Updated 3/25/2022 at 10:15
- Putin is not the new Hitler, but well-known Holocaust researcher Götz Aly recognizes certain patterns of behavior.
- It also explains why Putin talks so often about Ukrainian neo-Nazis.
This text contains a classification of current events, which, in addition to data and facts, also includes the evaluation of the author or expert who has a voice. Here you will find information about the different types of journalistic texts.
Nazi comparisons always backfire. This is the basic principle of politics. And yet it is constantly violated. In 2014, even one of Germany’s most seasoned politicians, the then Federal Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, was attracted by such a comparison. In connection with the order by the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, to annex the Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula, the CDU politician said: “With such methods – and not only – Hitler took over the Sudetenland.
Similar statements came from former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the British Successor to the Throne, Prince Charles. Four years later, Boris Johnson, the then foreign minister, caused a stir by saying Putin would use the upcoming World Cup in Russia just as Adolf Hitler used the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Such comparisons have been heard more and more often since the beginning of the Russian attack on Ukraine. Putin is said to be almost like Hitler. Is there anything to it?
Unanimity of historians. The equalization of Putin and Hitler is unacceptable
There is agreement among historians that it is absolutely unacceptable to equate Putin and Hitler. Hitler was primarily responsible for the Shoah, a crime against humanity that was unprecedented in its radical concentration and goal-oriented organization. Six million European Jews were murdered in three years. In addition, Hitler started World War II with at least 60 million dead. These are completely different dimensions than any crimes Putin may be charged with.
Also read: All current information about the war in Ukraine on the live bar
But: “To compare does not mean to equate,” as historian Heinrich August Winkler explained in the article “Zeit” entitled “What connects Putin with Hitler.” In historical research, comparing also always means working out differences. When that happens, it is the accepted scientific method. It is extremely difficult to learn any specific lessons from history. But at best, such a comparison can reveal some patterns that will help gauge current events.
Aly: “You can only partially compare Hitler and Putin”
Historian and political scientist Götz Aly.
© Zofia Kembowski / dpa
Götz Aly is one of the world’s most respected Holocaust researchers and the author of groundbreaking works such as Why Germany? Why Jews? “. In an interview with a German press agency, he also stressed: “Hitler and Putin can only be compared to a very limited extent. It must be clear. But I think it is legitimate to mention some similarities. “
For him, this includes the preparation and justification of war. “Hitler had huge troops deployed as well, and at the same time it was assured:” The Führer wants nothing but peace. ” Hitler justified the attack on Poland by protecting Germans living abroad who had to be protected against – fictitious – “Polish terror”. Putin bases his aggression on the lie that he must end the genocide of Russians in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. Just as Russian state media today consistently disguises the war in Ukraine as a “special military operation”, on September 1, 1939, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels ordered not to use the word “war”, but only to use one “counterattack” at a time to to speak Polish.
Historian Winkler (“The Long Way to the West”) also sees “striking parallels” between the “annexation” of Austria, the annexation of the Sudetes and the “destruction of the rest of the Czech Republic” on the one hand, and the annexation of Crimea, on the other hand, the separation of significant areas of Donbas and the current aggressive war against Ukraine. “The analogy of procedure is striking,” writes Winkler in Zeit.
Winkler: “Putin looks like a learned student of Adolf Hitler”
“But the parallels go much further. Even as a “historian,” that is, a politician with a history, Putin emerges as a learned student of Adolf Hitler. ” Putin is also trying to historically justify his goal of restoring a supposed old empire. Winkler refers to Putin’s essay “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians” published in 2021. Just as Putin claims to have a Russian sphere of influence, Hitler and the Nazis also referred to “prohibiting the intervention of non-regional powers”, for example in Czechoslovakia.
Winkler is also reminded of Hitler by Putin’s tirades against the alleged “neo-Nazis” and “drug addicts” in Kiev. Aly sees it similarly – but at the same time calls for caution: “Of course Putin is completely pointless to claim that neo-Nazis rule Kiev.” But: “As in Russia, there are also very tough right-wing radicals in Ukraine. You shouldn’t ignore this problem, especially in Germany. The largest Ukrainian Nazi collaborator and anti-Semite, Stepan Bandera, now has 40 monuments in Ukraine. It must be said clearly: after the Germans entered Ukraine in 1941, collaboration was very common there. The Germans had 200,000 Ukrainian auxiliary police officers, of whom at least 40,000 directly participated in the shooting of Jews. This cooperation was gradually fading eastwards. In eastern Ukraine it was already very small, in today’s Russia it hardly existed – there was no Russian auxiliary police of the German occupiers. This historical backdrop cannot be denied. This is what Putin refers to, at least subtly.
Alys’ concern: Putin is digging harder and harder
What worries Aly is that Putin is sinking deeper into reality and cutting himself off from it: a stone face, bizarrely long tables not only when talking to guests from a foreign country, but also with close associates, public scolding of his advisers. A strange, seemingly jovial appearance with the flight attendants. And then his rhetoric, in which Russia is increasingly falling victim to a Western conspiracy – “This seems crazy, it’s something from Charlie Chaplin’s movie The Great Dictator. We are dealing with a person who has grown up to be an autocrat and tolerates a little contradiction. leaders are eliminated. There are no visible successors in the government apparatus. “
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was overthrown by the Fascist Grand Council in 1943. According to Aly, this would not be possible in Nazi Germany. It is also difficult for Putin’s Russia to imagine that an alternative will appear in the leadership of the state – there is not even a political bureau in post-Soviet Russia. The state is completely geared towards Putin as a person.
Putin is a lonely decision-maker. And he is someone who cannot afford to show weakness. “This constellation can lead to irrational radicalization and an increasingly obsessive inflation of enemy images,” says Aly. “Now, in his speech, he has already used the phrase” the final solution to the Ukraine question. ” It sounds dangerous. ” Winkler also writes that “self-styling becoming a victim of powerful enemies” brings together ultranationalists such as Hitler and Putin.
All communication channels must be open
However, Aly strongly cautions against the claim that “Putin is the new Hitler – you cannot talk to someone like that.” Instead, all communication channels should be open: “I also have my own problems with the Schröder attack. Gerhard Schröder would surely not say: “Vladimir, keep it up!” Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill. Israel, China and India also did not adhere to the sanctions. Perhaps this will hopefully strengthen their role as mediators. It is worth remembering. “
Aly hopes the chance to reassure and conciliates who have clearly not sided with either side might come in handy. “Because we have to stop the conflict and support Ukraine – we also use weapons. But at the same time, we must strive for a peaceful solution. It comes with the hope that relations with Russia may improve again in five, ten or 20 years. ” (Christoph Driessen / dpa / mgb)