Vladimir Putin often appears as “Putler” on demo banners.
But can Hitler and Putin really be compared?
Berlin/Munich - They were already present at the first solidarity rallies for Ukraine in Germany: posters showing Vladimir Putin as "Putler" - with a little Hitler beard and the Nazi dictator's parting.
Comparisons are still the order of the day around the Ukraine war: It was only on Saturday (February 25) that Czech Republic's new President Petr Pavel drew a parallel, according to the Nexta portal
:
"Before the Second World War, Hitler behaved exactly as Putin is now in of Ukraine,” he said at a rally in Prague, according to this translation.
Pavel alluded to the Sudetenland: Germany used a national minority there to sow hatred and violence.
The question of the extent to which there are parallels between the Nazi and Putin regimes has also repeatedly occupied experts.
The political scientist Claus Leggewie, for example, analyzed similarities and differences for Deutschlandfunk.
And the well-known US historian Timothy Snyder also shed light on
this highly explosive question, especially from a German point of view, in an interview with Der
Spiegel .
The experts seem to agree on one point: as far as comparisons and not equations are concerned, there should be no "taboo".
Many of them recognize characteristics of fascism and historical parallels in today's Russia.
Vladimir Putin: A fascist regime?
Historian Snyder names five starting points
Like Pavel, Snyder, for example, seemed to see very concrete parallels: Russia is behaving “like Germany did in 1941,” he explained.
“There is an ideology behind the invasion, Russia claims that Ukraine does not even exist as a state.
It is waging a war of aggression, pursuing a genocidal policy - all of this is similar to the German approach to the invasion of the Soviet Union," the historian told Der
Spiegel
.
He himself speaks of Russia as a "fascist state".
Firstly, because of an “intellectual tradition of Russian fascism that obviously influences Putin”.
On the other hand, because there are five specific starting points:
1. In Russia, “will prevails over reason”.
2. Snyder also attested to a “cult of violence and an indifference to the law” in Russia.
3. Putin is "as leader above the institutions - there are no real parties, no succession plan, all institutions exist only through or in relation to Putin".
4. "Conspiracy myths" are common: "Putin claims the West wants to destroy Russia, Russian propaganda broadcasts constantly use clearly fascist language."
5. "Fascist practices" were also evident in the Russian leadership's talk of "Ukrainian Satanists", in disregard for international law and in the deportation of people.
Snyder stressed that Ukrainians in particular drew comparisons between Nazi Germany and Putin's Russia.
That is legitimate because "there are experiences with both wars in their family histories".
In any case, however, one must prevent a “comparison taboo” from obscuring the view of reality.
The concept of fascism, for example, is "analytically" indispensable.
But Synder also saw Germany in particular as having a duty - because of its "colonial war" in Ukraine from 1941 to 1945, but also because it had never taken Ukraine seriously as a state and nation.
And finally, because of his policies since 2014 and the idea of a “purely economic” relationship with Russia.
Putin and the Hitler comparison - political scientist Leggewie: "There are fascisms in the plural"
"Equating unpleasant figures with Adolf Hitler is inflationary, most contemporary historians reject such comparisons," Leggewie clarified right at the beginning of his essay.
However, his answer is also more complex: On the one hand, it is not about an “individual or collective character”, but about the characteristics and dynamics of a regime of domination.
The "desperate avoidance of the accusation of fascism" is just as much a danger as its "inflation".
After all, comparing does not mean “equating”, emphasized the political scientist.
And there are "fascisms in the plural", "beyond the singularity of German National Socialism".
Leggewie named four characteristics: the initial character as a “consent dictatorship”, a “political theology”, a “male chauvinism” and an “ultranationalist and imperial foundation”.
However, the differences between Putin's regime and German and Italian-style fascism are numerous.
There is no broad social movement, for example, and the scientific mainstream believes that authentic fascist currents tend to exist in “niches”.
"Putin's social basis is not devotion to a leader, but cadaveric obedience in the name of a mystified fatherland and a glorified army whose literacy and moral standards are devastating," Leggewie explained.
Fascism according to Putin: “A new type of totalitarian rule”
However, the Russian aggression has adapted to "fascist warfare with its racist and colonialist features", with looting, deportations and mass killings of civilians.
And the construct of the "Russian world" "worked out by fascist intellectuals" combines a recourse to Stalin and the Russian tsar with "racial ultra-nationalism".
At the same time, Russia conjures up a “thousand-year imperial tradition” in which “lost parts of the Soviet Union, which has been renamed the 'Russian World', are to be brought home”.
Leggewie's judgment: "The Putin regime has not yet arrived at the perfect dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin, but fascist traits are just as recognizable in him as connections to the Soviet (as I said: non-communist) heritage." Rigid typologies were no good at this point – A “new type of totalitarian rule” is recognizable: “The 'Stalinoid' core is encased in a fascistoid shell.” Even more important, however, is the question of “whether a post-fascist Russia will be possible and how one can contribute to it from the outside” .
Historian on Putin-Hitler parallels: Compare, don't equate
The singular event of the Shoah must not be forgotten.
The German Holocaust researcher Götz Aly made it clear in an interview with the dpa in March 2022 that one could “only partially compare Hitler and Putin”.
With this thought in mind, however, it is "legitimate to name certain parallels".
"Hitler also had enormous troops deployed, while at the same time it was assured: 'The Führer wants nothing but peace,'" Aly recalled.
At the beginning of 2022, the historian Heinrich August Winkler also recognized “striking parallels” between Austria’s “annexation”;
the incorporation of the Sudetenland and the "smashing of the rest of Czechia" on the one hand and the annexation of Crimea, the separation of significant areas of the Donbass and the aggressive war on Ukraine on the other.
"The analogy of the procedure is striking," Winkler wrote in Die
Zeit
.
He explained: “But the parallels go much further.
Even as a 'historian', i.e. as a politician with history, Putin comes across as a learned student of Adolf Hitler.” Putin is also trying to historically underpin his aim of restoring an alleged former great empire.
However, there are also more explicit warnings against equating: These “almost always lead to a dead end, because the similarities are always limited and partial,” wrote the historian Christopher Clark in the Süddeutsche Zeitung in the
summer
.
It is also possible that the 20th century is "decreasing" in its relevance as a point of reference.
Current debates about the concept of nation are more reminiscent of the 19th century.
(
fn with material from dpa
)
