For many Germans, comparing anyone to the villain Adolf Hitler was taboo. They were broken by one of Germany’s leading Christian Democrats, former chairman of the Bundestag and former finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble. In an interview with the Badische Zeitung newspaper, he said that there are parallels between the actions of the leader of the Third Reich and Russian President, Vladimir Putin, and the reaction of the West in both cases. “This is, of course, a terrible parallel,” admitted the politician.

“Illusion is Broken”

As he noted, Hitler wrote at the beginning of his book Mein Kampf that he wanted to revise the results of World War I. Initially, even after the Wehrmacht entered the Rhineland, as well as after other revisionist movements by Hitler, there was no majority in Great Britain, France and the United States for policy. other than “appeasement”, i.e. concession policies for aggressive states .

It was only – as Schaeuble put it – after the fall of France in 1940 and when Europe fell under Nazi Germany, did British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s tenure hit, motivating Britain to go to war against Hitler.

“There are a lot of analogies with Putin,” said Schaeuble. But, he adds, there are also differences. Putin thought he would conquer Ukraine as quickly as Hitler conquered Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1939. “But Ukraine’s heroic resistance caused this illusion to be crushed,” said Schaeuble.

Crimea like Sudetenland

According to him, Putin also took into account the split between Europe and America, which, however, did not happen, and the transatlantic alliance became more united. “Putin has achieved the exact opposite of what he was fighting for,” the German politician said.

Nevertheless, Schaeuble believed that peace across Europe was being threatened. Most importantly, Moldova, with the Transnistria region under the control of pro-Russian separatists, is in danger. If Putin sticks to his goal of restoring the situation from before 1990, “peace in Europe will be uncertain,” the politician said.

The DPA agency recalled that in early 2014, Schaeuble, Germany’s then finance minister, compared Putin to Hitler, and Russia’s annexation of Crimea to the Third Reich’s 1938 annexation of the Sudetenland. Schaeuble’s remarks caused controversy. German Chancellor Angela Merkel also distanced herself from him, and the head of the FDP, Christian Lindner, the current Finance Minister, accused Schaeuble of crossing the border. The Ministry of Finance later emphasized that Schaeuble clearly rejected comparisons of Russia with the Third Reich.

(DPA/viewer)