From BZ editors
No one has ever judged Russia’s President Vladimir Putin (69) so harshly!
By ALBERT LINK, PAUL RONZHEIMER, RALF SCHULER AND DIMITRI SOIBEL
In the BILD interview, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda (59) compares Putin to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler: “I’m amazed at all the talks that are being held with Putin at the moment. By Chancellor Scholz, by President Emmanuel Macron. (…) Did anyone talk to Adolf Hitler like that during WWII?”
Putin equals Hitler? Can you compare that?
Yes, says Latvia’s President Egils Levits (66) to BILD: “There are historical parallels between Germany in 1939 and Russia in 2022 in terms of waging a baseless war of aggression against other states.”
“Putin is the Hitler of the 21st century,” says ex-CIA chief James Clapper (81). And Kiev’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko (50): “Putin’s propaganda methods in particular are reminiscent of what Hitler did in the 1930s. Talking and negotiating with him only makes sense if his troops have left our country. As long as that is not the case, there is no room for compromise.”
His brother, ex-boxing champion Wladimir Klitschko (46), says: “Actions speak louder than words: if you see the strategies and tactics Putin used in the war, they are just as reminiscent of the Nazi era as the propaganda and justification of the attack. As long as he acts like that, talks like the ones we’ve had over the past three months will unfortunately be useless.”
Historian Michael Wolffsohn (75) disagrees. Wolffsohn to BILD: “Putin is undeniably a mega-criminal, but not every mega-criminal is like Hitler.”
Holocaust survivor Zoe Burdoj (94), who fled Putin’s bombs to Germany in March, also rejects the comparison: “Putin is an aggressor and his army is killing innocent civilians in Ukraine. However, I think that the comparison between him and Hitler is not correct.” Because: “Hitler committed a systematic genocide in which he wanted to destroy an entire people.”
