Hitler and Putin: Echoes In History

"Facing down the Nazis’ Third Reich and the Axis powers kept the world free for America and our democratic friends overseas. Putin's revanchism sits in the same league — and must be fought."

By Michael Golden

Editor’s Note: The historical event this article is based upon was inspired by our partner: Dust And Stars. For more fascinating notes in Jewish History, check out Steven Drucker’s excellent Substack.

Eighty-seven years ago today, Nazi Germany annexed its neighbor, Austria, violating both the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of St. Germain. The aggression was dubbed “the Anschluss,” which means “joining” or “connection.”

It was 18 months before the start of World War II and Hitler was busy. The “führer” woke up furious every morning about the post-World War I map and the European order it represented. But when Hitler broke these treaties and swallowed up Austria, European powers didn’t say boo. They appeased the man who would go on to systematically murder six million Jews and another five million other Europeans.

Hitler wouldn’t have stopped unless the Allies, including incredibly brave U.S. forces, stood up to him. And if he hadn’t been defeated, our world might look very different today. For Jews, without question, but for all of human life on this planet.

Hitler’s plans didn’t just dawn on him one day in the run up to 1939. His ill design started nearly two decades prior. In the 1920 Nazi Platform, Hitler wrote:

“We demand the union of all Germans in a Greater Germany (Großdeutschland) on the basis of the right of national self-determination.”

Four years later, while serving a treason sentence in prison for trying to overthrow the German Republic, Hitler wrote the following in Mein Kampf:

“...the reunification [of Germany and Austria] is a life task to be carried out by all means! German-Austria must be restored to the great German Motherland…People of the same blood should be in the same REICH.”

Hitler, his Nazis, and other Axis powers pursued the goal of international domination during the second World War. They were authoritarian governments that wanted to subsume other nations against their will. In other words, to conquer them by any means necessary, regardless of any loss of human life.

If that sounds familiar to what’s happening today in Europe — it should. For decades, Russian authoritarian Vladimir Putin, a mass murderer, has been trying to reunify the Soviet Union — against the will of the free countries he hunts. Nations that are either democracies or are trying to build democratic systems. Twenty years ago, Putin announced:

“Above all, we should acknowledge that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.”

Putin’s revanchist aggressions in Crimea and Ukraine comprise the blindingly obvious evidence of his continuing passions for conquest, the latter still playing out in real time. The Ukrainian people want no part of being conquered and ruled by Russia’s dictator; they have fought valiantly and sacrificed tens of thousands of lives (and more than 400,000 wounded) to remain free.

The historical analogy should be clear: Facing down the Nazis’ Third Reich and the Axis powers kept the world free for America and our democratic friends overseas. Putin may have different methods and specific goals than did Hitler — but the danger to free countries is the same: Losing individual liberty. Living under a dictator without the right to speak and act as you choose.

The decisions that America’s president is making vis-à-vis who to support between Ukraine and our N.A.T.O. allies — and Putin-dominated Russia — matter far beyond local borders. Whether it’s providing weaponry, U.S. Intelligence or negotiating a peace treaty fairly, the stakes are monumental. And beyond Ukraine, the interests of Russia should never be acquiesced to above the cause of America’s founding principles of self-determination and freedom — and the longer term efforts to sustain them.

As the epic character “Maximus” once said in Gladiator: “What we do in life, echoes in eternity.”

MICHAEL GOLDEN is the Editor-In-Chief of JEWDICIOUS and founder of The Golden Mean.

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