What is the most important lesson we learn from history, when considering World War Two? That France should have fought Hitler in 1936. Similarly, we should fight Putin now… and for very similar reasons.
If France had fought Hitler in 1936, instead of waiting until 1939, and the fall of Spain, the French would have discovered a number of military tactics and equipment the Nazis refined in Spain during three years of war there (1936-1939). Among them, using the air force for ground support, putting radios in all and any tanks, the importance of aerial reconnaissance, and… amphetamines. The French military learned all of that in one week in the middle of May 1940. When they had finished their lessons, the Battle of France had been lost.
Had the French army fought the Nazis in Spain, it would have defeated them, and learned how to defeat Nazis. Yes the Spanish republicans were divided, as the Ukrainians now are.
Ferocious antagonism from London (with its Nazi king) and Washington (with its French envy plutocrat FDR at the helm), plus the Nazis organizing both the winter and summer Olympics, and the fact the left was in power in France, and a Jew to boot, made the French balk under pressure… They didn’t attack Hitler for invading Spain, and the Rhineland, and establishing a dictatorship in Germany. Big mistake.
We also learn that one man, the top general of the French army, could not have taken better decisions than those he took, in the service of the Nazis. Of course, he was an idiot who didn’t know the first thing about generalship (keep a reserve!). But there is more: Gameli’s crushing incompetency may not have been really accidental. Of his own admission, Gamelin was more worried in 1936 by Leon Blum, a Jew, Prime Minister of France and head of the “Front Populaire”… than by the Nazis. The incredible mess in which he deployed the French army in 1940, exposing it at Sedan, exactly where the Prussians had triumphed in 1870, is too blatant to be sheer incompetence.
All of this relates to Ukraine, including the treachorous aspect. Traitors are the more efficient, the more they are found in unexpected places.
Dictator Putin is the first invader in Europe since Hitler. Like Hitler, Putin won’t stop, and for the same reasons: he already went way too far, assassinating the opposition, instrumentalizing the entire state for his personal service and that of his goons. Putin also made his country an economic failure. At this point, Putin is fighting for his life, not just his own comfort. Differently from Biden, who can fear at most only insults from his opponents, Putin has committed serious crimes against the Republican constitution.
So Putin is more than just Putin: he has become a maleficent process, an avalanche of desires, with formidable mental inertia, burned bridges, and many bridges too far.
Moreover, Putin wrote explicitly that, actually, Ukraine meaning “border region“, it’s not actually a nation, but the border region of Moscow centric Russia. So naturally, he has been messing up Ukraine for more than a decade, lying his way through…
New York Times Jan. 22, 2022: Britain Says Moscow Is Plotting to Install a Pro-Russian Leader in Ukraine In a highly unusual public statement, backed by U.S. officials, London named the putative head of a potential puppet government but few other details.
The British government said Saturday that the Kremlin was developing plans to install a pro-Russian leader in Ukraine — and had already chosen a potential candidate — as President Vladimir V. Putin weighs whether to order the Russian forces amassed on Ukraine’s border to attack.
… Calling Putin “president” in 2022 is similar to calling Hitler “president and chancellor” (in one word, guide, Fuhrer) in 1936. Hitler had killed some of his opposition, so did Putin. Parliamentary elections were held in Germany on 29 March 1936. They took the form of a single-question referendum, asking voters whether they approved of the military occupation of the Rhineland and a single party list for the new Reichstag composed exclusively of Nazis and nominally independent ‘guests’ of the party. Like previous votes in the Nazi era, it was rigged, with a claimed turnout of 99% and 98.8% voting in favor. Putin does not rig as much, but enough, and has killed and jailed his main opposition.
New York Times: The highly unusual public communiqué by the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, issued late at night in London, comes at a moment of high-stakes diplomacy between the Kremlin and the West. Russia has deployed more than 100,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders that could, according to American officials, attack at any moment. “The information being released today shines a light on the extent of Russian activity designed to subvert Ukraine, and is an insight into Kremlin thinking,” Liz Truss, Britain’s foreign secretary, said in a statement. “Russia must de-escalate, end its campaigns of aggression and disinformation, and pursue a path of diplomacy.”
The British announcement was the second time in just over a week that a Western power had publicly accused Russia of meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs, part of a concerted effort to pressure Mr. Putin to de-escalate. On Jan. 14, the United States accused the Kremlin of sending saboteurs into eastern Ukraine to create a provocation that could serve as a pretext for invasion.
Dictator Putin made clear he wants to reconquer all the lands of imperial Russia to maximum extent: he calls the disappearance of the USSR the “greatest tragedy of the Twentieth Century”. Putin won’t stop with Ukraine, so he has to be stopped in Ukraine. Klar worse than Hitler in 1936!
In 1936, the Anglo-Saxons persuaded the French Republic NOT to fight for Republican Spain against dictators Mussolini and Hitler. Now we are confronting the dictators of Russia and Belarus, with Xi in the shadows, similar to Japanese dictator and emperor Hirohito in 1936.
Peace fanatics, now, at any cost, will suggest letting Putin invade Ukraine, hoping for no resistance.
However, the fact is Ukraine is a different country with a different history and a different language, so they would be condoning a crime.
The fact also is that Russia is a thermonuclear autocracy and thus automatically, a threat to world peace. By not rescuing our democratic neighbor, we are attacking ourselves.
And not least, if Putin occupied Ukraine, he would have to keep on moving for reasons similar to Hitler in World War Two (vast subject). There are other actors, in particular China. Also Europe would rearm. After all, Putin based, years ago, very dangerous missiles in the Kaliningrad Oblast… (ex-Prussia)
When the Nazis rolled in, they always found locals to help them, because human beings are fundamentally predatory, and, if downtrodden in society, will try to exact vengeance. This is why many Jews were lilled in eastern Europe during the Nazi offensive: many local inhabitants killed Jews, independently of the Nazis, because they didn’t like them… as many Jews had been used by the… invading Soviets, prior to that.
Turns out Ann Frank was probably betrayed by a Jew. My family, on the other hand, who sheltered Jews quasi-industrially, was saved by someone who worked at the Grenoble Gestapo and gave them a warning (my grandparents had a cordial relationship with a Gestapo employee…)
So Putin will find plenty of arrivistes to help him establish tyranny in Ukraine….
Yes, the West is bad, a parody of democracy… But Putin is way worse.
Patrice Ayme
P/S: Since her December 2021 appointment as Germany’s new foreign minister, in the new German government, a cocktail of “Liberals”, “Socialists” and “Ecologists”, Annalena Baerbock reiterated her country’s refusal to supply arms to Ukraine, citing an “historical responsibility” not to deliver any weapons to crisis zones. Many Ukrainians were unimpressed by this argument and questioned why Germany’s sense of “historical responsibility” did not extend to the approximately eight million Ukrainians killed during WWII, thanks to German activity.
The argument shows that present day government Germans still do not get the main practical lesson from Nazism: when you see clear and definite evil of the worst type, you resist it by all and any means, and that means, weapons. One would hope that Germany would finally understand that armed resistance was the way out of Hitler, and, thus, sending weapons to a “crisis zone”. But no, not enough reading and percepting yet…
Patrice Ayme's Thoughts 