Many people wish they were born into a wealthy family, perhaps, this is due to the comfortable lifestyle which wealthy families are believed to give. However, imagine being born to one of the wealthiest but vilest and most feared dictators in the world, people like Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Gadaffi.
Though they may be tagged the richest dictators, the children of some of these historic “power-hungry war machines” have been bedevilled by the sins of their fathers. No matter how much good of a job they do, the world hates them all the more even though they had to put up with their enraged, violent and evil dads.
These 23 Heart-rending Stories Gives A Glimpse Of What It’s Like To Grow Under The Care of The Richest But Evilest Dictators To Ever Live.
Uday Hussein (Saddam Hussein)
The notorious Saddam Hussein gathered a terrible reputation before his death as one of the richest and most wicked dictators in the world. No wonder when his execution made the headlines, many heaved a sigh of relief.
Saddam’s eldest son, Uday Hussein was spoiled since he was to take over after his father’s rule. However, Uday survived an assassination attempt, suffering grievous injuries. As a result, his younger brother in the order of hierarchy quickly ascended into the seat. But as a child, Uday was a sadistic soul and he ensured that he dished out as much bitterness to Iraqi nationals as possible.
He was linked to many gruesome crimes like killings, torture, and rape. His outrageous behaviour was also manifested in his personal life where he had a reputation for ordering any girl or woman who draws his eyes to be brought to his private pleasure room.
Uday turned a killer, killing people over trivial issues. He slaughtered his father’s personal taster and valet over a small argument that didn’t build into dispute. He also shot one of his uncles in the leg. Following the murder, shootings, and other immoderate behaviors, Uday was seen by many people all over the world as a monster.
But his brutality finally caught up with him in 2003 when the US hit Iraq. He was killed after a three-hour firefight at the age of 39
Kim Jong Un (Kim Jong II)
North Korea’s supreme leadership was passed down to Kim Jong-un when he had very little political or military professionalism to his name. His father, Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s “Dear Leader”, was in the process of training him into becoming his successor when he passed on 17 December 2011. But the “like father like son” saying seems to hold strongly for Kim in taking over his father’s seat.
After his father’s death from a severe heart attack at age 82, Kim ordered the elimination of military officials that had been taking orders from his father’s rule. In the next eleven months, the entire North Korean senate of elected officials had either been sacked or mysteriously vanished.
Initially, Un wasn’t even supposed to take over his father’s rule; his brother, Kim Jong Nam, was the family’s favourite until he was caught trying to enter Japan with an invalid passport to have a feel of Disneyland. He seemingly could not let the evil around deprive him of enjoying Mickey Mouse.
Mutassim Gaddafi (Muammar Gaddafi)
Mutassim Gaddafi was a Libyan Army officer and the National Security Advisor of Libya from 2008-2011.
Beget by one of the richest dictators that ever lived, Mutassim was tailored to be his father’s spokesperson starting from a very young age. Later, he upped his role and began speaking for the people of Libya as he was appointed the international diplomat, representing the Libyan people.
Mutassim was more decent than the rest since he had constraints towards rape and torture even though he was born in a circle where those crimes were common.
Hillary Clinton and John McCain described Mutassim as a well-mannered though a forward man who really appeared keen about his plans to improve the quality of the Libyan people. But anti-Muammar rebels thought otherwise. The rebels who disapproved of his father’s manner of leadership raided his father’s home in Sirte, when Libyan civil war escalated, and murdered him along with his father after holding him in captivity.
Edda Mussolini (Benito Mussolini)
Edda Mussolini is the eldest child of one of the richest dictators in history – Benito Mussolini, Italy’s undemocratic dictator from 1922 to 1943. She, out of love, got married to a political advocate who spoke against fascists and autocrats. But the family tie didn’t go well when Edda’s husband made Benito’s leadership the headline. He arrested the activist for treason and doled out capital punishment to him. After Edda’s husband faced a brutal execution, Edda was traumatised. She had pleaded with her father to forgive her husband and vowed to hate him for life if he went on with the killing. To her utmost shock, the execution came through a few days later.
