Putin and Hitler: similar psychological profilesRussia: Russian President Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler share one major trait in common: an ability to project grievances based on ethnic superiority onto hapless nations that posed an impediment to their desires for conquest to satisfy those grievances. For Hitler, it was the hard blow Germany was dealt by the victorious Allies following World War I. That, coupled with Hitler's belief in German "racial" supremacy, developed into a ferocious war that saw most of Europe's Jewish population wiped out by the Hitler's Nazis and reduced many European cities to rubble. In Putin's case, he views Russia as the victim of the West's vanquishing of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact military alliance. Much has also been made about Putin's possible medical condition, including the puffiness of his face. There is evidence that the Russian leader is either suffering from cancer or Parkinson's Disease and that either chemotherapy or drugs, including anabolic steroids, has caused a change in his appearance and demeanor. Certainly, Hitler in the final months of World War II also displayed signs of Parkinson's Disease, including tremors in his hands. His condition was further aggravated by his prescribed use of drugs that ranged from methamphetamines to cocaine.
Hitler viewed the German people as the "master race," whose rightful destiny, he believed, was to rule the world through a totalitarian Pax Germania. Putin shares a similar idea about the Russian people. Putin's racial ideology considers Russians to be superior to all other Slavic peoples in Europe, including the Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks. Putin has stated that his invasion of Ukraine was partly based on his view that Ukrainians are not a separate ethnicity from Russians but are one people. Hitler also operated under the illusion that the German and Austrian peoples were one and that is why in 1938 he incorporated Austria into Germany in a forced union (Anschluss), a move that was opposed by a majority of the Austrian people.
Putin's concept of a Russkiy Mir or "Russian World" is no different than Hitler's Third Reich and Pax Germania. When Putin declared that he was invading Ukraine to rid "Nazis" from the Ukrainian government, it was case of pure projection, a political propaganda tactic that has been adopted by Putin's disciple Donald Trump. Mixed in with Putin's Russian World concept is a desire to genetically protect Russian white European ethnicity from non-Russian (and non-white European) genetic "contamination." Such a concept of racial superiority is not all that much different from Hitler's concept of a pure Aryan race ruling the world after ridding it of its non-European races. Ironically, Hitler considered one of the lower "races" to be the Russian Slavs. It is Putin's Russia that is rife with Nazis, ranging from the followers of Russian ethnic superiority ideological guru Alexander Dugin to the National Bolshevik Party, a political extreme that embraces the fascism and racism of both Hitler and Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.
Just as Hitler believed that he and his Third Reich were responsible for the security and welfare for the Volksdeutsche -- all German people living abroad -- a ruse he employed to justify his annexation of the Saarland, Austria, Sudetenland, Danzig, and the Polish Corridor -- Putin has likewise claimed to be the protector of Russians residing outside of Mother Russia, including those in the "Near Abroad" of Ukraine, the Baltic states, Moldova, and other countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. And, just as Hitler attempted to exterminate Germany's Jewish and Roma populations, Putin's treatment of Russia's ethnic minorities -- including those who Vladimir Lenin guaranteed national sovereignty rights in the Soviet Constitution -- is designed to subsume their ethnic "autonomy" under a nationalistic Russophone and Russophile cultural regime.
Just as Hitler robbed the ancient Hindu and Buddhist sun symbol, the swastika, as the symbol of his Nazi Party, Putin has decided to employ the letter "Z" -- the Roman alphabetic symbol and not the Cyrillic "З" -- as the icon for his nationalist and expansive Russia. Z has been painted on the sides of Russian tanks in Ukraine [left] and on the cars and homes of Russians throughout the country. Putin wants "Z" to represent his new nationalistic Russia in the same manner as Hitler ensured that the swastika was ever-present in his Third Reich and Nazi-occupied Europe. Putin has not stated what his cult symbol stands for but some Russians believe it is for the Russian phrase Za pobedy (victory). Other Russians claim that "Z" stands for "Zapad" (west), an indication that Russian military forces will continue to move west until the old borders of the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact are reconstituted and, possibly beyond, to Brussels, Paris, and Rome. "Z" has also appeared on pro-Putin websites.
