The Spanish conquistadores (I don’t know about other countries) justified the killing of Indians by saying they were sodomites and cannibals, so they were pretty much animals. That’s very similar than what the nazis did with the Jewish. The later stages of the conquest (the famous conquest of the West in the USA and similar projects in the rest of America) were driven purely by greed and justified in any way to just kill Indians for profit. Is killing somebody for ideology morally worse than doing it for profit? I don’t know, nowadays it’s much easier to understand somebody commiting a crime for money or something to gain rather than for a conviction, but I do not think one thing is less grave than the other.
And I don’t think numbers are really that important in this scale. One could argue than from a historical point of view, if you kill 200 people that are a whole community and have their own culture thus eradicating it, it is a much worse act than killing 1000 from a culture that has many more people and manages to survive that particular massacre. What the conquistadores did was a real and complete genocide. As I said, they wiped out entire cultures from the face of the earth, and even nowadays there are some disappearing little by little. Hitler, no matter how many millions killed didn’t erase homosexuals, jewish, gypsies or communists from the face of the earth.
Maybe the fact that he was stopped got something to do with it.
I really don’t feel that much comfortable with these comparisons of who’s who of the bad guys, who did more evil, it seems that because of what happened in the past we are excusing others, and excusing Hitler or Stalin or anyone cause of what the Spanish conquerors, (who by the start of 19th century lost all of their conquers), or Napoleon did, sounds really silly to me.
In any case the American Continent and their native population weren’t the only ones tp suffer on the hands of the European. Yes European and not only Spanish, those were no better or worst than any other European countries that had colonies in America, Africa or Asia, there were plenty of massacres done by us or the French or the British, even a country like Belgian createad havoc in the Congo with millions estimated to be killed cause of a bussiness deal made by a king. And those Indian wars and massacres in North America were made by us Europeans let’s not forget that.
The problem with comparisons is that could we say or really believe that the destruction of those native civilazations or tribes in Central and South America (like for instance the native people that lived in what’s now the South of Argentina) could be avoided, perhaps, but taking in account the world at the 16th century I doubt it would had happen any other way. At the 20th century one could thing that certain things could or should not happen, but maybe I’m saying all these things just because I had the unhappiness of “visiting” places like Omarska and that not so long ago
That’s exactly the point I was trying to make, not to excuse Hitler, Stalin nor anybody. My point was that the whole thing about making Hitler the worst bad guy who ever walked the earth is quite simplistic and not true. Reality is far more complex than that. So I was sort of playing devil’s advocate and offer arguments from a different perspective, not that I’m interested in who’s more evil. I think that’s impossible to state and a waste of time.
I can see what you are doing cochino and you have certainly posed some interesting questions; I think the reason why Hitler, above everybody else, is held to be the most evil person ever is becuase not only are there people alive who fought in World War II, but that conflict which he caused, was the most deverstating in human history, with 50 to 70 million people killed (the number depends on which historian you go by).
But the numbers I have read for Stalin are also 50 mio, and 70 mio for Mao. Hardly conceivable. And without a World War.
But I also think Hitler is, because it wasn’t long ago, it was in the heart of Europe, done by a country with a Christian background and a great cultural tradition. And the WW II and the genocide on the Jews is very well documented, is still very often discussed in TV and books, and is still often the subject of successful and /or important works of art, like films.
the cruelty of the Nazis is very present even to less interested people. And the amount of cruelty is probably simply more shocking compared to others. But of course this doesn’t change the actual suffering in the present and past which happens /happened to people all over the world.
Perhaps the reason Hitler is detested more than Stalin and Mao is because both (mainly) killed their own populations while Hitler was much more extensively imperialistic, even more so than Stalin. Thus, while with Stalin and Mao, only the civilian populations where mostly affected (also, the Iron Curtain most directly affected the peoples of Eastern Europe, and thus the Western European countries had a more intellectual sympathy rather than an emotional sympathy with their plight, as opposed to the suffering endured during World War II), whereas Hitler brought his tyranny over many different countries and peoples.
Good news or bad news? Reportedly, French director Christophe Gans will helm a film adaptation of Hugo Pratt’s Corto Maltese. I hope “swashbuckler” isn’t the keyword here.
What a wild thread.
Nothing ever happens on this thread.