Was Alexander the Great worse then Hitler [Archive]

Ironside

06-29-2007, 10:04

Meneldil

06-29-2007, 11:02

Hitler was not? Compared to most of his contemporaries, he wasn't much different.

Hitler was no different than most of the leaders that came before him, including Alex the Great and David of Israel - using war and extermination to further his goals. Its funny, most Jews and Christians do not even know that genocide is rampant throughout the Old Testament.

Hitler's problems are A) he lost and B) he lost at a time when much of the world was embracing ideas of compassion, human rights, ect; which made him not just a national leader who lost a war, but a "monster".

Ironically, most in the Western World who consider Hitler pure evil embrace and glorify their own rather sketchy past, whether it be the American cowboy, the British colonial soldier, or Napoleon.

Yeah, 'cause Alexander, Caesar, Chingiz Khan or Napoleon deported civilians to death camps, whose main aim was to exterminate a population depending of its ethnicity, sexual or political orientation.
Or wait, they did not.

Even the worst conquerors, like Timur the Lame, are just kiddos if compared to Hitler. Yeah, some of them burnt down cities, slaughtered whole lot of innocent people*, but no one except Hitler did it for such silly reasons, and in such a crual way, period.
Timur the Lame killed thousands of people in a brutal way, because they bothered him and stood on his way. Hitler killed millions of people just because he thought they had no right to exist.

Comparing Napoleon, Alexander or whoever else to Hitler and saying "they're all the same, Hitler is just a poor guy, who lost a right war" is just either blatant revisionism, or the result of someone's lack of knowledge about Hitler, Napoleon and Alexander.

*Furthermore, those who brunt down whole cities and destroyed empires, are seen as particularly evil, even though they might have done a lot of positive things. This is quite obvious in Chingiz Khan's case, who is still seen as teh evil dude, even though he was one of the greatest political leader ever.

Oh, and FYI, ideas such as human rights and compassion were not created nor embrassed during the 20th century.

Watchman

06-29-2007, 12:35

There's also the little fact Adolf was a raving nutjob - and his lunacy was of a particularly unpleasant form, what with all that racial supremacy stuff and glorification of warfare even in the face of the incredible carnage of the Great War. Alex at most was a megalomaniac, but otherwise sane enough and not meaningfully more vicious than was the norm those days (the top names in the wanton devastation category being probably the steppe nomads - also back then).

AntiochusIII

06-30-2007, 01:26

Hitler was not? Compared to most of his contemporaries, he wasn't much different.

Hitler was no different than most of the leaders that came before him, including Alex the Great and David of Israel - using war and extermination to further his goals. Its funny, most Jews and Christians do not even know that genocide is rampant throughout the Old Testament.Did you miss the point where his genocide is done for ideological reasons?

If you're a Jew, or a Gypsy, or a frickin' homosexual, no matter how much of an asset you are to the Great Nation, you're scumbag, sub-human, and therefore dead.

The warlords don't usually work that way. Serve them and they let you live, may be even get a share of the booty...

The less bloodthirsty ones would only require that you don't get in their way to live and may be even prosper. A far less "evil" sentiment compare to killing you because you are you.

I'm not even putting in the relative morality of each period into this consideration...and by all means that's a valid one to judge the performance of historical leaders.

Hitler's problems are A) he lost and B) he lost at a time when much of the world was embracing ideas of compassion, human rights, ect; which made him not just a national leader who lost a war, but a "monster".

Ironically, most in the Western World who consider Hitler pure evil embrace and glorify their own rather sketchy past, whether it be the American cowboy, the British colonial soldier, or Napoleon.Revisionism. If you're going to admire something in the German past please choose a topic more appealing than the unrecognized glory of Herr Hitler. They have a lot of things to be proud about you know.

Hitler's problem was not because he lost. Stalin won and won big and everyone with half a sense in 2007 don't go around praising Uncle Joe.

Watchman

06-30-2007, 01:38

Heck, the Soviets themselves wasted no time dragging Uncle Joe through the mud the second he stopped breathing...

PanzerJaeger

06-30-2007, 04:32

Did you miss the point where his genocide is done for ideological reasons?

If you're a Jew, or a Gypsy, or a frickin' homosexual, no matter how much of an asset you are to the Great Nation, you're scumbag, sub-human, and therefore dead.

The warlords don't usually work that way. Serve them and they let you live, may be even get a share of the booty...

The less bloodthirsty ones would only require that you don't get in their way to live and may be even prosper. A far less "evil" sentiment compare to killing you because you are you.

Does ideology really matter? The body count still piled up.

It can be said that Hitler's ideology was that Germans were superior to the other peoples of the world and they and their culture should naturally dominate. The same can be said of Alexander, only about the greeks.

And lets not kid ourselves, history is full of leaders and nations who slaughtered simply on the basis of ethnicity. Take the Jews, for example.

I'm not even putting in the relative morality of each period into this consideration...and by all means that's a valid one to judge the performance of historical leaders.

Its obvious that you wouldnt bring the relative morality of each period into the discussion because, compared to his contemporaries, Hitler was rather common(Stalin and Mao ranking much higher on the evil scale by bodycount and some of the Western leaders coming in opposite).

The only thing somewhat special about Hitler is that his killings were done mostly based on ethnicity (not that Stalin and the others didnt do the same on occasion).

But what is really worse: a) Killing huge numbers of your own acknowledged countrymen, both in purges and through massive starvation campaigns and worse simply for your own power and greed or b) killing huge numbers of people you've diluted yourself into believing are traitors and subverters to the greater society?

I dont know if Hitler truly believed the Jews were traitorous and destructive to society (the great amount of critical resources he used to have them killed favors this), but if he did, wouldn't that make him less evil than the likes of Stalin and Mao, who killed many millions simply for their own lust for power? (Not that Hitler was above political killings.)

Revisionism. If you're going to admire something in the German past please choose a topic more appealing than the unrecognized glory of Herr Hitler. They have a lot of things to be proud about you know.

I know the tag and the Tiger can lead to certain conclusions, but I certainly do not admire Hitler. In fact, quite the opposite. Hitler ruined the last chance for a German superpower and took millions of fine and very admirable German soldiers with him.

Hitler's problem was not because he lost. Stalin won and won big and everyone with half a sense in 2007 don't go around praising Uncle Joe.

You'd be surprised how many people, especially russians, have a positive view of Joey... :shame:

Alexander the Pretty Good

06-30-2007, 05:30

Hitler wasn't nuts, he was evil. There's a tangible difference.

Alexander the Great probably gets a lot better press because he was out conquering for and imposing a Western culture on distant Easterners. We (westerners) see more of our own culture in the Greeks than in the Persians. Also, I think he was more a product of his times (or acted more along acceptable social norms for the time) than did Hitler.

Of all the world leaders 1933 - 1945, only Hitler and Stalin went around killing their own people in any number. I'd say the systematic approach of either ruler is "worse" than Alexander's conquests.

Hitler's ideology was also centered around "removing" the Jewish problem. It's wasn't just "pro-German."

Husar

06-30-2007, 10:41

Hitler wasn't nuts, he was evil. There's a tangible difference.
I don't know about the others but I'm pretty sure Hitler was both.

Marius Dynamite

06-30-2007, 12:07

Hitler, I think, started for the right reasons which I agree with but went power crazy. You know what they say about absolute power.

Alexander also started for the right reasons. A huge empire was continously threatening his peoples freedom, so he destroyed them. I'm sure I heard though that Alexander was very tolerent of the Asians he conquered and infact wanted a merge of the Greeks and the Asians. His generals where very much against this and hated the Asians, thinking they were lesser than the Greeks.

Anyway I don't think Hitler was always evil. He was driven by hate of the Jews because he seen them as invaders taking all the Germans jobs, Germans who fought in WW1. You can see similarities in Modern day Britain, with Asian immigrants.

