There are major similarities between Adolf Hitler’s 1941 invasion and intended conquest of the Soviet Union and Donald Trump’s 2026 attack and intended conquest of Iran.
Even as late as January 30, 1945, Hitler claimed that God firmly stood on the side of the Third Reich—and thus would guarantee its eventual victory.
PAST – HITLER: God the Almighty has made our nation. By defending its existence we are defending His work…Therefore, it is all the more necessary on this twelfth anniversary of the rise to power to strengthen the heart more than ever before and to steel ourselves in the holy determination to wield the sword, no matter where and under what circumstances, until final victory crowns our efforts.
Similarly, on March 22, 2026, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, hosting his monthly Christian worship service at the Pentagon, prayed:
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation. Give them wisdom in every decision, endurance for the trial ahead, unbreakable unity, and overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.
“I pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed,” he read from Psalms 18:37. “Those who hated me I destroyed. They cried to the Lord, but He did not answer them.”
On December 31, 1939—more than three months into World War 11—Hitler made clear his ultimate war aims:
PAST – HITLER: We shall only talk of peace when we have won the war. The Jewish capitalist world will not survive the twentieth century.
PRESENT – PETE HEGSETH: Iran cannot outlast us. We are going to ensure through violence of action and our offensive capabilities and our defensive capabilities, as I said, that we set the tone and the tempo of this fight.
Hitler believed that German airpower could force Great Britain to submit to his will. The Battle of Britain and The Blitz proved him wrong.
He also believed that his mechanized Panzers—which had defeated French and British armies in May-June,1940—would succeed where Napoleon’s horse-driven Grand Army had failed in 1812. The final proof of his mistake appeared on April 30, 1945, as Russian forces were almost literally knocking at his Fuhrerbunker door.
PAST – HITLER: We have only to kick in the front door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down.
Hegseth believes that American airpower can force Iran to submit to his will. But the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to world shipping (except for those nations that Iran regards as friendly or neutral). So long as this continues, Americans’ gas prices will continue to rise with no end in sight—and pose a threat to Republicans’ continued control of the House and Senate.
About 20% of the world’s total oil consumption—roughly 20-21 million barrels per day—passes through this, making it the world’s most crucial oil chokepoint.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Iran will never possess a nuclear bomb, not on our watch, not ever. And this is why President Trump’s moral clarity on Iran today is so vital. Unlike the past, where vague red lines and endless negotiations let Iran fund terror and inch ever so slightly toward a bomb, this president sees the threat plainly and acts decisively, no more half measures, especially when Iran is at its weakest. No more letting Tehran play for time while our people pay the price.
PAST – HITLER: Russia is already broken and will never rise again.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: Iran’s senior leaders are dead, the so-called governing council that might have selected a successor, dead, missing or cowering in bunkers, too terrified to even occupy the same room. Senior generals, mid-level officers, enlisted ranks, they can’t talk or communicate, let alone mount a coordinated and sustained offensive. That’s not great for morale.
PAST – HITLER: Moscow must disappear from the earth’s surface as soon as its riches have been brought to shelter.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: The enemy can no longer shoot the volume of missiles they once did, not even close, and the chairman will lay out some of those percentages. So, our air defenses and that of our allies have plenty of runway. We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to. And as I said yesterday, we set the terms.
PAST – HITLER: Today I am at the head of the strongest Army in the world, the most gigantic Air Force and of a proud Navy. Behind and around me stands the Party with which I became great and which has become great through me. Our enemies must not deceive themselves—in the 2,000 years of German history known to us, our people have never been more united than today.
PRESENT – HEGSETH: And we know their ability to shoot versus our ability to defend. That difference gets wider and wider every day. Our defense gets better. Their offense capabilities diminish as we are going into ammunitions that we, as we said, have tens of thousands of and can drop unlimited supplies on, with even more effects than the stand-off munitions we have now, which is why, when we say the throttle’s going up, the throttle’s going up. And it’s going to stay on high.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AFFORDABLE CARE ACT (ACA), ALTERNET, AMERICABLOG, AP, AUSTRIA, BABY BOOMER RESISTANCE, BBC, BELGIUM, BLOOMBERG, BLUESKY, BUZZFEED, CBS NEWS, CHINA, CNN, CONSPIRACIES, CROOKS AND LIARS, CUBA, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, DAILY KOS, DONALD TRUMP, FBI, FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN, FIDEL CASTRO, FIVETHIRTYEIGHT, FRANCE, FRANCISCO FRANCO, GAIUS CALIGULA, GAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS, GREECE, HARPER’S MAGAZINE, HOLLAND, HOLOCAUST, HUFFINGTON POST, IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (ICE), JANUARY 6 COUP ATTEMPT, JIMMY KIMMEL, JOSEPH STALIN, KFC, LAVRENTI BERIA, LEON TROTSKY, LETITIA JAMES, MACDONALD’S, MAO ZEDONG, MEDIA MATTERS, MOTHER JONES, MOVEON, MSNBC, NAZI GERMANY, NBC NEWS, NEWSDAY, NEWSWEEK, NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV, NORWAY, NPR, NSA, PAUL VON HINDENBURG, PBS NEWSHOUR, POLITBURO, POLITICO, POLITICUSUSA, RAW STORY, REPUBLICANS, REUTERS, ROBERT PAYNE, SALON, SEATTLE TIMES, SLATE, SOVIET UNION, SPAIN, TALKING POINTS MEMO, THE ATLANTIC, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE DAILY BEAST, THE DAILY BLOG, THE DAILY KOS, THE DISCOURSES ON LIVY (BOOK), THE GUARDIAN, THE HILL, THE HUFFINGTON POST, THE INTERCEPT, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NATION, THE NEW REPUBLIC, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE NEW YORKER, THE RISE AND FALL OF STALIN (BOOK), THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE WASHINGTON POST, THINKPROGRESS, TIME, TRUTHDIG, TRUTHOUT, TWO POLITICAL JUNKIES, U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT, UNITED STATES, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, UPI, USA TODAY, Vladimir Lenin, VYACHESLAV MOLOTOV, WORLD WAR 1, WORLD WAR 11, X, YUGOSLAVIA
THREE WAYS A TYRANT CAN LOSE POWER: PART ONE (OF TWO)
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 10, 2026 at 12:16 amA dictator can die of illness or old age. That’s what happened to Francisco Franco (Spain), Mao Zedong (China) and Fidel Castro (Cuba).
