Not just fade away
Dictators tend to encourage mythologising, especially when it comes to their own lives and persons. It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the death of Hitler, for example, should prove such a rich seam for myth-makers and conspiracy theorists – though there's also plenty for those who subscribe to the cock-up theory of history.
Where can dictators go, and what can they do, when they are no longer in a position to dictate? These pages examine the afterlives of a selection of deposed 20th-century dictators, finding that, without the keynote of power, the tone of their stories tends to modulate from horror to bathos.