Gurkhal

06-30-2007, 19:12

I'll throw in my own opinions, and that is regarding the main question purly a matter of subjectivity. While the west adorns Alexander, if I've understood it right, and from what I've heard, in the east he is seen as a vile monster and butcherer. And so I will say that from my personal experience, Hitler was the worst of them. However I am also aware of my biased view and that other people, who historically had to feel the not so gentle side of Alexander, and probably were never touched by Hitler, likly have another opinion.

That is not to say that I can consider Alexander to be a "good guy". He was a person of his time, just like I belive that Hitler was a man of his, although neither of those can excuse the actions of either morally. I do not belive that either of them for long were primarly motivated by anything save the quest for power and glory, in which I think that Alexander took the leading in being lead, while Hitler most likly lisened to his hate to a larger degree. However one needs also to keep in mind that the people of yesterdays, both regarding the European 30s and 40s, but even more the ancient times, were vastly different from our own times in terms of ethic and moral views.

In short: Hitler was worse than Alexander, but that don't make Alexander a "good guy" in any way.

AntiochusIII

06-30-2007, 21:21

Does ideology really matter? The body count still piled up.

It can be said that Hitler's ideology was that Germans were superior to the other peoples of the world and they and their culture should naturally dominate. The same can be said of Alexander, only about the greeks.Hitler's ideology (a confusing illogical one at that) essentially states that the Jews must die. Jews and other undesirables.

Try read Mein Kampf and the hatred inside. He mixes and matches popular pseudosciences of the day -- Eugenics being an example -- and make unjustifiable statements like "the iron law of nature" and somehow came to the conclusion that the Jews must be exterminated.

And lets not kid ourselves, history is full of leaders and nations who slaughtered simply on the basis of ethnicity. Take the Jews, for example.Alexander was not one of them. In fact as far as leaders of antiquity go he was among the most cosmopolitan; if records are to be believed he was not as benevolent as, say, Cyrus the Great, but not exactly a racist like the rest of them ancient Macedonian folk.

Its obvious that you wouldnt bring the relative morality of each period into the discussion because, compared to his contemporaries, Hitler was rather common(Stalin and Mao ranking much higher on the evil scale by bodycount and some of the Western leaders coming in opposite).Okay, so you want me to bring relative morality in? Very well.

Alexander: for much of history the idea of compassion, forgiveness, and tolerance relies mostly on the individual and not the social fabric of a society. While some are more tolerant than others due to various factors -- the size of the empire, the location being the "crossroads" of the world, various ethnicities and cultures mingling -- most aren't. From such a viewpoint Alexander's willingness to accept various cultures into his empire is admirable.

When his successors like Antiochus IV Epiphanes tries to overly "Hellenize" other peoples -- the process you attribute to Alexander -- they suffered rebellions as a result.

Is he a megalomaniac? Probably. One has to be at least slightly mad just to dare take the reins of power and ride on it like Alexander did. If anything the Persian national epic (whatsitsname?) regards "Iskander" as a great villain.

Hitler? Extremist scumbag. You yourself acknowledges the extent in which he sacrificed German military assets in pursuit of the genocide didn't you?

The only thing somewhat special about Hitler is that his killings were done mostly based on ethnicity (not that Stalin and the others didnt do the same on occasion).

But what is really worse: a) Killing huge numbers of your own acknowledged countrymen, both in purges and through massive starvation campaigns and worse simply for your own power and greed or b) killing huge numbers of people you've diluted yourself into believing are traitors and subverters to the greater society?

I dont know if Hitler truly believed the Jews were traitorous and destructive to society (the great amount of critical resources he used to have them killed favors this), but if he did, wouldn't that make him less evil than the likes of Stalin and Mao, who killed many millions simply for their own lust for power? (Not that Hitler was above political killings.)Who's here justifying Stalin and Mao?

I know the tag and the Tiger can lead to certain conclusions, but I certainly do not admire Hitler. In fact, quite the opposite. Hitler ruined the last chance for a German superpower and took millions of fine and very admirable German soldiers with him.I'm not sure why Germany deserves an empire more than other nations, but point taken.

You'd be surprised how many people, especially russians, have a positive view of Joey... :shame:Same case of revisionism you're suffering from. :beam:

Watchman also pointed out the astonishing speed in which Khrushchev disengages himself from Uncle Joe's legacy even in the Soviet Union itself.

Watchman

06-30-2007, 22:35

The Russians (well, some) dig Stalin because he was a Big Man who Made/Kept Russia Strong (or something - nevermind now that the man was Georgian... we're dealing with Stupid Nationalist Sentiment here; coherence is not required). For the exact same reasons they dig other murdering bastards like Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, although if you ask me those two actually have more merit for it than Uncle Joe (not that they were any nicer, just that they were more personally competent).

What I really don't get is why Nicholas II is also "pop" (or was some years ago anyway), as that milquetoast idiot's sole claim to being more than a footnote is losing his life and empire to the Revolution...
:no:
Damn serf mentality. The place's still paying the price for not canning that antediluvian system before mid-1800s if you ask me.

InsaneApache

06-30-2007, 23:16

Was Hitler worse then Alexander the Great

yes

Kralizec

06-30-2007, 23:23

Heck, the Soviets themselves wasted no time dragging Uncle Joe through the mud the second he stopped breathing...

That's not really an accurate assesment.

Some people, like Beria (chief of the KGB) went from complete behind-kissers to the greatest critics of Stalin the moment he crooked. Kruschev falls in this catagory as well.
The rest of the party elite may have agreed in majority with Kruschev's decisions to stop the policies mass-murder and veneration of Stalin, but one of the reasons that the party forced Kruschev to resign was because he went to far in his criticism of Stalin's reign.

Watchman

07-01-2007, 00:29

Well duh. It wouldn't do to make it look like the all-powerful Party had been wrong about something, no ? Shan't shake the common boat, even if you're the... whatwasthetitle... Premier?

One thing totalitarian systems have always been really lousy at is admitting their mistakes. Doubtless one reason why they've always been so incompetent.

Kralizec

07-01-2007, 00:41

I just pointed out the complete absense of any nuance in your original statement. People like Kruschev who "dragged Stalin through the mud" were ultimately sidetracked, people like Breznjev praised him and fared a lot better in the long run.

Watchman

07-01-2007, 01:19

"Wasted no time" is a nuance methinks.

Geoffrey S

07-02-2007, 08:15

It can be said that Hitler's ideology was that Germans were superior to the other peoples of the world and they and their culture should naturally dominate. The same can be said of Alexander, only about the greeks.
That one comment shows how little you know about the subject. If any Greek was ever enamoured with the Persian people and culture it was Alexander, for which I might add he was disliked among a number of his fellow Greeks. He formed army corps out of Persians, adopted Persian customs, intermarried his lieutenants with Persian wives... if you're going to attempt to justify Hitler's actions by comparison with other historical individuals you're going to have to do a lot better than this.

PanzerJaeger

07-03-2007, 06:48

That one comment shows how little you know about the subject. If any Greek was ever enamoured with the Persian people and culture it was Alexander, for which I might add he was disliked among a number of his fellow Greeks. He formed army corps out of Persians, adopted Persian customs, intermarried his lieutenants with Persian wives... if you're going to attempt to justify Hitler's actions by comparison with other historical individuals you're going to have to do a lot better than this.

Enamoured enough to completely destroy it?

Alexander certainly had ambitions for himself and his people. If you're going to try and assert that he was not trying to create a new world order with the Greeks in charge, you're going to have to do a lot better than this.

Oh and..

if you're going to attempt to justify Hitler's actions

You are either terribly bad at comprehension or a lier. Im thinking its the latter. :shame:

Geoffrey S

07-03-2007, 07:47

Enamoured enough to completely destroy it?

