I couldn’t decide who my history crush is so I made a little collage. These people aren’t my history crushes because I’m secretly in love with them or because I support their world view. No, they’re just people who I’m interested in and I’m mature enough to be critical of their biographies. Stalin, a dictator who supported the murderer of 20 Million people from his own country, was a BAMF when he was young, but that doesn’t mean that I support the Stalinism. I like the design of the Wehrmacht uniform, but I’m totally aware about the war crimes the German soldiers committed while WWII (same goes for the SS). The person on the picture is Stauffenberg. At least he tried to kill Hitler, one year till the ‘party’ was finally over. I think Richelieu is a really interesting personality, although I think that the Siege of La Rochelle was a crime against humanity. Friedrich II. (HRR) is one of my favorite personalities in history. He was educated, intelligent and very calculating. On the one side he was tolerant and had no problems with ‘talking’ with the Arabs, but on the other side he was a huge supporter of the early inquisition. And Napoleon… well, we all know how he tried to bring the ideals of the French Revolution to Europe. Thousands of soldiers and civilians had to pay with their lives. Friedrich Schiller. Okay, he doesn’t kill somebody and never committed a real crime; he was an author to whom I have a little hate-love relationship. And Rousseau was a BAMF, an intelligent BAMF! And who’s left… ah yes, dear Emperor Caligula. Current historians revise his biography and try to separate between facts and myths/negative propaganda. We will see the results, but at the moment most people might know Caligula as one of the cruelest Emperors of Rome and yet he’s just fascinating.

TL;DR. Most of my ‘history crushes’ are people who were reckless, cruel and committed some awful crimes against humanity, but they also created whole empires and made indeed history. History is war and death, and everybody who can’t deal with that shouldn’t study it. And if people think that Goebbels or even Hitler are their ‘history crushes’, than it shall be. But I can’t understand why so many people make such a fuss about a Nazi crush, but don’t care so much when Stalin, Mao (who killed more people than Hitler) or any other crazy dictator is posted. And if a person is really in love with Goebbels, that person has another problem than haters on Tumblr. Fascination doesn’t necessarily equal admiration. And to have a history crush doesn’t mean that you support their world view. Try to see the difference.