At the medal ceremony at the international gymnastics Apparatus World Cup in Doha, Russian athlete Ivan Kuliak sported a white "Z" on his leotard while received the bronze medal. [right] Due to a ban by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), Kuliak was unable to wear the Russian flag. The symbology of the "Z" was unmistakable as Ukrainian gold medal winner Illia Kovtun received his medal as the Ukrainian national anthem was played. There were flashbacks to the ubiquitous nature of the Nazi swastika during the 1936 Berlin Olympics. FIG, in addition to having previously banned Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing under their flags in protest over the invasion of Ukraine, also issued a ban on Kuliak from competing in future gymnastic events.
In essence, "Z" is rapidly becoming Putin's swastika. First spotted on Russian tanks rolling across the border into the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine on February 22, "Z" is now commonly found on the apparel of fascists and neo-Nazis in Russia and abroad. It may soon be as prevalent at far-right insurrectionist rallies in the United States and elsewhere as the letter "Q" -- for Qanon -- has been. And it should not be forgotten that much of the anti-vaccine, anti-masking, and anti-social Qanon stupidity and foolishness originated from Russian troll and bot farms.
In WMR's September 2020 Special Report, "The Axis Reconstituted -- An Analysis of Neo-Fascism: A Blue Paper," the fascism of Putin's ideology was examined in detail. The following is an excerpt from the report:
"How is it that Russia, which was born out of the Communist-controlled Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, end up with a leader like Putin, who combines the power of the past Russian czars and the fascism that allows for no semblance of democracy in Russia? For the answer to that difficult question, we must delve into the very beginning of the State Security Service of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), which was established in 1950. According to a book titled 'Nazi Criminals and the Secret Service: The German Democratic Republic's Secret Ways of Dealing With the Past,' by German historian Henry Leide, the East German Communists cut a deal with former members of the Gestapo. Either join the Stasi and employ the secret police tactics used by them during their service to Heinrich Himmler’s Gestapo or be prosecuted as Nazi war criminals.
In total, the GDR prosecuted over 8,000 former Nazis for various crimes against humanity. According to Leide, 'The Stasi deliberately and systematically recruited Nazi criminals, sometimes those who orchestrated massacres, as informers and agents both in the east and the west.' One of the recruits was Josef Settnik, who served at the infamous Auschwitz death camp in Poland. Before his scheduled execution by the GDR in 1964, Settnik was recruited by the Stasi to act as an agent in both East and West Germany. Another Stasi recruit was Willy Läritz, a former Gestapo agent in Leipzig, who brought to the Stasi his talent for brutal interrogation methods, that is, torture. Läritz, who was recruited by the Stasi in 1961, also brought other assets to the table. He possessed compromising information on other Nazi operatives serving the Third Reich and such kompromat, as the Russians call it, became useful to both the Stasi and Soviet KGB to recruit others like Settnik and Läritz.
These former Gestapo officers soon became invaluable to the GDR government. In many cases, they possessed skill sets not available to the Stasi. Many of these ex-Nazis saw rapid promotion within the Stasi ranks. Others were integrated into the officer corps of the Volksarmee, the armed forces of the GDR. One example was Harald Heyns, a wanted Nazi war criminal in France and Great Britain. Heyns rose to prominence under a false name in the hierarchy of the Stasi and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), the Communist party that governed the GDR.
As a KGB officer assigned to Dresden in the GDR from 1985 to 1990, Putin would have had the opportunity to meet and develop relationships with the seasoned Stasi officers who had served with the Gestapo and SS. Putin, who is fluent in German, would have certainly heard his share of war stories from the Nazi-turned-Stasi officers. Even though Putin’s older brother, Viktor, died of diptheria during the Nazi siege of his native Leningrad during the war, Putin has shown that sentimentality is not what enabled his rapid rise to power as a virtual Russian dictator on par with various Russian czars and Joseph Stalin.
