By Timothy D. Naegele[1]
Americans, Europeans and much of the world are shocked by Vladimir Putin’s 21st Century atrocities, and that of his Russian thugs in Ukraine. Each day this nightmare continues and grows more grotesque, but it follows the pattern of his twisted life. Twelve years ago, I wrote that it was a mistake to view him as a “Westernized Russian democrat.” He is a cold-blooded killer, and pure evil—just as evil and sinister as Adolf Hitler, Mao Tse-tung and Joseph Stalin, who murdered millions.[2]
There are so many people in this world who are struggling each and every day to make it, and survive, and to be good neighbors—as China’s Coronavirus pandemic may be winding down, which has killed and hurt millions. To witness evil like that of Putin adds to the stress and anxiety in their lives. This is certainly true of mothers who empathize with the victims, but also of fathers whose anger toward Putin and the cruelty of his military is not difficult to fathom or comprehend.
It has been said that Putin’s attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv may become his Stalingrad. The UK’s Daily Mail has summarized that battle as follows:
The battle for Stalingrad was the turning point of the Second World War. After the German invasion of Russia — codenamed Operation Barbarossa, which began in June 1941 — the Wehrmacht continued to head eastward, destroying whole Soviet armies and capturing two million prisoners, most of whom they starved to death.
In Washington and London, leaders wondered gloomily how long the Russians could stave off absolute defeat.
In the spring of 1942, Hitler’s legions drove deeper into the Russian heartland, besieging St Petersburg, over-running the Crimea, and threatening the oilfields of the Caucasus.
The Fuhrer was convinced the Russians were at their last gasp. He was exultant when in June ‘Operation Blue’ enabled his armies to occupy new swathes of central Russia.
Scenting final victory, Hitler deputed General Friedrich Paulus, a staff officer eager to prove himself as a fighting commander, to lead a dash for the city on the Volga that was named after Stalin, and secure a symbolic triumph, while another German army group swung southwards to grab the oilfields.
Hitler’s top soldiers were appalled by the perils of splitting the Wehrmacht merely to capture Stalingrad, which was strategically unimportant. Their protests were ignored: the Fuhrer insisted.
Likewise in Moscow, when the German objective became plain, Russia’s dictator Josef Stalin gave the order that ‘his’ city must be held at any cost. Thus the stage was set for one of history’s most terrible clashes of arms, in which on the two sides more than a million men became locked in strife between the autumn of 1942 and the following spring.
On September 12, the first German troops entered Stalingrad. From the Kremlin came a new order to the Red Army: ‘Not a step back . . . The only extenuating circumstance is death.’
The first German air attacks killed between 10,000 and 40,000 people — almost as many as died in the entire London blitz. Shellfire and bombs rained down on the city, day after day and week upon week.
Stuka pilot Herbert Pabst wrote: ‘It is incomprehensible to me how people can continue to live in that hell, but the Russians are firmly established in the wreckage, in ravines, cellars, and in a chaos of twisted skeletons of factories’.
General Vasily Chuikov, commanding Stalin’s 62nd Army in the city, wrote: ‘The streets of the city are dead. There is not a single green twig on the trees; everything has perished in the flames.’
The Russians initially held a perimeter 30 miles by 18, which shrank relentlessly as Paulus’s men thrust forward to within a few hundred yards of the Volga.
Each night, up to three thousand Russian wounded were ferried eastward from the city, while a matching stream of reinforcements, ammunition and supplies reached the defenders.
New units were thrust into the battle as fast as they arrived, to join duels in the ruins that often became hand-to-hand death grapples.
Both sides were chronically short of food and water. The few surviving civilians suffered terribly, eking a troglodyte existence in cellars.
Some soldiers were reduced to cannibalism in order to stay alive in the ruins of the city as the mercury plunged to -40C.
The bloodiest battle in Second World War came to an end on January 31, 1943 when Field Marshall Paulus surrendered, disobeying the orders of his Fuhrer to kill himself.
Of the 110,000 Germans who surrendered, only 5,000 would survive Stalin’s gulags to return to a defeated Germany.
The battle cost the German army a quarter of everything it possessed by way of material – guns, tanks and munitions. It was a defeat from which it never recovered and for days afterwards in Berlin all shops and restaurants were closed as a mark of respect.[3]
Again, will Putin’s siege of Kyiv become his Stalingrad, and lead to his demise? Many Ukrainians remember Stalin’s brutality toward those who came before them, in which an estimated 4 million died; and it is unlikely that they will trust Putin or any Russian.[4]
Assuming that Putin is terminated, will that bring the war in Ukraine to an end? Likely so. His cronies who survive may not wish to be targeted for the rest of their lives. Also, none may be psychopathic megalomaniac killers like Putin. Will Putin’s death make World War III less likely? Probably so, unless China’s Xi Jinping is willing to die too, or be viewed as a global pariah for the rest of his life.
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© 2022, Timothy D. Naegele_____
[1] Timothy D. Naegele was counsel to the United States Senate’s Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, and chief of staff to Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal recipient and former U.S. Senator Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass). See, e.g., Timothy D. Naegele Resume-21-8-6 and https://naegeleknol.wordpress.com/accomplishments/ He has an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as two law degrees from the School of Law (Boalt Hall), University of California, Berkeley, and from Georgetown University. He served as a Captain in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency at the Pentagon, where he received the Joint Service Commendation Medal (see, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commendation_Medal#Joint_Service). Mr. Naegele is an Independent politically; and he is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in American Law, and Who’s Who in Finance and Business. He has written extensively over the years (see, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/articles/ and https://naegeleknol.wordpress.com/articles/), and studied photography with Ansel Adams. He can be contacted directly at tdnaegele.associates@gmail.com
[2] See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/09/russias-putin-is-a-killer/ (“Russia’s Putin Is A Killer”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/02/06/the-silent-voices-of-stalin%E2%80%99s-soviet-holocaust-and-mao%E2%80%99s-chinese-holocaust/ (“The Silent Voices Of Stalin’s Soviet Holocaust And Mao’s Chinese Holocaust”)
[3] See https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10605505/Kyiv-Putins-Stalingrad-Russias-assault-capital-doomed-fail-officials-say.html (“Russia warns US military shipments to Ukraine are ‘legitimate targets’, prompting fears other nations could get drawn into war as Zelensky says Putin will have to raze Kyiv to the ground to take the city and condemns lack of NATO bravery”) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad (“Battle of Stalingrad”)
Putin is as sinister as any other figure in our lifetimes.
See, e.g., https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2015/11/29/the-death-of-putin-and-russia-the-final-chapter-of-the-cold-war/ (“The Death Of Putin And Russia: The Final Chapter Of The Cold War”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2022/02/24/russias-kgb-trained-killer-putin-may-be-more-dangerous-than-hitler-or-stalin/ (“Russia’s KGB-Trained Killer Putin May Be More Dangerous Than Hitler Or Stalin”) and https://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2022/01/27/ (“Will Putin Seize Ukraine, And If So When?”)
[4] See, e.g., https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/03/12/holodomor-famine-ukraine-stalin/ (“Cut off from food, Ukrainians recall Stalin’s famine, which killed 4 million of them”)
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