HITLER'S LEGACY

Hitler's suicide was likened by contemporaries to a "spell" being broken. Public support for Hitler had collapsed by the time of his death and few Germans mourned his passing; Kershaw argues that most civilians and military personnel were too busy adjusting to the collapse of the country or fleeing from the fighting to take any interest. According to historian John Toland, National Socialism "burst like a bubble" without its leader.

Hitler's actions and Nazi ideology are almost universally regarded as gravely immoral; according to Kershaw, "Never in history has such ruination—physical and moral—been associated with the name of one man". Hitler's political programme brought about a world war, leaving behind a devastated and impoverished Eastern and Central Europe. Germany itself suffered wholesale destruction, characterised as Stunde Null (Zero Hour). Hitler's policies inflicted human suffering on an unprecedented scale;]according to R. J. Rummel, the Nazi regime was responsible for the democidal killing of an estimated 19.3 million civilians and prisoners of war. In addition, 28.7 million soldiers and civilians died as a result of military action in the European Theatre of World War II. The number of civilians killed during the Second World War was unprecedented in the history of warfare.Historians, philosophers, and politicians often use the word "evil" to describe the Nazi regime.Many European countries have criminalised both the promotion of Nazism and Holocaust denial.[379]

Historian Friedrich Meinecke described Hitler as "one of the great examples of the singular and incalculable power of personality in historical life".English historian Hugh Trevor-Roper saw him as "among the 'terrible simplifiers' of history, the most systematic, the most historical, the most philosophical, and yet the coarsest, cruelest, least magnanimous conqueror the world has ever known". For the historian John M. Roberts, Hitler's defeat marked the end of a phase of European history dominated by Germany.[382] In its place emerged the Cold War, a global confrontation between the Western Bloc, dominated by the United States and other NATOnations, and the Eastern Bloc, dominated by the Soviet Union. Historian Sebastian Haffnerasserts that without Hitler and the displacement of the Jews, the modern nation state of Israel would not exist. He contends that without Hitler, the de-colonisation of former European spheres of influence would have been postponed. Further, Haffner claims that other than Alexander the Great, Hitler had a more significant impact than any other comparable historical figure, in that he too caused a wide range of worldwide changes in a relatively short time span.