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Who's worse: Genghis Khan, or Hitler?

Who's worse: Genghis Khan, or Hitler?

  • Total voters
    48
aberrant85 said:
Having lived so historically recently, Hitler is rightfully held up as the height of evilness of mankind. Go back some 700 years, though, and Genghis Khan fit that description just as well. Both men are similar, having wrecked havoc on the population of Eurasia in a relatively brief, swift reign of terror.

While WWII was the deadliest war in history, with between 40 and 72 million deaths, the Mongol conquests come close, having result in between 30 and 70 million deaths. And by worldwide population, the Mongol conquests were much deadlier, 17% vs. 1-3% of living people having been killed.

List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Each man committed genocide on an unprecedented scale, but today Genghis Khan enjoys an amount of notoriety, akin to that given to Alexander the Great.

So is one man more evil than the other? And if so, who?
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Well, they're both evil. Both unnecessarily cruel. But they are different in that Hitler committed genocide with an insane hatred for Jews and intent on wiping them off the face of the earth. Khan killed everything that moved for wealth, land, glory, but didn't commit genocide. He didn't seem to care about ethnicities or religions. They were both trying to prove they were the best and the grandest military leaders and empire leaders of the world. But Hitler had that personal thing against Jews, and also included smaller groups of so-called lesser people, killing them because they were inferior or flawed and didn't deserve to live (gays, people with mental problems, etc.).

Hitler's decrees didn't seem to be unnecessarily cruel against those who weren't Jews or one of the other people of groups he determined should be wiped off the earth. By that I mean, he didn't boil people alive, behead them, etc. But there was the genocide thing, which gives him a particular kind of evil status.

Interesting question. I guess I can't say which one was more cruel. If I were Jewish, I'd think it were Hitler. If I were Chinese or one of the peoples Khan mercilessly killed, I might think it was Genghis Khan.

Ultimately, maybe it was Hitler because maybe it was possible for a people to escape Khan's wrath, by surrendering and giving him their wealth and land and all they own. But if you were Jewish or gay or mentally deficient, there was no pardon from Hitler. You had to die eventually, but maybe used as slave labor before.
 
The Mark said:
In this day and age, Genghis Khan would nuke any city that defied him, or, if a city surrendered, enslave everyone with tracker-equipped exploding neck rings, have his troops rape all the women (and in this case, "women" would probably include any female over 12) and kill people at random in various brutal ways. Or not at random, but equally brutal.
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Wrong. Instead of enslaving he would make everyone listen to Miley Cyrus and One Direction until they die. A fate surely worse than enslavement.
 
soccerboy22 said:
Wrong. Instead of enslaving he would make everyone listen to Miley Cyrus and One Direction until they die. A fate surely worse than enslavement.
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Not even close to worse.

In seriousness, that is.

If we're talking joke-reality, then hell yes.
 
soccerboy22 said:
Wrong. Instead of enslaving he would make everyone listen to Miley Cyrus and One Direction until they die. A fate surely worse than enslavement.
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Thanks Obama.
 
I find the potentials in the Mongolian invasion much scarier.

Hitler's got the high score, but his opponents stopped him, eventually.

The Mongolians stopped for their own reasons, or Europe would have been toast. There was nothing that could stand against that army for long. They were far ahead of the competition in their approach to warfare.

But for internal politics and a lucky death or two, they could have easily put Europe back a century in development.
 
EdwinWillers said:
I'm just curious what prompts such polls as this? Who thinks in these terms, wondering who's the greater of two evils... more importantly, why?

Meh; I just don't get it. :thinking
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The Mark said:
This is just unfounded suspicion, but I suspect that people who think in these terms are inclined towards agreement, or agree with, what Hitler did.

Edit: And by couching the discussion in these terms, can say "well he wasn't THIS bad".
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Jesus! Apparently I'm more evil.
 
The thread is a question for students of history. If you are unfamiliar with the level of carnage Genghis Khan was responsible for it might surprise you to learn how similar to Hitler he was in his time.
 
aberrant85 said:
Jesus! Apparently I'm more evil.
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Yep.

:mrgreen:

But more seriously, I HAVE seen similar arguments presented by Hitler apologists - granted they usually use Stalin, but....
 
Those two are at a level where there's no reason to try to one up the other.

