Worst leader in the world ever (school, dangerous, land)

[anonymous88]

I agree. Even moreso, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, even Italy itself. The whole world had to ally just to stop him.

Originally Posted by Bunky39

hitler.
63 years ago took 2 giants usa and russia all they had to stop 1 lil country called germany at the cost of 25 million lives.
scary stuff
stephen s
san diego ca

[Mathguy]

Originally Posted by anonymous88

I agree. Even moreso, Britain, France, Canada, Australia, even Italy itself. The whole world had to ally just to stop him.

Except for Italy, Japan and a couple other nations that fought on his side...or had portions of the country fight on his side like the French, Poles, etc.

And then there are all the countries \ continents that pretty much kept out of it like most of Africa, everything south of the US, most of China etc.

[LordBalfor]

A couple of points to consider for those bringing up the fact that it took the rest of the world banding together to defeat Hitler.

First off, I don't wish to imply that the German Military was not superb. In fact it performed incredibly. The Wehrmacht was well-trained, well-led and well-equipped - and they of course achieved many very impressive victories. However, keep in mind a couple of things.

Hitler had been preparing for war ever since coming to power in 1933 - at a time when the rest of the world (except for the Soviet Union) was committed to a peaceful future. True, the soon-to-be allied nations eventually saw the writing on the wall and re-armed too, but Hitler had an enormous head start.

Britain was a powerful country, with a dominant navy - but it's army and air forces - though superbly trained and fairly well-equipped, were TINY. Likewise the US navy was large and formidable, but the army (whch included the aircorps) was quite small and terribly under-equipped and very poorly trained. In short, neither country was anywhere near ready for a land war - whereas Germany was.

The same was true of the other countries that were to eventually face Germany - France had a large army with more tanks (many of them of fairly good quality) than Germany but (due to the terrible losses incurred in WW I) saddled with a purely defensive mindset and outdated tactics left over the past war. None of the other countries that faced Germany in the early stages of the war had any sort of military capability to speak of - certainly nothing to match that of Germany.

Of all the countries Hitler was to face in the first few years of the war, only the Soviet Union was a substantial threat on land. On paper, Hitler should have been crushed by the USSR at the outset. The Soviet Union had a HUGE army with more tanks and as many aircraft as the REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED. However, even this enormous juggernaut was not without it's problems. First, much of it's equipment was old, obsolete, and in some cases not even working (the Soviet army never threw ANYTHING away). Secondly - and this was much more serious - Stalin's paranoia had resulted in him executing virtually any officer who showed any degree of talent or initiatve whatsoever. He didn't want anyone in command who could think for themselves or who showed themselves to be competant - since that person could theoretically eventually rise in power enough to pose a personal threat to Stalin himself.

Thus in the 1930's the Soviet military's brains and leadership were essentially destroyed - leaving a crop of officers who were afraid to do anything at all unless they were specifically told to do so. There was virtually no battlefield initiatve whatsoever. Only the embarrisment of the Soviet Unions' incredibly poor performance in the 1939-1940 Winter War against tiny Finland woke up Stalin to the fact that he's shot himself in the foot with his bloody purges. By then it was pretty much too late.

So, in many ways the army that Hitler attacked in his 1941 invasion of Russia was a "sitting duck". It was huge and had enormous potential, but was frozen to ineffectiveness by fear - not of Hitler, but of Stalin. To make matters worse, Stalin's leadership during the first critical weeks was almost non-existent. Considing these facts, it is no wonder then that the German Army was halfway to Moscow in 2 weeks.

They never made it the rest of the way though.

Hitler had correctly calculated that the Russian military was (to a certain extent) a paper tiger, but he vastly underestimated the difficulties of conquering and holding a territory so incredibly immense. Once the initial shock of the German attack had passed and Stalin realized he needed skilled officers in charge instead of political lackeys, Germany's fate was sealed. The USSR was simply too big to conquer. The Germans conquered lots of land and took plenty of prisioners, but in each battle the Soviet officer core learned. Battles were lost by the Soviets - usually with enormous losses - but after each loss the leadership was changed until younger, bolder, more talented commanders eventually rose to the top. Vast areas of territory were lost - but it really didn't matter, for the USSR was vast, and space (like manpower) was something it had plenty of. Threatened war factories were simply dismantled and shipped to the rear to be rebuilt and put back into production. The Germans conquered land - lots of it - but very little else since everything of value was destroyed by the retreating Soviets.

