Richard Koenigsberg
“History” records the acts of political leaders who have killed a great number of people. Historical significance is measured by counting skulls and dead bodies. Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin and Mao are among those who chose this path to enduring fame (see photos below).
Historians collaborate with men like these to record their deeds. It would be naive to imagine that mass-murderers and those who write about these men are independent variables. Mass-murderers are acutely aware that their deeds will be chronicled. Mass-murderers and authors collaborate to produce the stuff of “history books.”
An EDITORIAL NOTE, 25 April 2025
Richard Koenigsberg is a Jewish American with whom I have exchanged material for about three decades, especially relating to World War Two. In inserting his email note today …. the iconic Anzac Day in Australia, I record a dissent from his partisan selectivity of atrocious world leaders in the past 150 years. We could add Netanyahu, Putin to this list. …. And, yes, some leading men in Hamas and in some African countries. And then there is Pirapaharan to ‘weigh in’.
…. and what about Donald Trump? .… not so much for direct mass murder, but for the chaos generated by his monumental egoism and crazy forays in international power-politics.
History has to be heavily discounted. It is written by the victors.
Think the Americas and Australia.
If Hitler had won WW2, Churchill would be the historical mass murderer.
Right now, we experience history being inverted by power, real time. Netanyahu, the greatest mass killer of this century, is held out as a moral defender of a murderous, expansionist Israel.
A set of judicious views, ARLEN.