Adolf Hitler - The Greatest Statesman who ever lived

His most impressive talent was he gave a hell of a speech,

How about we play a game? You say something Hitler did that was 'good'; and i'll give you two things that Hitler did that were tyrannical, genocidal, vicious, inept or idiotic. Let's see who runs out first.

Nothing Hitler ever did demonstrated flair or genius. This is pseudo-history for idiots. He was a mass murderer, he was a pathetic military commander; the judgement that he was in fact a great statesman and military leader really makes my blood boil, he was not, he completely was not. His 'Thousand Year Reich' lasted less than a decade!

This is a prime example as to why history should be compulsory right through to GCSE level. We cannot lose sight of the fact that Hitler was an appalling human being, just like we seem to be losing sight of our own countries contribution to the war - everyone underplays the role of Britain, we lost 400,000, about 1% of our entire population.

Putting aside the vast body count he was responsible for, Hitler made some incredibly poor political and military decisions (attacking the USSR being the obvious massive one) and left Germany in ruins. I don't think many people would consider him the greatest statesman who ever lived.

I hear he was kind to his dogs though.

Here are the core facts:

Hitler destroyed the emerging liberal democracy that was the Weimar republic. He turned it into a totalitarian police state, denying basic human rights such as freedom of speech, and freedom to vote, to all of its citizens and denying specific human rights to certain groups for absolutely no reason. He waged war on multiple democracies including the US and UK, in order to advance his ideology of Fascist oppression. He and those under his command murdered (literally) millions of innocent people in democide. He caused the most deadly conflict in human history, and let Europe go to ruin (thankfully the US saved it with its Marshall plan, and the phoenix of democracy rose from the ashes in the parts not administered by the evil USSR).

None of these facts are disputed by anybody with more than one brain cell, and all of them combine to make it quite obvious to me that Hitler was evil on a level similar to Stalin and Pol Pot.

Hitler was a poor statesmen. He had no real vision for Germany other than some kind of Mitteleuropa/Lebensraum. His policy ideas were often contradictory and determined by pragmatism - (to what extent was he an ideologue?) for example his views on women. His plans for militarization required autarky which came close to ruining Germany's economy. Germany was dangerously low on gold reserves.He dismissed Schacht who was a formidable German economic policy maker.Civil service was inefficient - polychratic rule, agencies and departments rivaling each other. He probably set West Germany back 15 years and East Germany back 35 years.

However, he was a captivating orator, remilitarised Germany, made significant gains in terms of Versailles and was a keen opportunist. Oh he also played the big businesses well and it's miraculous that he Hitler, as a person was actually a popular figurehead to the German people.
^lol.

hitler was an extraordinary public speaker. the language he employed was remarkably dynamic, powerful and poetic at times, even diabolical, and it really helped that he had such a thunderous voice that amplified those linguistic methods to put its strength into proportion. it's terrifying that someone so unspeakably and appallingly evil had such an ability to communicate emotions and ideas

Are you just reiterating commonly held opinions or have you studied his speeches? Of course he communicated emotions, it's because he was a man full of hate.

I'm only giving you my opinion here, just because my opinion might be similar to others doesn't make it invalid

wow, so you're expecting people on the student room to have conducted a primary study on hitler's speaking abilities? what were you expecting from this room exactly?

You are right that it does not, what i'm getting at however is the tendency for people to recycle ideas and affirming those they've heard rather than doing any primary study.

History at A-level ? haha no thanks, rather not study a mickey mouse subject.

I admire Hitler's economic miracle. He accomplished that by using his own debt-free money as should every single country do. In short two years Germany was booming and it took combined powers of the world to bring Germany down. Check out EU's manufacturing stats. Germany are the only ones having positive exports and huge manufacturing base. They won't make the mistake of giving up manufacturing again because it would cause millions to starve an d huge riots that are incredibly dangerous because riots can be used to install extremist government who would be dictators and would have no regard to people of Germany.

HOWEVER. Hitler has done a lot of bad stuff but so did US, Japan and UK. Hitler sent dozens of letters of peace to UK because he did not want war. Did UK listen. Nope. And war it was. The world was afraid of power of Germany and it had to be contained. And it was. Hitler was bad guy. And so were Roosevelt, Churchill and other puppets of bankers. BTW, the concentration camp model did not come from Russia or Germany. It came from US because they were the ones who killed millions of Native Americans and put them in camps against their will. Hitler simply stole the model. So, source of misery in camps started in United States of America. Read "Tradegy and Hope" tome of 1.3k pages for 20th century history. The most dangerous superstition is to blame one guy - Hitler - for stuff that US, Japan also did. People call Hitler racist. But so was US. They imprisoned hundreds of thousands of peaceful Japanese citizens in internment during WW2 simply because they were born in wrong country. They had no right to fair trail. The only right they had, as George Carlin said "right this way".

Winners wrote history and painted Hitler as abomination which he was and concealed their own misdeeds. There are hundreds of thousands of classified docs from WW2 up till now locked up in US. What is in them is a mystery. Certainly, not something that would ruin picture of the winners.

History at A-level ? haha no thanks, rather not study a mickey mouse subject.

I agree with most of what you have said, although you completely ignored the Treaty of Versailles and the effects of the Great Depression on the German people, how do you think Hitler received such a high vote in the first place? Very few of the German citizens cared about democracy, they wanted their standard of living increased by any means possible. You also have a tendency to view history as a 'us' vs 'them' teleological mentality, 'the evil USSR', not ignoring the crimes committed by Stalin but it doesn't show your objectivity.

C'mon. I'd love to hear your definition of a Christian. As in, "a Christian is a person who........"

Why? I'm not a Christian and don't pretend to speak for them.

But you have just responded with what you think, without responding to this man who says that popular so called facts about Hitler and the Third Reich are often wrong, even when checked against easily verifiable sources of which he gives a large number.

if history is a mickey mouse subject, then what isn't? people get into oxbridge by taking history as one of 3 subjects very often

Regarding some of the comments here as to whether or not Hitler was a good speech giver/writer. Don't scrutinize his language that he used or compare his speeches to others. Just look at the audiences reaction.. That's what counts.

I think that what you said about the treaty of Versailles and its effects on German morale are true - the Western front of WW1 was a farce of course, it should never have been started - but nevertheless, I still think that primarily the blame for WW2 lies with Fascism. Because if you think about it, we can play this game forever with causes and effects. If you want to be really reductionist about it, you could say that it's all the Big Bang's fault for ever starting this universe in the first place.

And objectively speaking, the USSR was evil. Well, if it wasn't, I don't know what that word means. It's not really an "us or them" as much as it is "humanity vs inhumanity". I'm not a blind fan of the West though; I acknowledge the crimes it too has committed (including minor democide in WW2).

Presumably if you had studied your GCSE history you would know that Britain, France and the United States declared war on Germany. Do you attack someone then blame then for your own injury if they defend themselves against YOUR attack? I wish Hitler, Saddam Hussein & Colonel Gadaffi had been able to defeat these attacks that a corrupt power is causing in your name and unfortunately with innocent people's blood.