In a frenzy of agitation, Edda rebelled against her father, moving to Sweden where she started sleeping with communist leaders while criticizing her father’s regime. While fleeing from her father, Edda stowed away the Count’s wartime diaries that later served as a historical source for the situation in Italy during the fascist period. Her father, Benito continued with fascism until a group of Italian partisans murdered him in April 1945.
Yakov Dzhugashvili (Joseph Stalin)
Joseph Stalin was the decision maker of Soviet Union from the mid-1920s. He ruled and dictated for the country until his death in 1953. He was undoubtedly one of the richest dictators that ever lived. However, his meanness turned him into a beast and probably the most wicked husband and father to ever walk the earth. Not only was he a violent alcoholic, he forced people around him to drink too. He was also a batterer and got his wife to put up with him by assaulting her. He later gunned her dead after a slight disagreement.
Upon realizing that she was dead, Stalin tried to force some doctors into endorsing a certificate that alleged she died from appendicitis. But to save their integrity, the doctors declined the offer, only to get another offer they couldn’t refuse; bullets. More appendicitis victims flooded the room afterward!
In the same vein, Stalin’s Son, Yakov, walked in his shoes. He wedded his wife, Yulia, by simply arranging for her to be divorced from her husband and to be married to him. Stalin was not even nice to his own son who he referred to as “cobbler”. On that note, Yakov tried to take his own life by shooting himself after his father disapproved of his engagement, but he survived. When Joseph learned of his son’s attempt to kill himself, he threw jibes at him and said he couldn’t even shoot straight. Yakov served as an artillery officer during the Second World War and was later seized by the German forces. Even though he faced intense torture in the hands of his captors, his father refused to negotiate for his release, stating that his son was no different from any other soldier. Yakov later scored a success at killing himself the second time after he intentionally ran into a powered fence at the POW camp he was held in.
Feodor I of Russia (Ivan IV Vasliyevich)
Imagine the terrible childhood, you would have had if your dad was nicknamed “Ivan the Terrible.” Ivan was a Russian Tsar, who was very bloodthirsty. He derived joy in watching people get pushed from some height.
By number, Ivan perhaps didn’t crush more people than other evilest leaders on the list. For all that which he lacks in quantity, he makes up for in quality. The extent of his heartlessness stretched to an extent that he constructed a personal attachment to torturing and murdering people. The part he liked most was listening to the sound that comes when his workers pull ribs out of people’s body with a hot metal rod used in prodding and stirring open fire while he had a good time playing a game of chess.
On the other hand, Feodor wasn’t evil. He was crowned the leader even though he suffered a loss of mental faculty. The country’s affairs were run through the help of people around him who did most of the tasks due to his condition. Feodor had no children and after his death, Rurikid dynasty ended since Ivan accidentally killed his eldest son out of anger.
Mihnea cel Rau (Vlad III Dracula)
Mihnea cel Rau was the son of the Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler (whose thirst for blood was insatiable). He even inspired the production of Dracula, an iconic bloodthirsty vampiric character. Vlad had a crazy hobby which was to watch people die. The most preferred way he liked to kill people was to hang people on top of dull poles and enjoy the sight as gravity kill them over the next day. Mihnea tried to be as evil as his father and attempted to continue his father’s leadership. However, though he could easily pass as one of the richest dictators to walk the earth, he was unavoidably overthrown by the Ottoman Empire.
Princess Stephanie, daughter of Leopold II of Belgium
Leopold II of Belgium enslaved and murdered people of Congo, killing up to 50 percent (around 11 million) of the country’s nationals.
