was hitler a great leader? bad leader?

[Axolotl]

He was a great economic leader.

How? Just compare the country before he took power with after he left power. He virtualy destroyed it. How is that a great economic leader?

 

[Gewiz 1]

I believe that Hitler was a great leader in the beginning. He lead his county out of a crippling depression, in which cash was a cheaper fuel source than firewood, into an industrial powerhouse that was one of the most economically well off countries in the world at the time. I feel that it was his degrading mental state at the end of his reign and the holocaust that are the only thing that seperates him from being one of the greatest political and military leader of the 20th century.

I, as a god fearing, diversity loving American believe that without Adolf Hitler, the world would actually be a lot worse off that it is today. And before you call me a nazi-lover and demonize everything I just said, you should probably get off your ignorant ass and read about some of the TRUE history about the Third Reich.

 

[Interference]

He was a terrible leader: his machinations sparked a world war... Which he then lost. I think that pretty much qualifies as a bad management decision, don't you? Even putting the persecution of ethnic and sexual minorities aside.

 

[sarge1942]

he was good with the economy and manipulation, but bad with essentially everything else.

 

[viking97]

bad guy? yes. bad leader? no.

let me put it this way, you try to convince a massive group of ppl that exterminating another massive group of ppl is justified. see how well that goes.

 

[nick n stuff]

great leader and very organised just un-naturally evil and scoped in his views.

 

[WolfMage]

To be honest, he was an amazing leader.
Got shit done, people listened, and had he not be a terrible strategist, he may well have won the war.
Sure, he was an evil dickhead bastard, but that isn't the point.

 

[Vox Caster T2]

... you should probably get off your ignorant ass and read about some of the TRUE history about the Third Reich.

Hmmm just out of curiousity, what do you mean by the "TRUE history about the Third Reich?" Do you mean a revisionist history? Or a university backed monographic perspective? My undergraduate degree was focused on the Cold War, but that also means I had to have a pretty sound background on the Second World War and I've done grad level research this particular topic so I don't really consider myself particularly ignorant on this area. However nothing in my research had lead me to believe that Hitler was the best thing for the world.

 

[DanDeFool]

I don't think Hitler was a great leader.

He was good at getting people to follow him but that's only part of what makes a great leader. If Hitler were a truly great leader, he wouldn't have let his arrogance and prejudices get in the way of leading his people to a better future. Instead, he ran his country into the ground. You can't argue with results, and the results say Hitler was a moron that everybody really liked.

 

[Sky Captanio]

He was obviously good at convincing people about things. But he made some terrible military decisions.

 

[Duskwaith]

He was a very good leaver IMO

He fixed the shit hole that post-WW1 Germany had become, reinstalled German national pride and royally kicked the ever loving shit out of every neighbouring country. Just wasnt a great military mind. He banned smoking aswell which was a good move.

Then the whole genocide thing ruined it all

 

[Communist partisan]

Good leader doing horrible things but we kicked his a*s!

He really kicked his own ass... I mean, who in their right mind fights a war, unprepared, into a RUSSIAN WINTER! Stupid, stupid idea that cost him the war... Although, the several months the Russians delayed him at Kiev may have played a part... like, a huge part.

It was a lot he wasn't supose to do if he wanted to win the war both against sovjet the allies and ofc he lost a lot helping the italians or starting on über weapon ideas that never saw the light.

Good point, but a superweapon idea that DID see the light was Dora:The largest artillery piece ever, she was just really, really slow, but accurate and powerful.

Wasn't that the Gustav gun it was big could fire over... well many miles and many miles more and was really accurate

It's A LOT bigger than it LOOKS on the picture.

It may have been, but I remember it being referred to as 'Dora'. And considering that in the picture, it appears to take up two full railway cars in width alone, that is a Fucking huge artillery piece. Would make a good doorstop, or decoration to put at the end of your driveway... if you lived in a 5 million square foot house with a two mile long driveway that is...

you got that right but I don't think it look that high on the picture

 

[bak00777]

great manipulator, bad leader. A leader shouldn't oppress his followers, which is what he did.

 

[WorldCritic]

He was good for Germany when he fixed their economical issues and he managed to get them to recover from the losses they suffered during World War I. When he ordered the invasion of Poland though, that's when he became a bad leader and it just went down from there.

 

[Gewiz 1]

... you should probably get off your ignorant ass and read about some of the TRUE history about the Third Reich.

Hmmm just out of curiousity, what do you mean by the "TRUE history about the Third Reich?" Do you mean a revisionist history? Or a university backed monographic perspective? My undergraduate degree was focused on the Cold War, but that also means I had to have a pretty sound background on the Second World War and I've done grad level research this particular topic so I don't really consider myself particularly ignorant on this area. However nothing in my research had lead me to believe that Hitler was the best thing for the world.

