Who was the most evil man in history?

[Panda]

Sauron is far more evil than Palpatine.

On a separate nore, it seems that Hitler couldn't beat Stalin in WWII and he can't beat him at CFC.

 

[rilnator]

I'll bet both of them are watching the results from down there in hell with great expectation.

 

[Terje]

I find it immensly interesting to observe these discussions, where seemingly sane individuals indirectly defend such (to use the words of luceafarul) inhuman beasts as Stalin and Hitler.

Deciding who of the two was worst is of course impossible. I say they are both just as bad.


But if I was forced into choosing one of them, I'd say Stalin, since he ruined the already flawed impresion many had/have of "my" ideology.
Though if I am to lay most weight on the motives of the two, I'd go for Hitler, since under his regime, you were prosecuted for things you couldn't possibly change, while in Stalinist Russia, you could just keep your head down, and mind your own business.

Also you can´t blame Marx for what Lenin did in Russia or even Stalin.

Of course you bloody well can't blame Marx for that; the man died in 1883 or something!

The concentration camps of the Boer war can't be compared at all to the EXTERMINATION camps of the Nazis. The concentration camps where set up because the British Army was having difficulty surpressing the Boers and wanted to take away their sources of food and shelter, the extermination camps were set up to kill millions of people.

Even the Nazis distinguished between Konzentrationsläger and Vernichtungsläger...

He killed at a whim, like killing flies, anyone who even slightly annoyed him.

How can you say that he killed at a whim if he killed anyone who annoyed him? That sounds like a pattern to me...

IMHO, the whole discussion of whether Hitler or Stalin was worse is really beside the point. Neither the absolute number of victims, nor the relative merits of their motivations matter IMO - murdering 6 million Jews etc. is as evil as murdering 17 mio (or whatever) Kulaks, Tschechens and whatnot - and vice versa. The same goes for the ideological motivations: whether one disagrees more strongly with Nazism or Communism should make no difference on how their respective mass murders are judged!

How can one disagree to this? Brilliantly put.

As for the options of the poll, I can't really understand whu GWB, JFKerry, Ivan (though I by a mistake voted for him ), Mussolini, Ho Chi Minh, or Nikhita Kruschev could possibly be on this list. Most of them aren't that special in the context of a wider/deeper historical perspective...

 

[Companiero]

Neither the absolute number of victims, nor the relative merits of their motivations matter IMO - murdering 6 million Jews etc. is as evil as murdering 17 mio (or whatever) Kulaks, Tschechens and whatnot - and vice versa.

Then what does matter? and whats that that makes them equally evil?
By your claim, I can conclude that one murder in self-defense is equally evil as genocide, since neither the number nor the motivations matter.

 

[deo]

Hitler but i think he was more a dumb than evil

 

[bigfatron]

Well depend how you "measure" evilness? if it's about who caused the biggest number of deaths, then Stalin and Mao would be good candidates, although the Kaiser of Germany in WWI is maybe worse.
Now if it's the relative number of deaths, then the British Crown would be a better candidate, after all they caused the death of about 30% of all Irish population in 19th century famine (can't remember who was the King by then),.

You have to be kidding me!

the British Crown didn't 'cause' the deaths of any Irishmen - the population suffered a massive famine from which many Irish perished or fled to the US or mainland Britain.

You can criticise the British parliament (which inluded many hunreds of Irish nobles and worthies) for not doing enough to develop a proper system of famine relief, but it is worth bearing in mind firstly that the failure to do so was a matter of class not nationality - it was considered natural for the poor to starve if the crops failed. Most estates were owned by absentee landlords of both Irish and English descent (or Scots in the North of Ireland).

Some landlords forewent their rent, others insisted on rent on full even if their tenants died as a result - Irish landlords insisted on rent as often as their English counterparts.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the concept of famine relief and government responsibility for disaster relief in general comes from this event and te reaction in Britain to it - until this date no government, monarchy or democracy, considered themselves responsible for relieving their citizens in the face of natural disaster.

the Irish famine is a moment when the british showed themselves in an extremely poor light - they failed to react as we would now consider to be the moral and appropriate. However, to class this as evil is bizarre.

the Opium wars would make a better case for an evil act by the british, but the Chinese are far less marketable in the US for the symapthy vote...

Anyhow, my vote goes for Abbot Arnauld-Amory; working for Innocent III he allowed the massacre of 20,000 innocents at Beziers and founded the Inquisition, yet claimed throughout to be a man of God!