Fiercley murderous and pitiless, he ensured the dead were also useful through cannibalism. Within his family, Leopold also had no regard for his three female children. Princess Stephanie, one of his daughters had a very rough adult life. But later had to live a fairly normal life by fleeing to cohabit with various royalties. She, from numerous cohabitations, piled up fortunes for herself. She continued to shack up with men until she settled with a low-ranking Count and was stripped of royal grace.
Ogedei Khan (Genghis Khan)
Arguably the deadliest man to ever walk this planet, good ol’ Genghis was the Khan of the Mongolian Empire for more than two decades. His army conquered China as well as the Caspian Sea. Khan murdered over 700,000 people in one battle. He did not leave out civilians, butchering and robbing them of their treasures. He forced sex on more women than any sexually aroused man who ever lived. He enslaved innumerable people, used human beings as a shield in the battlefield. Overall, he accounted for more than 60 million deaths.
Due to his love for ‘bedmathics’ Genghis had more than sixteen million heirs. However, he loved Ogedei Khan the most. Ogedei was handpicked to continue his father’s legacy as a warrior. He later became the second Great Khan of the Mongol Empire. In a bid to make his father proud, Ogedei did everything he could, no matter the situation. He continued attacking China and India.
Ellac (Attila the Hun)
Attila was the leader of Hunnic Empire for nineteen years. As a mean Roman Emperor, people cowered in fear at the sight of him.
The then Hunnic empire leader had a deep affection for one thing in the world and it was ‘war’. He meted out capital punishment for anyone who went contrary to the rules and never sent anyone to jail. He was nicknamed “Attila the scourge of God” since his punishments were regarded to be from the heavens.
To Attila, the lives of non-Huns do not matter. Therefore, he killed thousands of them with pleasure: literally tearing people limb from limb! He also had the habit of eating his children when they fail.
Attila had sons just to procreate trustworthy generals, giving his eldest son Ellac more attention than the others. Ellac was taught combat from birth to take over the throne after his father’s death. But he only climbed the mantle for two years before he was killed in a battle just like his father.
Akihito (Hirohito)
Hirohito was the emperor in Japan from 1926 to 1989, and during his leadership, he committed a lot of atrocities including “Rape of Nanking” which killed 300,000 people. Additionally, the evil emperor also murdered a Chinese prisoner of war that was captured and ordered the assault of 200,000 women. More so, he made Chinese men rape their own daughters, and sold ten million people (most of which were murdered or cannibalized), into slavery. He also used human beings to practice fighting and stabbing with swords.
Hirohito’s son, Akihito became the emperor in 1989 after his father and he still, holds the position today. He has ensured that royal families have fewer powers on the citizens probably because he saw the horrific effect dictatorship had on the people.
Nicu Ceausescu, son of Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceausescu was a Communist dictator over Romania from 1965 to 1989. He was a barbaric ruler who under his leadership, the Romanians became impoverished. His son, Nicu wasn’t a saint either. He was an alcoholic who wickedly and unsympathetically raped women all over Romania. His father was slain during the Romanian revolution in 1989, and he was captured and jailed. Nicu was freed in 1992 as he developed severe cirrhosis, which later killed him four years later.
Li Na (Mao Zedong)
Mao had many children but none stayed around him very long. One of his children died from dysentery while a handful of them were captured by Stalin. In a personal quest to make one of his children tough, Mao sent his son to work in labor mines. Still, in his family life, he forced his third wife to bear his children and then dump them once they embrace the mother earth as a way of staying loyal to him. Out of the multiple children he had, he was besotted with only two (Li Na, and Li Min).
Li Min was calm, humble and ladylike, but Mao’s favorite, Li Na took after her father. She was prepared in a hard way to be able to live in the world Mao ruled.
Julia Drusilla (Caligula)
Caligula was a merciless Roman emperor who thought he was a god to be worshiped. For that reason, he killed thousands of people including children who trampled on his pride. He allowed lions to feast on ‘outlaws’ and he ate human testicles. He also abused his family members sexually.