Hitler was not the best thing for the world in his time. He was the best thing for the world for the future. Because of him we can look back and as a people, say "Never again." It is the horrors of the past that lead to the glories of today. That is the "true history."

 

[Altorin]

Hitler was a horrible leader, and not just from a moral standpoint. He was ridiculously lucky, and people LIKED him, so he rose to power, but it was all a giant fluke that he even managed to get as far as he did, the guy was a strategic buffoon that truly believed ghosts and witchcraft were going to win the war for him.

 

[Gewiz 1]

He was obviously good at convincing people about things. But he made some terrible military decisions.

The only terrible military decision he made, in my opinion, is going to war with the Soviets. If he didn't do that, I as a militarist believe we would all be living in Nazi occupied North America right now.

 

[Kortney]

My goodness there is a lot of misinformed tripe in this thread. It's making me angry. Is "he was a great leader but a bad person" the uninformed person's automatic default response? If you truly believe he was a "great leader" I suggest you start brushing up on history.

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Hitler was an incredible leader, Obama couldn't convince you to invade another country after a crippling defeat doing the same thing 20 years earlier

Yes, Obama could if the people wanted it. Hitler took advantage of the collective mindset in Germany at the time. People felt downtrodden and angry. They wanted a chance to be proud to German for the first time in a long time. They wanted to have independence and didn't like the fact most of their income was given back to the Allies. A revolution was on the cards. But you are forgetting that Hitler isn't, wasn't and will never be the only person to achieve this. Hell, Japan went through a very similar thing during the same time. The extremities of that era allowed for events like this to happen.

Hitler was influential and that's about it.

His worst moment was the invasion of Stalingrad, which brought the Russians into the war.

That's completely ignoring both country's foreign policy. The two despised each other and a conflict between the two was inevitable. The German High Command knew this. Hence the invasion.

Had he not done that, he would have won.

No, Germany could never have won in the long run. Sure with better strategy and planning they could have done a lot better. If Hitler involved himself less with the affairs of the armed forces than they would have done marvelously. But a straight out victory? The allies had competent leadership. Germany didn't. The Allies made smart tactical moves. Germany seldom did, especially when the order came from the top. America had the know how to produce a nuclear bomb.Germany didn't. Game over.

The only terrible military decision he made, in my opinion, is going to war with the Soviets. If he didn't do that, I as a militarist believe we would all be living in Nazi occupied North America right now.

ARGH! SO MUCH NONSENSE!

*contains self*

I'm sorry. Welcome to the escapist

 

[Dancingman]

He was obviously good at convincing people about things. But he made some terrible military decisions.

The only terrible military decision he made, in my opinion, is going to war with the Soviets. If he didn't do that, I as a militarist believe we would all be living in Nazi occupied North America right now.

Um, you severely underestimate the production capacity and just outright skill of the U.S. military. Hitler would pretty much have to create a gigantic navy from scratch before he even had a chance to touch the U.S. mainland, and that's even assuming that he's able to keep the U.S. from trotting over to Europe and establishing a foothold in German territory. Even if we handwave the U.S. Navy and pretend the Germans magically teleported their way to the continental U.S., how far would they get? Nip a few portions of the East Coast if they're really, really lucky? Not like they're not going to prompt a massive uprising in anywhere they take or anything, and there's literally nowhere they could effectively make an effective landing without getting totally repulsed anyway. Germany did not have the manpower and did not have the ability to invade the continental U.S.

Also, invading the Soviet Union wasn't entirely Hitler entertaining grandiose designs of subjugating all of Europe (though a lot of it sure was) the fact of the matter was that sooner or later Stalin planned to, and most certainly would have attacked Nazi Germany. The Soviet Union and Germany would've gone to war sooner or later, you can't have major world powers be neighbors if European history is anything to go by, the majority of their wars were against each other rather than any external foe after all.

The notion of Hitler as a great leader is... fallacious to say the least. He was great at taking power and he had wonderful charisma. Rebuilding a shattered, depression-stricken nation was quite a feat as well, however he rebuilt and remilitarized Germany with massive amounts of deficit spending that pretty much mandated that Germany would have to go to war to prevent itself from going bankrupt.

He couldn't even appoint other leaders right, he had some dumb Social Darwinist theory of his own that if he appointed advisors who would fight among themselves, not only would they distract each other enough to prevent anyone from making a bid for power, but they would also provide superior results in order to top their competitors. Well, he succeeded in making sure people who were good at petty politicking got in power and stayed there, but such people (like Goering) weren't much good at anything else. In fact it was Hitler's insistence on keeping "Old Guard" officials like Goering around that kept people like him from being replaced by smarter, better officials.