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Who Was The Most Important AXIS Leader?

Who was the most imporntant AXIS leader in the 1940s?

  • Benito Mussolini

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Ion Antonescu

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Philippe Pétain

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Bảo Đại

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Ugo Cavallero

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Joseph Goebbels

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    20

Burning Giraffe

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Who Was The Most Important AXIS Leader in the 1940s? Which man played the most significant role in the War and in shaping the future of Authoritarian Regimes?
 
Who Was The Most Important AXIS Leader in the 1940s? Which man played the most significant role in the War and in shaping the future of Authoritarian Regimes?
IMHO, the Greatest Axis Leader(s) would be the junior/field officers within the Wehrmacht, that did so well against to many, with so little.

But, if the question is "Which man played the most significant role in the War..."
Hitler. Hands down.
 
IMHO, the Greatest Axis Leader(s) would be the junior/field officers within the Wehrmacht, that did so well against to many, with so little.

But, if the question is "Which man played the most significant role in the War..."
Hitler. Hands down.

Hitler was a brilliant domestic politician, just like FDR and Stalin. He had invigorated the public, obfuscated his policies, and moved forward quickly and without hesitation. Only Churchhill acted cautiously and prudently, only, the public wasn't really behind him at first. He had to deal with those loyal to Chamberlain.
 
Hitler was a brilliant domestic politician, just like FDR and Stalin. He had invigorated the public, obfuscated his policies, and moved forward quickly and without hesitation. Only Churchhill acted cautiously and prudently, only, the public wasn't really behind him at first. He had to deal with those loyal to Chamberlain.
I looked more at the pert of the question I quoted.
WW2 in Europe came about out of little more than Hitler's will to go to war -- there was no greater driving force than he.
 
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The most important? Thats tough. You can never downplay Hitler's significance, but it was Hirohito who eventually woke the sleeping giant, and I think thats pretty important. Without it, do we even get inlvolved in WWII until the Axis powers hold all of Europe? However, the Japanese empire chose to attack Pearl Harbor, after we placed an embargo on them when they joined the Axis powers. I am not really aware of the Germanic/Japanese relationship in WWII and how it related the joining with the Axis. If Hitler persuaded the Japanese to join the Axis powers, I'd clearly give him the edge then. But the atrocities the Japanese rent across the Pacific they had conquered were no less gruesome than what the Germans did. People forget that...
 
Based on the list, I had to go Hirahito, who really was brilliant except for one big mistake. If the Japanese had not bombed Pearl harbor, things would be a whole lot different today I suspect. We would have come into the war eventually, but Japan might have ended up with a good negotiating position with a large portion of Asia.

I would also kinda collectively vote for the young german tank officers, who read Liddell Hart's books on tank warfare, learned it, and used it to incredible advantage. I find it painfully ironic that the germans learned more from a british man than the british did.
 
Based on the list, I had to go Hirahito, who really was brilliant except for one big mistake. If the Japanese had not bombed Pearl harbor, things would be a whole lot different today I suspect. We would have come into the war eventually, but Japan might have ended up with a good negotiating position with a large portion of Asia.

A big mistake for the Japanese was to not bomb the oil tanks in Pearl Harbor.
 
I would have to go with Himmler, hands down. When you look at the history of events in WW2, you see that Himmler was constantly there feeding into Hitler's insanity. Himmler was responsible for a lot of the archetypal imagery and mythology that went into fueling the furor of the SS, etc.

Hitler was a great orator and drving political force but I have always viewed Himmler as the main architect of the more extreme intricacies of the Nazi party.
 
Who Was The Most Important AXIS Leader in the 1940s? Which man played the most significant role in the War and in shaping the future of Authoritarian Regimes?

Himmler was the fist behind Hitler, and without hime the Reich would have fallen very quickly. I think Himmler guided Hitler on what policies to enact, and once given the ok was quick to move.
 
Although I think that Himmler was the driving force behind a lot of what the Nazi's did, without Hitler's oratory and propaganda skills, none of it would have happened. Hitler by two lengths.
 
I refuse to give the likes of Hitler ANY credit for Anything and find it disgusting that anybody else would!
 
I refuse to give the likes of Hitler ANY credit for Anything and find it disgusting that anybody else would!
If you don't give him credit for the Holocaust, where does that leave all the victims?
 
A big mistake for the Japanese was to not bomb the oil tanks in Pearl Harbor.

I don't want to hijack this thread, but you've commented on something that's been on my mind recently.

I just finished re-reading "At Dawn We Slept" by Gordon Prange about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor - the planning, execution, and aftermath. What I can't understand is this...

Japan was running low on oil supplies after the United States embargo in 1940. Japan knew that if it didn't make a move to seize the oilfields in Borneo by early 1942, they wouldn't have enough oil for the Japanese Navy to operate its ships.

How then did someone, anyone, on the planning staff for the attack not look at Hawaii and Pearl Harbor, and think "Hmmm... there aren't any oilfields in Hawaii, and if we were to destroy the American Navy's fuel supply, they'd have to go back to the west coast of America to fuel. We'd then have control of the entire Pacific!!"

As thorough and methodical as Japan was in planning the attack, it just amazes me that they overlooked the oil supplies at Pearl.
 
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