There is a fundametal qualitative difference between Hitler´s and other dictator´s deeds and also between the the Holocaust and other genocides: The *systematic, industrialized and economically optimized* genocide that was the Holocaust has never before or afterwards been seen on this planet und was the ultimate perversion humankind could come up with.
That's not entirely correct. The_13th_Redneck has it closer to the truth than people want to believe.
Stalin was in all rights equal to or worse than Hitler. Killed more people, attacked all his neighbors...etc...and if we are going to play the what if game we can go down the road of what if Germany hadn't attacked the Soviet Union? Stalin is credited with killing 20 million of his own people, WWII counting all deaths was around 55 million.
Dictators like Mao we don't even have an accurate accounting of. China had 2.5 million killed during the revolution and after that Mao is credited with as many as 40 million more.
So, no Hitler doesn't stand head and shoulders above some of these other men. His big claim to fame is killing other nations people and not just his own like Stalin and Mao.
Don´t forget that the Nazi leaders and beaurocracy actually set down together in Wansee because they found it to be too expenisve and logistically challenging to spend ammunition and manpower that were needed elswhere on the "Final Solution" and deemed killing by shots too slow a process for the masses of people they had to kill.
Stalin and Mao use economical means as well. They used the cheap solution of starving their own citizens to death. But they weren't adverse to shooting them or beating them to death as well.
So they came (after various tests) up with the gassing system as way cheaper and faster and solving the problem how to leave the corpses in a state where they could be made of economical use: Gold teeth, hair and fat for soap could only be retrieved rarely from shot victims, for the estimated need to kill 40 million people within a time frame of 5 years the bullets wer considered impossible as they deemed it necessary to keep up a kill rate of average 3000 per day. Just the manpower to achieve this rate was impossible to permanently allocate for such a time frame.
All this is true and Hitler deserves his place as one of the worst tyrants in history. What he doesn't deserve is to be up there all by himself.
More and more information is coming out of the Soviet archives. More books are being written about Soviet involvement in the opening part of WWII. Don't forget that until Germany invaded the Soviet Union they were partners.
Stalin once commented that the only man he admired was Hitler.
Hence, putting Hitler on the same shelf as the Khan, Stalin, the Chinese or Serbs or whoever other dictators or genociders devaluates this grade of perversion, Hitler was unique.
FWIW,
Rattler
They all came up with unique methods. Just because you may find one method of genocide directed at one group of people as more abhorrent doesn't mean that the rest of them don't belong on that shelf as well.
None of them were anything but deranged psychopaths. Some just had that power to wield over more human beings than others is all.
Good Hunting.
MR