Putin = Hitler and Other Moronic Activities: An Enquiry into 'Historical Analogies' and Legacy Media Gaslighting

1939 isn't all that should matter, and we should hold all political leaders to the same standards of int'l law, esp. those who so vaingloriously pontificate in the language of WW2

Since 24 Feb. 2022, at the latest, it has been clear to many a consumer of legacy media (Qualitätsmedien) that our journey is rapidly leading back to a past believed to be overcome. There is ample talk of the ‘Russian war of aggression’, sometimes extended by the equally connotated term of a ‘war of extermination’; In addition, there are countless attributions that Vladimir Putin is a ‘new Hitler’; and that the (almost) uniqueness of Moscow’s action against Kiev is something that has not been seen in Europe ‘since 1945’.

‘Russophobia’ as a Family-Friendly Activity

In view of the government’s drastic influence, Facts hardly matter anymore to the public. Thus, while it is correct that the demonisation of Vladimir Putin by the recently deceased Russia expert and history professor Stephen Cohen was already appropriately classified and analysed five (!) years ago, this hardly prevents anyone working for legacy media from continuing this charade without any reflection.

So, if the Russian military operation in Ukraine has changed anything, it is only the fact that this ‘Russophobia’, which until now had led mainly a niche existence in the daily political and mass media spectacle, has become part and parcel of what, to our wokefied juste milieu, constitutes ‘normality’.

But when did it become ‘normal’ to blatantly wish death on another human being? (Examples from the USA can be found here and here, for example.) ‘Not even’ in the most dramatic moments of the Cold War—such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, which American President Joe Biden only recently brought back into play—were there similar outbursts among Western governments. (There were, however, similar double-standards at play, including the ongoing abuse of international law masquerading as the ‘blockade’ of Cuba.)

And yet—while the ‘sanctions’ against (?) Russia are certainly unprecedented in their scale and likely effect on Europeans, the ‘freezing’ (theft) of Russian property, on the other hand, isn’t. By no means. At this point, the brazen takeover of Venezuelan or Libyan property by the ‘Western community of values’ should be recalled.

In addition to this quite state-specific assumed guilt, however, there is also the collective guilt that is, as it were, placed on the Russian people when, for example, Anna Netrebko is not allowed to perform at the New York Metropolitan Opera (‘Met’) because she does not explicitly (that would be ‘sufficiently’, to the wokefied mob of Twitterati masquerading as ‘journalists’) oppose the Russian government; when, for example, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra sends its conductor Sergei Gergiyev out the door when his ‘crime’ was that he is a Russian citizen; or when the Czech National Theatre cancels the performance of an opera by Pyotr Tchaikovsky.

To hate Russia, Russians, and anything perceived to be Russian has become the new pastime in the ‘West’. There is something for everyone—and if you try to look for the keywords ‘Putin’ and ‘Hitler’ in the same search on the internet, you will come up with several million hits, including, e.g., this article in the Washington Post.

Admittedly, not every media outlet or researcher is ‘standing with Kiyv’ these days, from Prof. John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) to the London Spectator, which vehemently opposed the supposed analogy of Putin and Hitler.

Out of the considerable plethora of more sensible contributions, the US national economist Michael Hudson (see here and here) or Mike Whitney’s well-aged piece (see here) stand out, both of whom identified Germany—and, by extension, the EU—as the main target of the US reaction to the Russian military operation as early as February 2022. (Incidentally, there is no need for an allegedly ‘fake’ and ‘bizarre’ paper by the RAND Corp.) After the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines—Europe’s ‘9/11’ (but see also Pepe Escobar’s ‘whodunnit’)— a fortnight ago, these texts seem almost prophetic.

And yet, probably the most serious consequences of the—in principle inappropriate—comparison of Mr. Putin and Adolf Hitler are of a completely different nature.

The Lessons of ‘Fake History’, or: how different 1939 and 2022 are (not).

The consequences of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991/92 show, in many respects, a number of parallels to the situation in Central Europe after the First World War (1914-19): a former great or superpower finds itself in a clearly reduced spatial context—and a considerable number of its former citizens finds themselves in neighbouring multi-ethnic states.

Apart from the demonisation of Russia and especially Vladimir Putin, there is also another parallel to the 1930s that deserves more attention: the role of oligarchic elements and circles pulling the strings in the background. As it happens, the difference between Kiyv and Moscow could hardly be greater: notwithstanding the massive corruption afflicting both countries (which isn’t to say Wester countries are angelic in these contexts; just look for the terms ‘Pfizer’ and ‘fraud’), it is clear—if one follows ‘even’ Western legacy media outlets—that the god-awful Mr. Putin dominates the situation, and not his opponent, Volodymyr Zelensky, whose presidency is characterised not only by the string-pulling Ukrainian oligarchs but also by the increasingly open active participation of Western intelligence services and their militaries. Take, say, the recent bombing of the Kerch Bridge, which was masterminded, if not actively steered, by British Intelligence, according to Kit Klarenberg’s exposé in The Grayzone. To say nothing about the role of Western—above all US-funded—'non-governmental organisations’ and their influence in the post-Soviet space.

