Pol Pot Vs. Adolf Hitler

Successful leaders often share multiple similarities in the choices they make with their power; however, there also tend to be numerous differences between the executions of their respective rules. Though Communist leader Pol Pot and German nationalist Adolf Hitler can be compared in several ways, there are also myriad differences between their ascendancies. The social dispositions and executions of Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot, although similar in several ways, also differed for numerous reasons during their supremacies.

The social perspectives and exploits of Hitler and Pol Pot have multiple similarities. For example, both Pol Pot and Hitler advocated and, to an extent, succeeded in mass execution of people based on a specific attribute. Pol Pot's ideal was to mostly eliminate intellectuals, while Hitler aspired to annihilate Jews, predominantly, though there were several other types of victims for each ruler respectively (Katz, 76). Additionally, Pol Pot and Hitler each had an ideology related to the mass killings they were executing. Pol Pot was convinced that by eliminating these people, he could create a new agrarian communist utopia (The History Place - Genocide in the 20th Century). Hitler's impression was influenced by the concept of racial hygiene. In misusing social Darwinism, Hitler applied the principles of "survival of the fittest" to humans, which was interpreted as requiring racial purity and killing off "life unworthy of life" (Shirer, 59). Some of the causes of death in both executions were also similar. Among these were starvation, overwork, disease and murder. This shows that Hitler and Pol Pot agreed on comparable killing methods, such as intense labor camps. Another similarity is that both Pol Pot and Hitler were nationalists. In fact, the Khmer Rouge refused offers of humanitarian aid, a decision which caused the deaths of millions (The History Place - Genocide in the 20th Century). To the Khmer Rouge, outside aid went against their principle of national self-reliance. Hitler, meanwhile, felt that Germans were the superior race, and felt indignation towards the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, a treaty which massively humiliated Germany (Shirer, 92). Lastly, Hitler and Pol Pot shared the desire to publicly express an account of their beliefs and ideas. Pol Pot wrote Monarchy or Democracy?, and Hitler penned an autobiography called Mein Kampf, which means "My Struggle" (Katz, 42). Therefore, there are numerous similarities between the social perspectives and executions of Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot.

Despite the comparable aspects of Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot's supremacies, each ruler had a different ideology that determined the motives behind their mass executions. Hitler was extensively anti-Semitist; he claimed that Jews were enemies of the Aryan race and held them responsible for Austria's crisis. Hitler's nationalism also fueled the Holocaust and the mass killings in general (Katz, 88). The Treaty of Versailles caused an immense amount of humiliation for Germany; there was a nearly total demilitarisation of the armed forces, allowing Germany only six battleships, no submarines, no air force, an army of 100,000 without conscription and no armored vehicles (Shirer, 95). He used the treaty as a reason to build up Germany so that it could never happen again. The Khmer Rouge, on the contrary, murdered Western educated intellectuals; this was not an act of direct hate or prejudice. Pol Pot firmly believed that he could "purify" society and create something he called "Year Zero" (The History Place - Genocide in the 20th Century). Capitalism, Western culture, city life, religion, and all foreign influences were to be extinguished in favor of an extreme form of peasant Communism. Thus, Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler each had different motives for their mass executions.

Another difference between Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler was the victims of their mass killings. The Khmer Rouge targeted Buddhist monks, Western-educated intellectuals (apart from themselves), educated people in general, people who had contact with Western countries or with Vietnam, people who appeared to be intellectuals (for example, individuals with glasses), the crippled and lame, and ethnic minorities like ethnic Chinese, Laotians and Vietnamese (Pol Pot, Pol Pot Massacre, Pol Pot Genocide, Cambodia Genocide). Also, several of the individuals executed, for example in the infamous S-21 camp, were accused of working for the CIA, KGB or the Vietnamese (Pol Pot, Pol Pot Massacre, Pol Pot Genocide, Cambodia Genocide). This is because, as previously stated, Pol Pot desired to purge society of all Western influence in order to create a new agrarian communist utopia. Hitler, however, focused on the elimination of Jews, the Roma (gypsies),