por Many of the famous psychopaths that we will name below have been leaders of the masses. Psychopathy is one of the personality disorders that most attracts people’s attention.
There are many movies and several television series that feature these characters, such as The silence of the lambs, Dexter or The following. However, these people are not that rare. It is believed that more than 1% of the population are psychopaths and that up to 4% of political and business leaders are.
Already from childhood they show the typical personality traits of psychopathy – which should not be confused with sociopathy.
List of famous psychopaths throughout history
1.Adolf Hitler
He was the creator of Nazism, the chancellor of Germany from 1933 and fuehrer (caudillo) from 1934 until his death in 1945. World War II began by invading Poland.
By the time the war ended, millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists, and other groups had died in the Holocaust. More than 5,000,000 Jews were murdered: some 3,000,000 in extermination centers and labor camps, 1,400,000 in mass shootings, and more than 600,000 in the ghettos (it is estimated that the number of victims was almost 6,000,000).
By the end of the war, Hitler’s violent policies of territorial conquest and racial subjugation had killed between 55 and 60 million people (about 2% of the world’s population at the time), mostly civilians, as well as a considerable degree of destruction of European cities.
What is little known is that Hitler probably did not give a direct order to exterminate the Jews, although he did know what was being done. According to Wikipedia:
“Your role in this regard is less obvious than it may appear at first glance. Historians have not reached any clear agreement regarding the degree of direct intervention by Hitler in directing the policy of extermination, which includes the debate as to whether there was an order on his part.
However, his statements justifying the genocide are certain, especially concentrated during the first months of 1942, and with direct references that demonstrate his knowledge of it.
2. Erzsébet Báthory, the Bloody Countess
She was a Hungarian aristocrat, belonging to one of the most powerful families in her country.
She holds the Guinness record for the woman who has murdered the most in human history, with 630 deaths. Obsessed with beauty and maintaining youth, she used the blood of her young servants and pupils to stay young.
Between 1604 and 1610, Erzsébet’s agents dedicated themselves to providing her with young people between the ages of 9 and 16 for her bloody rituals.
He used an instrument of torture called «iron maiden», which was a kind of sarcophagus that reflected the silhouette of a woman and had sharp spikes inside. This contraption was opened to introduce the victim and then lock her up so that the spikes were embedded in her body.
3. Joseph Mengele
He is infamous for selecting the victims to be executed in the gas chambers and for his frequently deadly scientific experiments on prisoners.
According to a prisoner doctor in Auschwitz:
He was able to be very nice to children so that they would love him, he gave them sugar, he thought about the daily details of their lives and he did things that we would really like to admire… And then the smoke from the crematoriums and, the next day or half an hour later, those children were sent there.
4. Jack the Ripper
He was a serial killer of unknown identity who committed several crimes in 1888, mainly in the Whitechapel district of London.
According to Thomas Bond, the doctor who investigated the bodies of the victims:
“The killer, in his outward appearance, is most likely harmless-looking. A well-groomed, middle-aged man with a respectable air. He may have the habit of wearing a cloak or coat because if not, the blood on his hands and clothes would have caught the attention of passers-by.
His victims were prostitutes, whom he killed and removed their sexual organs. His crimes were never solved.
5. Joseph Stalin
He was Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union from May 6, 1941 until March 5, 1953, when he died.
It is estimated that a minimum of around 10 million deaths—4 million due to repression and 6 million due to hunger—are attributable to his repressive regime.
From a young age, he showed a rigid, cold, calculating personality and reluctant to show his emotions. He demonstrated, throughout his life, an almost total lack of affection and emotional detachment to those who considered themselves to be his inner circle, even though he seemed trustworthy outwardly.
He was paranoid and saw enemies in everyone. He committed terrible abuses against the Russian and Soviet population.
6. Ivan the Terrible
He was the first Russian king to bear the title of tsar (since 1547) and is considered one of the creators of the Russian state.
According to Polish non-biased writers, he bragged about having deflowered more than 1,000 virgins and subsequently murdering the resulting children, thus showing his disturbance.
In a fit of rage, on November 16, 1580, he struck his eldest son to death with his cane.
He further killed several of his enemies and friends, which made Ivan even more psychopathic.
7. The Zodiac Killer
He was a serial killer who stalked Northern California between December 1968 and October 1969. In a letter purportedly from him, he confessed to the murder of 37 victims, although the only confirmed ones were four men and three women.
Zodiac was estimated to be between 20 and 30 years old at the time of his crimes; that he was white, stout, brown-haired, with knowledge of encrypted languages and great intelligence.
8. Henry VIII
He was King of England and Lord of Ireland from April 22, 1509 until his death.
The harsh and tyrannical character of this monarch, especially in his last days, was not an obstacle to counting on the loyalty and affection of his people.
He was also known for chopping off heads. He was married 6 times and cut off the heads of two of his wives.
9.Charles Manson
He was a well-known American criminal, mastermind of several homicides, including the gruesome murder of actress Sharon Tate (wife of film director Román Polanski) and her guests at her Beverly Hills residence on August 9, 1969.
The following night, Manson entered the home of businessman Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary on the outskirts of Los Angeles. After assuring them that he would not harm them, he tied them up and let in Tex, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten, who killed the couple by stabbing them.
He psychologically dominated a group of young people, who were called «Family», and they were the ones who committed the murders.
10. Mao Zedong
He was the top leader of the Communist Party of China (CCP) and the People’s Republic of China, from 1949 to 1976.
It is estimated that no less than 30 million people died of starvation due to his policies. Researchers Chang and Halliday (2006) consider Mao a tyrannical dictator, who would have been directly responsible for the death of more than 70 million Chinese.
11.Ted Bundy
Ted Bundy was one of the best known and most prolific American serial killers. He confessed to the murder of 36 people, but the police believe there are more. He was charming and handsome, which made it easy for victims to trust him. It took years to catch him, because his image did not correspond to that of a brutal murderer.
12. Albert DeSalvo, the Boston Strangler
From an early age he tortured animals (one of the most relevant signs of psychopathy). They called him the Strangler because he strangled women. He was misogynistic (he hated the female figure) and that’s why he killed them. He murdered at least 13 women. He died in jail, stabbed, in 1973.
13. Prince Vlad the Impaler
Bram Stoker, the author of dracula, was based on this 15th century ruler of Transylvania (Romania), who fought against the Ottomans. He was extremely bloodthirsty and brutal. To set an example, he impaled his enemies alive and left them to die a slow and painful death. It is estimated that he impaled around 20,000 people, and murdered more than 80,000.