As we write March 2003 the free world is again dealing with another tyrant in Saddam Hussein of Iraq who is holding on to power by fear and intimidation but compared to Hitler…. Saddam Hussein is but a babe in arms metaphorically speaking but share the same common denominator of being dictatorial despots.

Hitler became obsessed with the idea all Germany’s problems were caused by Jews and became a frightening Anti Semitic.  He was responsible for the most single horrific act in the history of mankind by his policy of The Final Solution. The herding of Jewish men women and children in cattle trucks to concentration camps through out Europe where they were systematically gassed and incinerated in ovens especially built for the purpose. Unbelievably in the region of 6,000,000 souls were murdered. A further 50,000,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen, civilians men women and children, died in acts of war and barbarism
Known as The Holocaust the Jewish Question remains the biggest blot on the history of perversion, brutality and evil the world has ever seen. Mass murder on a scale never experienced before in the history on mankind. And amazingly from a house painter and corporal in the army.

Not content to bring Germany into a brutal dictatorship with secret police organisations as The Gestapo Hitler launched into a campaign to subjugate Europe by Conquest of Arms nearly succeeding until the world was mobilised against him.
Onboard Strathallan… as she slipped anchor on 12th December 1942 heading for her date with destiny meeting U562 in the Mediterranean Sea 9 days later where she was sent to the bottom of the ocean… were over 5000 souls. They were ordinary people from every type of background. Their German and Italians adversaries were exactly the same. None had any choice of being there. They were obeying orders and if they did not, consequences followed, even death if they deserted in the face of the enemy.
The culprit was Adolf Hitler no more no less. Everyone was trapped in a Hypothetical Nightmare from where there was no escape. With millions of people, death and destruction , all matters and events can be traced back to this one man who held the world in the palm of his hand for a short period of time. His name was on all lips. Der Fuhrer

The English poet Robert Browning eloquently summed it up in his classic philosophical verse which is relevant to any conflict where soldiers are pitted against each other and so called statesmen like Adolf Hitler are safely barricaded away from harms way. . Another great example must have been The Earl Haig during World War One and The Kaiser. Millions died in trench warfare but the leaders were no where to be seen at the front. Saddam Hussein…….George Bush……Tony Blair are proving to this day nothing has changed. The innocent take the brunt.

The Man I Killed   - By Robert Browning 
                                            
If he and I had met by some old ancient Inn
We would have sat us down to wet right many a nipperkin
But ranged as infantry and staring face to face
I shot at him and him at me and killed him in his place
I shot him dead because…because he was my foe
Just so that’s true enough although
Funny and strange how war is                                                        
You shoot a fellow down
You’d treat where any bar is
And lend to half a crown.
 Written during the Napoleonic Wars by Robert Browning who shot a French Soldier
Adolf Hitler Contribution by Robert Kennedy Web Site Editor March 2003