I think Nazi symbols will be America’s official and unofficial excuse to walk away from Ukraine. It will be even deadlier, more political blowback; it will be like in Afghanistan but worse. The first stage, with the West growing sick and tired of the never-ending demands, and with little real results, is to cut back on funding—and then to let the Neo Nazis and their NATO partners stew in their own juices.
But for the sake of discussion, I just want to know what happened to the films about WW2, fascism, and denazification, and how can we get more films to the general public that are being stashed away. And I want to know more about “Why Nazi Parody” and revisiting the past is such a forbidden topic these days, or to even talking about “Hitler’s Willing Executers” or about those who organized the T-4 program before WW2; I guess in part, especially in Europe, euthanasia is considered appropriate and is in demand.
This topic discussion takes me back to my childhood, watching Hogan’s Heroes. I guess Hogan’s Heroes is illegal in Germany nowadays—at least it is not recognized as being in good taste, as it is not politically expedient, and it made Germans during WW2 look like idiots—and that was just the intention.
So, too describes how the military conflict is going in Ukraine, and not only for those in Germany—and others who are starting to reconsider and back down from their own rhetoric. Some of my play friends, including myself, a Jewish child would walk around doing “Sieg Heil” with our right arms raised and “Heil Hitler” – as we were only repeating what he saw on TV.
The comedian Sacha Baron Cohen – a Jew – had a scene in a film where he dressed as a parody of an anti-semitic character mocking Jews. He talked with an actual concentration camp survivor who explained why mocking Jews was a terrible idea… the character acted embarrassed. The next year, the woman who was the concentration camp survivor died, and then the film was released. The daughter initially objected to it, at first thought it was anti-semitic, and tried to prevent its release. Fortunately, it came out and we can talk about it.
The scene contains an excellent history lesson about what happened to the Jews during WW2. Another Jewish comedian – Mel Brooks – produced a popular film “The Producers” – which also became a stage musical. The song, “Springtime for Hitler” contains an obvious parody of Hitler. Mel Brooks is Jewish, but lampooned Hitler as a buffoon. It also portends a get rich scheme of producing a war that is going to be a dismal failure!
Is “The Producers” illegal in Germany now too? Here’s another film that makes Germans aware of the atrocities they committed in WW2. Is it illegal? https://youtu.be/EotWl6LZZkg
Kremlin Truth or Propaganda
I just spout things off the top of my head and what is the real truth of what happened in Ukraine and the REAL or alleged Nazi undercurrents of the Kyiv regime. Present-day Germany does not have the critical thinking skills to distinguish the lampooning of Nazism vs. the promotion of Nazism—and this is not true only with Germans.
I am tempted to ask artificial intelligence to help write his article, as then I can blame the fallout on it. But first to try a bit of review, starting with the NYTs, which calls anything that that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia describes as the “denazification” mission, as “false claims, a “lie that the government and culture of Ukraine are filled with dangerous “Nazis” has become a central theme of Kremlin propaganda about the war.””
The fallback argument about any claims of Nazis in Ukraine, especially on higher echelons, is quickly dismissed by the repeated counter argument, and quoting Jeffrey Veidlinger, a professor of history and Judaic studies at the University of Michigan in the NYTs piece:
The common Russian understanding of Nazism hinges on the notion of Nazi Germany as the antithesis of the Soviet Union, rather than on the persecution of Jews specifically said. “That’s why they can call a state that has a Jewish president a Nazi state, and it doesn’t seem all that discordant to them,” he said. “That’s why they can call a state that has a Jewish president a Nazi state, and it doesn’t seem all that discordant to them,” he said.
Consequently, a Jewish president, at least in name, depending on how Jewish he is, [apparently] exonerates Ukraine of any Nazi history, tendencies, collaboration, atrocities, or current crimes or practices thereof, so it seems!
Nazi symbols are burned into the hearts of Jews and non-Jews alike. However, it does now appear that making any rigmarole over them is deemed as living in the past, failure to come to terms with the realization that times have changed, and so have people, as is best communicated in simple language with the Holocaust remembrance Slogan, “Never Again”.
But for Ukrainians, and others, even in NATO countries, Estonia, one comes to mind, Nazi collaborator monuments in Estonia, and its close neighbors, as reported by the BBC and the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
Such stone-cold heroes and their related symbols are alive and well, especially in their hearts, and even on Ukrainian uniforms, as reported in the MSM. Even the title of one recent article seems to be a bit of subterfuge, as if only wanting to describe it as something difficult, hard to grasp with the bare hand, or open mind: Nazi Symbols on Ukraine’s Front-Line Highlights Thorny Issues of History.
What does it REALLY mean?
The Slogan Never Again is an appropriate reminder of the past and a guiding principle for shaping a more inclusive, compassionate, and just future for Jews and non-Jews alike, and should address Nazi symbols as well. “Never Again is Now” and the expression should emphasize the importance of remembrance, education, and the continuous pursuit of justice to prevent the recurrence of such horrific events in human history, as is happening in the world today.
Nazi propaganda, like modern day Western and Ukrainian media [was and is most effective] in demonizing Jews and Minorities, especially Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine, turning them into a collective enemy, as well other targeted groups due to its strategic and manipulative techniques.
The Nazi regime employed a comprehensive propaganda apparatus led by Joseph Goebbels. He fully understood the power of propaganda as being an effective tool to manipulate public opinion and further ideological goals. A direct comparison can be made with the Rendon Group and War propaganda for Ukraine and internationally, especially for the US government, notwithstanding the efforts of the MSM. The lessons and PR spin being applied in discussing Ukraine and how the military conflict started which dates back to 2014.
