Was Stalin worse than Hitler?

johnwest288 wrote: »

I dont think either of these guys actually ever killed someone by their own hand.... Am i right in that? They probably never even saw someone being executed or tortured.

Well Hitler served in the German army in the first World War so might have shot someone. He certainly would have seen people being killed on both sides. His fellow troops thought him a right oddball. He won a medal for bravery*. Interestingly it was his Jewish commander who put him up for it. Later on when he came to power, when Jews were being squeezed out of German society, retired Jewish soldiers lost their state pension, except for that guy. The gestapo knew who he was and also left him well alone because of orders from above. Luckily him and his family made it out of Germany before the real evil crap kicked in.

Stalin would have seen people being killed and executed. He had so many killed in his purges it would have been hard for him not to. It's amazing he lasted so long as he was far more self destructively vicious than hitler.

As for who was worse? On balance I'd say Stalin. While hitler was a right evil bastard, he was far less aggressive towards "his own"(you could argue Franco was worse in this and of all the fascists he survived, lasting until the 1970's). If you were considered "pure" German and not an "enemy" under his reign life got appreciably better for you. Germans went from dire economic depression and political uncertainty to relative prosperity and certainty in remarkably short order. He gave them their pride back, so you can see why they supported him out of loyalty rather than fear(for the most part). If you read accounts from ordinary Germans of the time they reflect that. Indeed most of them can't get into their heads why the rest of the world wasn't as concerned/hated the Soviets and were convinced that sooner or later the allies would come to see this threat and help them fight the Russians. Of course the fall was to come later after defeat and when the atrocities came out in their name and you can read that real sense of betrayal in the majority of them afterwards. Quite a few held onto disbelief in it too, or tried to absolve hitler of direct involvement, happier to blame the other top nazis for the disgusting criminality that was now too obvious to deny.

Russians and others under the Soviets couldn't say the same thing with Stalin. They went downhill, many millions starved to death or were purged and were living in the very definition of a totalitarian state. Contemporary accounts of Russians are very different in their take. A lot more fear involved.

In general life under Hitler would have been better than life under Stalin. Both saw "enemies", but stalin saw more and he saw them more as personal enemies rather than enemies of his country. Plus Stalin survived. He went on to put more European territory under the soviet yoke.




*Hitler never wore his medals, unlike the rest of his cronies who were busy inventing medals and awards for themselves. On that score at least he was less of a preening dickhead.