Diffrences and Similarties Between Stalin and Hitler

Hitler’s Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union have similarities and differences between them. Both political systems followed an authoritative form of government, with one dictator ruling the entire country. In Nazi Germany, Hitler was the dictator, and his political system was known as National Socialism. Hitler rose to power through a nationalist drive to restore Germany after World War 1. In the Soviet Union, Stalin was the dictator in charge of a Totalitarian form of government that rose to power following the Bolshevik Revolution. Both systems were ruthless when it came to eliminating political enemies, but Stalin’s system of government outlasted Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Both Totalitarian and National Socialist governments were devastating to their citizens and the world, because they led to millions of deaths and Hitler’s Nazi Germany led to World War 2.

Totalitarianism is the political form of government in which individual liberties and freedoms are completely stripped away until little or nothing remains, and in its place an authoritative government is set up to run the lives of its citizens. The term was coined by Benito Mussolini in the early 1920’s (Britannica). Totalitarianism leads to oppressive single party government. National Socialism was a political form of government instituted by Adolf Hitler in 1934 that sought to influence all of German life. Germans embraced National Socialism because it lowered unemployment and gave Germany a nationalist ideal to strive for which helped their country to recover from World War 1 (Britannica).

A significant event that led to the rise in power for Hitler is now known as the Reichstag fire. The Reichstag is the German parliamentary building, and in 1933 the building caught fire. Hitler then used this event to secure for himself power under an emergency decree to arrest political dissenters due to the nature of the Reichstag fire (History Place). Hitler sought to end Democracy in Germany and place...