2014
Keep the following in mind as you listen to the high sounding rhetoric from our politicians and this administration. You would think the EU would have learned the lesson though.
1938 German Anschluss with Austria?
Hitler went ahead with his plans to unify all German-speaking people. He annexed Austria then demanded the liberation of German people in the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.
Neville Chamberlain flew to Germany to attempt a settlement before war broke out.
30 Sept 1938 Treaty of Munich
Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier of France and Mussolini of Italy met in Munich and agreed that Hitler should have the Sudetanland of Czechoslovakia. The Czechs were not represented at the meeting and realising that no country would come to their aid were forced to surrender the Sudetenland to Germany. Hitler assured those at the meeting that this was the extent of his ambitions for expansion. Chamberlain returned to England with a piece of paper signed by Hitler, proclaiming ‘peace in our time.’?
March 1939 Hitler invades Czechoslovakia
Despite the assurances given by Hitler in the Treaty of Munich (Sept 1938), he marched into Czechoslovakia and occupied the country.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
So Dick…do you think our modern day U.S. version of Neville Chamberlain will come back from the world nuclear summit waving a “peace in our time” piece of paper.
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Isn’t that what he has been doing for five years?
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I disagree, Putin is a ruthless autocrat. But he is no Hitler.
Adolf Hitler announced to the world in Mein Kampf what his intentions were. He then went on to kill six million innocent Jews, hundreds of thousands of innocent Poles, Roma, and others. And started the bloodiest war in history.
Putin has imprisoned and killed political enemies, probably several thousand. He has grabbed back the Crimea, which was never an organic part of Ukraine, but which was “assigned” to the Ukraine by Soviet leader Nikita Kruschev.
Putin is a dangerous, ruthless man, but equating him with Hitler, trivializes the enormity of the evil Hitler perpetrated.
While on the subject of truly evil men, yes, Josef Stalin was indeed in Hitler’s league. In fact was responsible for more murders, deaths and starvation than Hitler. He was responsible for the murder of tens of millions of Russians, Ukrainians, and many other minority groups in the old Soviet Union.
To peteybee: Yes, you’re knowledge of the 20th century is shaky.
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My point is missed here. The appeasement of Hitler and Putin’s downplaying of his own ambitions of future annexation was my point, comparing the actions of world leaders, not Hitler and Putin as personalities. However, I don’t see that as a stretch either. Even you Vince rationalized Putin’s actions in the Crimea. The facts are correct, but not relevant to Putin’s actions in the 21st century. He could use the same logic to take back Alaska … just ignore a treaty because the territory was originally part of the old Russia.
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Perhaps my knowledge of 20th century is shaky, but I’ve always thought that Nazi Germany was far, far more evil than the USSR, which in turn had a clearly stated globally aggressive ideology (worldwide marxist revolution) , whereas today’s Russia is merely a local empire.
So I think it is spitting on an awful lot of ugly and deeply personal history to say something like what you said.
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