Eventually the Germans found they could just go no further and the tide turned. The fact is, even without America in the war, Germany would probably have been defeated by the Soviet Union. It would have taken longer, no doubt, but the potential of Russia was so much greater than that of Germany, that Germany's fate was pretty much sealed when Operation Barbarossa was launched against Stalin in 1941.

As American's we tend to concentrait on OUR achievements against Germany in WW II but the fact is, it was mostly the efforts of the Soviet Union that led to Germany's collapse. Not to say that our part wasn't important (it was) but at no time did we ever face even half of the German army - and except for during the Battle of the Bulge (which came way to late to save Hitler), we were almost always facing beat-up depleated German units that were recovering from the ordeals of the Eastern Front. Most of the critical fighting of WW II in Europe took place on the Eastern Front, and it was there that Germany's fate was decided.

Though much of the world did indeed gang up on Hitler, the fact is, it's pretty likely that the Soviet Union could have defeated Germany all by itself. It would absolutely have taken longer, but it almost certainly would have happened. Hitler simply bit off more than he could chew when he attacked the USSR. Maybe if he had taken an approach where he had more actively donned the role of "liberator" for places like the Ukraine (where Stalin was hated) he could have brought about a general uprising against Stalin and therefor won - but unfortunately the whole idea of truly liberating "inferior people" such as the Ukrainians just didn't flow very naturally from a philosophy that claimed Aryan superiority. Instead they were brutalized and their will to resist (even if just as partisans) was stiffened.

Hitler did indeed achieve many battlefield victories, but you must remember that victory comes about not only because of what the victor did right, but also (and sometimes more importantly) what the vanquished did wrong.

Ken

[floridasandy]

hitler first, and ivan the terrible for his time.

[Rockrocks]

Well I'll have to say that there is two type of leaders that are the worst, first, the one that didn't do anything (indeed, something to make his country even worse) to his country and have no governing skill. second, those who commits moral issues, most likely genocide and wars. What I want to say is, that the worst are the two combined, the first type being the most useless out of the two in particular. So, this way, Hitler didn't won the grand prize.

List of people who have done the first:
Stalin-The killer of Russian people, he did absolutely nothing to improve anything about life standards (Is living in the tank more comfortable than being in a hovel?). And his reign lacks skill and morality. This maniac organized Russia to be a jail, a profitable prison for himself, where everyone is forced to work for him (and the Soviet Union, which is his) lackadaisically. Millions he thought competitive or having disobeyed his rule are sent to Labor camps in Siberia, particularly Magadan and Yakutsk. In Magadan, where 3 millions are forced to work mining gold, only ninety thousands survived. The casualties estimates during the Great Purge is not certain, but won't be less than 5 millions.

Mao Ze "dung"- I hate communists.. I wouldn't say that he established nothing at all but I still have to admit that he SUCK. Despite every piece of words praising this lucky guy whose arisen are occasional in the textbooks in China -Damn those fake communistic textbooks. This guy appeared with mental illness that suits most of the dictators after their arisen, and did similar things just like Stalin. His mental problems caused live of nearly 100 million Chinese and brain wash of nearly all! I felt strongly for this. I felt lucky as his successors are better, but they are yet still pieces of (*stupid fake communistic *******s)

Pol Pot- As mentioned above, he is a uneducated rebel who occasionally received the head of Cambodia. Impressed by propagandas from communism world (especially Mao, another guilt to above) and decide to follow. It is most surprising how efficient a government could kill it's own people... After all we're just lucky that not all governs like him.
Kim family- they simply did nothing and just let the economy slip and fail, people starve and die.

Second type
Adolf Hitler-Everyone knows the bad side about him, what about the other side? I think he is a way better governor to Stalin, may be even to George Bush, FDR or most of the other politicians, I would be more happier living in his reign than Stalins certainly (as a German of course). He improved the economics, standards of living, political status, and technology of Germany before war, and won majority (more than 95%!) support during his reign. on the down side, he's just a mental, his illness caused himself to blame on Jews and (all but Germans) and did... yeah, we all know. This guy should be in the list of the worst leader... as a genocider. (how about making a mental person as the dictator of your nation? what do you think he will do? this is just a case shown that how things would develop as a lucky mental person have received the title of Chancellery.)

