Hillary Clinton's comparison of Vladimir Putin and Adolf Hitler checks out

Updated

The toppling of Ukraine's pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych and the takeover of the Crimean region by Russia has captured headlines around the world.

Western nations including Australia have condemned Russia's moves. At a function on March 4, former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton told the audience that "if this sounds familiar, it's what Hitler did back in the '30s".

Ms Clinton spoke again on March 5, telling attendees at a lecture that the "claims by president Putin and other Russians [are] that they had to go into Crimea and maybe further into eastern Ukraine because they had to protect the Russian 'minorities', and that is reminiscent of claims that were made back in the 1930s when Germany under the Nazis kept talking about how they had to protect German minorities in Poland and Czechoslovakia and elsewhere throughout Europe".

ABC Fact Check investigates Ms Clinton's claim of reminiscence. A separate fact file examines Ukraine, its ethnic diversity and what Russia may do next.

The claim: Hillary Clinton says claims made by Russian president Vladimir Putin to justify taking over Crimea are reminiscent of claims made by Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.

Hillary Clinton says claims made by Russian president Vladimir Putin to justify taking over Crimea are reminiscent of claims made by Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. The verdict: There are enough similarities between the actions of Germany prior to World War II and Mr Putin's Russia today to justify Ms Clinton's statement.

Germany's initial steps

Fact Check has delved into the history books to get an accurate picture of what, in Ms Clinton's words, "Hitler did back in the '30s".

Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party came to power in Germany in 1933. From the start the regime took issue with the European boundaries set by the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World World I. Under the treaty, Germany lost a large amount of land to neighbouring countries including Poland. The city of Danzig (now Gdansk), with a mixed German and Polish population, became a "free city" under control of the League of Nations (the precursor to the United Nations). Germany was prohibited from uniting with Austria. It could not station troops in the Rhineland region near the French/German border. The dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian empire led to the establishment of new independent countries such as Czechoslovakia.

The treaty left a significant German population living in other European territories. According to the late historian A J P Taylor, by the late 1930s there were around 6 million Germans living in Austria, 3 million in Czechoslovakia and 350,000 in Danzig.

In 1936, Germany moved military forces to the Rhineland, in breach of the treaty. Historian R.H. Tenbrock said "the Western Powers responded with nothing more than a weak protest".

The next step was Austria. In 1936, Germany said it recognised the "full sovereignty" of Austria, however by 1938 missteps by the Austrian government gave Hitler an opportunity. Austrian Nazis stirred up tension and after the Austrian chancellor was forced to resign, Germany offered to restore order. It invaded Austria on March 12, 1938. A referendum was held in Austria in April 1938, after the annexation had already happened, and the official result was that 99.7 per cent of voters were in favour of joining with Germany. Even though the Treaty of Versailles did not allow it to happen, Austria became part of Germany.

Germany in Czechoslovakia and Poland

Then there was Czechoslovakia. In the late 1930s, Czechoslovakia was a democratic country made up of several ethnic groups including Czechs, Slovaks and Germans (many of whom were located in the Sudetenland region bordering Germany). In later 1938, Hitler made speeches claiming the Sudetenland Germans were suffering discrimination. In a telegram to US president Franklin Roosevelt on September 27, 1938, Hitler referred to a "revolting Czechoslovakian regime of violence and bloodiest terror". He said "political persecution and economic oppression have plunged the Sudeten Germans into extreme misery". However, there was no evidence supporting Hitler's claims. Historian Taylor suggested that Hitler was "also concerned, in more practical terms, to remove the obstacle which a well armed Czechoslovakia allied to France and Soviet Russia raised against German hegemony".

The threat of German military intervention was ever present, with Hitler said to be preparing for an attack. France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy met in Munich on September 29, 1938, in an attempt to resolve the dispute. In the absence of Czechoslovakian representatives, it was agreed that as long as Germany did not make further territorial claims, it could take over the Sudetenland. The fate of the rest of Czechoslovakia would be decided by an international commission. Hitler declared "I have no more territorial demands to make in Europe" and on his return to Britain, prime minister Neville Chamberlain announced that the agreement constituted "peace for our time". As is well known, the agreement counted for little. In early March 1939, ethnic tension between the Czechs and Slovaks, spurred on by Germany, culminated in the Slovaks declaring independence and becoming a Nazi-allied independent state. On March 15, the Czech president signed over the remainder of Czechoslovakia to Germany under threat of immediate aerial bombardment. It became a German protectorate.

Hitler did not stop there, taking over an area of German population in Lithuania called Memel. He then focused on Danzig and a Polish land corridor that separated Germany and its territory of East Prussia. In March 1939, Hitler reportedly said he did "not wish to solve the Danzig question by force". Yet, despite pressure on the Polish government from the United Kingdom and France - who were keen to avoid a war - Poland refused to yield any territory to Germany. Both Britain and France had entered into mutual defence agreements with Poland. On September 1, 1939, citing "Polish provocations", Germany invaded Poland. World War II began two days later when the UK and France declared war on Germany.

