Hitler was not worse than Leopold II. Hitler was twice the monster he was. On April 9, 1835, exactly 183 years ago, Belgian King Leopold II was born. He was a monster who was bigoted, xenophobic, and a pedophile. He was a worse sadistically racist genocidal madman than Adolf Hitler ever was
"true hells-on-earth" by Professor Jean Stengers, a prolific writer on that era from Belgium. In King Leopold's Soliloquy, Mark Twain mocked the Belgian king in a satirical manner.
The Crime of The Congo was written in 1909 by Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle to highlight Leopold's savagery as a crime against humanity. Apocalypse Now, starring Marlon Brando, was based on Joseph Conrad's 1902 novel Heart of Darkness, a fictional but true portrayal of Leopold's brutal rule.
However, Roger Casement, an Irish nationalist and Easter Rising commander who (surprise) drafted Britain's official paper exposing Leopold's evil in the Congo, delivered the strongest rebuke.
This 1903 paper, named The Casement Report, goes into graphic detail. It's both important to read and unsettling.
Leopold was undoubtedly the main monster, but he had a number of demon lieutenants, each of whose sadism was horrifying. Among them were Leon Fievez, also known as "
The Head Collector," who frequently boasted of having "a hundred heads cut off," Rene de Permentier, also known as "The Butcher of Congo," and Leon Rom, also known as "The Devil." Leopold and his demons weren't the only ones engaging in wickedness. At the Berlin Conference in 1884–1885,
where greedy European powers divided up Africa like a pie, they were made possible by the active backing of 14 European countries, together with the United States.
Gennaro Rubino, an Italian anarchist, tried to kill Leopold on November 15, 1902, but damn it, he couldn't shoot straight and missed all three shots. The Italian anarchist passed away in a Belgian prison on March 14, 1918