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Current Affairs, Memories & History

Putin’s attack on Ukraine echoes Hitler’s on Czechoslovakia – The Washington Post

The Nazi leader used similar tactics to dismember and devour Czechoslovakia before World War II

By Michael E. Ruane, Feb. 24, 2022, at 1:15 p.m. EST

German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his army parade in Prague on March 15, 1939, the day of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Wehrmacht. (AFP/AFP/Getty Images)

By 1939, parts of Czechoslovakia had already been carved off and taken over by Nazi Germany, which claimed that millions of ethnic Germans were being persecuted there.

The previous September, European powers, seeking to avoid war, had acquiesced and done nothing.But six months later, German troops were massed on the Czech border, as Nazi leader Adolf Hitler railed and threatened the country with destruction.

On March 15, 1939, the sickly Czech president, Emil Hacha, was in Hitler’s study surrounded by the Führer’s henchmen.

A woman holds an image depicting Russian President Vladimir Putin as Adolf Hitler during a demonstration of Ukrainian citizens in front of the Russian embassy in Paris on Feb. 24. (Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images)

“Hitler was at his most intimidating,” historian Ian Kershaw wrote in his 2000 biography of the Nazi leader. “He launched into a violent tirade against the Czechs.” The Nazis needed to take over Czechoslovakia to protect Germany. Hacha must agree or his country would be immediately attacked and Prague, its capital, bombed.

Source: Putin’s attack on Ukraine echoes Hitler’s on Czechoslovakia – The Washington Post