Russian talk about Ukraine

It is clear that Russia did not stand on the sidelines during the Ukrainian crisis.

At a media conference on March 4, Mr Putin called the February ouster of Mr Yanukovych by pro-Western democrats "an anti-constitutional takeover, an armed seizure of power". In a speech two weeks later he said this had been carried out by "Nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes and anti-Semites". He talked up threats to Russians and Russian troops stationed in Ukraine and claimed that the new government had "resorted to terror, murder and riots". The Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet is based in Crimea under a lease agreement with Ukraine - renewed by Mr Yanukovych in 2010 - that lasts until 2042. Interestingly, the former president's pro-Western predecessor Viktor Yushchenko was against a lease renewal and said in 2009 that the presence of the fleet "seriously destabilised Ukrainian-Russian relations".

On March 2, Mr Putin told US president Barack Obama that there was "real threat to the lives and health of Russian citizens and the many compatriots who are currently on Ukrainian territory". That same day he told UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon that Russia would "resort to whatever measures are necessary" in response to "any escalation of violence against the Russian-speaking population of the eastern regions of Ukraine and Crimea".

Despite Mr Putin's claims, according to the US State Department, "outside of Russian press and Russian state television, there are no credible reports of any ethnic Russians being under threat" and "Russian military facilities were and remain secure, and the new Ukrainian government has pledged to abide by all existing international agreements, including those covering Russian bases". Similarly, Canadian foreign minister John Baird told Canadian television "there hasn't been a single incident [of violence against Russians] that they can point to".

Contrary to some reporting, census reports show that Ukraine is not divided into a Russian east and a Ukrainian west. According to the most recent census, conducted in 2001, around 77.8 per cent of the Ukrainian population are ethnically Ukrainian, with 17.3 per cent Russian. The only region where Russians are in the majority is Crimea, where Russians make up around 58 per cent of the population. Most people can speak both Ukrainian and Russian, which was the language of the Soviet Union. Experts say that speaking Russian does not necessarily mean that person wants to join Russia.

Russian action in Ukraine

At around the time that Mr Yanukovych was deposed, pro-Russian protests erupted in Crimea, countered by other protesters favouring the new Ukrainian government. Reports suggest that pro-Russia protests accompanied by the storming of buildings and violence is also taking place in eastern Ukraine. It is unclear whether these protests were spontaneous or were encouraged by Russian authorities, but reports say some pro-Russian protesters travelled from Russia to do so. Another report suggests that a familiar looking woman filmed at protests at five different cities demanding Russian intervention is in fact an actress who took different identities at each protest.

On February 27, men in Russian style military uniforms seized government buildings in the Crimean capital Simferopol, including the Crimean parliament. They reportedly disconnected telephones and confiscated mobile phones from parliamentarians. Ukrainian television broadcasts into Crimea were blocked. Russian Unity Party leader Sergey Aksyonov says that he is in charge of a militia that he calls "self-defence forces", but that the people that stormed the parliament were another group of like-minded "Russian nationalist forces". Reports say that these forces only allowed parliamentarians specifically invited by Mr Akysyonov to enter the building. The majority of those allowed to be present voted to dismiss the Crimean cabinet, hold a referendum on whether Crimea should join Russia and appoint Mr Aksyonov as prime minister.

Then on March 1, on the basis of what it said was the "extraordinary situation that has developed in Ukraine and the threat to citizens of the Russian Federation", the Russian parliament granted a request by Mr Putin for Russia "to use the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine until the social and political situation in that country is normalised". The Ukrainian government claims that since January Russia has sent an additional 6,000 troops to the region.

The Crimean referendum was held on March 17. Crimean authorities say that 96.77 per cent of the population, which includes almost 25 per cent Ukrainians, voted for integration with Russia. They say only 2.51 per cent wanted to stay with Ukraine. The fairness of the referendum has been questioned in the West, given the way the questions were drafted, reports of violence and intimidation, and unusual voting patterns. Turn out in one area reportedly reached 123 per cent of eligible voters, and it has been noted that a poll conducted in May 2013 found only 23 per cent of Crimeans favoured joining Russia. Ukraine and most foreign countries, including Australia, say the referendum was illegal and of no effect. However, Russia recognised the results of the referendum and welcomed Crimea to the fold.

This is not the first time Russia has involved itself in the affairs of former Soviet republics. It made a prominent incursion into Georgia in 2008 and there is talk about its ambitions beyond Crimea in eastern Ukraine and elsewhere.

