Who Is Actually "As Bad As Hitler" Or Worse?

[Faldur]

God. He wiped out every single human on Earth except for Noah and his immediate family.

Estimates place that number around 5 billion. Joshua killed about 440,000 when the Jews took control of land around Jericho. So if your going to go by number killed alone God would, well be God like.

[theone1982]

Caligula didn't kill people anywhere close to the scale of Hitler. Also, he made his favorite horse a consul not a senator, and he supposedly slept with his favorite sister, not "most" of them. He was still batshit bonkers, but let's not blacken his reputation unduly.

I'd say Chairman Mao was the worst mass murderer whose atrocities can be reliably gauged. Stalin is a close second, and Hitler, for all his name is bandied about, a distant third.

My mistake, he did make his horse a consul not a senator. However, both Cassius Dio and Suetonius state that Caligula slept with three sisters, Agrippina, Drusilla, and Julia Livilla, not just his favorite. And I'm fully aware that Caligula did not kill as many people as Hitler, however, if you read Dino's original post he also wants to bring into consideration the person's intentions, not just their actions, that's why I mentioned Caligula's quote about wanting to "cut the Roman's collective throat." I think posterity has sufficiently "blackened his reputation" without me having to add anything. I also believe that Mao was the worst mass murderer in history.

[TJ347]

Well, to be honest, a horse would probably make a better senator than 90% of the ones we have in office today, so maybe Caligula should be given a pass on that one! As to Dio and Seutonius, there have long been questions as to the accuracy of some of their personal stories about several emperors, particularly as one (Seutonius, I believe) wrote about them well after their reigns had ended with assassinations. Still, Caligula's intentions seem to be fairly clear, so he definitely deserves to be on the short list. I'm just amazed that even today, he's villified more than Mao.

[Stavros]

The historian Ian Kershaw published a two-volume study of Hitler about 10 years ago, a compelling work of scholarship that begins with a review which actually discusses this very question. Stalin is 'exonerated' because the Red Army played such a vital role in rolling back the Nazi war machine and frying Hitler in his bunker; Mao gets exonerated because for all his wickedness he restored the 'independence' and 'dignity' of China; Napoleon Bonaparte because for some reason he is now viewed through a romantic lens when at the time he was either a revolutionary hero or another anti-Christ come to demolish European monarchy.

Kershaw argued that Hitler had no redeeming features whatsoever, even when you think that the Jewish doctor who treated his mother when she was dying of cancer was given safe passage to the US, and that Hitler was 'kind to animals', he is a litmus test of wickedness because he not only sent millions to their death without one troubling his conscience, but wrapped it up in pseudo-science and established mass murder on an industrial scale.

However, Stalin said: 'the death of an individual is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic', and he also wrapped up his excuses for mass murder in a hotch-potch of Leninism and Nationalism (er...socialism and nationalism, now there's a deadly mixture!). Moreover, Hitler's career was a whirlwind of fantasy that destoyed a country, led to the immolation of some of Europe's finest architecture, but did also completely discredit the concept of 'race as science' and its dismal consquences, we should be thankful that fascism as a hold-all word for the ideology is a dirty word.

When I went to see Mao in his mausoleum in Beijing I was struck by the reverence -rather than like me the idle curiosity- people had in being there, and it is because he is associated with independence and dignity that he is revered, but in fact he relished the slaughter of thousands and thought it was a good idea; he loathed imperial architecture and truly adored the East Berlin apartment block style because it was functional, one reason why Chinese cities are hideous and soul-less.

Between them, Stalin and Mao strangulated optimism, crushed hope, and set back the progress of their countries by decades; Russia is still mired in corruption and red-tape; China is still mired in red-tape and corruption, we are there for the money.

Of the moderns these three take some beating, and I can't elevate one above the other.

[theone1982]

Well, to be honest, a horse would probably make a better senator than 90% of the ones we have in office today, so maybe Caligula should be given a pass on that one! As to Dio and Seutonius, there have long been questions as to the accuracy of some of their personal stories about several emperors, particularly as one (Seutonius, I believe) wrote about them well after their reigns had ended with assassinations. Still, Caligula's intentions seem to be fairly clear, so he definitely deserves to be on the short list. I'm just amazed that even today, he's villified more than Mao.

Agreed! I remember a history professor who compared Suetonius to an ancient version of the Enquirer Magazine, which I always thought was funny but actually pretty spot-on. Cassius Dio actually wrote much later, I'm thinking in the 2nd century C.E. so, I guess it is kind of a toss up as to whether he slept with one, all of them, some of them, or none. And I agree that it's amazing the villification of many of the Roman emperors when they were rank amateurs compared to Mao.

[Yvonne183]

I think Elmo is just as bad as Hitler.

[theone1982]

I think Elmo is just as bad as Hitler.

Lol! Heil Elmo!

[onmyknees]

God. He wiped out every single human on Earth except for Noah and his immediate family.

Trish....put down that old testment...you're not foolin' anybody !!!!!!!! LMAO

Dino...Not sure why politicians and TV personalities invariably reach for the Hitler referrence . I suppose it's meant to stop debate such as "RACIST" . In just one generation we went from fighting Hitler to using him to marginalize our political foes. It's mind blowing to me...but alas there is a cure. Weather it's an MSNBC host or a politician, or a lib attempting to describe the Tea Party or Sarah Palin, they should be forced to spend a night in the remaining buildings at Auschwitz sleeping on one of those wooden bunk beds...so they can collect their thoughts and put them in proper perspective !


BTW...Pol Pot may be Hitler's equal....give or take a few million. Cambodia was one of the most beautiful countries on earth...I've seen it before and during the terror of the Khmer Rouge .

[robertlouis]

Comparisons based on statistics on an issue like this tend to be both fatuous and pointless. If Hitler's plans to conquer the Soviet Union had been fulfilled, for example, how many more would be adding to his already obscene total?

What lends the nazi period the additional element to its horror is that terror and bureaucracy went calmly hand in hand. I always think of Hannah Arendt's comment on seeing Eichmann in the dock in Tel Aviv - "The banality of evil". I have both family and friends in Germany and have always found much to admire in their energy, industry and indeed morals in the post-war era. But nothing will ever cleanse the German nation of those 12 years of madness. That is Hitler's legacy, and there is nothing in history that can ever match it, not so much for its scale, perhaps, but more for its deliberate conception and execution.

As a footnote, I was in Berlin with German friends ten years ago. We found a Jewish restaurant and toasted shalom in Israeli wine under the Berlin stars in memory of the six million. It seemed apt and in its own quiet way, a triumph.

[hippifried]

Let's not forget the Duvaliers & the Ton Ton Macoute, the slaughter in El Salvador, the Armenian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, & the systematic wiping out of North American natives.

But we still have to give props to God, After all, we're all mortal. Everybody dies! How fucking depraved is that?