We’re always looking for excuses and exceptions that will explain how men like Hitler could do what they did. But if we place Hitler, Stalin, Mao and others in an exclusive category of evil, we may forget that they were actually people like us. It’s important to remember that these men had only the best intentions, the most lofty goals for their people and for humanity. They show us what can happen when a leader and his people become so enchanted by a vision of Utopia that they’ll do literally anything to achieve it.

Communism, or international socialism killed hundreds of millions in many ways. By feeding “traitors” into a furnace feed first, while their friends and co workers looked on. By starvation in the Ukraine. By pistol in Katun Wood. By land mine, when punishment battalions were ordered to clear fields by marching across the land mines with arms interlocked. By disease, when people from cities were forced to the countryside to live in filth.

National Socialism is the lesser evil. Communism is the Greater Evil.

I can understand the angst festering in the vandal, so ashamed that the human condition sows the seeds of such a pandemic species is syncronically blooming again.

Sure, he did monstrous things. He or those directed by him exterminated, or tried to exterminate, several ethnic, religious, or political groups, most notoriously the Jews, but also Gypsies, Communists, and various religious groups the Nazis found objectionable. All told he’s probably only second to Stalin in terms of the number of dead attributable to his regime. The difficulty occurs, as far as I’m concerned, when someone so demonizes him that they don’t want Hitler portrayed in any fashion that could even slightly be interpreted as positive. To my mind, the historical record doesn’t need to be tinkered with or altered: instead, *everything* should be told. Just because Hitler cared for his dog doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a mass murderer. Being nice to your secretaries doesn’t establish innocence in any larger fashion, regardless of how nice you are.

Hitler was dangerous, in my mind, not because he was so malevolent but because he was so nice. A vicious mass murderer, if he *doesn’t* care for his dog and give little gifts to his secretaries, is easy to spot and keep from becoming the ruler of a large country. Hitler wasn’t easy to spot. Those who compare him with Bush miss one glaring area where the two men are completely different: Hitler essentially had *no* domestic critics from his ascension to power until about the middle of World War II. Bush obviously has a large phalanx of critics who will accuse him of everything from beating puppies to wearing plaids with stripes, never mind mass murder. Albert Speer, the architect who became Hitler’s economic adviser and head of his industrial efforts by the end of the war, once commented that it was hard to recognize the devil when you’re shaking hands with him. Painting horns and a tail on him afterwards to make him more recognizable isn’t just vandalism: it’s also a disservice to us.

As for Downfall, I highly recommend it.

Amen.