Putin joined the KGB in 1975 and was assigned to the agency’s First Chief Directorate, where he was tasked to monitor foreign visitors and consular officials in Leningrad. In 1984, Putin attended the Yuri Andropov Red Banner Institute, a 'spy school,' in Moscow. In 1985, Putin was transferred to Dresden in the GDR. Putin apparently had a lot of time on his hands during the waning five years of the Warsaw Pact. Putin and his then-wife, Ludmila, attended a number of social functions, including those sponsored by the Stasi, the SED, and GDR-Soviet friendship societies. There were more than enough occasions for Putin to socialize with those East Germans who had secret Nazi pasts, especially over steins of the local beer, Radeberger, for which Putin developed a strong affinity.
Something other than the local brew also attracted the Putins to the generic German cultural lifestyle. In a 2000 interview, Ludmila Putin said of East Germany, 'The streets were clean. They would wash their windows once a week,' a none-too-subtle slap at the more rugged life in the Soviet Union. During his time in East Germany, Putin seemed to have become more of a believer in the German concept of 'order' than in the haphazardness of “Soviet planning” that often resulted in disorder and inefficiency. It did not really matter to Putin whether the German order was guaranteed by the Stasi or the Gestapo. After all, order was order and it should be respected."
Essentially, Putin's Russkiy Mir world view was shaped by his fascination with the wartime exploits of his former Gestapo-turned-Stasi friends and colleagues. That is why Putin's march to the West is nothing more than Hitler's Drang nach Osten or "Drive to the East" in reverse. It also explains why Putin's Russian ethnic superiority doctrine is nothing more than re-baked Nazi racial doctrine with Russians replacing Germans as the "master race." Putin's "Z" symbology is merely his version of Hitler's Hakenkreuz (swastika).
History appears to be repeating itself with Putin mimicking the military strategy of Hitler. From the historical record of Hitler's conversations with his Wehrmacht generals, including excerpts from William L. Shirer's "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and "A Man Called Lucy" by Pierre Accoce and Pierre Quet, the latter revealing the damaging spy ring maintained by Switzerland and the Soviets within the German High Command in Berlin, we can see Putin adopting many of the strategies of the Nazi Führer. In Shirer's work, we can examine Hitler's views on military adventurism. One merely has to change Hitler's desire to march East with Putin's ambitions to expand to the West. Shirer quotes Hitler on May 23, 1939 as telling his perplexed generals:
"No more victories can be worn without bloodshed. We must expand to the east, in order to guarantee our food supplies and also to resolve the problem of the Baltic states. There is no other course to be taken in Europe. if we are forced by fate to come to grips with the West, the possession of a vast territory in the East will be an incalculable advantage. There can be no question of sparing Poland. We shall attack her at the first favorable opportunity. War will break out.
If Great Britain and France support Poland then they too must be attacked. Dutch and Belgian airbases must be occupied militarily. Declarations of neutrality cannot be respected. We must make a lightning attack on Holland. Our aim must be the establishment on Dutch territory of a defense line going right up to the Zuyder Zee. The war with Britain and France will be a fight to the death. The idea that we shall be able to avoid this is a dangerous one. it will no longer be a matter of being right or wrong, but whether or not there are to be 80 million Germans."
The Lucerne, Switzerland espionage ring, headed by anti-Nazi German expat Rudolf Roessler, code-named "Lucy," obtained actual verbatim transcripts of the conversations of the highest ranking Nazis in Berlin, including Hitler and his chief lieutenants. It would appear incumbent for Western intelligence to have similarly high-placed sources within Putin's Kremlin to be assured of no "surprises" with regard to planned Russian military action.
One transcript obtained by Lucy about the Nazis' plans for Poland bear an uncomfortable resemblance to some of Putin's plans for Ukraine. On September 21, 1939, Nazi official Reinhard Heydrich transmitted the following to the Wehrmacht High Command:
"..."
When one justifiably considers that Putin is aping Hitler's policies and strategies in Ukraine, it becomes clear that the Russian dictator has his eyes set further west. Toward Moldova, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, and, perhaps, right back to his old stomping grounds in eastern Germany. It is very clear that if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, he may very well be celebrating his "second coming of Hitler" in Berlin or Paris.
https://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/march-78-2022-wartime-news-putin-and-hitler-similar