Worst dictators that never were

[Sigma7]

It's a matter of survivability and Himmler would have been offed by the military very quickly; probably by Goering, who I believe could lead a junta, but would be forced to share power with the other military leaders, therefore, he'd be reined in by Donitz, Guderian, von Manstein, etc... and never could have become a full blown dictator.

The SS vs. The German Military?

Seriously, do the math, not the meth.

Beria would have survived longer and was an even more demented bastard than Himmler...and that's really saying something.

 

[Uber_Amoeba]

Beria would have survived longer and was an even more demented bastard than Himmler...and that's really saying something.

Oh, honestly, people. Do you also believe that Do you also believe that George H.W. Bush is a Reptilian shape-shifter, Obama is a Muslim and the secretly planted son of Malcolm X, Bill Clinton murdered Vincent Fox, and Elizabeth II was divinely appointed by the hand of Jehovah?

I mean, it's not rocket science. When Beria was first arrested, the best charges they could level against him were that he had contracted syphilis from prostitutes and had slept with 25 women, by the time Krushchev had written his memoirs, it had multiplied to 100, and after that stories about him raping young women began to appear, and by the 70s the idea that he had a special office for raping small children was invented more or less out of thin air. It's an urban legend like any other that ignorant Westerners believe because they don't actually know anything about Russia except 'Stalin bad!!!'. It's the equivalent of believing in the hook-handed man or child molestors who will swoop in like Batman to steal children if you leave them out of sight for 5 minutes.

Turns out that politically-motivated smears which only begin after a man's humiliation and arrest and continually to escalate without evidence over the next twenty years are unreliable as historical evidence! Who knew?

 

[Melvin Loh]

How bout the Mad Baron ? I reckon von Ungern-Sternberg could well have, given the right circumstances, become an alternate Hitler-like baddie...

 

[LeX]

I think that Beria would've been pretty bad. I can't really see a case for Himmler becoming the leader of Germany, and even if he did, there's not much worse that he could've done that Hitler didn't do.

 

[Draco]

Oh, honestly, people. Do you also believe that Do you also believe that George H.W. Bush is a Reptilian shape-shifter, Obama is a Muslim and the secretly planted son of Malcolm X, Bill Clinton murdered Vincent Fox, and Elizabeth II was divinely appointed by the hand of Jehovah?

I mean, it's not rocket science. When Beria was first arrested, the best charges they could level against him were that he had contracted syphilis from prostitutes and had slept with 25 women, by the time Krushchev had written his memoirs, it had multiplied to 100, and after that stories about him raping young women began to appear, and by the 70s the idea that he had a special office for raping small children was invented more or less out of thin air. It's an urban legend like any other that ignorant Westerners believe because they don't actually know anything about Russia except 'Stalin bad!!!'. It's the equivalent of believing in the hook-handed man or child molestors who will swoop in like Batman to steal children if you leave them out of sight for 5 minutes.

Turns out that politically-motivated smears which only begin after a man's humiliation and arrest and continually to escalate without evidence over the next twenty years are unreliable as historical evidence! Who knew?

Whatever his personal proclivities were or weren’t there is no question that he oversaw the organ of the state responsible for killing quite possibly millions of people and while he might have been less excessive in that regard that his predecessor he still managed to get plenty of blood on his hands. I also doubt that if he’d gotten wind of what was going to happen that he’d have blinked twice about ordering a large scale purge of his critics squeamish he was not.

 

[Kome]

How bout the Mad Baron ? I reckon von Ungern-Sternberg could well have, given the right circumstances, become an alternate Hitler-like baddie...

He was pretty bad (not to mention completely bat shit insane!) but i have no idea how to get him into even more power than rl. Soviets let him stay in Mongolia? Japan sets him up as a puppet white russian state? Germany appoints him as Grand Duke of the Baltic Duchy? No idea.

Still ill say Himmler is worse.

 

[I Blame Communism]

Whatever his personal proclivities were or weren’t there is no question that he oversaw the organ of the state responsible for killing quite possibly millions of people and while he might have been less excessive in that regard that his predecessor he still managed to get plenty of blood on his hands. I also doubt that if he’d gotten wind of what was going to happen that he’d have blinked twice about ordering a large scale purge of his critics squeamish he was not.

Squeamish people don't get to be senior figures in the Stalinist USSR, but as UA has shown, Beria was much better than has been made out as regards his actual policy decisions. He was one cold, cold sonofabitch, but not in leauge with Stalin, Hitler, or Mao, never mind the worst of history's hypotheticals.

 

[Slowpoke]

I must also vote the outsider. Heydrich at the helm of the Nazi ship full of crazies would have been horrendous. They would have still lost the war, but at a considerably greater price for everyone involved.

As for Beria, he would have been a terrible dictator. For the West. His ideas for Germany's future would have severely weakened the NATO, while the EU wouldn't have been formed in the first place (his price for allowing the Germans unite was that the future state refrain from joining any international organisation apart from the UN).

