National Socialism and Communism instituted regimes of hate

Astute readers will immediately identify the crashing, ranting bore, Adolf Hitler, whose father's mother was not married at the time of his birth. A convenient marriage secured the name Heidler, which became a similar sounding name - Hitler- Austrian by birth, he galvanised his adoptive countrymen to render his everyman's odyssey credible to ensure his rise was irresistible for the elites who inserted him into power fully believing they could control him.

Hiltler a runner at the Western Front, he was blinded in a gas attack and recuperated in East Prussia where he shaped his vengeful destiny, wrapping the ghosts of war around him, entering extreme national politics - his destiny. Hitler made the transition from being an awkward ranting bore into a compelling public orator with an irresistible rise to power, with, Heil Schickelgruber not as resonant as Heil Hitler. The Nazi Party was nothing without him, fully supporting the leadership principle.

Largesse dispensed to clients from huge secret funds ensured Herr Hitler's private expenses were defrayed by the state while he had first options at art sales, with a personal collection of 5,000 works, imagine. Hitler was an artist, however, he was more adept at painting an entire house in two days. He could use his personal fund, through which the enormous sum of ReichsMarks (RM)700 million had accrued by 1945. This was made up of royalties from Mein Kampf which was presented to every married couple, revenue from stamps bearing his image yielded RM 52 million. Legacies to the Fuehrer were exempt from inheritance tax. The Fuehrer bought loyalty or rewarded those he was interested in including Wehrmacht commanders and artists. Hitler paid those in the Nazi Party who fell from grace, Stalin would have shot them. The party's regional bosses, the Gauleiters, were chosen to display the genial, populist, face of government, the initial funding came from regional Party newspapers, money from helping the unemployed or businesses stolen from the Jews. Their tax affairs were centrally filed in Berlin where tax evasion and fraud were suppressed.

Nazis and Communists instituted regimes of hate. Trotsky dismissed the sanctity of human life as he pointed machine guns at the backs of his own troops. National Socialism and Communism are both materialistic and tyrannical, both disregard and negate the freedom of spirit and the individual. The 1934 Roehm purge was a power struggle between the Sturm Abteilung and Army, with Hitler using his SS to destroy less useful organisations. The murder of the Jews was systematic with wholesale murder by shooting until 1941, followed, by stealing their possessions, so, compounding the crime. This pogrom diverted essential German war effort. Link-armed Russian soldiers marching into German double barreled Spandau machine guns shouting Urrah! Pobeida! (Onward Victory) was unnerving for German soldiers, however, this tactic is well documented during the battle of Belgorod, 1943. 45,000 German soldiers were condemned to death with 15,000 executions carried out and Penal Battalions dealing with the rest. The needless destruction of 6th Army in Stalingrad, 'No Retreat' condemning 250,000 soldiers to death, the insistence on assuming overall Commander-in-Chief, interference with Wehrmacht operational control again condemned German forces to unnecessary defeats. The cruel treatment of Russian POWs with 1.5million dying of starvation in German captivity was highly reprehensible.

Stalin, Josip Draghashvili, a lowlife bank robber, learnt from the colossal violence of the Russian Civil War. The Great Terror of 1936-38 was instigated by Stalin as an exercise in determined paranoia directed at the Communist Party, this was extreme psychopathic violence, there were many willing executioners, the move into dead men's shoes provided social mobility for the younger cadres. The NKVD arrested 34,301 Red Army officers of which 22,70 were executed using documents planted by German intelligence during theses two years. 91 of 101 senior military officers were arrested of whom 80 were shot. The invasion of Finland during the Winter War, 1939-40 fully revealed the inept leadership of the Red Army which showed how unready Russia was for war, thereby encouraging Hitler to launch Barbarossa (Red Beard) June 1941. Torture and obviously faked confessions were used to create endless spurious plots throughout the ranks of the Party. Stalin insisted on suspects being beaten to a pulp, chair legs and iron bars ensured further confessions again false. Stalin, the coward, distanced himself from the obvious carnage and the NKVD was accused of the excesses during those two years - 750,000 people were shot and buried in mass pits surrounding the big cities, a further 750,000 were deported to the Gulags.

The GULAGs imprisoned 62 million people from 1934 -1989, Solzhenitsyn exposed Stalin's needless cruelty in The Gulag Archipelago. Order 227 'not a step back' ensured many Red Army soldiers died needlessly. The murder of 15,000 Polish Army officers at Katyn Forest, near Smolensk, September 1940 along with 7,000 Polish intellectuals was complicated by the mass graves of Tsarist officers after the Russian Civil War, 1922, and the pogroms against the Red Army in 1937. Tukhachevsky the Commander-in-Chief Red Army traveled widely and met General Muller, leader of the Tsarist group in Paris Tukachevsky succeeded Trotsky who was killed with an ice pick to the eye in Mexico. Stalin was insanely jealous of any foreign travel since he presided over a Worker's Paradise. So, why travel abroad, so, Tukhachevsky was executed. Stalin, the man of steel, regarded German POWs as trophies, 50,000 which he paraded in Moscow July 17, 1944 following Operation Bagration. General Vlasov, his 37th Army Corps surrounded by the Wehrmacht, surrendered and eventually fought with the Wehrmacht, under, Operation Skorpion, the Russian Liberation Army (POA cyrillic). His execution in 1947 in Russia a lesson for all. The fighting retreat through Yugoslavia of the Slovenian National Guard 8-15 May 1945 one week after the surrender was coloured by Tito's demand for the surrender of this group. Slovenia harbours many mass graves for this surrendered Guard. The forced repatriation of Liemsk Cossacks who fought with the Wehrmacht May 1945 ensured they were massacred by the Red Army on Stalin's insistence.

Stalin hid from the Russian people from 21st June 1941 to July 3rd and only when his minions came to rescue him from his dacha that he realised that Russia needed him as a strong leader. The Full Circle by Solzhenitsyn relates this sorry, sordid affair earning him a place in the GULAGs.

Murderous, needless carnage dictated the course of WW2 ensured the Wehrmacht and the SS were equally culpable of mass murder of elements not desirable to Hitler. A 1,000km long by 800km wide area of conquered territory was where no law applied. Hitler was warned by highly aware Wehrmacht officers who emphasised how nationalist forces in Belorussia and Ukraine could be used against Stalin's Red Army. The alienation of Ukrainian nationalists, instead, created hostile forces to German Army supply trains behind German lines.

Putin's war in Ukraine defies common sense, yet, the same merciless atrocities are being perpetrated in Russia's name. Russia is isolated and in decline. Putin's rule will be eclipsed. Beware of what follows Putin.

Grossdeutschland Division, 1937-45, Michael Manning, Lulu Press, 2015