Stalin- Here I mention him again, this guy is a not only guilty to his own people yet to the rest. He not only created a very useless system (except the system that sent people to jail) and use it very ineffectively but yet commit crimes outside. Everyone knows that Soviets have the largest armies in the world by the time of WWII. fielding equipments that are quantitatively rich. but it's uselessness have proven in the WWII. during what a Stalin called war that are supposed to be "four days long" countering Finns lasted four month and yet the Soviets have to enlarge it's army invading by 2 times. This surprising record of uselessness are far from their best, the Barbarossa Campaign launched by Germans. By the start of the Campaign, Soviets have 20000 tanks- six times that of Germans! and about the same numbers of fighter planes which would be ten times of their foe. Yet they were disgraced so bad the summer of the 1941 the Germans pushed their lines until the very edge of the city of Moscow. and during the way they captured 6 million USSR soldiers -another estimate says ten. their strategical failure is such unbelievable -how worsed can the war be if they owns such a large stockpile of weapons! even if those tanks are WWI ones and the planes are bi (by the way, most of them are). More detailed strategical failures such as having a whole battalion charging on a German occupied Machine gun consisting of two men, and have lost 600 soldiers while charging... And this happens repeatedly

So, after all My selection of the worst leaders in the world consist following in up to down order:

Joseph Stalin- the worst of all time
Adolf Hitler- ...
Mao Zedong, Pol Pot & Kim tied.
.. Give honorable mention to all mentioned in above replies and discussions

[CMDallas]

Mao hands down, no matter how you slice it 50 million is wayy to much
then maybe Hitler, Stalin and the Japaneses imperial guy who ruled japan during WWII, killed over 20 million Chinese in very brutal ways.
then maybe pol pot
then
Fidel Castro
Ho chi Minh
Kim ill sung
all the soviet and PRC heads. maybe Mussolini.

I hate the fact that people don't learn about the genocides that were just as bad as the holocaust...

YouTube - Chinese Holocaust of WW2 " Nanking"
World War II casualties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Japanese war crimes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Second Sino-Japanese War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
look at china 20 million... look at the last one look under the little thing under the right hand side under casualties... 17 MILLION civilians died at the Japaneses hand in manners like the youtube video... yet many Japaneses refuse to believe it even happened.
in Nanjing alone a quarter of million died in only a month...thats worse then the rate of the holocaust at basically 6 million in 2 years.

[pfaidley]

Nope, you are all wrong.

The worst leader in the world, and therefore by definition, the best at what they do, is Helen Clark, Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Helen Clark's Labour government (Left of Centre) has dominated the political arena for what seems like forever.

The method adopted is a Thatcher-esque (ironically) approach to managing members of parliament by division, intimidation and almost Stalin-like purges of sacrificial underlings.

The Clark labour government has ruled New Zealand by division.
By "empowering" (their words, not mine) the minority native population and using "if you argue you are a racist" mechanism, the current Labour government has been able to forestall meaningful debate and therefore progress in our so-called democratic electoral system.

While despots like Pot, Il, Hussein, Mugabe, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini have dominated quite spectacularly by committing physical atrocities, Clark has managed to achieve the same effect by mutilating truth, torturing freedom of speech, and murdering democracy in secret raids during the small hours of the night.

The latest political murder has been the effective removal of political debate by the implementation of the "Electoral Finance Bill" whereby anybody who, in the past, has provided 'anonymous' funding to any political party, now cannot. It also says that during a year in which an election is scheduled (every three, for the time being) investment in public discussion about political issues is strangled. The political parties that this most effects are, of course, the current parliamentary opposition (slightly right of centre) who represent, among other things, business, free enterprise and, apparently affluent people.

The left wing liberals of the NZ Labour party, who survive by 'anonymous' donations from unions, civil liberties groups and greenies, are fine, because they can continue to extort funding from poor individuals and stifle any meaningful debate.

It is tragic that the saddest result is that the intellect of the nation's electorate has been tortured to death. The electorate in New Zealand is blindly accepting of what it is told. Therefore, if you cut off a contrary opinion being expressed by anybody, the electorate will not consider it.

Simple, brutal and effective.

Helen Clark is the world's most tyrannical and despotic leader.

[Starwalker Fallen Angel]

Hitler, Stalin. I'm not real fond of Bush.

As American's we tend to concentrait on OUR achievements against Germany in WW II but the fact is, it was mostly the efforts of the Soviet Union that led to Germany's collapse.

I don't need any theories but it would have been interesting if Japan had NOT bombed Pearl Harbor.

[Coffee Mate]

Lenin
Stalin
Hitler
Mao
Tojo
Hirohito
Mussolini
Amin [Uganda]
Pot [Pol Pot of Cambodia]
Franco
Taylor [Liberia]
Marcos
Kun [Hungary]
Honecker [East Germany]
Aidid [Somalia]
Hussein [Iraq]
Ab-ahh-jib-ee-jahab [Iran]
and last but not in the least...
LBJ [US]

[Capt. Dan]

ANY POPE. Especially in the days of the inquisition