Stalin's and Hitlers politics on occupied territories

[Alkas]

Is there any difference?
I provoke: NO

Beeing sober,
Alkas

[Phillip]

It is not that provocative.

Dictators use whatever tools they can and they share the same knoweledge - as far as I can tell.

Their motives may be different, but the methods are the same.

Lenin and Hitler were entirely different in their motives though.

Somebody who knows more then I do can add to this!!

[grandma]

Oh, yes, Phillip, there is a great difference - somebody kill you and you family with ideas of supremacy or with communist idea. But you died, do you know?

[Zhenya]

I think this question has two sides. It doesn't matter to the family of the guy who got killed why he got killed: because he is a Jew in Germany, or because he is part of Russian intelligency. But it matters to the country that he lived in. Like Phillip said Lenin and Hitler had entirely different motives.

[Phillip]

Grandma, I know what you mean, but I sometimes wonder if the motive prempts the behaviour or visa versa.

I mean to say that power corrupts, so I think it is valid to question weather these dictators would have done what they did anyway, but with different motives. That is, perhaps they make it up as they go.

That's not my full oppinion, but I think it worth some thought.

Phillip.

[grandma]

It is interesting the motive, the things we do becouse of this motive or the purpose? What do you think? If the country become poor, the people live without liberty, without any possibility to improve their life, it is a good purpose? Well, where the purpose was better - in the USRR or Germany? Where you prefer to live?

[Phillip]

That's a good question that I could do without.


Grandma, I guess you are asking which motive would be the worst to live with, and in my answer, I think that you hope for me to keep in mind the living conditions of the times.

At this point, I should let you know that I probably know less about the specifics in these examples then most anybody else on this board.

From this point, however I am seeing the two as being more and more the same. The world looked like a kinda hell to these dictators, but just didn't care.

I like to imagine that Stalin had some hope for the future, but I don't think Hitler will go down in history as a man who had anything to offer. To me, he is an example of a very angry little man who was so descisive he managed to orchastrate something that a sane country should never do.

Then again, had he won, maybe his hatred would have been justified by history... like 'Alexander the Great' (not so great to some.

At any rate, from where I am siting both these men used the people around them to bend them into doing things that they were in some ways predisposed to do. Moreover, I think it is not so hard to incite fire in young men and paranoia in a populous - if you have the opportunity, drive and lack of ethics to do so.

I refuse to believe that any country in the world today is immune to comitting the same sorts of atrocities, especially if they are offered more hope for the future...our nurturing instincts can render good people very very selfish.

I think people, in trying make good of a bad situation, might look at these acts and instead of feeling shame, convince theselves that the right was on their side. That is why people get angry believing things that all common sense suggests is wrong.

It is an ugly cycle that.

Sometimes it's just hard to feel good.