Putin as a historian: Stalin's apt pupil

Vladimir Putin has written an historical essay. He bears the title "75. Anniversary of the Great victory: a Common responsibility before history and future“ an

Putin as a historian: Stalin's apt pupil

Vladimir Putin has written an historical essay. He bears the title "75. Anniversary of the Great victory: a Common responsibility before history and future“ and is available in German Translation on the website of the Russian Embassy. However, the message does not stop there. You sent the attachment via E-Mail to dozens of German Eastern Europe, the historian, accompanied by the proposal to use the Text that'll be sure to encounter "significant interest", "in the future, in the preparation of the historical contributions", of course, with a Link to the cited source: "website of the President of the Russian Federation".

Andreas Kilb

feuilleton correspondent in Berlin.

F. A. Z.

Vladimir Putin Would be a Blogger with historical inclinations, one would have to count the Essay to the foothills of the historic and political revisionism, of the attacks since the late nineties, in the heartland of the former Soviet Union to. Because Putin but the state is the head of one of the Baltic sea to the Pacific, reaching the atom, it is not necessary any kind of Smile on his submissions. This Text is the most detailed version of a doctrine, the commencement of power in the geostrategic Russia's Actions since Putin in may 2000, directs. And it is the announcement of an ideological fight to the former hereditary enemy of the tsarist Empire in Poland.

The Pact with Hitler as an initial ignition for the war

The ostensible occasion of the end of the Second world war and the reorganisation of Europe by the victory of a century, powers ahead of a three-quarter, is dealt with in Putin's essay is rather short. The author comes to the third of twenty-two printed pages to the subject, which moves him actually: the question of who bears the main blame for the outbreak of the war. For Western historians of the German-Soviet non-aggression Pact of 23 applies. August 1939 as the initial spark for the war, because he paved the planned Hitler invaded Poland the way.

Putin's Text pushes the debt, however, the Munich agreement of 1938 in which England and France for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia had accepted. The beneficiaries of the Treaty, the "I only objected to the USSR", was "also of Germany and Poland". In spite of this "Munich plot" had Stalin wrestled but "until the last opportunity" to build a coalition against Hitler.

Historical gaps and contradictions

His efforts had failed, and that Poland "wanted to take over any obligations to the Soviet side". In order to avoid "alone with Germany and its allies" to take, have allied the Soviet Union with Hitler's Empire; and it was only when it was clear that the German troops were going to "occupy quickly the whole of Poland", was invaded by the Red army, also. Conclusion: The tragedy of Poland spent "entirely on the Conscience of the then Polish leadership".

contradictions of this representation – a state assails to list one other, because of this with no Alliance – individually, your some however, a certain stubborn consistency to be certified. It connects seamlessly to the Stalinist view of history, in the Soviet Union until the Gorbachev Era was, and in which the double-tongued Western powers and the perfidious Poland, the same villains roles were. It's fitting that Putin is transfigured the annexation of militarily occupied Baltic States to the peaceful "incorporation". At the same time, he is not praised to resist the temptation to quote Churchill, who was then Russia's "cold politics of their own interests".

Date Of Update: 01 July 2020, 11:20