Though Adolf Hitler may not have seen himself as the heir to Napoleon, many of his contemporaries did. His invasion of Russia, which Napoleon had tried to vanquish more than a century earlier, and his egomaniacal obsession with dominating Europe certainly invited parallels. While Hitler’s Italian ally Benito Mussolini directly referenced Roman history, Hitler looked to the German-controlled Holy Roman Empire as a precedent and an inspiration. His brutal attempt to recreate it ended in disaster, but reactions to his endeavor were part of the impetus for creating the European Union.