35 Comments

a fascinating account karl... of course i was unaware of much of this and your knowledge of history adds to the article here... here is a lavrov quote - " Instead of becoming a bridge between East and West, Germany has become an arena for a global confrontation between the two systems."

ain't that the truth?? germany is like a play thing for the west still and apparently some germans know this and some don't... i wonder if and when germany will flip?? it would require an acknowledgement of them being manipulated badly... the nordstream terrorist attack is only a part of it.. thanks for the article, you've gotten from a helpful person - natalya volkova. thanks natalya..

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Yes, she also shared her feelings about it which were hard for her, nut I'm very glad she did. I discovered the commentator ebear is also a musician via his comments on the Rosatom thread.

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Again, it is difficult to acknowledge the Truth. The Deceiver is sly & cunning...and makes it so that many never will find reality. Even with this explanation. They cannot face it.

Thank you for this extraordinary piece, and, warm wishes to Natalya. 🙏

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Mutually, thank you.

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Thank you, and I am grateful that you enjoyed it. It is important we share our knowledge and experiences, even when it is difficult, for there are those that aim to deny us our history and the truth that led to it being.

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that is so true what you say! thank you again.. keep sharing!

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First of all, I would like to make it unmistakably clear that nothing excuses the monstrous crimes committed by Hitler's Germany. Absolutely nothing. But now, as a German, I would like to say something on this subject. The right lessons can only be learned from history if history is not falsified. But it has been falsified from day one. Who said: "History is written by the victors"? I have to be extremely brief at this point. Therefore in bullet points.

When you talk about the Second World War, you have to talk about the First World War. Even more, you have to go back to the year 1871. In 1871, the "German Reich" was founded as a monarchy. Otto von Bismarck was an important player. Incidentally, a Russophile politician In 1871, Germany began a very successful economic and technological development. Germany's reputation for engineering, industriousness, discipline, order and industry emerged from this period.

It was the British Empire that was in decline and looked with hostility on the growing competition in Germany. Even more so when Germany began to realize colonial ambitions.

It was Great Britain that planned, organized and provoked the First World War. Kaiser Wilhelm I sent a written peace offer to London in the final days of the war.

Let us not forget the great power ambitions of France at the time, which was allied with Great Britain. Incidentally, this is a historical anachronism.

Most people don't even know what the Treaty of Versailles was all about. This dictate condemned the German people to terrible misery and was intended to deindustrialize Germany. At the same time, it laid the foundations for the later rise of fascism and National Socialism. Incidentally, "National Socialism" was a marketing ploy. Nothing about what was to come was socialist. The Anglo-Saxons, Great Britain and the USA pumped massive amounts of money, material, industrial investment and organization into Germany to arm Hitler's regime so that he could wage war against the Soviet Union.

Valentin Mikhailovich Falin was the best expert on Germany in the defunct Soviet Union. Even before his death, he spoke openly about the true developments in European history. It was he who suggested that historians from all over Europe should come together and re-examine European history together. Only if history was dealt with honestly and realistically could there finally be peace in Europe.

History is currently being falsified again in the war against Russia. This time by the Europeans and even by the Germans. This falsification can hardly be surpassed in its repulsiveness and abomination.

It was George Friedemann who said in Chicago in 2015 that the USA has successfully managed to prevent German technology and engineering from allying itself with Russian raw materials and masses of people since 1871. The USA has been doing exactly the same to this day. Unfortunately successfully.

I would also like to add that the EU now wants to ban books printed on paper. Allegedly because of CO2. For a long time now, many thousands of books have secretly not been published and are no longer available to buy. It is a subtle form of "book burning".

Only an ignorant people can wage war.

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As an Objectivist, I have no argument with you. I'm sure you'd find George Seldes's interview with Hindenburg at the very end of the war illuminating, even more so when you learn it was suppressed by the US Government. And there're so many other things I might add. ("You Can't Print That" 1928.) As you'll recall, Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" was set in Europe, and Dr. Hudson recently revealed the major problem authors have with publishing houses nowadays.

An appetite for the truth and history must be developed when young as there's far too much to learn along with the need to discern truth from falsity--not an easy task nowadays.

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The privilege to the truth is something that is abused very intensively. You are absolutely right, today the search for the truth has not become any easier. We should always be curious about what is forbidden by the regimes. We have to take a closer look.

I have just listened to the following conversation. It is very interesting. I can recommend it.

"Israel HUMILIATED: Hezbollah Missiles SWARM Tel Aviv & IDF, Iran War Looms w/ Lowkey & Laith Marouf"

https://www.youtube.com/live/andak8-mjR0?si=Or1RauKT138vPZ8h

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The machine translation of my first posting was incorrect. Correction: Kaiser Wilhelm I sent a peace offer to London just a few days before the start of the war.

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I assumed it was some sort of error like that.

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As for lessons to apply to the SMO, presumably Russia has learned how split nations are a bad idea, also considering the Korean war and also Vietnam. Not to mention Syria today with part under the control of the US and part under the control of Turkey. Also not to mention Palestine.

