Was Hitler a monster or a leader of great vision?

Answer 1

He was both. He was, no doubt, a terrible monster who perpetrated terrible acts; nonetheless it cannot be denied that he was a great leader (great in the sense of power, military might and a talent for persuasion - he was voted into power, and accomplished many military victories). He certainly was not great in the sense that men like Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King are great. It's more that his "greatness" lay in power rather than in any goodness or any selfless vision for the benefit of mankind. He was essentially a power-crazed and genocidal megalomaniac, a completely depraved, evil man.

Answer 2

Hitler was a monster. Some examples of leaders with great vision would be Moses, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Nelson Mandela. But a major difference between those leaders and Adolf Hitler was that they didn't murder countless Jews (or any other group of people, for that matter).

Answer 3

A leader of great vision
doubling as a vicious monster

Answer 4

Monster. His leadership is perhaps the most significant factor causing the defeat of Germany. If Germany had had a leader of great vision, then Germany would have very likely won.

Answer 5

Hitler was a great leader. By "great", I mean that he was able to win the respect of his entire country, which is more than I can say about some other leaders in this world. He unfortunately did not use that respect for the better of mankind.

Answer 6

Hitler was a leader with a vision, that of the German Third Reich lasting a thousand years. This was most certainly not a great vision. Firstly, Hitler's plans were morally wicked because of his plans to exterminate Jews and various other unfortunate groups including gypsies and the mentally defective, as well as his desire to subjugate non-Germanic peoples such as the Slavs. Secondly, Hitler's vision was factually wrong because the Third Reich collapsed after thirteen years, not a thousand.

It is tempting to describe Hitler as a monster, but I think this is dangerous. The implication is that Hitler was simply pure evil. However, this is to overlook two issues. Firstly, Hitler's evil actions were in part a result of his personality, which was shaped by childhood experiences such as his alcoholic, abusive, father and his inferior position within Austrian society. Secondly, the Nazi regime and its evils wer not just the product of Hitler, but also of unpleasant, ill-thought out, political ideas that were around in Germany even before the First World War, and of the economic and social conditions and international relations that shaped Germany in the years leading up to Hitler's accession to power in 1933. If we simply describe Hitler as a monster we risk failing to understand the more complex reasons that lead to his actions, and therefore failing to realise how to prevent them ever happening again.

By describing Hitler as a monster, there has been a tendency to think of him as uniquely bad. Sadly, there were a number of leaders in the twentieth century who were also appalling in their treatment of those affected by their power. In particular, Stalin was responsible for more deaths than Hitler. There were other cases of genocide in the twentieth century such as Pol Pot in Cambodia.

In short, if forced to describe Hitler as a monster of a leader of great vision, I would call him a monster. But I would urge you to understand why Hitler was appalling rather than simply label him.

Answer 7

If you are happy for millions of people being killed for no good reason then he is a leader of great vision, for the rest of us he was an evil monster.

Answer 8

It is possible to have great vision without it being good vision.

Hitler found a way to unify his country under a single vision -- through hatred. That and his actions made him a monster.

Answer 9

He was ,like so many leaders, a believer in the 'One True Way'. Only his lack of humility,and openness to other truths could support such delusions,and only such uncompromising certainty could mesmerize so many.
This is because humans are addicted to thought, which has evolved to manipulate the environment to our exclusive benefit, based on the idea of true and false. A whole heap of such yes/no ideas can build a hospital or an empire, or a religion. Believing that we are those thoughts, or that those thoughts really represent reality, divorces humanity from reality.
Hitler was an example of the dangers of this approach.

Answer 10

Hitler was more of a charming psychopath than a leader. I guess weak people need someone like him to make them feel like they belong to something big and powerful.
As for his supposed "great vision" what is it that you find so great about, for example, gassing the disabled?