In a book I read, it was claimed that Hitler was "mostly responsible" for Germany's massacres when he was the Fuhrer. That same author has also said that there is nothing pointing to anybody other than but Hitler and a few fanatical henchmen thinking it was a good idea for the Jews to be exterminated. I doubt either of those are the case, when you look at Europe's history of antisemitism, the aid from both civilians and portions of the Wehrmahct, etc. And there's the 42,500 ghettos, forced labor sites, etc.
And it's not just Hitler. You can put in Stalin. Or so many other examples of what has happened in history. As far I can tell it's silly to focus so much on one person when dealing with is happening in a country. Let alone the entire world. Not to mention the whole "man or group with the right ideas fights the opposition and wins or is burned at the stake or whatever". Look at how Cosmos handled Giordano Bruno or that movie about Hypatia and other myths around her.
Am I missing something here? What appeal do those approaches to history have?
There are two ways that people take hold of the Great Man theory. The first are arm chair generals that study military history but rarely go beyond the battles of say Erwin Rommel or George Patton. These people tend to idolize the major figures because in most history the major figures are predominant in a standard popular history. Sure you might see the story of a private but they might not get the same attention as Patton or other generals. This becomes a problem of sources within the pop history and only compounds it with amateur studies of subjects.
The second side of this is an honest problem of some eras. My focus of Early Modern Europe/France has it the worst because Monarchs are major subjects and seem to dominate the discussion more than anything else. This is a problem as a result of poor sources. Sources during this time period usually come from nobility that had access to the court or the politics of the period as part of their rank. So, there is an age where Louis XIV dominated continental Western and Central European history as a result of a series of wars that he pushed to create a French hegenomy that didn't come to full fruition.
Worse, my true focus is on the Napoleonic Era. The age itself is problematic because it promotes Napoleon as the Great Man of history. I try to step aside from saying that he was the absolute mover but there are facts that you can't ignore (such as Napoleon being the best candidate for First Consul) that practically demand a Great Man view of the era. However, at this time more non-nobility started to write, we have writings of privates that served in the various armies, and their thoughts.
So, from this I can only say that the appeal to this approach involves more than just the idea, it also is a part of the subject matter itself.