Similar, but different situations

Ms Clinton was not the first person to raise purported similarities between Russia's actions and Germany's prior to World War II. The day before her original comments, Canada's foreign minister John Baird said: "The Sudetenland had a majority of Germans. That gave Germany no right to do this in the late 1930s." He added: "When you have one country invading one of its neighbours, and using this type of outrageous and ludicrous rhetoric, it's hard not to [make the comparison to the Nazis]". Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper told Canada's House of Commons on March 4: "Just to reiterate, what has occurred, as we know, has been the decision of a major power to effectively invade and occupy a neighbouring country, based upon some kind of extraterritorial claim of jurisdiction over ethnic minorities. We have not seen this kind of behaviour since the Second World War. This is clearly unacceptable."

On March 23, Republican US senator John McCain said Mr Putin "is calculating how much he can get away with, just as Adolf Hitler calculated how much he could get away with in the 1930s".

There are some clear similarities between the Russian actions and those of Nazi Germany:

Both countries took issue with existing country borders. Hitler's territorial ambitions started with complaints about the 'unfair boundaries' set by the Treaty of Versailles and a desire to recreate the German empire. Mr Putin has said that "the collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster...Tens of millions of our co-citizens and compatriots found themselves outside Russian territory".

Both have claimed that they needed to step in to protect their people from oppression.

Both claimed concern about unrest and violence, when evidence suggests both were involved in starting or encouraging it.

Both were arguably motivated by strategic considerations. Hitler sought to neutralise a Czechoslovakia allied to France and Russia. The former Georgian president suggests pro-Western, reformist and democratic Georgia and Ukraine are are seen by Mr Putin "as a direct threat to his own iron grip in Russia". Crimea is also a key military strategic area.

Both countries have gone against previous undertakings. After the Munich agreement, Hitler said he had no more territorial ambitions, but subsequent events proved otherwise. In 1994 and 1997, Russia signed treaties agreeing to respect Ukraine's borders. In 2006, Mr Putin even said "Crimea is a part of the Ukrainian state and we cannot interfere with another country’s internal affairs". However, he now says that "In people's hearts and minds, Crimea has always been an inseparable part of Russia". Following recent events in Crimea, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov told the Western media that Russia "does not and cannot have any plans to invade the south-eastern regions of Ukraine". Fears that Russia will invade those regions or Ukraine's western neighbour Moldova have been expressed, among others, by Mr Obama's deputy national security adviser, Tony Blinken, on March 23 and by Nato's military commander in Europe, General Philip Breedlove, the same day.

Making the comparison

While the similarities are evident on this limited comparison, comparing the two is fraught with danger given the extent of Nazi atrocities before and during World War II that have no parallel with the actions of Russia today.

Fact Check consulted some experts in Israel, Australia and Britain.

Dr Raphael Vago of Tel Aviv University's Cummings Center for Russian & Eastern European Studies says he is "not in favour of comparisons to Nazi Germany given the sensitivities in the region surrounding the Nazi actions in World War II".

Monash University's Professor Marko Pavlyshyn tells Fact Check:

"There are parallels with the German Reich's invasion of Czechoslovakia... In 1938 Hitler stated, 'I am simply demanding that the oppression of three and a half million Germans in Czechoslovakia cease and that the inalienable right to self-determination take its place.' This is analogous to Putin's claim that Russians need protection against Ukrainians... Hitler's annexation of the Sudetenland was preceded by the pro-Nazi activity of the Sudeten German leader Henlein, just as the Russian annexation followed on the seizure of power in the Crimean parliament by the leader of 'Russian Unity' Aksyonov."

Professor Dan Healey of the University of Oxford says:

"Mrs Clinton's comparison sounds reasonable, up to a point, and certainly helps to explain to Western publics why we ought to react strongly. However, there is a danger of using 'historical precedent' this way. [It] casts two 'sides' as analogous to the Allies versus Nazis, and we are usually not dealing with opponents who are that evil... We should try to find more intelligent language to discuss the question and not tar our interlocutors with the offensive label of 'Nazis', when we reach for historical analogies."

Mr Putin has not been as concerned about sensitivities, calling the new Ukrainian government fascists and "neo-Nazis". Posters in the Crimean referendum 'campaign' used the illustration of a Nazi swastika flag to show a Ukrainian Crimea.

The verdict

No historical analogy is perfect and invoking the Nazis runs the risk of unfairly tainting Russia with all of the atrocities of that era.

However, there are enough similarities between the actions of Germany prior to World War II and Mr Putin's Russia today to justify Ms Clinton's statement that Russia's claims are "reminiscent" of those made back in the 1930s. Ms Clinton's analogy checks out.

Sources

Editor's note (26/03/14): This fact check has been amended to clarify how Czechoslovakia was established.

Topics: history, world-politics, world-war-2, unrest-conflict-and-war, obama-barack, foreign-affairs, government-and-politics, ukraine, russian-federation, georgia, germany, united-states, estonia, latvia, lithuania, european-union, moldova-republic-of, czech-republic, poland

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