 

[Xen]

obviouslly, the most evil man in history is Kenny Loggins

 

[Adler17]

Hannibal Barka, why do you think is Wilhelm II. so bad?
Wilhelm didn´t want the war and even tried to avoid it. Indeed there is no justification that he is brough into this list!

Adler

 

[Dragonlord]

Then what does matter? and whats that that makes them equally evil?
By your claim, I can conclude that one murder in self-defense is equally evil as genocide, since neither the number nor the motivations matter.

Please don't take my words out of context and read my post again: I was explicitly talking about mass murder, not killing for any conceivable reason!

And I stand by my statements: since there can IMO be no conceivable justification for mass murder, the motivation doesn't matter. Remember I was specifically talking about Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot.

 

[CIVPhilzilla]

Stalin was by far the most brutal, with Hitler not far behind.

 

[Jack the Ripper]

Stalin was statistically the most brutal, but we seem to forget that he was the detached mentor to saddam hussein who was equally as brutal.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

What exactly is the point of this poll? I don't wish to sound moronic, but what gain can we get from finding out which one of these undoubtably cruel leaders is the 'most evil' in our minds. Surely the point is they are all evil, and each have their own immoral place in history, and we should strive to learn and avoid what they did and move on.

Sorry to sound particularly stupid. I just don't like polls that bring histories most hideous memories down to a single 'who scores more points than who' poll.

 

[superisis]

My "fictional character" vote goes to (naturally) Dr. Evil.

 

[Provolution]

I am evil, consider quality above quantity

 

[Yom]

Saloth Sar, Brother Number One, aka Pol Pot without a doubt is the evilest on the list. I meant to vote for Adolf Hitler as well, but I forgot to click his name.

Even Hitler did some good things for his country, anyway.

 

[Xen]

What exactly is the point of this poll? I don't wish to sound moronic, but what gain can we get from finding out which one of these undoubtably cruel leaders is the 'most evil' in our minds. Surely the point is they are all evil, and each have their own immoral place in history, and we should strive to learn and avoid what they did and move on.

Sorry to sound particularly stupid. I just don't like polls that bring histories most hideous memories down to a single 'who scores more points than who' poll.

simpley; thsi thread is so that we, the future generation fothe world, will know what stats we have to beat when we start plannign on becomigng.... THE MOST EVIL MAN IN HISTORY!!!!!

 

[wit>trope]

The most evil men in history are probably men who aren't even talked about in history books.

And why are there no women in the options?

 

[superisis]

eh... cause it is titled "Who was the most evil man in history?"

besides the fact that some options are questionable, I doubt that a woman has wielded enough power in history to make into the top 13 (probably not even top 100).

 

[Dr. Yoshi]

Vlad the Impaler was just as evil as Stalin and Pol Pot. We get the story of Dracula from him (he was also known as Draco or the Dragon).

 

[Kafka2]

You have to be kidding me!

the British Crown didn't 'cause' the deaths of any Irishmen - the population suffered a massive famine from which many Irish perished or fled to the US or mainland Britain.

You can criticise the British parliament (which inluded many hunreds of Irish nobles and worthies) for not doing enough to develop a proper system of famine relief, but it is worth bearing in mind firstly that the failure to do so was a matter of class not nationality - it was considered natural for the poor to starve if the crops failed. Most estates were owned by absentee landlords of both Irish and English descent (or Scots in the North of Ireland).

Some landlords forewent their rent, others insisted on rent on full even if their tenants died as a result - Irish landlords insisted on rent as often as their English counterparts.

It's also worth bearing in mind that the concept of famine relief and government responsibility for disaster relief in general comes from this event and te reaction in Britain to it - until this date no government, monarchy or democracy, considered themselves responsible for relieving their citizens in the face of natural disaster.

the Irish famine is a moment when the british showed themselves in an extremely poor light - they failed to react as we would now consider to be the moral and appropriate. However, to class this as evil is bizarre.

If it wasn't evil, if was certainly callous beyond belief. What's worse is that they didn't learn from it.

The real change in attitudes took place after the Indian famines of the 1870's. An estimated 10 million starved, while the granaries were nearly full- the colonial administrators refuse to distribute food to alleviate the famine in order to avoid destabilising grain prices.

It's a test case to demonstrate why unfettered laissez-faire capitalism has flaws. In the aftermath of that, we saw the rise of Gladstone's liberalism- outdated now, but it was one hell of an improvement at the time.

That was my nation's greatest shame.