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Pastimes : A CENTURY OF LIONS/THE 20TH CENTURY TOP 100 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (373)	10/18/1999 5:03:00 PM
From: w molloy	Respond to of 3246

BlitzKrieg as a strategy had nothing to do with Hitler, apart from the fact that he allowed his generals to use it. cf Rommel, Kesselring et al

To: Jacques Chitte who wrote (373)	10/18/1999 6:55:00 PM
From: RTev	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3246

I too think that the list should not exclude those rare cases of the person who has had great negative influence. Hitler should be included because it's impossible to understand the 20th Century without him. In fact, if I imagine myself as a writer in, say, 2066 asked to write a short chapter about this century and to hang the story off a single person, the person I would choose is Hitler. Consider the broad changes that define the century. It began with England as the dominant world power and ends with the US in a dominant position. WWII represents the significant turning point. It began with as a Euro-centric world and ends with more diverse centers of influence that, for the first time in European history, include Asian countries in prominent roles. Again, WW II represents the significant turning point. Those changes suggest that FDR should have first place among statesmen on the list, somewhat above his cousin Teddy who helped to define the outlines of what would become the American Century. But there's a huge hole in "influence" if Hitler is excluded. But even if Hitler is excluded, I think it would be unfair to exclude Lenin. One could easily argue that Stalin is of the same ilk as Hitler, but it ignores history to put Lenin in that group. His influence was weighty and at least partly positive. By applying an obscure European philosophy of industrial development to an agrarian and still largely feudal society, he transformed it (for both good and ill) into a prominent 20th Century industrial power.