Prince, Putin and Hitler

Did the heir to the British throne have the right to compare the president of Russia with the Fuhrer?

In the UK and Russia, they discuss the replica of the heir to the British throne by Prince Charles, who compared Vladimir Putin with Hitler.

An unflattering remark for the Russian president made by Prince Charles sounded during his official visit to Canada, when he talked with a guide-88-year-old refugees from Poland Marien Ferguson, who lost relatives during the Holocaust in the Halifax Museum. Ferguson told the prince about her flight to Canada from Poland before her capture by Hitler and Stalin in 1939. “Now Putin is doing about the same thing that Hitler did then,” the prince answered, referring to the annexation of Crimea and Russian policy against Ukraine. This remark of the heir to the British throne, made in a private conversation, was heard by journalists and replicated by the press. Marien Ferguson confirmed the authenticity of the prince's replica. The comparison made by the future king of Great Britain gave rise to a polemic in the British press and the indignant reaction of the Russian embassy in London, which demanded explanations from the British Foreign Ministry. “Personally, I can’t believe that Prince Charles could say this,” the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov announced reporters. “Sometimes such statements can be explained by historical ignorance, otherwise the monarch of such a statement could not be allowed.”

The former German corporal and the former Soviet lieutenant colonel of the KGB combines anxious similarity

Prime Minister David Cameron, like the British Foreign Ministry, refused to comment on the comparison made by the prince, citing the private nature of the conversation. The leader of the opposition Labor Party Ed Milibend said that many in Britain share the opinion of the prince, and the deputy prime minister and leader of the liberal-democratic party, Nick Klegg, who spoke out in defense of Charles, emphasized that the prince has the same right to freedom of speech as any ordinary Englishman. Similar comparisons sound from the lips of officials. In April, the Minister of Finance of Germany Wolfgang Shoible at a meeting with Berlin schoolchildren stated that the annexation of Crimea to Russia is essentially the same as the annexation of Czech Sudet Nazi Germany in 1938.

The British political analyst, editor of Ecomomist, Edward Lucas, published an article in the Daily Mail newspaper , which notes that "the former German corporal and the former Soviet KGB lieutenant colonel unites the similarity." Both of them, writes Lucas, provoke and operate political paranoia. Hitler in all troubles of Germany blamed Jewish bankers, while Putin uses anti -Western rhetoric to strengthen his regime. Like Hitler, writes a British analyst, Putin pursues an expansionist foreign policy and incites nationalist cargo in his country. The statement of Prince Charles in an interview with Radio Freedom comments on Edward Lucas .

Putin speaks of the "Russian world" in about the same spirit in which Hitler spoke of the "German world"

- Prince Charles did not say at all that Putin is Hitler today. In a private conversation, he only noticed that Putin and Hitler have a certain similarity. This similarity is expressed in the relationship of Hitler and Putin to neighboring countries. Of course, Putin is not Hitler. There is no Gestapo in Russia, no SS, no concentration camps, no gas chambers, no Nazi party. There is a huge difference between modern Russia and Nazi Germany. But there is a certain similarity. First of all, how Hitler treated the Germans in neighboring countries (to the so -called Volksduch), who found herself there as a result of the Versailles agreement, which he considered unfair, and in how Putin refers to compatriots abroad that found herself as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Putin speaks of the "Russian world" in about the same spirit in which Hitler spoke of the "German world."

- In Britain, there is an unspoken rule that does not allow members of the royal family to make political statements. Did Prince Charles violate him?

- In this case, the prince did not make a speech and did not give an interview on foreign policy problems. It was a private conversation with a woman who fled from Poland before her capture Hitler and Stalin. It was this fact that was the reason for his very restrained and historically correct remark. Consider and understand that this remark sounded in a private conversation. Nowhere is it said that members of the royal family do not have the right to talk in a private conversation about what is openly discussed in newspapers.

After a couple of days, when the diplomatic scandal caused by the remark of Prince Charles was in full swing, there were reports on Russian sites that the prince apologized for his statement. They were published by " Economic News ", " Peace and Politics " and other publications. All of them referred to the American New Yorker magazine, where the prince’s repentant letter was supposedly published. It turned out that the "apology" was the satirical pamphlet of the popular feuilletonist Andy Borovitsa , entitled "Prince Charles's apology." The letter begins with the words "dear Russians" and ends with the signature of the prince. Putin’s policy is openly ridiculed in it. It is difficult to say what prevented Russian journalists from paying attention to the fact that this apology was printed in a humorous column.