Should Stalin and/or Hitler be a leader in Civ?

[Six Thousand Year Old Man]

Originally posted by Forwarn45


"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin

Forgive me if someone has already pointed this out. But I found it ironic.

They have - it's been in my sig line for years.

[Charles_Bronson]

I think hitler should be included in the game.

He´s was a very important historical leader, doesn´t matter for me if he is good or evil. He came very near conquering all europe,russia and north africa, and despite his terrible flaws and the evil things he did, he changed our history forever.

Erasing him from the game will not change nothing that happened 55 years behind us. Censoring A.Hilter for the game is the same than censoring WW2 books, acting like "that never happened". "Mein Kampf", hitler´s book, is today printed and selled and thousands of historians read it. Hitler is a lesson all people must not forget.

In games, we play roles,sometimes evil ones, sometimes good. Civ´s fun is to change history, not replaying it. A person who plays Hitler or Stalin is equal to the person that use Slavery Civics. Kill hundreds of persons to build a great future? That remember me of Jewish camps somehow, or Stalins purge, or Mao´s Cultural Revolution too (killed Twenty million people).

I hate nazis, but hey, we may need villains in the game too.

U have three ways to vote:
1- Comercial -> Hitler was a very sick person, and some people can be affected by his presence in the game. Out.
2- Historical -> Hitler should be in the game because he is very important for history. In.
3- Equal -> Stalin and Mao is in the game, so Hitler should too. In.
4- Fun -> I think it would be fun playing hitler, or (much more) playing AGAINST it. In.

That´s three against one, so that´s explain my vote.
ps-Sorry for any english mistake.

[Mike4879]

It seems to me like the leaders in the game now represent the civilization at some of its greatest moments in history. Stalin and Hitler represent Russia and Germany at their worst moments... they just killed people mercilessly.

[Alexander I]

Originally posted by Mike4879
It seems to me like the leaders in the game now represent the civilization at some of its greatest moments in history. Stalin and Hitler represent Russia and Germany at their worst moments... they just killed people mercilessly.

Why are Mao and Stalin in the game then?

[fed1943]

One very important(to me)thing is that Russia with Stalin was a bloody dictatorship,but so was before and after him,while Germany with Hitler was also a bloody dictatorship,but before and after him was a democracy.
Best regards,

[Zoid]

nm, this discussion is starting to repeat itself...

[Son of David]

Originally posted by Alexander01


Why are Mao and Stalin in the game then?

Okay, there's been a heck of a lot of platitude and banal moralizing going on in this thread but I'll bite the bullet and put forward the 'taboo' explanation.

The reason that Hitler is not in but Mao and STalin are is because Mao and Stalin killed mostly peasants. Yes, they killed merely ordinary people, lowly people who worked the land. No one really cares about those people.

But the people Hitler went after - they are in no wise peasants. They are the most ingenious race on this planet. They, out of all the millions that suffered in the 20th century, stand out as the group which made the loudest proclamation of its own suffering.

Now am I going to be banned for this?

[padillah]

Originally posted by Mike4879
It seems to me like the leaders in the game now represent the civilization at some of its greatest moments in history. Stalin and Hitler represent Russia and Germany at their worst moments... they just killed people mercilessly.

This depends on how you qualify "Best" and "Worst".

Germany held more land under Htler than ever.

And some of the others are exempt because they were never rulers. Never in control.

Tom P.

[Zoid]

SoD, no you´re right. The jews suffered long before the Holocaust. They´ve felt sorry for themselves since 70 AD (and even before that). Even before the Holocaust no people had ever suffered as much as the jews. They are the most persecuted people ever, and they will continue to be. To be a jew is to suffer, basically.

If Hitler had hadn´t killed all those jews he wouldn´t have been the monster he is today...

[potoroo]

You need to recalibrate your irony meter.

[Zoid]

What? It´s the truth isn´t it?

[Generaldoktor]

Originally posted by Forwarn45


"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic." - Joseph Stalin

Forgive me if someone has already pointed this out. But I found it ironic.

Speaking of irony, I earlier inadvertently quoted this quote of Stalin, as a justification of why Stalin's crimes are not as well remembered as they should be.

I thought somebody in the discussion came up with the quote above.

Mao is getting credit for bringing China into the 20th century, which has made possible their growing success in the 21st. His predecessors, including, but not limited to Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai Shek, were not very nice people themselves. Life has always been cheap in China; their history will probably say that the cost was justified by the future benefits. This might also be true of Russia/USSR; Stalin was the innovator, despite all his faults, of Russian industrialization and technological parity with the West, though again at terrible cost. I think he had a more evil, personal motive for a lot of his killing though, than Mao and will be judged more harshly. Also, Russia has always aspired to be a "Western" country, where individual life is IMO valued higher.

With both of them however, I think the "peasant" argument regarding the victims above, has a lot of merit.

Regarding the Nazi crimes, I think the argument above that a certain group that has always been very vocal about its specialty and resultant persecution has successfully called special attention to crimes againsti it; also has a lot of merit.

[Charles_Bronson]

No one remembers that the Nazis has massacred the Gypsy too...

Long before the Nazi Party came to power in Germany, the European Roma were despised and rejected. Their foreign appearance, their strange customs and language, their nomadic way of life and lack of regular employment contradicted established conventions. The European states decided that the only way to deal with the Roma was to remove them by expulsion, repression, assimilation and, later, extermination.
In 1937, the Roma were forced into concentration camps, officially called "resident camps" at Dachau, Dieselstrasse, Mahrzan and Vennhausen. The Roma interned included those found in Germany and in the Nazi occupied countries. The Nazi Party was given the cooperation of other European governments in its campaign to locate and identify Roma throughout Europe. Prisoners at Buchenwald were worked to death as slave laborers in the camp quarry or at outlying arms factories. There were no gas chambers but thousands were shot, hanged, or tortured to death by the camp's guards.

http://www.geocities.com/~patrin/porraimos.htm

But the Roma, they are poor. Who cares?

[LzPrst]

yes. jews are not the only people who have been treated badly throughout history. the roma/gypsies, the kurds, native americans, the latter who were in fact practically wiped out, noone talks about these people. the reason is that jews are better at making themselves heard.

and my main argument for not having hitler in is simply that we shouldnt give the b4st4rd any slack. he is in the history books. he doenst need to be in the game. and Stalin is not in civ4. he was in civ1 and hasnt been an option since. Mao is in teh game and so is Genghiz Khan. not nice people, I agree, but they represented "progress" for their nations and so does stalin. Hitler does not. in addition he is the proponent of an ideology based on superstition and hate. we dont need to give that ideology any acceptability.

[Solver]

Shh, don't turn this into bashing.