I mean, Genghis Khan is now looked at as a great nation builder, Vlad Tepes has been glorified, countless pirates have been glorified…
…will the same treatment be handed Hitler? How will Hitler be viewed in 500 years?
A guy you learn about in history holovids.
I suspect rather he’ll be tossed on the dust heap along with Sennacherib and his ilk. Ancient bloodthirsty egomaniacs.
Any history of the 20th century will have to include him. Go back to the 15th Century. People still remember Richard III.
a) a misunderstood genius
b) a rookie compared to what Jason Hayden does in 2061
c) a hipster
d) not remembered because no one will be left to remember anything
[moderating]
Since predicting the future of public opinion isn’t really GQ, I’ve moved the thread over to IMHO.
[/moderating]
Genghis Khan established the Mongol Empire, which lasted well past his death. Hitler, on the other hand, was not successful in establishing the Third Reich, so I doubt he’ll be remembered as anything more than a footnote in history. He might be a little more familiar to people in the future because the 20th century was better documented than the 13th century. But unless someone develops an empire based on Hitler’s ideas, I doubt he will be remembered much.
Five hundred years ago, Charles Habsburg was the most powerful man in the world. He ruled an Empire that stretched across five continents.
But if you asked a hundred random people on the street, I bet none of them would have heard of him.
Ghengis Khan not only established a huge empire, he also had a code of laws that was pretty modern. Life under Khan could be very comfortable as long as you followed the Yassa. There was also a fair amount of freedom of religion - something not normally seen after the fall of the Roman Empire [nonChristian version]
Vlad Tsepes was considered by his citizens as a reasonable ruler, it was only in the writings of his opponents that he was demonized. Mudslinging is not a modern occurrence. What got put in the history books is what was available in the western European countries - like Germany , where that notorious pamphlet was written. There are also similar ones from Russians that paint him is a better light but also got pasted onto stories of Ivan the Terrible :dubious::smack: Look at how we picture Richard 3d - based on a play by Shakespeare. Honestly, I do believe that his opponents in period would have written all sorts of folksongs, nasty poems and made art portraying him as a hunchback, nothing has come to light. If he was a warped hunchback, could he have had the prowess at combat he had? [He was the last monarch of England to fall in battle in England, oddly enough.]
I might also point out that impalement and torture were also practiced in western Europe of the time as well. Pot calling the kettle black, IMHO.
As an artist!!
(well, maybe not)
The First French Empire didn’t make it a decade, but Napoleons he’s still pretty well known.
I think that for comparisons for evil, Hitler is going to be right up there until something much worse comes along. Let’s hope it doesn’t. There was a thread a few months ago about what or who was the standard of evil before Hitler, and it turns out one of the answers was Pharaoh. As in the dude Yul Brenner played. Really? A slave holding, God ignoring tyrant? Small potatoes compared to AH.
Mass murdering fuckhead*.
*As many important historians have said.
I’m sure that Stalin and Mao will be higher in the evil list in a couple of centuries when the Holocaust becomes another big massacre but loses the up-there-in-your-face characteristic it has for us today.
I once read a Larry Niven story, set a few centuries in the future, that had a passing mention of a sports team named the “Berlin Nazis”.
Who :D:D:D
It is too difficult to fathom culture 500 years from now at the pace we’re going. That’s why it’s so easy to imagine a regressed Mad Max future, because guessing at the other is a blank slate.
Try 28 years in the future - “How the Heroes Die” takes place in 2040.
Actually, there are 2 stories that mention the Berlin Nazis. The other one is indeed a few centuries away. But “How the Heroes Die” has the great line “the hole in the hexagonal array would show like Sammy Davis III on the Berlin Nazis football team!”
Was “Charles Hapsburg” actually used to refer to him commonly? How often do people refer to “Elizabeth Windsor” nowadays? Ask 100 random people if they’ve heard of “Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor” and you’ll get a better answer.
Naw. What is important is not the actual body-count, it is the story.
There is a reason why WW2, Nazis and Hitler retains such a hold on the imagination - it makes a compelling story. As villians, the Nazis were bad, but more to the point, they were flamboyantly, interestingly bad. Their story has a clear narrative arc, as a story - remarkable rise, world-conquoring ambitions almost realized, titanic battles, terrible and calamitous fall. They killed people in interesting, inventive, scientific and horrible ways. They wore snappy uniforms sometimes decorated with little skulls.
Compared with that, the great communist tyrants were simply boring. They killed as many or more people, but often in dull undramatic ways, like mass starvation. Who would rather read about the Great Leap Forward than the Holocaust? Their stories tended to lack the drama. Both Stalin and Mao died in their beds, not committing suicide in the flaming pyre of their capital cities. Neither really set out to be world-conquorers. They wore dull outfits - is there anything more dull than one of those Mao suits?
So I think it is a safe prediction that the Nazis, and Hitler, will be remembered as villians for a very long time to come, long after Stalin and Mao are forgotten - because they make a good and memorable example and story.