The cold-blooded emperor and his wife were later assassinated in 41 AD by Romans. His killer also didn’t show mercy on his one-year-old Julia due to Caligula’s hellish character. This was because some traditional belief emerged that he might possess the body of his daughter. Thus, the baby was killed to save the world from anybody like her father.
Jean-Marie Loret (Adolf Hitler)
Hitler is among the worst dictators of all time. Officially, Hitler has no child. However, a Frenchman called Jean-Marie Loret (and his son Phillipe) claims the dictator had a secret affair with an unknown woman, and Loret is the result of the affair. Nobody really thinks Loret’s claims are true even though he went to the media with the story. He also wrote an autobiography titled: “Ton Pere s’applait Hitler” or “Your Father’s name was Hitler.
Based on Loret’s narration, his mother told him the big news in 1948, and she did so in her dying hour. Sadly, no one else was there to bear witness to the confession. Reports alleged that Loret’s wife dumped him on learning his origin. Loret has gone to important sites sourcing original or direct information on what his father had done.
Faisal Wangita (Idi Amin)
The name Idi Amin sounds very much familiar even to young people of nowadays. The Ugandan dictator can be categorised as one of the evilest and richest dictators that ever breathed. The undemocratic head of state ruthlessly ruled the country for eight years after conning the citizens that he would bring peace and democracy. He killed thousands of citizens, some of whom were gorged on by a crocodile. In a display of his viciousness, the rigid dictator ensured all the executions were announced on TV to make other civilians know the implication of any action they take.
Simultaneously, Idi’s son, Faisal – who smacked of his father’s wicked traits- joined a gang and started attacking Uganda with no impunity. One time, he and some 39 boys beat a teenage boy to death using knives, hammers, bottles, and poles. He went to jail after his father’s downfall, serving five years before some 15 angry teenagers pounced on him and killed him in jail.
Sar Patchata (Pol Pot)
Pol Pot was a Cambodian revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until 1997. Due to his vile and deplorable deeds, he faced a lifetime of house arrest. Under his leadership, people walked on razor edges before they could make a living. Malnutrition, executions, and poor medical care were a common experience among the citizens. The deeds put together led to the death of about 25 percent of the Cambodian population. In all, about 3 million people out of the entire population of 8 million died due to the policies of his four-year premiership. Pol had a strong feeling for his daughter, Sar who had a normal albeit somewhat impoverished life. Sar got married in 2014 and now lives like other modern people. Her father, Pol Pot died in April 1998 of natural causes.
Marko Milosevic (Slobodan Milosevic)
Slobodan Milosevic was the former president of Serbia who murdered his contenders after campaigns. This, he does to ensure they do not live long enough to hear the results of the votes. He is intentionally known as “The Butcher of the Balkans” for his reported role in countless massacres during the Balkan wars.
Shortly after he took over the mantle of leadership, he changed the country’s constitution to favor his ruthlessness. The citizens suffered years of oppression but took a bold step later on by staging a 96-day protest that got Slobodan removed from office. Meanwhile, Slobo’s son, Marko got involved in some well-planned unlawful acts. After his father’s fall, he fled his country and sought asylum in Russia. Marko till date enjoys massive wealth and lives a flamboyant lifestyle. One time, he was linked to the assassination of a business rival named “Zeljko Raznatovic,” something that might make his dad proud.
Claudia Augusta(Nero)
Speaking of Nero, “666”is regarded as his number, as well as “the mark of the beast,”. That’s how bad he was! In fact, when 666 is written or printed using the closest corresponding letters from Hebrew into Greek it translates into “Nero Caesar.” Nero killed thousands of people (including Peter and Paul of biblical stories). The demonic leader made sure his victims died in some gruesome ways such as making them have intensely painful hot baths and cutting off their genitals. The hellish man who slaughtered Christians didn’t leave his own household unpunished, killing every member of his family. Though he made the list of the richest and evilest dictators in the world, Nero had a weak point and that was his daughter. He was so in love with his daughter that he awarded her and her mother the honorary title of “Augusta.” Claudia had a good life and later died three months after she fell ill. Devastated and shattered, Nero became mad.
Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue (Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo)
Mbasogo allegedly pushed Equatorial Guinea to its current washed out and drained standard of living. The president bullied and took over power from his uncle in 1979. Ever since then, he has remained the country’s decision maker. Above all, he intends to pass down the crown to his son when he retires. When set side by side with other killing machines on the list, Mbasogo could be regarded as a nice man. Nonetheless, his son has befouled his hands in numerous crimes including illegal killings, government-backed abduction, and of course the organised torture of detainees.
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Mbasogo’s son, Teodorin, is currently the Second Vice President of Equatorial Guinea. Investigators are currently probing him for misappropriation of funds. Even so, the judiciary seems to be taking it easy and are likely avoiding being shut up forever.
Kim Jong II (Kim II Sung)
Kim Jong II is quite famous for a lot of reasons. However, he was nothing to liken to his father, Kim II Sung, who created a seat of absolute power in the country by eliminating any possible rival.
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His son, on the other hand, created the title “The Dear Leader” to make the dissimilarity between his rule and that of his father visible. However, he adored himself and his father as gods, alleging that none of them urinated or passed down feces. Jong’s government was the harshest or most tyrannous administration in the country’s history since citizens were stripped of their freedom.
Jean-Claude Duvalier (Francois Duvalier)
Francois Duvalier also known as Papa Doc was the president-elect of Haiti from 1957 to 1971. After he won the country’s votes, he killed around 60,000 Haitians to retain power. Nonetheless, he had to withstand countless attempts to remove him from office.
Jean-Claude Devualier famously called “Baby Doc,” is the son of Francois. After his father’s death, he ruled Haiti with strong hands for more than a decade. During this time, he ordered the killing of thousands with many fleeing the country. He dealt in drugs and even sold the body parts of the people he killed.
Ruhollah Khomeini
Ruhollah Khomeine was the religious leader of Iran from 1979 to 1989. He also led the 1979 Iranian Revolution that murdered 3,000 to 60,000 people.
After the revolution, Khomeini became the country’s Supreme Leader, a position recognized in the constitution of the Islamic Republic as the highest-ranking political and religious authority of the nation. Under Imam Khomeini’s rule, Sharia (Islamic law) was introduced, with the Islamic dress code enforced for both men and women. Women had to cover their hair, and men were not allowed to wear shorts.
Since the Sharia Islamic Law had so many harsh rules, he doled out tough punishments to offenders. He brutalized, tortured, imprisoned and killed many for adopting Western lifestyle as simple as listening to music. He served 100 lashes to those caught kissing. Under his rule, nationals were blinded and stabbed in the chest, and some getting stoned to death and burned alive. Women were undermined and their faces burned with acid. In the 1988 Iranian Massacres, Khomeini gave the order that left about 30,000 people dead. Out of fear for the spread of Khomeini’s militant brand of Shiism, Saddam Hussein unleashed an attack against Iran, which started the Iran-Iraq War, leading to 1 to 2 million deaths. During the war, Khomeini declined any peace measure from Iraq even though Saddam offered peace for Iran one time.
His hatred for America and Western society prepared grounds for terrorist groups including Al-Qaeda. The ex-supreme leader also inspired Islamic Holy War, which has killed more than 2 million people. Khomeini died of cancer in 1989 upon his return from over 14 years in exile.
Khomeini had seven children, though only five (three girls and two boys) survived childhood. Mostafa, his elder son, died in 1977 while in exile in Najaf, Iraq with him. He was rumoured to have been killed by his father’s rivals SAVAK (the Imperial-era secret police). Ahmad Khomeini, the younger son also died in 1995 at the age of 50. He was also said to have been killed, but at the hands of the regime.