Alexander certainly had ambitions for himself and his people. If you're going to try and assert that he was not trying to create a new world order with the Greeks in charge, you're going to have to do a lot better than this.
Did you even read my post? More than enough of Alexanders actions show he certainly did not believe in natural superiority of Greeks or in Persians as some kind of Untermensch. Just a general list:
- Alexander was not particularly brutal against Persians. His wrath had also been aimed at the Phoenicians in Tyre or the Thebans, and the Persians were treated no better or worse.
- He left a large number of Persian satraps in charge, who he apparently trusted as much as his Greek men.
- When having taken over the entire former Persian empire he appropriated a large number of customs from the Persian culture, ranging from style of clothing, court ritual, and past-times.
- If he attached any importance to his people I'd find it interesting to hear your views on arranging huge marriages between his lieutenants and local Persian noblewomen and himself marrying a Bactrian wife. Soldiers were likewise rewarded for intermarrying with the local population.
- Let alone the fact that Alexander had large numbers of Persians recruited into his army and trained to fight in the Makedonian manner. He saw them as equals and was rather surprised when his troops did not see them that way.

Looking at his companions and the common Greek, who did largely believe in Greek superiority, the difference becomes all the more striking, and I find the efforts you must go through to ignore that staggering.

You are either terribly bad at comprehension or a lier. Im thinking its the latter. :shame:
You are either terribly misguided or someone seeking to justify Hitler. I'm hoping it's the former.

PanzerJaeger

07-03-2007, 08:36

Did you even read my post? More than enough of Alexanders actions show he certainly did not believe in natural superiority of Greeks or in Persians as some kind of Untermensch. Just a general list:
- Alexander was not particularly brutal against Persians. His wrath had also been aimed at the Phoenicians in Tyre or the Thebans, and the Persians were treated no better or worse.
- He left a large number of Persian satraps in charge, who he apparently trusted as much as his Greek men.
- When having taken over the entire former Persian empire he appropriated a large number of customs from the Persian culture, ranging from style of clothing, court ritual, and past-times.
- If he attached any importance to his people I'd find it interesting to hear your views on arranging huge marriages between his lieutenants and local Persian noblewomen and himself marrying a Bactrian wife. Soldiers were likewise rewarded for intermarrying with the local population.
- Let alone the fact that Alexander had large numbers of Persians recruited into his army and trained to fight in the Makedonian manner. He saw them as equals and was rather surprised when his troops did not see them that way.

Looking at his companions and the common Greek, who did largely believe in Greek superiority, the difference becomes all the more striking, and I find the efforts you must go through to ignore that staggering.

Indeed, he was a man that understood what it took to create and maintain a far reaching empire during that time that would last beyond the battlefield victories. None of that disputes what I said however, but thanks for the mini-bio. :yes:

You are either terribly misguided or someone seeking to justify Hitler. I'm hoping it's the former.

Please show me where you feel I justified Hitler.

Geoffrey S

07-03-2007, 13:15

Hitler was not? Compared to most of his contemporaries, he wasn't much different.
...is the phrase that stood out the most. It's as if you're defending Hitler's goals by saying that people like Mao and Staling were worse. Let alone that your posts leave it ambiguous whether you oppose Hitlers goal of extermination of Jews while making clear you disagree with his approach thereof.

Indeed, he was a man that understood what it took to create and maintain a far reaching empire during that time that would last beyond the battlefield victories. None of that disputes what I said however, but thanks for the mini-bio.
'None of that disputes what I said'? You explicitely stated that he aimed to create a world order with the Greek culture dominating other peoples, while the things I listed clearly show that not only was that not his goal, but that in many cases he considered the Persians and their culture at the very least equal to Greeks and in certain cases as superior. That certainly does dispute what you said.

TinCow

07-03-2007, 14:26

I'm going to jump in and defend PanzerJager. What I have gotten from his statements isn't that Hitler was a good guy or anything of the sort. It appears to me that he is saying that Hitler's actions were on par with those of other historical leaders. This I have to agree with.

When it comes down to it, your reason for killing people doesn't really matter. All people have reasons for doing so. Few leaders are called murders for killing enemy combatants during wartime. The critical weight tends to come in when civilian non-combatants are intentionally targeted. The killing of one Jew in the Holocaust is no worse than the killing of one Native American by the Conquistadors or the US Army. Nor is it worse than any single death committed by Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Napoleon, Bomber Harris, Harry Truman, Genghis Khan, the Crusaders, Scipio Aemilianus, Darius, Ramesses II, Boadicea, etc. Nor is Hitler even the worst when it comes to the elimination of a certain percentage of the population. Pol Pot killed a far greater percentage of the population than Hitler did. You simply cannot say that 12 million deaths are worse than 10 million deaths are worse than 6 million deaths are worse than 2 million deaths. They are all 'morally' wrong.

In fact, I believe it is an active disservice to history to try and 'rank' any of these killings above or below one another. I personally believe that the killing of any innocent civilian is wrong. Your reasons for doing so are unimportant.

Whether Stalin said it or not, the quote attributed to him is still valid. "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic." Once mass killings become an institution of government and authority, they are all evil, regardless of the number, regardless of the reason.

Sorry if this is Backroom talk, but it's the only way I know of to address the topic.

AntiochusIII

07-03-2007, 15:53

Tincow: PanzerJager did not state it explicitly, but his opposition to my and other's point -- that Alexander the Great was not worse and in fact probably better than Hitler -- implies that he disagree with this point.

It is my opinion that the different ways which each historical figure treat the world around them shows a discrepancy that favors Alexander, not Hitler. We are not comparing Hitler to Stalin, but Hitler to Alexander.

Moreover, it is in my opinion to attribute a greater evil to intentional genocide than to a motive which allow the victims even a slightly better chance of surviving. Which is why I'm saying "killing Jews because they are Jews" is worse than killing an enemy or even the innocents because they oppose you.

Are those actions cruel? Evil? Yes. Different degrees of them? In my opinion.

TinCow

07-03-2007, 16:35

Moreover, it is in my opinion to attribute a greater evil to intentional genocide than to a motive which allow the victims even a slightly better chance of surviving. Which is why I'm saying "killing Jews because they are Jews" is worse than killing an enemy or even the innocents because they oppose you.

Are those actions cruel? Evil? Yes. Different degrees of them? In my opinion.

Those are questions of morality and best left to philosophers. Historians should not be saying something was good or bad, only how it occurred and why.

There is a significant problem with teaching the history of Hitler specifically because of this point. He is viewed as so evil, so monstrous, that for the majority of people he is made into something of a myth and legend. His evil transcends the acts of man and becomes something otherworldly. This removes him from the understanding of the common person who then simply discounts him as a freak of nature.

By doing this, the world has stopped thinking of Hitler as a real person. This diminishes his historical impact and completely negates the lessons that humanity can learn from his existence. Hitler's own beliefs and actions, as well as his rise to power, are based in real world cause and effect. In order to prevent such things from happening again we have to specifically remember that he was just a man and attempt to understand fully why events occurred as they did. Putting Hitler on a pedestal, even to accentuate his evil, simply serves to dehumanize him and thus makes understanding him harder.

Sorry that this goes off-topic, but I've got strong feelings about the way Hitler is taught, particularly in Germany. As it's going now, we're setting ourselves up to repeat the same mistakes.

As for Alexander, I am not knowledgeable about any mass killings he committed, so I will leave that discussion to those who know better.

Geoffrey S

07-03-2007, 19:55

Tincow: PanzerJager did not state it explicitly, but his opposition to my and other's point -- that Alexander the Great was not worse and in fact probably better than Hitler -- implies that he disagree with this point.
I agree. The implication was that Alexander was just as bad as, or worse than, Hitler. I strongly disagree with that view: my posts are aimed at showing that the two are entirely different, and I believe posts viewing Alexander as equivalent to Hitler at the least are incorrect and at worst aim to marginalise Hitlers crimes.

TinCow, I agree with your views on Hitler and the way he is viewed today and the approach of comparing other mass-murderers with him/each other as if it's some kind of scoreboard. In the last century alone there have been leaders clearly as despicable as him in many ways, but for some reason Hitler remains a subject on which little balanced debate is held, certainly in popular circles. That is a major blow to actually learning from mistakes in the past.

