Hitler and Putin

Are there any parallels between Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Putin?

History never repeats itself precisely. There can never be another individual exactly like Adolf Hitler. The same circumstances that caused WW2 can never occur again.

And yet….

Vladimir Putin’s ‘justifications’ for the invasion of the Crimea – and for his right to invade the rest of Ukraine any time he wants – are eerily reminiscent of the same ludicrous ‘justifications’ Adolf Hitler uttered in the run up to WW2.

In March 1938 Hitler said an invasion of Austria might be necessary because of the way Austrian Nazis were being ‘oppressed’. A few days later he said that the Nazis had been ‘invited’ into the country. In September 1938 he told the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain that he could no longer stand by whilst Germans  were similarly ‘oppressed’ in the Sudetenland. A few days later the Nazis marched in to ‘save’ them. In March 1939 he orchestrated the break up of Czechoslovakia by leaning on the Slovakians to declare independence from the rest of the Czech lands. He then announced that he was invading the remaining Czech lands as a result of being ‘invited’ in by the President of Czechoslovakia, who he had ordered to Berlin and so intimidated that the poor old man collapsed. The Nazis even said that their invasion of Poland in September 1939 was necessary to protect ethnic Germans living in Poland, and that the Poles had fired the first shots in the war.

It was all lies, of course. They were all inventions or Nazi provocations.

My point is this: don’t Putin’s words about his desire to prevent the ‘oppression’ of Russian speakers in Ukraine sound much the same as Hitler’s about the ‘oppression’ of Germans in the countries he was targeting?

Now don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying Putin wants the kind of Empire that Hitler wanted to obtain by force, or even wants war of any kind. I’m certainly not saying Putin is ‘another Hitler’. All I am pointing out is the similarity of the rhetoric. But that, it seems to me, is dangerous enough, because the rhetoric in both cases was based in large part on falsehoods. What’s even more scary is that dictators (and Putin is almost as much a dictator as Hitler was) are so shielded by ‘yes’ men from reality that it’s even possible they might believe the kind of nonsense that they often speak.

However, it was another of Putin’s statements at his press conference today that made me think of the attitude of Adolf Hitler most of all. Putin was asked about a rumour that the former President of Ukraine – that crook and mass murderer Viktor Yanukovych – was dead. Dismissing the suggestion, Putin said: ‘He’s alive, and still able to catch a cold yet – at the funerals of those who spread that information.’

They were the kind of cynical words – dripping with barely hidden threat – that Hitler himself could have uttered.