A country’s success is determined by the unity of its people, together with the one who governs it. But, how can a country progress if the one that governs it is as ruthless and heartless as the devil? Here are the top ten murderers who have brought terror, violence, and death to millions of people.
1. Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong was a dictator of China from 1943-1976. A lot of Chinese died of starvation and execution. The famine that was caused by Zedong’s political and economic aspirations, which was to be a superpower country, led to 45 million deaths.
People were tortured when they were late for work or unable to finish their job. Children’s fingers were chopped off when they were caught stealing food. Zedong died of a nervous system disease in 1976.
2. Emperor Hirohito
Emperor Hirohito was the emperor of Japan from 1926 to 1989. He ordered the deaths of thousands of Chinese prisoners, raped hundreds of women, and murdered children.
They were beheaded, stabbed, impaled, or used as bayonet practice subjects. He also disemboweled, dismembered, crucified, or decapitated male prisoners. He died of cancer in 1989.
3. Jozef Stalin
Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1920 until 1953. Those who were disloyal to him died early. People were forced to work in slavery and worked to their deaths. Women were raped, families were murdered and even prisoners were sent to war, only to return and be sent back to prison again.
His governance was one of terror, violence, and destruction, and thus resulted in about 23 million dead. He died of a stroke in 1953.
4. Adolf Hitler
Hitler was Fuhrer of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. During his regime, about 17 million people died, and that included the Jews, prisoners of war, and millions of civilians, whom he and his followers called sub-humans. He believed that the Jews were a problem in Germany and that they needed to be eliminated because they are not counted as human beings. It was then that every Jew that they could find was sent to concentration camps.
They were either killed through the gas chambers, firing squads, lethal injections, crematories, starvation, poison, execution, exposure to disease, and as subjects for medical experiments. He committed suicide together with his wife Eva Braun.
5. Leopold II of Belgium
He was the king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909. He greatly believed in colonialism, which he deemed important for a country to become great. He traveled to Congo to claim a portion of it and made slaves out of its people.
The Congolese suffered so much brutality and some were killed off if they failed to bring in enough rubber. About 15 million Congolese died in his authority.
6. Hideki Tojo
Hideki Tojo was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army and became the Prime Minister from 1941-1944. He was the one responsible for attacking Pearl Harbor, which started the Japanese and United States war, which led to the bombing of Hiroshima as well.
Tojo was sentenced on November 12, 1948, and was hanged on December 23, 1948, four days later. The estimated number of people who died when he was in power was 5 million.
7. Ismael Enver Pasha
He is an Ottoman leader of the Balkan wars from 1912 to 1913. He was previously a Turkish military leader during the Young Turk Revolution. After he lost the Battle of Sarikamish, he blamed the Armenians for his failure, thus resulting in the Armenian genocides.
About 2.5 million died during that time. He was killed in action by the Soviet army when he joined the Basmaji revolt.
8. Saddam Hussein
Hussein was Iran’s dictator from 1979 to 2003. He authorized the chemical attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja, which resulted in 5,000 deaths. His victims have undergone extreme tortures such as gouging of the eyes, beatings, and electric shocks.
A total of about 2 million died because of his cruelty. Hussein died by hanging as decided by the Iraqi Special Tribunal, for all his crimes.
9. Pol Pot
He was the Prime Minister of Cambodia and brought on about 1.7 million deaths when he was in power. Pol pot’s goal was to make a new Cambodia, and this vision led him to murder almost 25 percent of the country’s population totaling to about 1.7 million people.
Thousands of people were clubbed to death and even buried alive. The elderly, pregnant women, and children were forced to work on their feet. When a worker commits a mistake, they will be flogged or shot to death.
10. Kim II Sung
Kim II Sung was the supreme leader of North Korea from 1948 to 1994. He invaded South Korea, which brought on the Korean war. He demanded that he be idolized by North Koreans and failure to do so will bring them trouble, such as imprisonment.
These prisoners were brought to concentration camps for the pettiest of faults like dropping a picture of him. He suffered from a fatal heart attack in the summer of 1994. For the record, he killed about 1.6 million people.
Their names will forever be intertwined with history’s greatest genocides. Their hands are tainted with the blood of the innocents and their souls are now in the hands of the devil.