AntiochusIII

07-04-2007, 01:31

Tincow: I agree with the gist of your post, that history should not be used to judge, but to study from, analyze, and perhaps learn something from the past. It isn't wise to simply read The Secret History of the Mongols and declare one's judgement on Genghis Khan, but rather to learn about Genghis without judging him.

Even with Hitler -- which as far as history goes was involved in a recent event, survivors of that time still walking around alive -- it should be the same. I'm not exactly sure how Germany teaches about Hitler but let's just say (before it gets too Backroom-y) that I disagree with the blanket Nazi ban in its Constitution. It used to be a necessity but isn't anymore.

But the question posed in the OP is a moral question and that's why I gave my answer from a moral perspective: one has to compare what Alexander did and what Hitler did and the standards of their time, then make judgment.

Suraknar

07-04-2007, 03:51

This can of blurs the line between backroom and the monestrary. It's discussing history but is fairly controversial. So Mods feel free to move this if you want.

The question of the thread was spawned from this podcast show. (http://archive-a01.libsyn.com/podcasts/18398684c6ef6ef24b4a03b3f86a548a/468445b0/dancarlin/Alexander_versus_Hitler.mp3) So what do Orgahs think does the host have a case?

Sorry I couldn't find a transcript.

Well, I heard the podcast, and I dont think that the host is even trying to make a case about Alexander. His case is about Hitler, and how will we be viewing Hitler 2500 years from now. Will we be viewing him like we do alexander the great or differently.

That is it that is all.

The Stranger

07-07-2007, 16:09

And I think it's a good question to ask yourself, although I doubt we will see him as an Alexander, unless times change radically, and I think they will, so I have to change me oppinion, I think not much will change in the way we will view hitler, some people see and will see him as some kind of Alexander (A great leader) and some see and will see him as some kind of monster.

As someone already said before, in many regions in the east Alexander is considered evil, so its not that Alexander is unanimously considered a good guy...

To answer the question of the thread, I don't see Alexander as a worse person than Hitler, he might have been though. But I definitly don't think that his legacy to the world is a worse one than that of Hitler. His actions were definitly cruel at times, be it normal in that time or not. for I doubt, the people he did it to, would be thinking, hey this is normal, what is Iksander a good guy...

And I also agree with the people that say that Hitler was a man of his time, they were all brilliant (in the way they managed to arouse the people) nutcases. Hitler became a lunatic, Stalin became a lunatic, Mao became a lunatic, Churchill might not have done something compareble evil, but he wasn't the most sane person... I could continue that list till it becomes a mile long... There is a easy explanation, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. It not only corrupts your judgement but also you entirely.

Bijo

07-10-2007, 00:10

The question of the thread was spawned from this podcast show. (http://archive-a01.libsyn.com/podcasts/18398684c6ef6ef24b4a03b3f86a548a/468445b0/dancarlin/Alexander_versus_Hitler.mp3) So what do Orgahs think does the host have a case?
Ugh: it was terrible to listen to. I planned to check it but I just stopped it after some minutes. The way the guy talks is not so... well, how should one call it? You know what I mean.

Samurai Waki

07-10-2007, 08:33

if indeed Alexander killed many many people, in his mind's eye he may have had a better case for racial extermination (even though all fingers point to the opposite intention) than Hitler ever had. The Persians wanted Greece to be gone...period...done. I'm sure the Greeks felt quite the same about the Persians. Hitler was racially motivated because he was well... insane; There was surely already a rising nationalistic sentiment against Jews in Austria and Germany before Hitler gave rise to the 3rd Reich, Jews were already distrusted before Hitler was born, and the fact that his step father was no fan (and beat him constantly... and since he didn't know why exactly he came to believe it may have been because his "Real" father may have been a Jew), he came to loathe the thought that his mother may have conceived him with a Jewish man. His loathe turned to Hatred, His Hatred for himself gave way to Hatred For all Jews, and well the rest is History...

Hitler was not evil (believe me this is no way supportive of his actions) as much of my Family is Jewish and I lament the torture and ultimate death of much of my unknown relatives and ancestors at his vile hands). But Hitler was as much a product of himself as the Society around him, he was the hand that launched a thousand ships, but not the man who held the gun, or pulled the lever releasing a plume of Arsenic Gas, or the man who shoveled the living, crying, dead, or dying into the Kilns that fed the Monstrous War Machine. Hitler wasn't a man apart, Hitler was Germany at that time, and he fed the frustrated masses a manifesto that was tangible; Hope. As Misguided as it was. It was still Hope to many, and the few who refused to believe this was the answer were too few and eerily too silent.

So going back to the original question: Was Alexander worse than Hitler?

The Answer is obvious no; not now... not ever.

Was Hitler more evil than Alexander? No. They are incomparable; separated too far in time and in thought. Yet the situations both men faced were surprisingly similar; except Hitler was no Alexander.

Wakizashi.

Vidar

07-10-2007, 15:48

I suppose it depends which End of the gun (or spear) your looking down and your definition of Evil, but I think in the league tables of evil that Hitler is the greater evil, Im sure Alexander did bad things or had bad things done in his name, but on the whole Hitlers attempts to wipe out whole races of people and sections of society is in my opinion far worse, than anything Alexander Did. I dont think theres much comparison really two very different Characters

seireikhaan

07-11-2007, 05:05

Well, in my opinion, Hitler was worse. As already been said by others, Alexander didn't kill people just for being who they were. Hitler, on the other hand, was bent on extirmination of the 'unclean' folks. Honestly, though, I have to say that he wasn't ultimately evil. He was bitter, angry, and twisted. In this reference, twisted is not meant to indicate evil, but that he took a path that he thought was moral. It is my personal opinion that the extermination of innocents, including women, children, and the elderly, is among the most inhumane things a person can order done.

One thing I think should also be pointed out: concentration camps weren't just death camps. They were also used for science, for experimentation on humans, against their wills, when German scientist were more often than not unsure of the consequences of their actions. To me, that is the sort of testing that should be done on animals, not humans. And what's really sad is that the German authority likely held a similar viewpoint: they just felt that all those in concentration camps weren't human.

Whacker

07-11-2007, 11:38

Methinks there are a number of ways to look at and consider this topic.

Personally, I think Hitler was far worse because he caused certain people to die in the concentration and death camps based on their ethnicity and/or some other kind of 'undesirable' trait. Alexander to my knowledge had nothing like death camps. If anything, Alexander seemed to have been something of a xenophile, as evidence of contemporary and near-contemporary surviving works about his life. I just read earlier that he had created a will which was in the process of being executed after his death by Craterus, in which large populations of people were to be transplanted throughout his empire in order to facilitate "oneness" and culture integration and exchange.

In terms of empire building, it's plainly obvious they both wanted to do so. Hitler believed that the Germans were a superior people and destined to carve out a large empire of their own, Alexander seemed to have thought the same, though it has not been clear to me that he personally believed in the 'supremacy' of the Greek people.

In short, Alexander did indeed cause the slaughter of thousands, but it was done on those who resisted his rule, or attempts to rule. It wasn't directed at any individuals based on their ethnicity, background, or individual characteristics. Hitler is of course the opposite. Further, and I do not have any data to support this, it would seem that the number of deaths Alexander caused were far, far less than Hitler, both absolutely and relatively. Not that I approve of wholesale slaughter of anyone, but in answer to the OP "Was Alexander the Great worse than Hitler?", my answer is a definite No.

:balloon2:

Edit - I would also like add this, for the sake of argument. :grin: I think Stalin was just as bad as, if not worse than Hitler, in terms of being a tyrannical genocidal maniac.

