Random Bizarre Obsessions of Dangerous Dictators (14 items)

• 

  (#5) Adolf Hitler

  • Dec. at 56 (1889-1945)

  Hitler had numerous obsessions, throwing himself into everything from Disney films (Snow White was a favorite, while Mickey Mouse was derided as degenerate) to lusting after young girls. But the obsession that did more to shape the Fuhrer's childhood was the western novels of hugely-popular 19th Century German writer Karl May.

  May wrote adventure stories set all over the world, from Asia to the Middle East. But he was best known for his hugely popular tales set in the American Old West, featuring the brave heroes Winnetou, a fictional Apache chief, and Old Shatterhand, Winnetou's German blood brother (who May claimed was based on himself).

  If an Austrian kid obsessing about a German's depiction of an Apache warrior's adventures in America sounds unbelievable, just listen to Hitler's own words in Mein Kampf: "The first Karl May that I read was The Ride Across the Desert. I was overwhelmed! I threw myself into him immediately which resulted in a noticeable decline in my grades."

  While May was more or less a fraud, whose purported alter ego of Old Shatterhand was a fiction (indeed, May never went west of Buffalo in America), Hitler's May obsession continued into World War II. He ordered German children to read the books, and army officers to study them in preparation to fight the Russians. He extolled Winnetou's bravery and Old Shatterhand's cunning. And even as Allied bombing made paper scarce, Hitler ordered hundreds of thousands of May books printed, even as late as 1945. Even when May's fraud was revealed, Hitler praised him, saying his imagination was boundless.

  Shockingly, May's books are STILL popular in Germany, and even had a film series made from them in the 1960s.
  
• 

  (#12) François Duvalier

  • Dec. at 64 (1907-1971)

  Haiti's former president, Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier, was a paranoid voodoo-obsessive during his 14 years in power. Voodoo was Haiti's national religion, and Duvalier essentially let it run his life. He was extremely superstitious, and believed that he was guarded by voodoo spirits on the 22nd of each month. In later years, his paranoia was so overarching that he only left the presidential palace on the 22nd of each month.

  He claimed to have placed a voodoo curse on John F. Kennedy, and said Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963 was caused by his powers. As if that wasn't enough, Papa Doc sent a flunky to collect air from around Kennedy's grave to use in his own spells.

  He had a personal guard called the Tonton Macoutes - Haitian slang for "bogeymen" - and banned any civic organization that espoused values contrary to voodoo. When told a political rival had used his own voodoo to transform into a black dog, Duvalier ordered the killing of all the black dogs in Haiti. He also claimed to have used his voodoo power to obtain secrets from a dead rebel's severed head.

  Papa Doc survived at least six assassination attempts, but died of illness in 1971.

   
• 

  (#7) Idi Amin

  • Dec. at 78 (1925-2003)

  Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's obsession with Scotland went way beyond haggis and Irvine Welsh novels. Amin first learned of the country when he had Scottish commanding officers while serving in the UK's King’s African Rifles. He was said to enjoy both Scottish dancing and whiskey, and after taking absolute power over, he still sought to link Uganda and Scotland through both colonial power and derision of England. “If you go to Scotland, you will talk to the people," Amin said in recently unveiled footage. "They will welcome you to their house. With the English, if they see a Black man they see [sic] he is monkey or dog.”

  In 1974, he kindly offered to be the new king of Scotland. Then he created a "Save Britain Fund" to take food from starving Ugandans and give it to Scotland (who didn't really need it), and in1976, hired an African-American band to march in the streets of Uganda wearing full kilt regalia and playing drums and bagpipes. However, Amin's crush wasn't returned, and in 1977, he was banned from a Commonwealth event. He threatened to invade the UK, and soldiers were stationed at Glasgow and Edinburgh airports in case the deranged dictator appeared with “at least 250 of his very formidable bodyguard.” Two years later, Amin invaded Tanzania, was deposed, and fled to Saudi Arabia.
• 

  (#14) Saddam Hussein

  • Dec. at 69 (1937-2006)

  While Saddam had the insanely lavish tastes normal to 20th century dictators, once he was captured, he became hooked on something far more commonplace: American junk food, particularly Doritos.

  The Pennsylvania National Guard troops assigned to protect the compound where Saddam was being held describe a chatty, almost fatherly figure who could eat a family size bag of Doritos in ten minutes, and would speak of and eat virtually nothing else. He did occasionally switch things up and eat Raisin Bran for breakfast. But never Fruit Loops. He's said to have hated them.
  
• 

  (#11) Kim Jong-il

  • Dec. at 70 (1941-2011)

  Before his son's cheese obsession derailed his health, Kim Jong-Il was reportedly obsessed with Hollywood films, having accumulated a collection of 30,000 movies, including every Oscar winner, as well as a good deal of porn, and boasted he'd seen them all. As a boy, the son of North Korea's founder regularly visited Pyongyang’s main film studio, then later became so besotted with an actress that he forced to leave her husband and child and later impregnated out of wedlock.

  Once on the throne, he had thousands of DVDs and tapes sent to Pyongyang in diplomatic pouches, and kept them in an air-conditioned vault. Kim was a big fan of the Friday the 13th, Godzilla and Rambo franchises, and was especially obsessed with James Bond.

  Kim was also something of a giant in North Korea's film industry, at least according to regime propaganda. He reportedly wrote, produced, or "consulted" on nearly 12,000 North Korean movies, none of which have ever been seen. And he was known for kidnapping Japanese and South Korean actresses and filmmakers - particularly South Korean legend Shin Sang-ok, who he abducted and forced to make the "socialist Godzilla" movie Pulgasari.
  
• 

  (#4) Joseph Stalin

  • Dec. at 75 (1878-1953)

  Uncle Joe had a number of obsessions, everything from "Soviet style" film and architecture to masterminding bizarre ways for his enemies to be killed (he ordered one foe to be dispatched with "an axe wrapped in a wet, quilted jacket" for example). But he also really liked defacing classical drawings of nude men with crude notes or comments.

  Some scholars claim his schoolboy sense of humor was being demonstrated in the comments he'd leave on prints  by 19th-century artists. Others believe he disdained this style of art, and found it unacceptable for Communist eyes. All of the comments were left in pen and were on sketches of men Stalin didn't know. And they ranged from simple doodles to veiled shots at enemies he'd already purged, such as one comment written on the leg of a nude man that read "Ginger bastard Radek, if he had not pissed against the wind, if he had not been angry, he would still be alive." It's almost certain that "Radek" was Karl Radek, a compatriot of Stalin who had fallen out with the dictator, and been killed in prison.

  Others were admonitions that the drawing subject masturbated too much, needed underpants, or was too thin. A few were singled out for praise, with one being called a "Soviet David." It appears from the writing style that the defacements were made in the last year's of Stalin's life, and were secret until being sold to a private collector and shown in 2009.
  

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking