Hitler 12 Essay, Research Paper
Comparing Hitler and Stalin in their rise to power
During the period leading up to World War II, there were two men who were on
opposing sides, the men were Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. These men were each
triumphant in their rise to power in their countries and they were very comparable in
the ways that they succeeded. Their success was mostly attributed to their new ideas
and their politics.
Although Hitler and Stalin hated each other, the two leaders were similar in many ways.
Hitler and Stalin each rose to the highest position attainable in their respective
countries, and there were three main reasons that they were able to do this. Both men
were skilled users of propaganda, each was amoral, and they both had the ambition to
make their countries powerful in the world. Since each was a skilled user of
propaganda, they could use their words to twist and manipulate the minds of people
into believing that what they were saying was the absolute truth. Using this power,
they would get people to do anything for them, which proves their amorality. Since
their countries were still trying to recover from World War I, they desired to restore the
power back in to their countries. These three reasons will prove that Hitler and Stalin
were similar in many ways.
The names Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin are synonymous with the word propaganda. In
order to understand how Hitler and Stalin used propaganda, an understanding of what
the word means, is required. According to Merriam-Webster, “propaganda is the
spreading of ideas to further or damage a cause; also the ideas or allegations spread
for a purpose”. Hitler and Stalin each used propaganda as their tool to further their
ideas and help them gain the backing of the people in their countries. The form of
propaganda that Hitler used, and was successful in using, was his words. Hitler made
many speeches, but the one speech that was a famous one, was his final speech at his
trial for treason. In this speech he gave his views and opinions on the events preceding
the trial. This is an excerpt from his speech: “…I aimed from the first to….become the
destroyer of Marxism….The army that we are building grows more from day to day,
from hour to hour. Gentlemen, not you who will be the ones that deliver the verdict
over us, but that verdict will be given by the eternal judgement of history, which will
speak out against the accusation that has been made against us….That court will
judge us….as Germans (who) wanted only the best for their people and their
Fatherland, who fought and were willing to die. You might just as well find us guilty a
thousand times, but the goddess of the eternal court of history will smile and tear up
the motions of the states attorney and the judgement of this court: for she finds us
not guilty”. After Hitler gave this speech, the court was sympathetic towards him, he
was sentenced to only five years in prison for his crime. After nine months of his
sentence had been served, he received parole. Being able to gain Nazi party control
and gain enough supporters, proves that he was an efficient user of propaganda. Hitler
also had his own minister of propaganda when he became leader of the country. This
proves that Hitler was an user of propaganda, but Joseph Stalin was not as blatantly
obvious with his uses of propaganda. Stalin did however use propaganda in his speech
to the Fifteenth Congress in 1927. Stalin said in this speech: ” Evidently, the opposition
prefers to be outside the party. Well, let it be outside the party. There is nothing
terrible, or exceptional, or surprising in the fact that they prefer to be outside the
party, that they are cutting themselves off from the party. If you study the history of
our party, you will find that always, at certain serious turns taken by our party, a
certain section of the old leaders fell out of the cart of the Bolshevik party and made
room for newer members. A turn is a serious thing, comrades. A turn is dangerous for
those who do not sit firmly in the party cart. Not everybody can keep his balance when
a turn is made. You turn the cart – and on looking back, you find that someone has
fallen out”. After Stalin said this, an immediate applause was heard. Stalin was telling
people what they wanted to hear and he used this speech to further his cause. This
speech helped to further his cause by gaining support from the people, and by
justifying why Trotsky was not the choice for leader. Stalin was also demonstrating
with this speech that he was the “bandwagon” and that he was taking people in the
right direction. Everyone who became a supporter of him, would be getting into the
right cart and would be heading in the right direction. At least, what he believed to be
the right direction. Hitler and Stalin did not only use spoken propaganda, they were
masters of using propaganda, so they would use many forms of it. Another form of
propaganda that they used was through photographs. These photographs promoted
their “nice” personality. In these photos they would be depicted as being a hero, they
would be helping the poor families, or be holding a small child. It was these photos that
these men became appealing to the public. These photos give you the idea that they
are caring, loving and just completely concerned for the well-being of the people. The
use of propaganda was a big contributor to the success of both men.