So people who think Russia is going to stop at the Dnieper are in for a surprise.

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Maybe, but I think the final borders suggested by b at MOA a few days ago [and he suggested the same early on in 2022] are more likely for the following reasons:

1. The original ‘Prison House of Nations’ decried in the imperialist West was not the USSR—it was Tsarist Russia which exploited economically and militarily the peoples and lands both within the modern borders of Russia and those surrounding Russia proper. This was called Great Russian Chauvinism.

2. Marxists and socialists in pre-revolutionary Russia knew that if they ever came to power they would have to cease the exploitation of the non-Russian peoples and lands on a factual and objective basis. From the 1890’s on, how to solve this problem was a matter of much polemical debate within all of European socialism, I.e., in the 2nd Internationale.

3. Finally, Stalin in 1913 and Lenin in many articles, defined a nation as a people with a common history, language, culture and territory. After 1917, this definition was used to define which peoples would become full nations as Soviet Socialist Republics and which non-Russian peoples would be granted some form of autonomy because an element of the full definition was not met.

4. This policy and definition continue to be utilized by Russia since the demise of the USSR. However, imo, this definition was not correctly applied in three circumstances, imo. First, Crimea historically had a large Tatar population. But the Tatars opposed the new Red government in 1917 and fought with the White Russians. This population of Tatars was removed from Crimea for the expediency of Crimea’s strategic importance. Likewise, Ukraine was cobbled together for strategic reasons [as a buffer against the West ] from disparate peoples with differing histories. To solve the vexatious problem of antisemitism, a Jewish autonomous region was created in the Far East in the 1930’s even though Jews had never lived there.

5. Putin, Lavrov, et al were members of the Russian Communist Party into their 40’s, so they continue to at least perceive the historical lessons of what has transpired.

6. Since the SMO began Putin has bitterly blamed the communists for creating the conditions leading to the crisis in Ukraine. He has not been explicit about the communist’s mistakes he perceives. But even if failing to correctly solve the national question with regard to Ukraine is NOT what he means, absorbing all of existing Ukraine into Russia would still seem to go against both past and present Russian solutions to the national question.

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"This population of Tatars was removed from Crimea for the expediency of Crimea’s strategic importance. Likewise, Ukraine was cobbled together for strategic reasons [as a buffer against the West ]"

And that approach will be used again, regardless. Russia's border security is far more important than Soviet or pre-Soviet history - or for that matter, Putin's preferences. How many times can Russia be invaded before they learn their lesson?

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I agree that Russia will not leave its borders unsecured. They will accomplish this via a capitulation agreement that leaves the rump Ukraine in a neutered state: neutral by constitution—like Austria—and with security forces restricted to a lightly armed state police. The reduced state will also have to assist in the arrest and prosecution of war criminals identified by Russia or its own aggrieved citizens…

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Not going to work. All of that will be as subverted as the original Minsk agreements were. Russia can NOT trust any Ukraine or Ukrainian state not under the full control of Russia. And "agreements" are not control when the party is "agreement-incapable."

Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional.

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Regarding the SMO, Russia has a couple of options.

It can try to preserve the rump state of Ukraine as a single entity, less the annexed oblasts. This will require substantial oversight for the foreseeable future to ensure Ukraine isn't weaponized against Russia again. Essentially an on going occupation of a puppet government, much like Western Germany was.

It can take everything along the coast, east of the river, and along a land bridge to Hungary, then split the remaining pieces into small states. The question of Galicia is problematic because it is almost guaranteed to be hostile to Russia no matter what polity it becomes attached to, no western forcing required. It might be easiest to trade it to Poland in exchange for the Suwałki gap.

The problem is, indeed, similar to the German problem in WWII. Russia has to worry about its own interests, the interests of the concerned populace, and the threat from the west. The biggest differences that I see this time is that this new cold war will be much, much shorter than the last one, and it will be the west that collapses this time around.

All that said, there is no 'correct' solution here. Every possible configuration has consequences on multiple fronts. Still, for all of the looming downsides, I am optimistic because Russia has shrewd statesmen, isn't pursuing an empire, and is holding the strongest hand.

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Quite well said. IMO, Galicia ought to be made into two statelets and some adjustments made with Poland with the remainder absorbed back into Russia. For that outcome, the SMO will need to continue to 2026. Whoever remains with Russia will become revitalized rather quickly.

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"...This requires the complete disarmament of Germany for at least a generation.."

There was much dissent throughout Europe when NATO was established around German re-armament. The Labour Party in Britain was deeply split on the question which was, for reasons that are obvious enough, as detested by the people, still bruised from their recent conflict with German militarism as it fitted into the old agenda of the Appeasers.

Talking of whom: it was Maxim Litvinov, one of the key figures of the C20th not Mikhail, who was Ambassador to Washington. With Maisky in London and Litvinov in Washington the USSR was well served by its diplomats.