 

[Draco]

Squeamish people don't get to be senior figures in the Stalinist USSR, but as UA has shown, Beria was much better than has been made out as regards his actual policy decisions. He was one cold, cold sonofabitch, but not in leauge with Stalin, Hitler, or Mao, never mind the worst of history's hypotheticals.

Your right he wasn’t as much of a murderous bastard as Stalin, Hitler, or Mao but I’d put that down to the fact that all three of them were driven by their personal psychosis to such extremes paranoia, megalomania, and a god complex respectively. Beria and Heydrich were simply cold calculating sons of bitches which is what makes them so scary not to mention dangerous. No matter how “liberal” some of his policies were at heart he was still a ruthless bastard and probably would have been a lot more capable than Khrushchev which when talking about the USSR is sort of a scary thought. The same goes for Heydrich who’d almost certainly do a “better” job of creating a viable Nazi Germany than the kind of neu feudal state Himmler would likely try to build which if considering things on a global scale is a hell of lot scarier as its very likely to remain a dark totalitarian place to live.
The reason I’d pick Beria over Heydrich is that he’s more likely to have a long stay in power so long as he doesn’t fall into the trap that he did OTL of believing himself so secure in his position that he ends up deposed. Heydrich on the other hand isn’t likely to have much of chance to do a lot more damage than OTL unless we’re talking about a victorious Nazi Germany scenario. Which I think would take more than simply putting Heydrich in power but in that case I’d say flip a coin between the two.

 

[Berra]

I have toyed with an idea, Che Guevara was carismatic, as his T-skirt fame shows, and something of an intellectual since he was a doctor. And he went to Congo as another, fictional, character. Kurtz.

And Fidel look like Leopold 2 with his beard and uniform...

 

[Sol Zagato]

I'm voting other. Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. Never forget him.

 

[Gwendolyn Ingolfsson]

I'm voting other. Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. Never forget him.

I would have gone with him had he been included in the poll (instead I went with Beria). Had he somehow managed to overthrow the Bolsheviks and take over Russia, the Mad Baron could have been worse than Hitler and Stalin combined.

 

[Joseph K.]

There's a remote possibility that somehow General Butt Naked could end up as a major player in the Liberian Civil War, and then win it. You'd be hard pressed to come up with anything worse than him. Probably more likely than a few people on the list as well.

 

[Kome]

It's a matter of survivability and Himmler would have been offed by the military very quickly; probably by Goering, who I believe could lead a junta, but would be forced to share power with the other military leaders, therefore, he'd be reined in by Donitz, Guderian, von Manstein, etc... and never could have become a full blown dictator.

The SS vs. The German Military?

Seriously, do the math, not the meth.

If he is appointed after war (some how Germany wins the war and Hitler designates Himmler as his successor he could have lasted), a Germany at peace isnt going to go to war with itself right after it has won the largest war in its existence.

There's a remote possibility that somehow General Butt Naked could end up as a major player in the Liberian Civil War, and then win it. You'd be hard pressed to come up with anything worse than him. Probably more likely than a few people on the list as well.

GAH! That guys horrible!

 

[Draco]

There's a remote possibility that somehow General Butt Naked could end up as a major player in the Liberian Civil War, and then win it. You'd be hard pressed to come up with anything worse than him. Probably more likely than a few people on the list as well.

No question he’d be a living nightmare for Liberia but he’s in the same boat as Cambronne in so much that neither one would really effect the rest of the world beyond making headlines in the international section.

 

[Gwendolyn Ingolfsson]

There's a remote possibility that somehow General Butt Naked could end up as a major player in the Liberian Civil War, and then win it. You'd be hard pressed to come up with anything worse than him. Probably more likely than a few people on the list as well.

General What?!

[Looks him up on the web]

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You've got to be kidding me.

The crazy, it burns. . . . .

 

[altamiro]

Your right he wasn’t as much of a murderous bastard as Stalin, Hitler, or Mao but I’d put that down to the fact that all three of them were driven by their personal psychosis to such extremes paranoia, megalomania, and a god complex respectively. Beria and Heydrich were simply cold calculating sons of bitches which is what makes them so scary not to mention dangerous. No matter how “liberal” some of his policies were at heart he was still a ruthless bastard and probably would have been a lot more capable than Khrushchev which when talking about the USSR is sort of a scary thought. The same goes for Heydrich who’d almost certainly do a “better” job of creating a viable Nazi Germany than the kind of neu feudal state Himmler would likely try to build which if considering things on a global scale is a hell of lot scarier as its very likely to remain a dark totalitarian place to live.

The difference between a cold calculating bastard and a psychopath at the helm of a state is that a CCB will recognise the necessities of the reality, and act on them instead of rejecting reality as Hitler, and to lesser extent Stalin, were prone to doing.

 

[lichtbringer]

I'm voting other. Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. Never forget him.

I would say every austrian who tries to lead a foreign nation is a bad idea.