Cyrylek said:
Hitler (just like Lenin, Mao, et al, let's not leave poor little Addie all alone) had inherited a civilized nation with a long tradition of humanism and tolerance - and turned it into a genocidal nightmare.
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Lol wut?
 
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aberrant85 said:
Each man committed genocide on an unprecedented scale, but today Genghis Khan enjoys an amount of notoriety, akin to that given to Alexander the Great.
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What of Alexander the Great?

Gengiz Khan BTW was worse I think.
 
Gathomas88 said:
Chingus gets credit for managing to find a way to kill people on an industrialized scale in an unindustrialized society. That much is certain.

The sheer brutality of the terror tactics utilized by the Mongol hordes has honestly never been matched. Even in comparison to many of the crimes of the Nazis and Soviets, the atrocities carried out by Genghis Khan and his descendants were absolutely appalling.

Genocide, rape, torture, slavery, human shields, child soldiers, collateral damage, civilian casualties, biological warfare, etca - you name it; the Mongols did it all, and on a scale that wouldn't be seen again until the mid twentieth century.

Hitler, on the other hand, is mostly remarkable for taking a civilized society and somehow managing to con everyone in it into behaving like fanatical bloodthirsty barbarians. The level of lunatic despotism with which he was able to rule a supposedly "democratic" society simply hadn't been seen before, and hasn't been seen since.
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your post reminds me of the imperialism ,colonialism etc..
 
aberrant85 said:
The thread is a question for students of history. If you are unfamiliar with the level of carnage Genghis Khan was responsible for it might surprise you to learn how similar to Hitler he was in his time.
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the thread is a question for the ones who are unaware of the colonial brutality ,crusaders etc..
 
Medusa said:
true , the arabian spring wasnt organized by her ,she just had to obey the rules
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Every morning when she gets out of bed, millions die before breakfast.
 
aberrant85 said:
Jesus! Apparently I'm more evil.
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aberrant85 said:
The thread is a question for students of history. If you are unfamiliar with the level of carnage Genghis Khan was responsible for it might surprise you to learn how similar to Hitler he was in his time.
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I didn't say that, let alone imply it. I merely questioned the interest in making these particular sorts of comparisons.

Historically, I find BOTH fascinating. Genghis Kahn (et. al.) for their skills at war, the mobile horse warriors and their legendary bowmanship - the life of the tribes of the asian steppe I've always found interesting - books like "The Horsemen" by Joseph Kessel and "Caravans" by James Michener are several of my favorites about that region in the world (tho more specifically Afghanistan). Both intersect in several ways with Khan; in Caravans I first read about Khan's building of a tower in Afghanistan (Herat, I believe) with the bodies of thousands of people he killed and interred, laying them down in a circle around a pole, layer after layer, then surrounding it with stone. Kessel talked about the lives and spirit of the peoples of the region, centering around a tough game called buzkashi, which playing field early on could be many miles in size (Kessel talked about them riding for days at a time), but which tested the riding skill and grit of the participants, bringing together tribes from regions near and far. It speaks a lot of the nature of the peoples of that region, esp. modern era Afghanis.

Hitler I find fascinating from a more political and cultural perspective, esp. the culture of the Germanic peoples and how they could fall sway to someone like Hitler. I've always had an interest in that, the culture, the history, the psychology, and the parallels we might find in today's political climate.

The utter barbarity of both, the utter callousness to human life, the indifferent willingness to take the lives of so many millions of people, most of whom were innocents raises for me the more intriguing questions of why and how men like them can do what they do, rise like the did. Common to both was their [fallen] humanity. Distinct with each was their cultural background and personal history. As a casual student of history, I look to lessons such as theirs for what knowledge and wisdom I can learn from it in hopes I might be able to do my part not to see it repeated.
 
MMC said:
I believe Kublai Khan killed even more than his grandfather. As well as Hitler too.
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Well... he had a lot more people to abuse but he got defeated by a taifun (or smth) when he tried to invade Japan.
 
MMC said:
Mornin DDD :2wave: I don't think Alexander can even compare.
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Morning MMC,

That is what I was asking. Comparing which issue between Genghis Khan and Alexander? Viciousness? Murder rate? Occupied territorial size? What was meant?
 
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