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Both Hitler and Stalin ran regimes of personality; both nations were driven by the charismatic leadership that each provided. A kind of leader worship developed in both countries (Bering, 2005). Hitler and Stalin each became something of demigods to their people, a fact that only helped reinforce their control and allowed citizens to justify the use of terrorism against dissidents. It would have simply seemed that the "troublemakers" were getting what they deserved for daring to defy their seemingly infallible leaders.
Also of note, both Hitler and Stalin came from similar backgrounds, though their eventual methods would differ somewhat. Both came from deprived backgrounds. Both had enormous chips on their shoulders. Both were possessed of an over-inflated sense of destiny that fueled their political ambitions (Bering, 2005). Because Hitler and Stalin were both moral absolutists who saw themselves as the embodiments of their people and their nations, they felt it was justifiable to use terrorism to enforce their regimes. It was a kind of medicine that could be used to excise unwanted aspects of their countries. The Jews were a kind of cancer to Hitler, in much the same way that the Kulaks were for Stalin. In either case, the mechanism of terror was turned against these groups in order to seemingly maintain the health of the nation (Bering,...
For both Stalin and Hitler, the threat of individual dissent was too strong to be left for chance in their idealized vision of the state. Hitler imagined an Aryan utopia populated only by a superior race of Germans; Stalin pursued the vision of a communist fantasy in which the workers of the world would control all of the means of production (under Stalin's careful purview). In both cases, these leaders used terrorism to control the nation and protect their base of power. Potential threats were dealt with through secretive means like the Gestapo or SS, or else in more public ways like deportation to concentration camps or gulags. In either eventuality, the mechanism of terror helped the two dictators hold onto power in Germany and the Soviet Union and facilitate some of the most atrocious crimes against humanity that history was yet witnessed.
References
Bering, H. (2005, April 25). Brothers under the skin. The Weekly Standard, pp. 37-38.
Nagorski, a. (2005, May 30). The other monster; a cascade of new books examines Stalin and his terror. Newsweek International, pp. 65.
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