Reply #28: Another key similarity is that

[Joe Chi Minh]

the economic prosperity of the 3rd Reich was built on quicksand, relying on continuing conquest and colonisation/enslavement; as someone put it, his was a "triumph of the book-keeping will".

It was inevitably doomed, in very principle, because of this, and also, and more seminally, because Hitler was a half-wit. Not simply in terms of good sense, which is actually a function of the heart, but also in terms of his head, his worldly intelligence. He repeatedly over-ruled his generals, who would have forgotten more about strategy, logistics, even tactics than dumkopf had ever learnt.

Much is made of the undoubtedly spectacular success of Germany's conquests in the early years, but there are at least two key factors which need to be taken into account:

a) he had an extremely bitter, highly motivated and focused general populace to lead into wars of conquest, not to speak of the normal plethora of industrialist-warmongers and worldling professionals, who thought they could use him and then take over.

b) this was in marked contrast to the French and the British, who though winners of WWI had had more than enough. Not that the way the surviving veterans were treated in the UK at least would have inspired them to trust their leaders under normal circumstances. Little wonder then, than the wermacht were able to slice through Europe like a knife through butter. And of course, it only encouragd him in his maniacal dreams.

But the bottom line of his signal, catastrophic failure was a country in ruins, and a starving population, many of its womenfolk raped mostly by the Russian troops, and doubtless many others selling their bodies for little more than dross. So, Hitler like Bush, led his country to economic ruin, although evidently very much more so.

On top of that - and even though,as someone pointed out, Hitler never won more than 40% of the electorate - the shame has stayed in some degree and wholly undeservedly, I might add, with subsequent younger generations of Germans. As a matter of fact, Hitler had actually been impressed by the some of the vilest and most brutish aspects of British rule over its empire - not least the concentration camps.

So, I think, all in all, you expressed a rather more rosy view of Hitler's egregious failure of his nation than than the reality, to put it mildly.