Different times. Many very rich, titled British people had a lot in common with Hitler in the 1930s - and some well into the 1940s. (Edward VIII for one.) Hitler was anti-communist and told them what they wanted to hear: that was good enough for them. Most people held pretty strong racist views then too. Hating Jews certainly wasn’t a new thing, and people in loin cloths or tribal clothing were just dirty savages as far as they were concerned, regardless of their education. And just about any ruler (elected or otherwise) within the last couple of hundred years could be found guilty of a war crime/crime against humanity or two. BUT, Winston Churchill single-handedly won WW2 for the English. And I use the word English specifically, because there are many English men (for it is always men and they are always English) who, to this day (over 70 years after the fact and decades before any of them were born), take great pleasure in telling Germans they lost the war. (They will also bellow about England beating Germany in the football world cup. As they did, FIFTY YEARS AGO.) These are the people to who Winston Churchill will always be a hero with a capital H. To who Winston Churchill put the Great back into Great Britain. To who Winston Churchill is the greatest leader the UK has ever known - so much so, our present PM (who even wrote a biography on him) is virtually a walking caricature. These are also the people who vote Tory even though the Conservative party despises the working classes and proves it every single time they get into power; who voted for Brexit even though it’s a fucking disaster for themselves; and who caused a ridiculous stink a couple of weeks ago because ‘Rule Britannia’ wasn’t going to get played at the end of The Proms. They are the British equivalent of the MAGA loons, and Winston Churchill is their Trump.

When white people write history there tends to be a number of lies by commission, lies by omission, or at least a lack of nuance, when it comes to chronicling the character and influence of "great people" who were cartoonishly racist. But those accounts of history are taught in schools and used as sources for films and television. Churchill is also supposed to have things in common with the presidents that were considered some of our best, and some of those things were also attributed to Hitler. Hitler is still described as "intelligent, a great orator" and "bold" or at least he is over here, and we still have slave owners on our money, and it's supposedly because they also possessed these qualities. So the representation of Churchill doesn't seem that unique when it comes to how white leaders are remembered.