Didz

07-15-2007, 10:27

I would say any dictator is as bad as any other, you can't judge them by their actions as their actions are merely the product of the underlying ego that determined their initial self-belief. Cromwell for example masssacred thousands of Catholic's in Ireland. Does that make him any better or worse than Hilter, of course not, its a matter of opportunity that determines the difference between them not their underlying mental state.

The Stranger

07-18-2007, 15:50

dictators arent neccesarily bad...

Didz

07-18-2007, 16:54

dictators arent neccesarily bad...
That must surely be a matter of personal judgement.

No dictator is 'bad' for everyone, but by implication every dictator will be bad for someone. Hitler was certainly not 'bad' for every German, and was in fact much loved by the majority of the population. Cromwell is still considered to be a great English hero, and Napoleon a French one.

However, dictatorship by implication is going to be bad for someone simply because one person having total power and no accountability is bound to result in egocentric policies based upon that persons bigotry. It is the most efficient form of government but also the most likely to be abused.

SaFe

07-18-2007, 17:59

Interesting topic and while i'm not usually posting in such a "dangerous theme" i think you can not compare two leaders of different time era.

I know not enough of Alexander and his campaigns (or should we say total conquests) but let's take a look at Caesar himself (good old Julius).
Just an example:

He attacked and exterminated whole tribes for political and financial reasons -while not at war with them. (think of the germanic Usipi and Tencteri for example)
He enslaved and tortured thousands of people. (numerous gallic tribes)
BUT...
he won those battles and the wars - so for his time he was definately not a leader who was "evil".
Naturally he didn't do this by himself, but he was the man in command.

If we look today at his campaigns we should definately agree he was a cold-hearted mass murderer, but it seems that many of us still see him as a great warlord and politican, although we all know that genocide of other nations or tribes is definately evil. The romans were rasists by toda'y standards, for celts, dacians, germanics were only barbarians who could be killed or enslaved, but were they really evil, or just a product of their education and circumstances?

During those ancient times not very people would thought in such a way, but we - living today - by our standards should say he was "evil".
Why is this so? Really interesting question for me.

Could we say Hitler was evil, because he lived during another time era as the romans? Hitler's actions for sure were evil evil for our understanding, values and education.

I think we should not comapre historical persons from different time eras, but i'm interested in your opinions.

P.S.
Forgive my rather bad english:-)

The Stranger

07-18-2007, 18:45

That must surely be a matter of personal judgement.

No dictator is 'bad' for everyone, but by implication every dictator will be bad for someone. Hitler was certainly not 'bad' for every German, and was in fact much loved by the majority of the population. Cromwell is still considered to be a great English hero, and Napoleon a French one.

However, dictatorship by implication is going to be bad for someone simply because one person having total power and no accountability is bound to result in egocentric policies based upon that persons bigotry. It is the most efficient form of government but also the most likely to be abused.

every ruler will be bad for someone... every boss will be bad for someone... most decision will be bad for someone... but that doesnt make the person bad...

Didz

07-18-2007, 19:33

every ruler will be bad for someone... every boss will be bad for someone... most decision will be bad for someone... but that doesnt make the person bad...
Of course it does..for the person who is the victim.

Bad, Good, Evil, and Just are subjective opinions based upon ones relationship to the subject. One person can be all of these things to different people at the same time.

Kralizec

07-18-2007, 19:35

A good government has some sort of network of checks and ballances to keep out the incompetent and corrupt. Democratic accountability (direct or indirect) is the best for garantuing rule in favour of the whole of society.

Besides, with the advent of mass media dictatorial rule is potentially more abusive as demonstrated by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and many others.

AntiochusIII

07-18-2007, 20:11

Besides, with the advent of mass media dictatorial rule is potentially more abusive as demonstrated by Hitler, Stalin, Mao and many others.Reminds me of the Kim Jong-Il "Great Leader Cured My Illness" documentary. :no:

The Stranger

07-20-2007, 16:37

Of course it does..for the person who is the victim.

Bad, Good, Evil, and Just are subjective opinions based upon ones relationship to the subject. One person can be all of these things to different people at the same time.
they not only can be... they are...

but also things as justice are relative... what is wrong now couldve been completely normal 5 centuries ago... and it may even still be normal somewhere else in the world...

500 years from now people might not even understand why we thought hitler was a beast because maybe then killings based on race or sumthing like it may have become almost completely normal (considered by those that do it ofcourse) and i think that is wat this show was about...

Didz

07-20-2007, 18:50

@The Stranger
Perfectly true. For example, at the time of Alexander, the Spartans were regularly committing state managed infanticide, which would be unthinkable today.

AntiochusIII

07-20-2007, 20:20

500 years from now people might not even understand why we thought hitler was a beast because maybe then killings based on race or sumthing like it may have become almost completely normal (considered by those that do it ofcourse) and i think that is wat this show was about...Yet we study the morals and outlook of the Ancient Greeks, 2000+ years before us, who came from an age where there are much fewer records left to us than we will to our descendants. I think you underestimate humanity 500 years forward. Unless a Doomsday scenario happens, it is very likely that historians and students of history 500 years from now will analyze our cultural traits and form up a framework of our moral values -- with which to judge the leaders of our time -- easily enough.

Didz

07-20-2007, 22:01

@AntiochusIII
That pre-supposes that our current standards of morality do not go though a fundamental shift over the next 500 years. We currently live in a society where civil liberties and democratic conventions are constantly being eroded in order to make our societies more secure and easier to manage. Where globalisation is putting more and more emphasis on corporate imperatives and expediency rather than human rights and where economic reality is making it more and more difficult to provide a universal standard of social care.

Personally, I don't think there is much more slack in the system and I wouldn't be at all surprised to find some pretty radical changes in both the role of the state in our lives and our general expectations about the quality and value of life.

I certainly predict that within the next 500 years the divisions between social classes within our society will be much wider than they are now with much less potential for social mobility.

The issue then arises, what attitude will the contributing minority have to the non-contributing majority, particularly if dwindling resources and the impact of global warming begin to put even more pressure on those with access to resources and wealth to keep it for themselves.

Already we are seeing more and more centralization of power within our democracies and more and more demands for centralized information management so that the state can monitor our lives more effectively. We have witnessed a trend towards state sponsored demonisation of whole sections of the population in order to justify new legislation specifically designed to persecute them for their way of life and we have seen a demand for more and more direct power to judge being transferred from the independent judiciary to the state. For the first time in almost 800 years you can now be stopped in the street, arrested and detained against your will with absolutely not explanation being given, or access to legal advice being granted for 28 days and the government want that extended to over three months without being required to even tell you why.

If you consider how much has changed even in the last five years let alone the last 500 and then extrapolate how much it might change again in the next I don't think there are any grounds to be complacent about the morality of our communities in the future.

AntiochusIII

07-20-2007, 22:35

Didz: Thing is, how much has changed or will change does not really matter. One can look back at history and see such examples...but I'm getting ahead of myself. I guess I'll try and give you an example of what I mean:

In Ancient Greece (topic-related; Alexander the Great and all), their moral framework is drastically different from our moral framework. Simply look at their definition of "Hero" and ours: Herakles was a rapist, murderer, and went insane several times, yet he was among the most popular of all the Greek heroes. Would a modern-day Herakles receives our praise? No; in fact I suspect he will be summarily arrested and persecuted to the full extent of the local law.

To the Ancient Greeks "rape" has a vastly different connotation than to us. To them it is a symbol of strength and control, of assertive manliness so to speak; to us a crime of the highest penalty, committed, we say, by cowards and criminals of the worst sort.

To the Ancient Greeks the conforming ethos supersedes everything, especially individuality. To them the Poleis is more than you, it is everyone and anyone who strays deserves the worst of scorns. It is not the same with us.

The Ancient Greeks think nothing of slavery; it is a fact of life, just a lower class of people who suffers from misfortune and that is all. To us, also, slavery is something that might as well come out of Hell itself.

Etc.

