Who's your favorite tyrant?
Who's your favorite tyrant?
Everyone has someone they love to hate! Reply with your top loathed leader adding an option to justify why your choice is superior, add fun facts, or simply UPVOTE your favorites.
Can't seem to think of any off the top of your head? Take a look at the examples below:
Adolf Hitler
Rating extremely high on the REDO (Ruscion's Estimated Decisive Opinions) Scale, the German Führer needs no introduction. He promoted and pursued genocide, slave labor, and absolute power by force.
Fun facts about Hitler:
- He was a bastard, no, really, he was!
- Hitler believed he was a divine leader by providence.
- He was strung out on amphetamines.
Benito Mussolini
Styling himself as Il Duce of Italy, he was the founder of fascism in his country. Mussolini saw all black people as inferior and therefore argued they follow imperialist policy in Africa to reclaim their territory as the heir to the Roman Empire. His ideals were on the rising population in Italy to conquer and those in decline deserved to die.
Fun facts about Mussolini:
- He presented himself as the superman of fascism with god-like capacities.
- Mussolini stated he was an atheist and on several occasions would call on God to strike him down.
- He emigrated to Switzerland to dodge military service in 1902 and got his political start with the wages earned from Britain's own MI5.
Vlad III Dracula
The Viocode of Wallachia better known as Vlad the Impaler, due to impaling his victims being the preferred method of torture and execution, particularly of the Ottoman Turks. Vlad had an extreme sadist taste for their slow torture and death as well as the ability to use their corpses on display as a psychological tool to weaken his enemies.
Fun facts about Vlad:
- Vlad's cruel reputation landed him the key character role as the vampire in Bram Stoker's 'Dracula' in the 1890's.
- His father sent he and his brother to be raised by the Ottoman's as a token of his loyalty for their aid in his return to power.
- Dracul (or dragon) was given to his father as an epithet by the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund in Nuremberg after swearing fellowship to the knights of the Order of the Dragon.
Ivan IV Vasilyevich
Known to many as Ivan the terrible or Ivan the Fearsome, he ruled as Tzar of All the Russias' in the 16th century. Ivan was remembered for the Massacre of Novgorod, his paranoia, the treatment of nobles, and killing his own son.
Fun facts about Ivan:
- Terrible in translation from the Russian word Grozny meant- to inspire fear or terror, dangerous, powerful, and/or formidable.
- Ivan died from a stroke while playing chess.
- Legend has it Ivan blinded the architect of St. Basil's Cathedral after having it constructed so he could never design anything as beautiful ever again.
Don't see a vicious tyrant you believe should be on the list? Share your infamous tyrants below or comment on those above! If you don't feel like writing one up, or like what you've read from others, upvote the comments of your favorite haters!
Greetings! This article has been featured in Lost Content Digest, Issue #3. The author will receive a share of all SBD proceeds from the LCD issue.
You forgot to add:
Donald Trump
Hillary Clinton
Actually, I provided examples and left the real entries to the Steemit community. Add some color to your choices and you may pull in all the upvote love.
I muse on this a lot. The irony of Hitler being the most famous person in history, a true household name.
That's not a very accurate assessment of Hitler.
He wasn't a bastard - his father was Alois Hitler and Alois died in 1903 (3 months before Adolf turned 14).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alois_Hitler
I haven't seen strong evidence to suggest that Hitler was a drug addict. There are stories floating around online stating that he was but it flies in the face (and overlooks) the evidence that states he wasn't. You say meth, others say cocaine and some again say he took cocktails of drugs. Hitler never drank alchohol, he was a teetotaler.
He was Catholic, but he didn't believe that he was a divine leader by providence.
Hitler had his faults no doubt it but it's important that we stick with the known evidence.
Never forget - the victors write the history books and there is always propaganda coming from both/all sides of a conflict.
Thanks @steemtruth for keeping me honest. I believe my error was Alois, not Adolf, that was listed as illegitimate (as stated in the Wikipedia link you graciously provided) as I read in haste. I certainly appreciate the record being portrayed correctly.
With that said, I stand by the drug addiction (Theodor Morell was acting as Hitler's personal physician administering cocaine, morphine, methamphetamine Pervitin and Vitamultin, not to mention a long list of other strange concoctions) as well as his perception of divine providence.
To be fair, British Historian Alan Bullock presents the idea in his 1952 biography Hitler: a Study in Tyranny, particularly around the failed assassination attempt on July 20th 1944.
Thank you for your reply and taking a look at my post!
Thanks @ruscion. It's difficult to know who to believe TBH as there are conflicting books (and other evidence). I haven't researched the drug subject but I was aware that he was a teetotaler which was why I probably chimed in re: the drug claims.
Morell kept very detailed diaries which the Americans kept classified until 1981 which Bullock never saw.
The Secret Diary of Hitler’s Doctor is a book which discusses the contents of those diaries. You can read the book here for free if it's of any interest - http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Morell/Morell.pdf
I'll sit on the fence as I think more research is needed on my part as I hadn't heard the drug allegations before and there may be some merit to them but I'm not convinced they are exactly as some may have portrayed them to be - but again, I would need to dig deeper and I'm not going to right now so I'll sit this one out.
Do you think that's Hitlers' body in the you tube thumbnail above? No need to answer that one, it just looks funny, and photoshopped.
Thanks for the chat and all the very best
And thank you for the link to The Secret Diary of Hitler’s Doctor @steemtruth. That's certainly worth my time to browse.
Personally, when I wrote this post (as with most everything I have written on Steemit thus far), I was merely looking to get a conversation started among the community. I considered this, my first post, much of a failure as it didn't seem to provoke the dialog I expected.
Needless to say, I'm extremely pleased at this point. You have provided new life to my work, even if for a short period. For that, I thank you sincerely!
Now that I've managed to digress, my point was it is perfectly acceptable not to take the data I've presented at face value, but to share your thoughts. At the very least we will both do some reading and come to our conclusions, new or solidifying our previous conceptions. It keeps our minds fresh and allows us to grow as individuals and as a society.
Stepping off my soapbox, I do believe that is an actual still photo of Hitler, untouched. I certainly concur, it is funny and could have been a victim of the masters of photoshop, however it's pulled from a documentary series from British Channel 4 so I'm allowing my disbelief to be suspended.
Thank you for dialog, once again. I will follow you and may reference you in future posts if you don't have any objections.
My favourite tyrant is Canadian Libertarian Party leader Tim Moen who promises to rob from me the least.
Probably would be Austin Peterson if I was in US