The influence of Western governments on Warsaw after the Munich Agreement, which, incidentally, also led to active Polish participation in the destruction of Czechoslovakia, would be another parallel that remains unmentioned in polite circles.

As an aside, you might find a bunch of other facts and aspects of the 1938 Munich Agreement interesting: the abuse of the historical record by Austro-Covidian foreign minister and wannabe tinpot tyrant Alexander Schallenberg, on which see:

Covidistan Annals XXV: Foreign Policy Blunders, or: the Lessons of Fake History, and will Austria now join NATO?

In the World of WW2 Analogies, Why Stop at ‘1939’?

There are many other interesting aspects of the Second World War that would be relevant to bring up, such as, for example, the typically obscured fact that the violation of Norwegian neutrality in the spring of 1940 was initially carried out by the British—and the Wehrmacht reacted to this with the occupation of Denmark and Norway. Or the fact that the British and French planned the aerial bombardment of the then-Soviet oil fields of Baku as a reaction to the Hitler-Stalin Pact (23 Aug. 1939) and the associated Soviet deliveries of raw materials to the Third Reich.

Given that the staggering increase of Ukrainian shelling of the Donbass began on 14 Feb. 2022—yep, you read that right: ten days before Russia launched its ‘bestial war of aggression’ (Austro-Covidian Vice Chancellor and Green Party hack Werner Kogler). As you go through the below numbers, gleaned from the OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission’s daily reports, note that the category ‘ceasefire violations’ increased almost ten-fold between 14 and 22 Feb. (there was a weekend, 19-20 Feb., which is summarised together, hence the much higher number of incidents) while the number of ‘explosions’ increased by a factor of 34-35.

• 14 Feb.: 174 ceasefire violations, 41 explosions

• 15 Feb.: 153 ceasefire violations, 76 explosions

• 16 Feb.: 509 ceasefire violations, 316 explosions

• 17 Feb.: 870 ceasefire violations, 654 explosions

• 18 Feb.: 1,566 ceasefire violations, 1,413 explosions

• 19-20 Feb.: 3,231 ceasefire violations, 2,026 explosions

• 21 Feb.: 1,927 ceasefire violations, 1,481 explosions ; Russia recognises the independence of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics

• 22 Feb.: 1,710 ceasefire violations, 1,420 explosions

• 24 Feb.: Russia launches its ‘special military operation’

Shout-out to Kanekoa, whose Substack is very well worth your time.

In view of the repeated accusations of war crimes, the consequences of World War 2 are also relevant: in the so-called Nuremberg Trials, the (surviving) leading grandees of the Third Reich had to answer to a tribunal of the four victorious powers.

The charges at that time, which were also adopted in the Charter of the United Nations, were (sources: the London Statute of 8 Aug. 1945 and its annex, courtesy of the International Criminal Court):

• crimes against peace

• war crimes

• crimes against humanity

International Law for Everyone!

Bearing these considerations in mind, we are faced with serious considerations: either these aspects are part of international law (they are) that apply to all and everyone equally (they do)— then we must also confront our own demons:

The ‘nuclear participation’ demanded on the part of the Polish government, i.e. the transfer of US nuclear weapons as part of the NATO ‘Nuclear Deterrence Strategy’.

This demand was recently rejected by the US government, but how much American promises are worth in the context of NATO is well known, at least among serious scholars and the Russian leadership.

Those who consistently demanded, in the run-up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2002/03, that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction be stopped should—nay, must—now go to the barricades.

The following considerations are intended as food for thought—should be considered the bare minimum:

• Withdrawal of all US nuclear weapons from Europe.

• International law, in particular the right of self-determination, for all, including the population of the Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhe and Kherson regions, as was also proposed by Elon Musk, but rejected—not very diplomatically—by Volodymyr Zelensky.

• Verbal disarmament, by all sides, to prevent ‘regrettable incidents’ involving nuclear weapons.

It should also be noted that Volodomyr Zelensky had called for a NATO pre-emptive strike against Russia. Although there was an almost immediate effort in Kiyv to ‘correct’ the Ukrainian president’s statements, as The Kiyv Independent noted, the question remains: under which of the charges at Nuremberg should one classify this tirade?

The dock, however, should be large enough for all the politicians and military officers actively involved to be seated—and from all sides.

Beyond Good and Evil

Don’t get me wrong, if we don’t apply the same standards to all involved, we won’t remain on the edge of the abyss for long, rather will find ourselves in the midst of it.

How do you get there, you ask?

Here’s some insight from someone who knew a thing or two about this, Hermann Göring, Hitler’s second-in-command, as recorded by his US Army interlocutor, Gustave Gilbert, in the Nuremberg prison (my emphases):

‘Why, of course, the people don’t want war’, Goering shrugged. ‘Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.’

‘There is one difference’, I pointed out. ‘In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.’

‘Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.’

I have no illusions about humans actually learning from history, but let us hope that reason and measured actions prevail over emotion and war-mongering.

A few days ago, the Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded again. Thus, I suppose we should also remember one particular recipient, Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914), in particular her fight against warmongering, mobilisation, and the war mania on the eve of World War I.

‘Lay Down Your Arms’, should be on everyone’s lips, followed by an international tribunal.