[CaptainCrunch]

Originally posted by Looger@May 3 2005, 01:55 AM
hitler, i believe, was borderline most of his life, displaying a fatalism and desire that brooked no compromise.

he put a gun to his head to entice support from his beer-hall putsch crew, when it almost fell apart before it REALLY fell apart.

by the time he was settled at bertesgaerden (sp?) with his full entourage of sycophants and mystics, his 'quack doctors' (shirer's term) started filling him full of the most bizzare combinations of drugs.

combined with his oddball diets and spiritual rituals, there was not much man left at the end.

i think his megalomania turned a corner at krystalnacht, and the early war victories convinced him that he was invincible.

stalin retained a cold rationality that lent his reign an efficiency and effectiveness that really did improve the country, at all costs.

his purges were often through someone else, who then was publicly blamed and jailed / executed for stalin's own crimes.

stalin killed by the pen, hitler by the oration. hitler's 'intellectual goons' (again shirer) made the policy that hitler rubber-stamped, i think it's quite possible that he didn't get seriously involved in the details of mass murder, he was lazy and spent time on the grand vision and trappings of his entourage.

stalin by contrast was a natural bureaucrat and got involved at all levels of operation, short of the serious meddling in military affairs that hitler was into.

i find it quite interesting that hitler finally had the army he needed and equipment he needed, just when he didn't need to risk everything in all-or-nothing throws of the dice. the early victories were complete and total flukes/masteries.

conversely the red army had perfected blitzkrieg right along with the germans, and then stalin purged the officer corps completely. somehow out of the ruin of the first few months of barbarossa a renewed and reinvented red army picked up its old tricks and came back kicking.

unbelievable, this event, east-front WW2, i see as the climax of human history.

so much blood, sweat, and tears, two madmen with such similiar systems - despite polar-opposite 'idealogies' - throwing millions of men at each other.

wow.

what an amazing post.