Nazi symbols “R” worn by a proxy army
And anyone who takes exception to Nazi symbols worn by a proxy army that has been trained and equipped by the US and NATO, of which Germany is a member, is written off as calling attention to the iconography risks playing into the hands of Russian propaganda.
It should come as no surprise when Ukraine’s Defense Ministry posted a photograph on its Twitter account of a soldier wearing a patch featuring the emblem of skulls and crossbones known as the Totenkopf, or Death’s Head, according to the ADL, a common Nazi hate symbol.
The specific symbol in the NYTs picture was made notorious by a Nazi unit that committed war crimes and guarded concentration and death camps during World War, and many of the Concentration Camp guards, and Camp Enforcers were often Ukrainians, coincidence or not?
Many Ukrainians, especially from the West of the country, were actively supporting Nazis, and doing their own thing, a cottage industry of murdering, Jews, Poles, and Gypsies. It was so bad that the Germans higher command had to put a stop to it—but the ideology remained.
Geoff Young, a Kentucky Democrat, who is running for public office on the State and National Level in the US, so correctly describes,
“For the last 80 years. All US support for Ukrainian Nazis has had one goal: break up the USSR, and later Russia, turn Ukraine into a huge NATO base aimed at Russia itself, and finally, shatter Russia, into pieces and conquer them, enslaving the Russian people.”
Such goals are the same and those of Nazi Germany, and continue to this day!
Ukraine’s Media line is an Enigma
There is much more to the catchy quotes coming out of Ukraine than meets the eye, much more than PR slogans, “I need ammunition, not a ride” when US President Joe Biden offered to evacuate the Ukrainian president from Kyiv.
Ukraine is an enigma – with its claims of countering disinformation, and it even has its own Center for Combatting Disinformation, and it is interesting to keep up with Ukraine’s perspective on what it claims is false and what it claims is true.
But we should not forget the stories of Snake Island and the Ghost of Kyiv – and other make-believe stories that many in the West are still swallowing, hook, line and sinker.
The refutation section is especially enlightening – especially for anyone who keeps up with the reality of what is actually happening in Ukraine, including the offensive and who is actually responsible for raising water levels.
If you want to read what the believers, spin doctors, have to say, and then look to the facts, just do an internet search: “Is there truth to Putin’s claims for the need for denazification of Ukraine?”
All the think thanks and MSM outlets have closed ranks, and singing the same tune, as if they were goose-stepping, and how Putin had peddled dubious accusations of Nazi elements within Ukraine but in the same breath admits “that Ukraine has a neo-Nazi problem”.
Ukraine’s neo-Nazi problem
If you want deeper commentary, you need to go back a few years, 2018, and you will find some articles that are a bit more insightful, and even funded by USAID. Here alleged Nazis are described as “far-right vigilantes” who are willing to use intimidation and even violence to advance their agendas, and who often do so with the tactic approval of law enforcement agencies [and that rings historic alarm bells] to “Nazi Germany.”
It is worth noting, a disclaimer, the views expressed in this article are not those of Reuters News. You can be sure that such an article would not be published today, with or without a disclaimer, in a mainstream news publication.
It is also interesting that one of the articles quoted in this response to Nazism in Ukraine and its symbols had an accompany pool, and at the time of writing, 77 percent of having read the article answered NO to the question “Should public criticism of Nazi symbols in Ukraine’s military be avoided?”
Just over one in five answered, yes, they should be avoided, and 8 percent were unsure. Nobody wants to remember now that back in 2018 that the US Congress voted not to fund those parts of the Ukrainian army with overt neo-Nazi ties. So, the US has found a good way to escape Ukraine now, and thanks to the hatreds of the past coming back to haunt us all.
Let us not forget the Slogan for the present, Never Again!
Now is as good as time as ever to revisit this topic, looking for the closest escape exit, since the much awaited and touted Ukrainian offensive is falling and the demise of the upper ranks of the regime is soon expected—and the sooner the better.
I am trying to be very careful in how I go about pointing the finger, recriminations, as I am already on a Ukrainian assassination list. It appears like a large branch of Nazism never escaped Germany and Ukraine after the war. It has since nested in Ukraine, in the hearts and minds of a minority of the population—and the leadership of that segment was backed in staging a coup in 2014—and we know by which powers and who the main actors were.
Hence, I am as convinced that the easy exit for this military conflict, especially for the closed ranks “arrangement of NATO” and the Birds-of-Feather of the West, if they can escape this military conflict, and find honor in defeat is simply to walk away. The key is for their proxy army and “prompted up” government to do something so criminal that they will finally have to distance themselves and just walk away … so to save face.
But the Russians, of course, are not going to let those who are the “most responsible” for the gravest crimes simply walk away, never to be held accountable, as like what happened at the end of WW2. The Russians and many others know that there will be justice in the end, and those responsible will lose the subsequent court case when the weapons stop flowing and the guns stop blasting away.
The average American is too stupid to even know what has transpired and is now happening in this part of the world, as for Europeans, they are wising up. However, the controlled corporate media tells the unwashed masses “There’s no Nazis, and Russia made it up,” and many of them actually believe it.
Other than a brief burst of interest in the American Media in the middle of the night “late” last night, of REAL news, where the TV commentators did their best to convince everyone that it was the Russians that bombed the dam that they controlled—flooding the territory that they control—losing water to the nuclear power plant that they control, and to the canal and Crimea, and interrupting the water supply to Crimea, and to think anything otherwise, is just to give into Russian disinformation and fake news.
Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
