Dictators Whose Fault In History

Wendell Willkie, the Republican Presidential candidate in 1940, once said, “It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power.” In Germany, Italy, and Japan, the awful economic, political, and racial conditions leading up to World War II gave rise to three of the modern world’s fiercest dictators. Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo have gone down in history for all the wrong reasons, and they will forever be remembered for the dark stain they have left on history. Adolf Hitler, possibly the most infamous of dictators, is one of the most known figures in history. Before Hitler came to power, Germany was in the midst of an economic depression, still trying to find money to pay its war reparations after losing World War I (Hitler, 1). After the signing of the Versailles Treaty in 1919, Germany was in an uproar. Called a “diktat” or a slave-treaty by the German people, the Versailles Treaty came to be blamed for everything from the poverty to the increasing unemployment in post WWI Germany (Pillar, 7). With as many as 30 political parties, not only was Germany in the midst of an economic
crisis, but also its government was in chaos. Hitler’s magnetic personality and spellbinding speeches gave hope to Germans, who soon joined his National Socialist German Worker’s Party (Hitler, 3). During this time, Hitler preached his anti-Semitic beliefs to the public who quickly jumped on the bandwagon and started to blame the Jews for losing WWI. By the time World War II came around, the Nazis were the dominant force to be reckoned with in Europe. Next, Benito Mussolini, known as the founder of fascism, was the dictator of Italy from 1925 to 1943 (Benito, 1). In 1919, Mussolini started the Fascist Party in Italy, hoping to recreate the Great Roman Empire. The Fascist party believed in “giving full interest in economic, social, and military power to a dominant race or state lead by a single dominant leader” (Boyanowski, 1). After World War I, Italy was dissatisfied by its inadequate territorial gains, Mussolini sought to gain control of the Italian government, and fascism was spreading throughout Europe. In 1925, Mussolini became dictator, taking the title of “Il Duce” (Benito, 4). Italy’s dissatisfaction and the rise of fascism helped to push Mussolini to ally with Nazi-Germany and the Axis powers (Boyanowski, 5). Mussolini was influenced greatly by Hitler, and started to incorporate many of Hitler’s beliefs, such as anti-Semitism, into his legislation (Benito, 5). Mussolini and his fascist party were not to be taken lightly. Lastly, on the other side of the world, Hideki Tojo became Prime Minister of Japan.
The European dictators, Hitler and Mussolini were well respected there, and Tojo felt that the future of Japan lay in their hands (Trueman, 3). During this time, Japan was “an aggressive, imperialist state that glorified war and sacrifice for Emperor and country” (Fisher, 1). Although Tojo was only Prime Minister, it was really he who controlled the Japanese government. The actual ruler of Japan, Emperor Hirohito, became more of a figurehead, than head of government. The Emperor was a quiet ruler who desired peace, and actually pushed for Japan to end the war in 1942, but Tojo was the one who was truly in control (Boyanowski, 10). Tojo was the person responsible for the attack on Pearl Harbor, and bringing the United States into WWII (Trueman,
1). By the end of the war, Hitler had committed suicide, Mussolini was shot, and Tojo was executed as a war criminal. If anything good came from their regimes, it was that the world learned exactly what should never be allowed to happen again. World War II might have been inevitable, but if it were not for Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo, it would have played out in a completely different way. It was the economic, political, and racial conditions in Germany, Italy, and Japan that helped to give rise to three of the world’s most infamous dictators.