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 judgment of this court: for she finds us not guilty". 1
After Hitler gave this speech, the court was sympathetic towards him, and 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 a big user of propaganda, but Joseph
Stalin was not as blatantly obvious with his uses of it. 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".2 After Stalin said this, an immediate applause was heard. Stalin was telling the 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 down the proper road. 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" personalities. In these photos each dictator would be depicted as being a hero. He would be helping the poor families, or be holding a small child. It was in these photos that Hitler and Stalin became appealing to the public. The photos gave the people of their countries the idea that they were caring, loving and 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 the public 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.3 Over time his condition got worse and he became less involved in the party's affairs.
When Lenin died in January 1924, he left two men in contention for the party's leadership.4 One was Joseph Stalin, and the other Leon Trotsky.5 These 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. He felt that if he eliminated his only threat, it would mean less opposition to his ideas. This assured Stalin full control over the communist party. Once Stalin was in control, anything was used as an excuse for an arrest: not clapping loudly enough or long enough after one of Stalin's speeches, or buying groceries from a former kulak. People went to work one day and simply did not return -- they were either killed immediately or sent to the GULAG, a network of forced labor camps in the Soviet Union.6 Because of Stalin’s want to destroy any possibility of future conspiracies, academics and writers came to expect arrest, exile and prison as part of their lives. All in all, Stalin got rid of anyone who could conceivably become a member of a regime that might make the attempt to replace his own. He did this to maintain his power. Hitler was the other example of an amoral person. He demonstrated this after he got into power with the Holocaust, but he also foreshadowed his amorality before he became the leader of Germany.
One incident of his amorality was shown 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.7 The Center Party, which had supported Hitler in return for vague promises, collapsed in July 1933, along with the few others still remaining. 8After Hitler became Chancellor, he passed a law that prohibited the existence of any party in Germany other than the
Nazis.9 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 did 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 casualties10. 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". 11This 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 promised the German people work and bread and he delivered both. As most shrewd politicians are capable, Hitler gave the people what they wanted the most. He launched a massive public works program to pull Germany out of the Depression. Superhighways, office buildings, huge stadiums and public buildings were constructed at a rapid pace. By 1936, however, government spending was now being directed almost entirely to the military, necessary for the coming war Hitler had already specified in Mein
Kampf (My Battle), a book he wrote while in prison. 12Meanwhile, unemployment dropped steadily. In January 1937, unemployment stood at 7 million. Twelve months later it had fallen to 1 million and by 1938, Germany witnessed a shortage of labor. The standard of living increased by 20% and business profits were finally increasing. 13 "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. His goal was clearly seen in Mein Kampf, in which he stated: "Germany will either be a world power or will not be at all."14 Both dictators succeeded in making their countries strong once again, at least for a while. In conclusion, Hitler and
Stalin were similar in many ways 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 men succeeded in doing all of these things.