Where am I going with this? Two points: first, we are aware of this difference. Two thousand years ago, with fragmented records, with a world so incredibly different from us we might not as well recognize it -- the historians of our time pierce together the puzzles as best they can and don't throw around judgments at ancient Greek heroes. Sure, there might be (well, there probably are) discrepancies and holes in the fragments, but those are not show-stopping.

If our historians are doing this to the people from an era where written records are not altogether too common, why should we place so little faith to our descendants, a mere 500 years down the line, who'd have access to an abundance of viewpoints, of records of written form, visual form, or even from the spoken voice, to not do the same, with even greater success? For them to not be able to complete the puzzle that defines the early 21th century morality? We have to define the Ancient Greeks from but few philosophical works, fragments of the few surviving plays and literature, and a rare diary or two. That's it. They will have access to the most obscure blogs, the forum posts, the countless novels and history books and academic publications and newspapers and...you get the idea. This "idea" that somehow the same humanity who had come this far in history would suddenly regress towards ignorance and misunderstanding about the most basic principles of History is, in my opinion, faulty.

Second, related, and much more importantly: despite our difference in moral viewpoints the deference of the Ancient Greeks to Herakles, to the Poleis, and to whatever they loved to revere at the time, passed to us. I said above that a modern Herakles would likely be spit on by civilized society. Well, the original Herakles is not being spit on by us! In fact the Ancient Greeks' attitude towards him, based on a very different moral framework from us as it is, somehow finds its way to us. The mythological Herakles might not be so overwhelming to us as he was to the Ancient Greeks, but we like him all the same.

Alexander the Great, too, represents that. He was a man of his time, no, a man above his time, the Giant of the Ancient World, a deified mythical figure even when he still breathed. What did he do? He conquered, he enslaved, he executed, he torched cities and ancient monuments, he waged war, he went drunk, he was promiscuous, he might even did it with his mom. However, the Ancient Greeks did not care much for it -- their moral framework did not place Alexander as bad; rather, quite the opposite. If we are to judge him today based on our standards he would be a first-class villain with a white cat on his lap. Yet, and this is a very important "yet," we respect him the way the Ancient Greeks did.

Even if you think my example of Alexander the Great is flawed, then all you have to do is raise another significant historical figure. A national hero of your choice, may be, trace it down at 500 years or more; then simply look at what we think of the figure, look at what our ancestors think of the figure, look at how similar they are. Then restart from the beginning, look at that same figure, judge the person by our standards, our way of thinking, and see the difference.

The sentiment that passed down did not have to base itself on the same morality with which it was born from. Why, then, should we believe that such a universally hated figure as Adolf Hitler would suddenly receive a kinder judgment from history? After all, the past shows it differently. And if anyone can predict the future, it's the past.

Didz

07-20-2007, 23:34

@AntiochusIII
I think your absolutely right, and I'm sure that Hilter will still be demonized in 500 years time as he is now. He is guilty of the most fundemental mistake that any dictator can make...he lost.

However, compare Hitler with Cromwell, Alexander the Great, Napoleon or Julius Ceasar and you begin to see that how we have been presuaded to think of these people is largely dictated by how successful they were and what lessons we as a society are being encouraged to absorb from their behavoiur. I find it ironic for example that in England we are encouraged to consider Cromwell to be a hero and the founder of parliamentary democracy, when in fact he abolished parliament on the grounds that he didn't like the decisions they were making and ruled England as a hated and despised dictator for several years.

I suppose the point I am making is that our attitude towards historical people and events is largely dictated by the propaganda which we have been encouraged to accept by the historical record. We are rarely if ever given the factual information on a historical character or event and left to make up our own minds.

The question for the future is whether the wealth of information currently being stored about current characters and events will actually be used honestly to provide our great, great great grandchildren with a clear and true record of events, or whether it will be manipulated and edited to support the officially sponsored view that those in power want them to beleive.

We are already seeing examples of those in power manipulating the media to misguide people into believing facts and situations that are not true (e.g. the media manipulation by the Labour Party of Election footage shown on British TV), and we already have collusion between web-media companies and totalitarian governments to restrict and censor the information access of their citisens (e.g. Google and Communist China). In 500 years time the capability of those in power to control our access to information could be far greater, given the rate of technical development, indeed the people who control the media might actually be the people who run our lives and certainly the ability to manipulate media and produce seemingly real, but fake imagery, will be far more sophisticated than that which has been used in Iraq.

So I don't buy into your view that all this information we are currently accumulating will by implication result in better understanding. Information is and always will be power, and he who controls the information will have the power to decide what and how much the rest of us are allowed to see.

The current Labour government certainly understand that, and I'm sure in 500 years time their successors will have secured the control over it that they currently seek.

DisruptorX

07-24-2007, 03:21

20th century dictators such as Hitler, Mao, and Stalin all waged war on their own civilian population. Pre-emptive purging, mass murder, mass deportation, etc.

None of the ancient warlords did anything remotely like this. Aggression was outward, against other civilizations, and while revolts were put down, nothing on the scale of Stalin's gulags or Hitler's concentration camps were ever put in place to control every part of people's lives.

Ancient warlords were just that, leaders. They did some pretty nasty things in war, but what else would you expect? War is never a nice thing. They never waged it on their own people on such a huge scale, or attempted to completely control their subjects lives.

So, no, Hitler, Mao, Stalin are nothing like the ancient conquerers. The crimes of the 20th century are unprecedented in history. As someone earlier in the thread put it, "industrialized murder".

Didz

07-24-2007, 09:59

20th century dictators such as Hitler, Mao, and Stalin all waged war on their own civilian population. Pre-emptive purging, mass murder, mass deportation, etc.

None of the ancient warlords did anything remotely like this.
Not sure about that Disruptor, there were a hell of a lot of dictators in the ancient and medieval era and not much in the way of investigative reporting and media to expose their behaviour.

But just of the top off my head what about:

Herod and the slaughter of the Israelite children.

The Pharoah of Egypt and the expulsion of the jews.

Ferdinand and Isabella and the explusion of muslims and jews after the reconquista.

The various Roman exterminations of barbaric tribes, including the Icenii after the Boudica revolt.

Boudicca's extermination of the populations of Colchester and London.

The way I see it this sort of behaviour is inherent in human nature, has been since the first man stood upright and will be until we are extinct. All that is missing in all of us is the opportunity and power to put it into practice and that power is mostly found in totalitarian regimes, which are busy murdering people even as we write.

Ironside

07-24-2007, 18:52

Not sure about that Disruptor, there were a hell of a lot of dictators in the ancient and medieval era and not much in the way of investigative reporting and media to expose their behaviour.

But just of the top off my head what about:

Herod and the slaughter of the Israelite children.

The Pharoah of Egypt and the expulsion of the jews.

Ferdinand and Isabella and the explusion of muslims and jews after the reconquista.

The various Roman exterminations of barbaric tribes, including the Icenii after the Boudica revolt.

Boudicca's extermination of the populations of Colchester and London.

The way I see it this sort of behaviour is inherent in human nature, has been since the first man stood upright and will be until we are extinct. All that is missing in all of us is the opportunity and power to put it into practice and that power is mostly found in totalitarian regimes, which are busy murdering people even as we write.

The fundamental difference is that extermination were made on opposition, while the holocast was done on existance, cultural eradication (the most brutal form of organised massacres pre WWII) compared to physical eradication.

Didz

07-24-2007, 23:10

The fundamental difference is that extermination were made on opposition, while the holocast was done on existance, cultural eradication (the most brutal form of organised massacres pre WWII) compared to physical eradication.
Again I'm not sure thats strictly true. The fundemental issue behind the Nazi Policy was that the people they were getting rid of were the opposition. The objective was to purify the German people and eradicate the corruption which had undermined their culture.

This is exactly the arguement still being used today by countries to justify persecution of their particular 'unwanted' people, and it was the basis for most previous massacres throughout history.

e.g. They are not the same as us, therefore, persecuting them is acceptable.

