THE 10 MOST FAMOUS PSYCHOPATHS IN HISTORY - ARTE - 2025

Many of the famous psychopaths I will name below have been mass leaders. Psychopathy is one of the personality disorders that most attracts people's attention.

There are many movies and several television series that show 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.

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

Adolf hitler

It was the precursor of Nazism and World War II.

By the time the war ended millions of Jews, Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists, and other groups had perished in the Holocaust. More than 5,000,000 Jews were killed: some 3,000,000 in extermination centers and labor camps, 1,400,000 in mass shootings, and more than 600,000 in the ghettos (the number of victims is estimated to be 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.

Something that 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:

'Their role in this is less obvious than it may seem at first glance. Historians have not reached any clear agreement regarding the degree of direct intervention by Hitler to direct the extermination policy, which includes the debate as to whether there was an order on his part.

Other hypotheses in this regard have pointed to January 1941 as the date for a Hitler decision to exterminate the Jews (Richard Breitman); to August 1941, just when the declaration of the Atlantic Charter signed by Roosevelt and Churchill was known

However, his statements justifying the genocide are safe, especially concentrated during the first months of 1942, and with direct references that demonstrate his knowledge of it.

In my opinion, Hitler was the flame that lit the fuse of a hate bomb. Without him, everything that happened probably would not have happened, although all the generals and soldiers who followed him could have decided not to. One more example of the importance of not following the herd and avoiding groupthink.

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 were dedicated to providing her with youths between 9 and 16 years old for their bloody rituals.

He used an instrument of torture called an "iron maiden", which was a kind of sarcophagus that reflected the silhouette of a woman and that inside had sharp spikes. This contraption was opened to introduce the victim and then lock her up so that the spikes were embedded in her body.

3-Josef Mengele

He is infamous for targeting victims to be executed in gas chambers and for his scientifically experienced and often deadly prisoners.

According to a prisoner at Auschwitz:

She was able to be very kind to children so that they would care for her, gave them sugar, thought about the everyday details of their lives and 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, respectable-looking middle-aged man. You may have the habit of wearing a cape or coat because if not, the blood on your hands and clothes would have attracted the attention of passers-by.

5-Joseph Stalin

He was president of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union from May 6, 1941 to March 5, 1953.

It is estimated that a minimum of around 10 million deaths - 4 million from repression and 6 from hunger - are attributable to his repressive regime.

From a young age, he showed a rigid, cold, calculating personality and reluctant to show his emotions. Throughout his life, he demonstrated an almost total lack of affection and emotional detachment from those who considered themselves to be in his inner circle, although in his external sense he seemed reliable.

6-Ivan the terrible

He was the first to bear the title of tsar (since 1547) and is considered one of the creators of the Russian state.

According to non-impartial Polish writers, he boasted of having deflowered more than 1000 virgins and subsequently murdering the resulting children, thus showing his disturbance.

In a fit of rage, on November 16, 1580, he fatally beat his eldest son with his cane.

He also 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 supposedly from him he confessed to the murder of 37 victims, although the only confirmed victims were four men and three women.

The Zodiac was estimated to be between 20 and 30 years old at the time of his crimes; that he was white, portly, with brown hair, that he had knowledge of cipher languages ​​and possessed great intelligence.

8-Henry VIII

He was King of England and Lord of Ireland from April 22, 1509 until his death.

The tough and tyrannical character of this monarch, especially in his later times, was not an obstacle to having the loyalty and affection of his people.

He was also known for cutting off heads. He was married 6 times and cut off the heads of two of his wives.

9-Charles Manson

He is a well-known American criminal who perpetrated several murders, including the macabre murder of Sharon Tate (Roman Polanski's wife) and her guests at his Beverly Hills residence on August 9, 1969.

The following night, Manson entered the home of businessman Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary outside of Los Angeles. After assuring them that he would not harm them, he tied them up and let Tex, Patricia Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten in, who killed the couple by stabbing them.

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 deaths of more than 70 million Chinese.