The "not" wasn't necessary, know you.

Anne Frankly, I did. This generation's education—almost regardless of country—is going to heil.

...oh well.

Well, he was a "strong leader that influenced the world", just not benevolent :

He did love his blondes though

That's what I was thinking. Maybe they missed that part. Or maybe most students these days just don't know what "benevolent" means. ...Which would be sad, but not as sad as if people thought Hitler was actually a benevolent leader.

I never thought I'd ever see Nazi puns.

I'd have picked PSY, he leads people in dance!

Oh nein jew didn't

Do you think he would of loved Justin Bieber too? He's a blonde head.

95, that's very original! I like that one a lot. Lol.

What's wrong with your students? Reich, seriously.

Hahaha love these puns

They never said whether they influenced the world positively or negatively. I'm writing a paper on someone who influenced the world and I chose Adolf, I'm showing from both perspectives how he positively influenced The people his crimes were benefiting, and how he negatively influenced the rest of the world.

Tomorrow's assignment: define the word "benevolent." Even to his own people, you could call him a powerful leader, an efficient leader, but benevolent would be pushing it.

Although the assignment did say that the paper should be about a benevolent leader, not only one that has influenced us.

"Benevolent leader" Was Hitler a leader you would describe as benevolent?

Who would you have chosen?

#31 Gandhi, Mandela, etc...

31 there are PLENTY of great leaders to pick from in lots of different eras and cultures, which would have made an interesting topic had everyone not jumped onto the Hitler bandwagon-- it wasn't even in the parameters because I'm sure that this wasn't OP's idea of benevolent, no matter what you might think. So I feel for you, OP, there was a great diversity in leaders and a great oppurtunity to be creative, from anything like Shoguns, Kings, Mayors, Presidents to seemingly-average people or otherwise.

#3 and your the proof

Oh, the irony.

I think #17 is proof that most people don't know what benevolent means.....

No matter how terrible this sounds, I don't see how this is an FML. Hitler truly was the greatest leader of all time. While all of his actions were just awful unspeakable things, he single handedly almost wiped out a race, while fighting a war and leading a Hitler youth. I would imagine their paper to be in the same general gist, but I don't see how this is an FML. I hope people understand.

Hitler was not benevolent and genocide is bad mmkay

I think part of the problem would be that half of OP's students don't understand the meaning of "benevolent".

It's an FML because Hitler was not benevolent.

#40 You don't say!

Sometimes I get malevolent and benevolent confused. Maybe this is what happened to the students.

Well if you ever get confused a dictionary is always handy. When in doubt, always check.

Pretty sure it's the other way around since "benevolent" is confused in their vocabulary.

How do you define benevolent?

Benevolent obviously means "been violent", duh....

be·nev·o·lent bəˈnevələnt/ adjective well meaning and kindly. "a benevolent smile"

Google gives a lot of information about everything. And his benevolence is quite debatable.

What technology rush did Hitler create? All he did was find better ways to kill people...

Rush in war technology, maybe. The rest, not enough to be significant, no.

What we can take from the beginning of human history up until about the 90's is that war has always lead to technological advancements. The second World War is no exception to this. Nuclear fission, infrastructural improvements, radio and radar were all strongly influenced by the need to find implementations that would make them beneficial in war. Those implementations also allowed an easy application outside of battle. Another example, although not credited to the second World War itself, were placebos, who's major uprise happened due to war times.

Damn it... You got a point #90, I guess this subject just clouds my view on the bigger perspective.

I was gonna say that. Get them to do a 1000 word assignment on the definition of benevolence.

That 8-bit dinosaur profile pic tho...

Unless the students openly wore swastikas beforehand I don't think OP could've prevented this...