Why is Hitler reviled more than Stalin and Mao?
Who killed far more people, mostly their own people and outside of wartime, and who many in their own countries still regard as heroic figures?
22-25, F
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Because reviling someone is about more than body count.
You answered your own question, really. They mostly killed their own people and it was outside of wartime. Hitler was fought directly in a war by the West. Mao and Stalin weren't. That doesn't make it morally superior, but that is why Hitler looms large in a way that Mao and Stalin don't, though they are certainly reviled in the West.
You answered your own question, really. They mostly killed their own people and it was outside of wartime. Hitler was fought directly in a war by the West. Mao and Stalin weren't. That doesn't make it morally superior, but that is why Hitler looms large in a way that Mao and Stalin don't, though they are certainly reviled in the West.
MarkPaul · 26-30, M
Really, all 3 are reviled in their own right and rightly so. I'm not sure it is relevant to measure to what degree each are reviled as though it was an unpopularity contest. Hitler does take top billing; it doesn't minimize the death, destruction, and inhumanity the other two are responsible for though.
PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M
Because history is not a simple collection of heroes and villains.
Mao was also responsible for the greatest increase in life expectancy in human history, and yes that record still holds today. Most of the things that went wrong under him were not intentional but any nation that modernizes a couple centuries in 2 decades is going to be messy. Ditto with the USSR. The USSR went from a medieval open air museum to a superpower in a generation. Same with China.
Churchill is a hero in most western nations he oversaw a famine in India and was a racist and even admired Hitler early on.
Hilter set out to murder anyone who did not fit his master race.
My own country of Canada has been trying to minimize the fallout from it's own genocide but nobody is looking to indict Justine Trudeau at the Hague.
Mao was also responsible for the greatest increase in life expectancy in human history, and yes that record still holds today. Most of the things that went wrong under him were not intentional but any nation that modernizes a couple centuries in 2 decades is going to be messy. Ditto with the USSR. The USSR went from a medieval open air museum to a superpower in a generation. Same with China.
Churchill is a hero in most western nations he oversaw a famine in India and was a racist and even admired Hitler early on.
Hilter set out to murder anyone who did not fit his master race.
My own country of Canada has been trying to minimize the fallout from it's own genocide but nobody is looking to indict Justine Trudeau at the Hague.
hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
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hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@Ferise1 Did you miss Eisenhower's instructions about filming everything they found in the death camps?
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@Ferise1 Perhaps not the major acts in perpetration in the extermination-camps. Though some of the Kristallnacht and other expulsions and even killings, away from the camps, were photographed by the Nazis themselves.
However the Allied forces and the journalists with them, certainly did photograph and record spoken commentaries of what they found in the captured extermination camps. As the Allies approached, many of the camp staff fled, leaving everything and everyone on show. Some of the camps' commandants were caught though, including Irma Grese, who was one of the cruellest.
The atrocities cannot possibly be denied, and nor should they be forgotten, as a lesson for all humanity.
You may have noticed that Germany has just given a woman now in her nineties, a suspended prison-sentence for her part in the Holocaust (as the Jews themselves named it after the War). She had been the secretary, still in her late-teens, to one of the extermination-camp commandants.
However the Allied forces and the journalists with them, certainly did photograph and record spoken commentaries of what they found in the captured extermination camps. As the Allies approached, many of the camp staff fled, leaving everything and everyone on show. Some of the camps' commandants were caught though, including Irma Grese, who was one of the cruellest.
The atrocities cannot possibly be denied, and nor should they be forgotten, as a lesson for all humanity.
You may have noticed that Germany has just given a woman now in her nineties, a suspended prison-sentence for her part in the Holocaust (as the Jews themselves named it after the War). She had been the secretary, still in her late-teens, to one of the extermination-camp commandants.
pdqsailor1 · 61-69, M
You ask an excellent question... in the infamous contest for being most reviled... its not about numbers of people killed.. neither Stalin nor Mao set up industrialized murder and destruction of identifiable religious or secular groups of innocent people for no other reason than evil hatred and theft of their assets. Political control is not new in this world but destruction of half of a people was is and always will be uniquely depraved...
pancakeslam · 41-45, M
The Holodomor was objectively evil was just different than the holocaust notwithstanding the massive death toll. Hitler used the most devious cunning of his henchmen to plan the targeted genocide. His underlings utilized the infrastructure such as railroads to deliver the Jews and Roma to camps which were designed by engineers and supplied by industry. they deceived the civilian population and performed everything covertly going to extreme pains to cover up the evidence. he sent Eichmann to 'deal' with countries to get all the men, women, and children he could get his hands on just in order to murder them. after the fact. I mean the fact it's a one of a kind in history is a good thing.
in addition, the Nazis brutally tortured the Czechs and planned on murdering 90% of the Polish population. They also organized the murder of the mentally ill and disabled Germans.
But I heard he was nice to his dog.
in addition, the Nazis brutally tortured the Czechs and planned on murdering 90% of the Polish population. They also organized the murder of the mentally ill and disabled Germans.
But I heard he was nice to his dog.
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pancakeslam · 41-45, M
@Ferise1 well there are lots of weirdos here 😂
pdqsailor1 · 61-69, M
@pancakeslam Yes he was so very nice to his dog that he tested the cyanide capsule on her first before taking it himself and shooting himself... Well written and pretty accurate - good on you...
TheRascallyOne · 31-35, M
UpForItNow · 22-25, F
@TheRascallyOne I've always had the impression that even Jewish people regarded Eichmann as their most precious enemy rather than Hitler.
UpForItNow · 22-25, F
@pancakeslam Great detail here, and I like the bit at the end about the dog, Blondi. On the same note of benignity to non-humans he was a vegan, apparently, also seemed to be a hit with young children. I liked one photo caption, to the effect, "Hitler, obviously not realising the boy was Jewish...."
Allelse · 36-40, M
Again with this!!! You Neo-Nazis, is the best you've got? "Oh but you know Stalin and Mao!!!". Go blow Ned Kelly.
Freeranger · M
I would submit that the other two did it behind closed "curtains."
Coitus · 41-45, F
Butler killed reasons linked to his brain syphilis
I think they are all hated equally.
ozgirl512 · 26-30, F
They do make a good troika
Wordlover · F
He’s not.
DDonde · 31-35, M
Hitler and the Nazis are pretty much responsible for WW2 in Europe. And the holocaust. That's why.
Justenjoyit · 61-69, M
So if Hitler had if won what do you think he would have then done?
Adolf Hitler made it his mission to wipe out several ethnic groups to make way for the so-called "master race".
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hippyjoe1955 · 61-69, M
@Ferise1 My uncles liberated some of the Nazi slave farms and one death camp. Your belief is based on ignorance not facts. I remember one Sunday afternoon we went to visit one of my uncles. He was a tough old sergeant (retired). He landed at Juneau Beach and took out a machine gun placement. He fought through Normandy and was credited with destroying a German tank. He was trained as a paratrooper and dropped behind German lines and fought his way back out again. His service medals and courage medals were so many they looked like they would rip his shirt. That Sunday he began to cry as he described the death camp he saw. He tried to put into words the stench of dead and dying humans. The haunted looks of the survivors and they peered at the well fed Canadians/Americans who were bringing them hope for life. Yeah the death camps happened and people were killed on an industrial scale.