Both of the History Channel ads for Hitler and Stalin imply that the horrors of World War II passively transformed these men, implying that they were as much victims of the war as the men who served under them, or the prisoners they sent to the gulags and concentration camps to die.
As I said, it’s quite possible the actual History Channel show is quite good, and far more historically accurate than its ad campaign, but as Jonah Goldberg once wrote, while people always say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover until actually reading the book, the cover is the clearest indication of its author’s intent. The same is true of an ad campaign — and shame on the executives at the History Channel for not knowing history sufficiently before signing off on these ads.
