He started a war that killed a lot of people and was known for his racism and genocide, but at the time I believe it was considered acceptable. In the century leading up to WW2 the UK had gone around the globe and conquered a fourth of the world's lands and exterminated many of the native peoples in Africa, America, India, and Australia in the process. France did similar things in Africa and the Middle East which they colonized. Belgium and their king Leopold II was well known for colonizing Congo and exterminating tens of millions of indigenous peoples. Churchill himself was a massive racist and he has been known to go on racist rants against Indians and Africans. He starved India, causing severe famine during the war by diverting all the food to Britain even though they weren't in a shortage. He used poison gas against Middle Eastern tribes against British rule, justifying it by calling them inferior and primitive tribes. Anti-Semitism has been a big thing in Europe at least since the Middle Ages when Jews were herded into pogroms, starved, harassed, beaten, and often killed. It wasn't only in Germany either; France and Britain were also often anti-Semitic and prejudice against Jews was essentially an everyday part of life. Again, Churchill himself at various occasions made anti-Semitic statements, and though he didn't act on them, it doesn't erode the fact that hating Jews was acceptable and widespread in the time. If you ask me, Hitler really didn't do anything completely radical and unthinkable by exterminating the Jews, since racism, and anti-Semitism in particular, was accepted basically worldwide until after WW2. The postwar attitude shifted dramatically to the other extreme, perhaps partially due to trying to stigmatize and prevent another war like this to happen again. Hitler's action of invading Poland and launching the war itself wasn't particularly out of the ordinary: like I said, Britain and France had, over the last hundred years, acquired huge swaths of territory around the world by launching wars of conquest. Italy had invaded Ethiopia in 1935 and Albania in 1939 (just five months before the start of WW2), yet Britain and France did not take any significant action against them. Japan invaded China in 1931 and again in 1937, and no one took action against them. The Soviet Union participated in the invasion against Poland in 1939 and later that year also invaded Finland and forced the annexations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia; yet why did the Western Allies not declare war on the Soviet Union? The truth is that the only reason Britain and France declared war on Germany after they invaded Poland is because Germany is considered a rival to them, sort of like how during the Napoleonic Wars huge coalitions were formed against revolutionary France. The Western Allies wished to cut down on Germany's power and influence, and therefore used that opportunity to declare war. If anything, I believe Hitler should be remembered more as someone like Napoleon than the evil villain he is often portrayed today; he was a brilliant politician who led Germany through the greatest economic crisis in history, the Great Depression, restored the German military to its previous might, and conquered all of Europe before being defeated by an overwhelming coalition of enemy nations, like Napoleon was before him. If Napoleon can be considered a hero to the French people, Hitler should likewise be considered a hero to the German people. Yes, he has committed some actions that are considered atrocities by today's standards, but let us keep in mind that those were the norms of the day and not forget the contribution to history he made and the lessons we learned from his brief but eventful rule. What are your thoughts on the modern day demonization of Hitler and the National Socialists overall?