erase" history than Hitler.

-Pat

 

[covok48]

I agree with Pat,

What makes Hitler so much worse than the other two dictators who killed far more people? What makes the "Final Solution" any worse than the "Great Leap Foreward" for China or the early 30's in the Ukraine (1931-1935) for the Soviets?

Do the Nazis get far more flack because of the long history of anti-semitism that was taken to the extreme? Stalin killed more Jews than Hitler, Mao indiscriminately killed just about everyone. What good is "documentation" when both events were extremely brutial?

I don't see why the motive to kill the Jewish population is worse than the motive to kill the Ukrainian population, or the Kurdish population, or whomever you refer to. Maybe it's to make up for the long history of anti-semitism displayed around the world for so long or to present a good picture of our allies who fought against the axis. Either way, I don't see how two wrongs make a right.

 

[Vrylakas]

What makes Hitler so much worse than the other two dictators who killed far more people? What makes the "Final Solution" any worse than the "Great Leap Foreward" for China or the early 30's in the Ukraine (1931-1935) for the Soviets?

There is a great difference.

China's "Great Leap Forward" was primarily an economic plan, though one based on faulty premises. That it was continued despite enormous evidence of its failure and its cost in human lives was indeed a crime, but nonetheless Beijing's objective was to develop the country's economic standing, not murder tens of millions of people. That it happened was quite incidental to Mao but that was not his plan.

Stalin's artificial famine in Ukraine was a step closer, but still not the same. Stalin's objective was not to kill lots of people - he had nothing in particular against Ukrainians - but rather to re-enforce his power in a part of his realm that had the measn to resist him, economically. Again, you're right that this is a hideous and criminal act but once again it falls short of the crimes Hitler committed. Stalin was willing to do whatever it took to create the conditions for his power to exist completely unopposed; if that meant millions had to die then so be it but the deaths were not his ultimate goal; power was.

Hitler, while he managed in the end to kill far fewer than Mao or Stalin (not as much time), he still had the most sinister motivations; his aim was the complete elimination of specific groups. Mass murder was his ultimate aim. There was nothing a Jew could do to make themselves somehow acceptable to Hitler, other than perhaps walk freely into the gas chamber. Hitler would not stop until Jews had been completely extingiuished from the planet, and the same goes for several other groups - Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, cripples, etc. Had Hitler won the war, especially in the East, there is a very good chance I would not exist right now, as a Pole. The word "genocide" is far too overused nowadays to add luster to pathetic political arguments but what it means is the intentional complete elimination of an ethnic group, usually through mass murder. Hitler is one of only a few modern leaders to actively attempt to commit genocide.

I'm no fan of Stalin's or Mao's and I agree with you that from the perspective of those who died in China, Ukraine or Auschwitz there wasn't much to choose between their fates but from the perspective of societies, there is indeed a grave difference between Hitler and the other two.

 

[Evie]

Frankly, when talking numbers in the millions, simply comparing the number and saying "This person is wort" is BS. There comes a point where you have to go and look at the why if you want to understand why one person should be seen as the worst.

The reason why Hitler is generally considered worse lie in one simple word : genocide. Mao killed people because they were political enemies. He may have had a broad definition of political enemy, but he was not doing any worse than any other dictator in history - simply he had a larger country to begin with, so "kill the 5% that oppose me in this 1 000 000 000 people country" meant a lot more death than it would have in a 1 000 000 people country. So in that sense Mao was not much different from any other dictator in history. Not to mention many of the death blamed on him are from a faulty economic plans and not deliberate murder.

Hitler killed jews because they were jews, and in addition started one of the most horrible war history has ever witnessed. Neither Mao or Staline can claim they did the later, and I'm not sure on the former either.,

That is what makes Hitler far worse in terms of how history sees him.

 

[covok48]

So the gist of these arguments are that "Hitler had worse intentions so he is indeed worse..."

"Frankly, when talking numbers in the millions, simply comparing the number and saying "This person is wor[se]" is BS."

Why so? One million isn't just a statisitic, they are real people who went through horrific events and died for it. If comparing dictators by the numbers of innocents killed is BS, then I don't see how discriminate killing holds much more weight in a discussion.

Once again, I don't see how the intentions of Hitler, Mao, or Stalin make their respective victims any less dead.

 

[Patroklos]

Stalin invaded Poland too, the only reason why they are not blamed with starting WWII in conjunction with Hitler is because we decided to let him get away with it (over simplification but if Poland was the ideological trigger for the Allies they should have forced their hand on Russia too). Besides Mao and Stalins "starvation" killings there are 10s of millions more that were killed deliberatly in camps, roving bands, and firing squads. I see alot of romantic apoligism (is that a word?) in the last two posts. You find me a Ukranian who doesn't think they were starved o death on purpose. And just because Stalin decided (after killing tens of thousands) that the Poles were beter use to him dieing by bieng thrown into the front line at gunpoint instead of a camp doesn't change anything, he wanted them dead.

And remember what I said about Stalin and Mao doing most of their killings in peace time. While it in no way excuses the Germans, a good part of the Holocaust didn't happen in camps, but in the plains of Russian, cities of Europe and in combat where the world of death was everywhere. Respect for life dwindles when your world is burning around you. It bothers me so much more that the Russians and Chinese would kill so many when they had no pressure on them but their own lust for power and dominance, and they did it primarily against THERE OWN PEOPLE!!! While the Nazi's taking it out on us of course pisses us off more, the level of cruelty and fanantisism to do it to your own is amazing.

And the econmic arguement makes no sence to me. The moral attachment comes from the killing. Is to acceptable to kill millions as long as it was econimical (I don't accuse you of saying that)? We could use the ends justifies the means method, but no one including the communists believed a year into their program it would accomplish anything but killing people. The communist ignorance of econiconimic realities is just as irresponsible as Nazi racial beliefs, they both had the same consequences. Just because we believe racial theories are false doesn't mean the Nazi's did (beliefs have nothing to do with truth). The rank and file SS troop were not killing Jews on that scale nor risking their lives in combat to get his jollies off, they BELIEVED they were right like we BELIEVED they were wrong.

I have no intention of downgrading the atrocities of the NAzi's, I just want to upgrade the stigma against the rest.

-Pat

 

[Evie]

The economical argument being that the killing was accidental - the point of the policy was NOT to kill people. The policy wound up causing famine and death, yes, but saying that is the same as (or worst than) Hitler's death camp amount to the same as saying that someone who drink, drive and accidentaly cause a schoolbus full of school children to fall off a cliff is on the same level of monstrosity as someone who come into a house, draw a gun, and shoot the family after planning the murder ahead.

Hence the economic argument. The famine victims of the great leap forward weren't planned murders - they were accidental death due to criminal, monstrous irresponsibility. The victims of the holocaust were murder victims.

And re : why hitler was morally worse.

Because, simply put, it's generally considered worse to condemn people (moraly, mentaly, physically, etc) for something they had no control over (such as, say, being born from jew parents, black parents, gypsy parents, etc) than for something they had at least some small measure of control over (such as giving the impression they might threaten Stalin/Mao).