KARTLOS

07-24-2007, 23:36

Didz

07-25-2007, 00:39

in one thread you are doubting the accuracy of the bible, and in this one you are using as examples events for which there is no independent evidence outside of the bible!
Thats the joy of history, you can change it to suit whatever fits best with your personal goals.:laugh4:

Ironside

07-25-2007, 09:23

Again I'm not sure thats strictly true. The fundemental issue behind the Nazi Policy was that the people they were getting rid of were the opposition. The objective was to purify the German people and eradicate the corruption which had undermined their culture.

This is exactly the arguement still being used today by countries to justify persecution of their particular 'unwanted' people, and it was the basis for most previous massacres throughout history.

e.g. They are not the same as us, therefore, persecuting them is acceptable.

The difference here is that the corruption was in the blood (well, vaguely defined genes and physical attributes). You were condemned to death because of you parents and nothing you could do would ever change that.

The previous worst case scenarios involved that a member of your extended family did oppose or that you were unfourtunate enough to live in a city or tribe that was going to be massacred.
To put it different if the Nazis would rule the world, not even a crystal ball would be enough to save you if you were a "undesirable".

Didz

07-25-2007, 10:55

The difference here is that the corruption was in the blood (well, vaguely defined genes and physical attributes). You were condemned to death because of you parents and nothing you could do would ever change that.
That was certainly true for a large proportion of the victims of the Nazi solution but there was also a significant minority (possibly several million) who were eliminated for non-genetic unacceptabilities. A few examples include mental disability, homosexuality, political beleif's, religious non-conformity, certain physical disabilties and various unacceptable lifestyle choices.

In total, jewish victims only accounted for just over half the total population who fell within the boundaries of the final solution, its just that their propaganda machine is far better at highlighting the persecution they sufferred than that concerned with the others affected.

The key aim of the Nazi policy was purification and that went far beyond the extermination of the jews. It was about conformance to an agreed cultural and genetic specification for all people of German descent.

This has been a pretty standard template for persecution throughout history and is still in use today, the only real significance of the Nazi example is that they did a more effective job of putting their policy into practice.

However, I personally don't think evil can be measured by the number of its victims, instead I would argue that exists as soon as the initial action is contemplated and becomes fact upon application to its first victim. Thus arguements such as 'the end justfy the means' cannot excuse evil acts.

Ironside

07-25-2007, 11:34

That was certainly true for a large proportion of the victims of the Nazi solution but there was also a significant minority (possibly several million) who were eliminated for non-genetic unacceptabilities. A few examples include mental disability, homosexuality, political beleif's, religious non-conformity, certain physical disabilties and various unacceptable lifestyle choices.

In total, jewish victims only accounted for just over half the total population who fell within the boundaries of the final solution, its just that their propaganda machine is far better at highlighting the persecution they sufferred than that concerned with the others affected.

The key aim of the Nazi policy was purification and that went far beyond the extermination of the jews. It was about conformance to an agreed cultural and genetic specification for all people of German descent.

But it's here were a part of the final solution was different from the brutalities before, the second part is how it was done (the industrial approach). And I'm not sure that all of the categories you mentioned weren't considered "genetical" by the Nazis.
The people that are eliminated due to opposition, always suffer if a brutal regime takes power. Grades of evil you know.

However, I personally don't think evil can be measured by the number of its victims, instead I would argue that exists as soon as the initial action is contemplated and becomes fact upon application to its first victim. Thus arguements such as 'the end justfy the means' cannot excuse evil acts.

That I can certainly agree with.

BTW for sheer brutal madness I would say that Pol-Pot isn't mentioned enough in this thread. I mean genocide, "starvation reforms" (=stupid reforms that causes massive starvation), and murderous paranoia after "traitors", in one regime... Can it get any worse?

Didz

07-25-2007, 12:00

But it's here were a part of the final solution was different from the brutalities before, the second part is how it was done (the industrial approach).
I'm not sure that the method used to implementent persecution actually makes that much difference to the victim. Whether ones children are killed with fire, sword, gas or smart bomb they're still dead and the person who ordered it is still evil in my opinion.

Is a person who kills a child through deliberate starvation any less evil that a person who throws them in a gas oven?

I don't think so.

This really hinges on ones definition of 'evil', and so far the best definition I've heard stated that 'A person is evil when they decide to do something which they know to be wrong, or omit to doing something which they know to be right and by so doing increase the suffering to others.'

Thats a pretty all encompassing statement, which at the time I heard it made me feel guilty enough to get in my car and drive 300 miles to visit my Mum rather than trying to think up contrived excuse not to.

Ironside

07-25-2007, 17:11

I'm not sure that the method used to implementent persecution actually makes that much difference to the victim. Whether ones children are killed with fire, sword, gas or smart bomb they're still dead and the person who ordered it is still evil in my opinion.

Is a person who kills a child through deliberate starvation any less evil that a person who throws them in a gas oven?

I don't think so.

While the method by itself usually doesn't matter much (it's usually meassured by the time of suffering before death, and as such would make gassing less evil than starving), it often reflects the intent and that matters massivly.

Gray Beard

07-28-2007, 18:22

I've read Mien Kampf. Because my PhD dealt with Martin Heidegger (A really nasty piece of Nazi work) I've really read more NAZI material than I'd ever like to admit. I've read the primary sources in many cases.

Hitler didn't start out OK and then go bad as was stated above. Nazism was the culmination of probably 200 years of German antisemitism that had been simply ignored by polite society. The NAZI's were, like all evil people pretty good at latching onto a couple of issues that most people could agree with and then piggy-backing their evil ideology into the mainstream that way. If the German economy had been good then the Nazi's would have found different issues to champion. I believe you see the same thing happening in the nation of Turkey right now. They just elected a government that wants to turn the nation into another Iran because the radical Islamist are, in some ways a little less fiscally corrupt. People voted for an honest government and will get an Ayatollah. The NAZI's did the same thing.

Moral equivalence when you talk about dictators is a strange concept to me. I wouldn't want to live in the USSR under Lenin, Stalin or anyone who came after them I wouldn't have wanted to live NAZI Germany, I probably would have been killed if I lived in Mao's China. (I currently live in China BTW).

Most nations from antiquity until fairly modern times had harsh, draconian legal systems. Rulers were often arbitrary and cruel. But Hitler raised the concept of cruelty to new heights. That said, peruse through a copy of the "Black Book of Communism (http://www.amazon.com/Black-Book-Communism-Crimes-Repression/dp/0674076087/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6804376-4655131?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185642499&sr=8-1)" and you'll see he wasn't alone in killing huge numbers of his own populations and there is a sound intellectual basis for believing that Mao and Stalin were as bad or worse as was Pol-Pot. The above poster is correct when he says that Pol-Pot is not mentioned enough in threads like this.

The Hutu's in Rwanda however, I believe, currently hold the all time record for killing and maiming the most innocent people in the fewest number of days. On a day by day basis they made the Nazi's look like rank amatures

I believe there is also a qualitative, if not quantitative difference between killing enemy armies and even civilian populations in a war and killing citizens of your own country simply because of their ethnicity or political affiliations. Hitler's government would have killed every Jew it could have whether WWII happened or not. The two things were not dependent upon each other. Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon (Who may have invented the Police State BTW), The British, or Joshua in the Old Testament for that matter, were building an empire and would kill the populations in order to control the city, state or geographical area. Populations who joined the cause were spared and given a place in the society.

Question, would you prefer the Assyrian way of controlling conquered population which was to enslave everyone and also cut their thumbs off so they couldn't effectively fight back? You could argue, and I think make a pretty strong argument, that in some ways both Alexander and Joshua were being merciful when they killed a population because it might be better to be dead than to be a slave.

For what it is worth, I'd put the Aztec up there with the Nazi's too as far as brutality genocidal behavior goes.

DisruptorX

07-28-2007, 23:25

Alexander and the Romans also spread a culture that we still look back to today, whereas the Nazis' culture, for the most part, died with them.