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Off Topic but came up today. Walt, a well known commenter on MOA, has written a substack analyzing the claim that 6 million Jews were killed by Hitler. Not true. Like this document about what happened after WWII, Zionists propaganda has been used to justify genocide. I had never questioned 6 million.

https://waltking.substack.com/p/auschwitz-six-facts-and-seven-questions

I also cross posted this substack to Walt's substack.

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Regarding your concluding question, Putin answered in part in early 2022 when he stated “demilitarization and denazification” were goals of the SMO. These two ‘d’ words were ridiculed, ignored or misunderstood in the West—especially the term ‘denazification’. In fact, these two ‘d’ words were two of the ‘4 D’s’ the allies agreed to at the Potsdam Conference. In the almost three years since Putin’s use I have not seen any observer of the Ukraine conflict comment on the historical context (Potsdam) of the ‘denazification’ term. Neither does Lavrov in this speech. I think the ‘denazification’ term is significant, as it provides historical linkage between the SMO and the very unfinished business of WWII that Lavrov is reflecting on in the history lesson he gives here.

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Actually, we have discussed that linkage at MoA, and I've been very loud about the Outlaw US Empire keeping Nazism alive after the war. As you may be aware, Russia often says things only once and doesn't reiterate. Maria Zakharova has perhaps been the most vocal about the need for denazification beyond Ukraine and has linked it to WW2 in her weekly briefings. Then there's the concept of American Nazism that was articulated by Zinoviev. Attempts to kill history began soon after WW1 and continue today as part of the Info War. There's a very good reason why Russia opened its vast archives and has sponsored many events highlighting various sections in an ongoing basis. Link to Russian Historical Society, https://portal.historyrussia.org/

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thank you, karl. Mr.P has highly recommended this & posted a link on global south's hearty salon's current open thread. doctor karl, you, your work & dedication are highly appreciated.

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Thanks much! I 'd like more hours in the day to accomplish more, today being an excellent example.

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Thank you very much, I am honoured by such words.

I am grateful for a place, a discussion group, to share when appropriate, and I have enjoyed especially your comments and opinions and those of the members, here and under your other excellent and interesting work.

I appreciate the format, it is not always possible to find and read this material, for many varied reasons, time constraints, not knowing where to look, or simply overlooked, as some examples.

Thanks again.

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Even not having a formal job, I still find it hard to stay informed; it's a lot of work. Most of the commentators are retired and thus have some free time. Misfits are easy to spot and ignored.

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The parallels with the division of Korea are striking: as in Germany, the Americans and their allies acted first to establish a pro-western state (the Republic of Korea), and the Soviet side reacted to this by their proxies establishing the DPRK. The planned UN-supervised all Korean elections never happened.

'Reacting' is never a good idea in international relations which affect your vital geo-strategic interests. Let's hope indeed that Russia has learned this lesson and applies it to the SMO and the future of Ukraine.

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re: "As we know well, Europe wasn’t denazified at the end of WW2 as the Americans and British rescued Nazis and their ideology so it could be used again as we know witness."

How is it "we know well" that "Europe was not denazified" Karl? Based on reading Cora Sol Goldstein's Capturing the German Eye, and Harold Zink's history of OMGUS -- American Military Government in Germany; in addition to the biography of Ritchie Boy Morris Perloff who composed the Questionnaire that every German had to complete do declare or deny their association with "Nazism" before he/she could claim housing, or employment, or food . . .

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Sorry for the global We. Lots of effort went into covering up Operation Paperclip and its kin along with sponsoring the OUN and its terrorism all of which was later investigated and denounced by the same US Congress that financed it all without knowing what it was financing. Given what those investigations uncovered, how can those authors be seen as objective? By the purposeful clandestine nature of their actions, we can infer those performing those deeds knew they were in the wrong but justified their actions to themselves by doing wrong to forward the greater good--behavior akin to that of Zionist's today.

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Thanks for response, but "global we" was not the point. The following sentence stated three sources that described the total, and brutal, "de-Nazification" that was carried out upon the German people in US military sector. Goldstein called it "psychological warfare," and "imposition of democracy by force."

The continued vilification of Germans, and use of "Nazi" as an epithet is intellectually dishonest and lazy, in addition to perpetuating elements of propaganda and outright lies.

Another perspective on Operation Paperclip is that US-UK stole for their own benefit the brain-power of Germany. Alex Krainer recently applied the example of Tanya Harding to the ways US-UK use military power to break an adversary rather than compete in honest effort. That is the core of the Allied war against Germany.

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You'll find agreement and a new thesis here in this 90-minute Hudson/Wolff discussion, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz5-PtkUw9s

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You have misspelled now or it was corrected erroneously to know in the first paragraph, at the end

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“The Soviet government repeatedly pointed out that the desire of the Polish people for its full unification in a strong and independent state should be recognized and supported.”

Having invaded and dismembered Poland in 1939.

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After the West refused to form a defensive pact with Russia, and we know all about how the Poles behaved prior to that when they stabbed the Czechs in the back. Stalin was the only one looking after Polish interests in the post-war settlement. And the West did absolutely nothing to help Poland rebuild after the War.

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Shame about the Katyn Forest.

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