A catastrophe, but a character and an event

"Sir, there is no awarding of a precedence as between a louse and a flea"   -  Dr Johnson

It is possible to discuss Stalin rationally, but not Hitler. This  restricts  the analysis of one of the most important men in history, and certainly the most important man of the 20th century, without whom there would have been no World War II in the West, no holocaust, and Stalin's empire would not have imposed itself on Central Europe for forty years. We can take refuge in the remark of Thomas Mann, that the man was  "a catastrophe, but that is no reason why we should not find him interesting, as a character and as an event"

The discussion of Hitler is indeed difficult. In a recent year a commentator remarked that Hitler was a master of public relations - of course he was, that is how he came to power - and of putting on tremendous spectacles ; and as our ambassador Neville Henderson commented, even the  staging of the Russian ballet in its great years before 1914 was surpassed by Hitler's shows at Nuremberg. Yet this comment caused outrage and a demand for its withdrawal

Another example of the way in which Hitler's activities cannot be rationally discussed was revealed when David Bowie commented on the film of the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, a film by Leni Riefenstahl which was a remarkable  achievement as a film as well as of propaganda. Having watched the film  it is said 15 times Bowie commented

"Hitler was one of the first great rock stars"   And "He was no politician, he was a great media artist...The world will never see anything  like that again. He made the entire country a stage show. "

An expert view of the greatest interest. But Bowie was attacked for calling Hitler a star.

One problem is linguistic. In words such as "genius" or "great" or "star" there is not only a description of the (high) level of achievement but also an implied approval. If one takes out the approval element by adding "-minus"  one can say that Hitler was in his public appearances  very definitely a star-minus, and he possessed  political skills at the level of  genius-minus. But what we experience  at present is  the lowering of the voice, as if one was entering on  a forbidden topic, or a room dedicated to evil. This is not sensible and a greater service would be done to those who suffered from the actions of this evil man if he were analysed objectively

And what about Stalin? Within his territories he murdered millions, including the peasants who were forcibly deprived  of their land and killed in the imposition of collective farming upon them. And Stalin set up a regime of terror  with torture and deportation to camps so cold that the dogs froze if they stopped moving  -  a terror which applied to everyone, not just one race,  with more people in the gulags at his death than at  the initial height of his terror in the 1930s.

And there is also Mao -

 And his red guards - 

And Pol Pot....... I met a lady in Cambodia whose deadly calm was the result of having her husband and little boy cut to pieces in front of her.
Look again at Dr Johnson's comment at the head of this entry, Do not attempt a ranking, but discuss all of them including Hitler in an objective and informed way.