All Empires bring death and do some evil, but I think you could argue (and I do) that the better ones, such as the Romans and British, for example, also brought good things with them, such as new technologies and ideas.

The Nazi empire did nothing of the sort.

Didz

07-28-2007, 23:58

The Nazi empire did nothing of the sort.
To be fair the Third Reich never acheived a period of lasting peace in order to enable it to deliver any major benefits. But just for the record Germans still drive on roads built and paid for by the National Socialist government under Hilter and its industry and economy was far more efficient than the British at the start of the war.

The sad fact is that dictatorship is the most effiecient form of government, but it always comes at a heavy price to those sections of the population who fall outside the dictators personal and preferred group. This mean that dictators are wonderful if you happen to be one of the chosen, but terrible if you are not.

DisruptorX

07-29-2007, 00:30

To be fair the Third Reich never acheived a period of lasting peace in order to enable it to deliver any major benefits. But just for the record Germans still drive on roads built and paid for by the National Socialist government under Hilter and its industry and economy was far more efficient than the British at the start of the war.

The sad fact is that dictatorship is the most effiecient form of government, but it always comes at a heavy price to those sections of the population who fall outside the dictators personal and preferred group. This mean that dictators are wonderful if you happen to be one of the chosen, but terrible if you are not.

A very good point. However, thats more in the territory of arguing the benefits and shortcomings of dictatorship. Did the conquered people of the Reich enjoy any of its benefits? Hardly, they were used as slave labour. Did they enjoy the rich culture of the conquering people? No, the Nazis were very anti-intellectual, and the only art they perfected was propaganda.

The people conquered by Alexander did benefit from becoming part of the Empire. Alexandria, which was in Egypt, became more important than any Macedonian or Greek city.

Strictly military conquerors, such as the Assyrians, Mongols, etc, are admired for their military prowess (heck, so are the Nazis), but they aren't really respected as much as the Empires that brought culture and benefits to their conquered people, like the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Ottomans, and British.

And brutal conquerors like the Mongols killed those who opposed them in battle, they didn't seek to completely erradicate entire groups of people because their very existance offended them. In terms of pure carnage, only the Communists surpass the Nazis, and even though their effects were arguably worse, their ideology wasn't based around complete annihilation of races of people.

Didz

07-29-2007, 09:41

A very good point. However, thats more in the territory of arguing the benefits and shortcomings of dictatorship. Did the conquered people of the Reich enjoy any of its benefits? Hardly, they were used as slave labour. Did they enjoy the rich culture of the conquering people? No, the Nazis were very anti-intellectual, and the only art they perfected was propaganda.
One can hardly argue this point as universal truth. Even ignoring the fact that the populations of some countries considered themselves liberated by German invasion, the Third Riech was never given the same opportunity as say the British or Romans to surplant their own cultural values on their conquered nations. From its inception the Third Reich was in a state of constant conflict whereas all the other Empires you mention managed to reign over their conquered territories for long periods of relative peace after the atrocities associated with subduing their resident populations.

It also has to be noted that unlike the other examples you list the German occupations were almost always subject to active subversion funded by outside agencies, much like the current occupation of Iraq. And as we are aware from our own expereinces in Iraq attempting to deliver any benefits to a resident population when constantly being harrassed by hostile resistance groups is damned near impossible and guaranteed to incite the worst behaviour from your own occupation forces.

If one compares the Third Reich with earlier expansions of the German Empire which unified the many small kingdoms of the 19th Century into a single German state you can see no ongoing resistance amongst the people of these states to German rule and as far as I can tell the Hannoverians, Saxons, Brunswickers, Bavarians and Wurtemburgers are all happily enjoying the benefits of being part of the great German culture.

There is no reason to suppose that had the war gone differently a unified Europe would not have eventually settled down to enjoy similar benefits. The only real issue would have been the centralisation of power which arose from the corruption of the German constitution by the National Socialist Party, but that is little different to the sort of problems currently facing some of our countries anyway and so WW2 may only have delayed the inevitable decline of our countries into police states.

It will certainly be a major challenge for Britain over the next few decades.

And brutal conquerors like the Mongols killed those who opposed them in battle, they didn't seek to completely erradicate entire groups of people because their very existance offended them.
I'm afraid that simply isn't true, and rarely is of any of the examples you are using.

The Mongols in particular systematically erradicated whole rural populations simply because they considered their existence to be pointless and their lives worthless. The Romans did exactly the same thing to whole nations simply to clear the land for resettlement and the British did the same in Africa, New Zealand, Australia and many other of its colonial conquests.

You seem to basing your arguements on a very selective view of history which is designed to suggest that the actions of Germany in WW2 were somehow extra-ordinary. In fact, they were not unusual at all and were just following the standard pattern adopted by almost every conquering power throughout history. It was for instance the British who invented the concentration camp not the Germans and the same system is still being used to day even though its was demonized following WW2.

I guess the point I am trying to make here is that the Nazi were not some genetic human mutation that suddenly burst into existence from nowhere and once eradicated can be assigned to history and forgotten. These were ordinary human beings doing what any ordinary human being is capable of doing when allowed the power and opportunity. Therefore, the real lesson to be learned from WW2 is not that Nazi's were evil, but that this is what can happen, when we as individuals and as nations allow too much power to placed in the hands of too few people. This gradual drift towards centralised power is natural consequence of our own lethagy, ignorance and self-interest. As a consequence we are already seeing the actions of the Nazi's being emulated all over the world and eventually our grandchildren will have to pay the same price our grandfathers did to correct our mistakes.

Most people in Britain for example know every intimate detail about the contestants of Big Brother, and yet haven't a clue about the how the British constitution protects their freedom, and so when Blair or Brown announce changes which undermine their freedom they don't even register the threat let alone understand its implications on the future for their children. I'm sure the same is true of every other so called democratic country, and so we sit here arguing about who was the most evil whilst all around us the next bunch of Nazi's are organising themselves ready to repeat the lesson which we should have already learned.

DisruptorX

07-31-2007, 06:49

You may have me there on the second point. Though, the mongols are pretty much viewed as being rather bloodthirsty these days. I believe in the middle east, they are seen as being as bad as we see the Nazis.

I do think that portrays Nazis as being somehow inhuman monsters to distance ourselves from them is incorrect, but then again, I don't see how one could compare Alexander the Great, an enlightened ruler who respected the culture of the people he conquered, to a man who set out to wipe out the Jews and Slavs.

Didz

08-06-2007, 10:19

I do think that portrays Nazis as being somehow inhuman monsters to distance ourselves from them is incorrect, but then again, I don't see how one could compare Alexander the Great, an enlightened ruler who respected the culture of the people he conquered, to a man who set out to wipe out the Jews and Slavs.
Again I would argue that you are being very selective about what aspects of Alexanders character you include in this assessment. Alexander was essentially a teenage thug with a huge ego complex, probably bought on the abuse of his father. During the course of his short life he not only committed murder on a regular basis just from his own amusement but supervised acts of genocide against any nation which he took a dislike to. There is even a theory that in the end he was poisoned by his own friends who could no longer tolerate his abuses.

Alexander's empire was no rosegarden. Especially after the final defeat of King Darius the court was plagued by controversy and intrigue. Alexander had some of his loyal aides tortured and killed. The justification for these acts is still subject to debate. Especially during the campaign in India, the Macedonians used brutal force to subdue the conquered peoples. Even the sick and elderly, it is written, were butchered.

But also earlier on, during the long siege of Tyre (Lebanon) in 332 BC, Alexander had 2,000 inhabitants mercilessly crucified. In modern Iran he is still known as an evil king - a personification of the devil if you like - who did his very best to destroy the respectable old Persian culture and religion.

None of that detracts from his acheivements but one needs to keep a clear perspective on the fact that many of the people we are encouraged to worship are no less human than we are when it comes to abusing power.