Since Hitler and Stalin were able to manipulate people with their propaganda, they
could convince people of just about anything. This proves them to be amoral. Both
would do whatever they thought was necessary to further their cause, with no remorse
about what they had done. In 1922 Lenin, the leader of the communist party had a
stroke. Overtime his condition got worse and he became less involved in the party’s
affairs. When Lenin died in January 1924, it left two men in contention for the party’s
leadership. These two men were Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky. The men had opposing
ideas on how the party should be run. Stalin was a more aggressive candidate, and
therefore had one of his supporters kill Trotsky. This happened after Trotsky was
exiled, but while in exile he continued to preach world revolution. Stalin sent one of his
agents to kill Trotsky, who was in exile in Mexico. Stalin felt that if he eliminated his
only threat, that it would mean less opposition to his ideas. This assured Stalin full
control over the communist party. Hitler was the other example of an amoral person. He
demonstrated this after he got into power with the holocaust, but he did not
foreshadow his amorality much before he got into power. One incidence of his amorality
was when he killed all of his opposition. The first major victim of the Nazis was the
powerful German Trade Union movement. It was a possible breeding ground for
Socialism and Communism, and therefore opposition to Hitler. On May 2, 1933 many
Trade Union leaders were arrested and beaten up. Their offices were looted and their
funds and property seized. A Nazi-led “labour front” was established to control the
workers and ensure the peace in factories and workshops. A week after the destruction
of the Trade Unions the Social Democratic Party suffered a similar fate, soon to be
followed by the Communists. All of their property, possessions and funds were seized
and both parties were banned. The Center Party, which had supported Hitler in return
for vague promises, collapsed in July 1933, along with the few others still remaining.
After Hitler became Chancellor Hitler passed a law that prohibited there being any other
party in Germany other than the Nazis. By doing all of these things it was giving us a
glimpse of what he was going to be like when he got into power. These examples show
that both Hitler and Stalin were amoral and would do what was necessary to further
themselves.
With Hitler and Stalin being such amoral people and willing to do anything, they would
do what they could to benefit their countries. Each of their countries had suffered
great losses in World War I and were still trying to recover when they came into power.
Restoring the power back into their countries was of great importance to both men.
After World War I, Russia had 9,150,000 casualties and Germany had 7,142,558
casualties. These losses were immense. Stalin believed that if he forced industrialization
upon Russia, that it would help the country to rebuild. Collective farms was another one
of Stalin’s plans. “Engel’s general formula about the destiny of the Socialist state in
general cannot be extended to the partial and specific case of the victory of socialism
in one country only, a country that is surrounded by a capitalist world, is subject to
the menace of foreign military attack, cannot therefore abstract itself from the
international situation, and must have at its disposal a well-trained army,
well-organized punitive organs, and a strong intelligence service. Consequently, must
have its own state, strong enough to defend the conquests of Socialism from foreign
attack”. This shows that Stalin’s aspiration was to make his country strong, and that
he had some ideas of how to go about it. Hitler’s Germany also had a lot to recover
from. “Hitler had plans for Germanic unity and German living space. German unity meant
the gathering together of all Germans in Europe, one people into one empire, ruled by
one leader. This involved people living in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Danzig, Memel and
other isolated pockets. Germany did not have enough farmland to feed her population
of enough raw materials to supply her factories. New lands to the east would then have
to be taken over. Hitler intended to destroy the power of France forever. He hoped to
take Great Britain into partnership after settling the question of the former German
colonies”. This demonstrates to us that Hitler aspired to make Germany strong and
feared. He wanted to reunite the German people. Hitler and Stalin both succeeded in
making their countries strong once again, at least for a while.
In conclusion, Hitler and Stalin were similar in many way in their rise to power, however
three reasons stand out the most. They were gifted in the ability to use propaganda
and brainwash people, which in turn proves that they were both unethical, and they
desired to make their countries better and stronger. Both of these men succeeded in
doing all of these things.
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