But there are other ways a tyrant can be forced to give up power—such as the following three.
Death by Bodyguards
First up: Gaius Caligula, the “Mad Emperor” of Imperial Rome.
Caligula’s reign spanned March 18, 37 A.D. to January 24, 41 A.D.—four years.
Gaius Caligula
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
He became Emperor in 37 A.D. after succeeding the Emperor Tiberius, his uncle who had adopted him as a son after his father died.
Caligula’s reign began well—and popularly. He gave Tiberius a magnificent funeral—then recalled to Rome all those whom Tiberius had banished, and ignored all charges that Tiberius had leveled against them.
He gave bonuses to the military and allowed the magistrates unrestricted jurisdiction, without appeal to himself.
But in October 37 A.D. he fell seriously ill or perhaps was poisoned.
Caligula soon recovered but emerged a changed man. He began claiming to be a god, and killing or exiling anyone he saw as a threat. He ordered his victims tortured to death with many slight wounds: “Strike so that he may feel that he is dying.”
Among his litany of crimes, according to his biographer, Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus:
“He forced parents to attend the executions of their sons, sending a litter for one man who pleaded ill health, and inviting another to dinner immediately after witnessing the death, and trying to rouse him to gaiety and jesting by a great show of affability.”
For all his cruelty and egomania, the trait that finally destroyed Caligula was his joy in humiliating others.
His fatal mistake was to taunt Cassius Chaerea, a member of his own bodyguard. Caligula considered Chaerea effeminate because of a weak voice and mocked him with names like “Priapus” and “Venus.”
On January 22 41 A.D. Chaerea and several other bodyguards hacked Caligula to death with swords before other guards could save him.
Death by Suicide
Next up: Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from January 30, 1933, to April 30, 1945—12 years.
He was born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn in Austria-Hungary.
Adolf Hitler
He was appointed Chancellor—chief law enforcement officer—of Germany on January 30, 1933, by President Paul von Hindenburg. Upon Hindenburg’s death in 1934, Hitler assumed the Presidency and established himself as absolute dictator.
From 1933 to 1939 he presided over Germany’s rapid economic recovery from the Great Depression, the defiance of restrictions imposed on Germany after World War 1, and the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, where millions of ethnic Germans lived.
These accomplishments won him widespread popular support.
But after absorbing Czechoslovakia in 1938, Hitler felt himself invincible. On September 1, 1939, his armies attacked Poland—and unintentionally ignited World War II.
After conquering Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece and Yugoslavia, he made his two greatest mistakes of the war: He invaded the far more powerful Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, and declared war on the equally more powerful United States on December 11.
Parallel to unleashing a war that slaughtered 50 million people, Hitler orchestrated the extermination of at least six million Jews during the Holocaust.
By April, 1945, Germany faced destruction from the advancing Russians on the East, and from the advancing Americans on the West.
On April 30, with Russian forces only blocks from his underground bunker, Hitler lifted a heavy 7.65mm Walther PPK pistol to his right temple, bit on a cyanide capsule, and pulled the trigger.
Just as Caligula’s mangled remains were hastily burned and buried in the Horti Lamiani gardens, Hitler’s body was hastily cremated in the Reich Chancellery garden.
Last up: Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from January 21, 1924, to March 5, 1953—29 years.
Born on December 18, 1878, in Georgia, Russia, he hated Czarist rule and in 1903 joined the Communist Bolsheviks party, led by Vladimir Lenin, to overthrow it.
Joseph Stalin
On November 7, 1917, Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government, which had taken power in February, after Czarist rule collapsed.
Stalin became a member of the new Soviet government, gradually working his way to the position of General Secretary. When Lenin died on January 21, 1924, Stalin outmaneuvered Leon Trotsky, his major rival for the succession, and became absolute dictator.
Starting in 1934, a series of massive purges followed—most notably between August, 1936, and March, 1938.
Throughout his nearly 30-year reign over the Soviet Union, at least 20 million men, women and children died—from executions, deportations, imprisonment in Gulag camps, and a man-made famine through the forced collection of harvests.
Robert Payne, the acclaimed British historian, vividly portrayed the crimes of this murderous tyrant in his brilliant 1965 biography, The Rise and Fall of Stalin.
According to Payne, Stalin was planning yet another purge during the last weeks of his life. This would be “a holocaust greater than any he had planned before.
“This time there would be a chistka [purge] to end all chistkas, a purging of the entire body of the state from top to bottom. No one, not even the highest officials, was to be spared.”
Yet Stalin did nothing to calm their fears. He often summoned his “comrades” to the Kremlin for late-night drinking bouts, where he freely humiliated them.
Share this: