Quote Originally Posted by PanzerJager
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.
To be fair to Hitler, he would have been described as very evil in any lifetime, because genocide usually streched only to the male population (the females and children became slaves) and had in most cases a strategical reason ("oppose me and die" or "we want your land").

In Hitler's case it was also draining resources and the treatment of the population on the Eastern front did probably cost him the war (according to German intelligence, winning the minds of the people, that wasn't hard due to the hatred to Stalin, was the recommended action for victory. It would likely have created liberation movements that would have gone to war against Stalin).