Introduction
Many of you readers have probably not heard of Hegel. But what if I were to tell you that this 19th century philosopher might have been the most evil man to ever live. For the philosophy that he created would go on to cause the deaths of anywhere between 150 to 230 million people in the 20th century. For his ideas would go on to form the foundation of two of the world’s most heinous ideologies, fascism and communism.
History
Hegel was born in the German town of Stuttgart on August 27, 1770. His father was the Secretary of Revenue in the Duchy of Wuttemberg, a position that furnished the family with enough money to allow Hegel to receive an education. While at university, Hegel would develop his life long goal of creating his own system of philosophy that would serve as opposition to the two major philosophies of the time, the philosophies of Aristotle and Kant. Upon graduating from university, Hegel became a private tutor. He remained a tutor for the next three years, before he was able to arrange an unpaid professorship at the University of Jenna. Four years later, he would transition to the teaching at the Gymnasium of Nuremberg, this transfer was made possible in large part due to the several books that he had published by this time. In 1816, Hegel was offered the position of chair of philosophy of the Berlin based University of Heidelberg. 
While, in this position Hegel published his most famous book, the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences (he had written it over the course of several years to serve as the equivalent of a course textbook for his classes). In this book, Hegel laid out his belief on the nature of reality and human pursuit of it. Simply put Hegel viewed human history as a move towards reality and truth (through the creation of values and systems that were necessary for society to exist and prosper). Hegel thought human society achieved this through slow progress that would reveal the truth over a period of time as humans interacted with the world and each other. The main point of nuance in this view, is that Hegel believed that society could forget or temporarily ignore previously discovered truths, that could only be rediscovered by examining the past. By framing history this way, Hegel began to see civilization as experiments in which societies, attempting to reach a truth, would overshoot it too much requiring a reaction (typically in the form of war with another civilization).
Several of these reaction would be required, until the reactions stopped over shooting the truth. Hegel continued to teach at the University of Heidelberg until he died on November 14, 1831, when a cholera epidemic struck Berlin.
Significance
Now while Hegel’s direct actions did very little to effect history, the philosophy that he created would go on to gain many followers, who’s actions would ultimately lead to monumental changes in history. One of Hegel’s main beliefs was that the only way that truths could be held onto by society, is if these truth were embedded within the state itself. To this end, Hegel called for an absolute state, to act as a substitute for the individual. By doing so, Hegel established the belief that individuals were merely a means to the end of the state. Furthermore, Hegel believed state itself was an individual entity, with its own sets of morality (in the form of social customs and laws) and it’s own goals. Also, he believed that war was unavoidable between nation and actually healthy, because it served the Darwinian end of determining which set of values and truths that a society had accrued are better. Phrased more basically, if a state was able to win a war, it was because it held a set of values and goals that were more true than the defeated state.
This view of the absolute nature of the state as the final level of human organization and expression led for two camps of his followers to arise. On the right, there were those who interpreted his texts more literally, and supported the viewed nationalism and total commitment to the state as necessary for human progress. This view would develop into fascism. On the left, there were those who studied more specifically Hegel’s message about the conflicts of history, which began to look at history as a series of class conflicts and slavery which could only be ended if individuals submit to the will of the state. This view would later develop into communism.
