Thread by @RealLoriSpencer

The U.S. and #NATO are using #Ukraine in the same way that #Hitler did in #WWII: as a wedge to drive between #Russia and the West.

Just as we dangle the carrot of #NATO membership today, Germany made similar false promises to Ukranian nationalists of defense assistance in 1939.

The #Nazis told their Ukrainian nationalist collaborators that the independence of #Ukraine needed to wait until after they helped Germany win the war. (A promise #Hitler never intended to keep.)

In the Political Diaries of Alfred Rosenberg, he bargained that Ukraine would provide the German war effort raw materials and food during the war, and independent statehood would come when the Germans achieved victory.

The new Ukraine would be a strong ally, a great university would be built in #Kyiv, and Ukrainian culture would replace Russian culture. (Sound familiar?)

In his imaginings, #Nazi Rosenberg saw Ukrainian nationalism as a useful organizing force.

He believed that encouraging Ukrainian nationalists to build a state that was dependent on German protection would be beneficial to Germany in the long term, just as #NATO does today.

Source: The Political Diaries of Alfred Rosenberg, pages 254-55.

See also Chapter II on Operation Barbarossa and the Ukrainians from this 2022 thesis:

scholarworks.uvm.edu/cgi/viewconten…

Meanwhile, the Abwehr made promises to the OUN-B without having the authority to do so.

Working with Ukrainians and guaranteeing them statehood conflicted with Hitler’s racial worldview, which ascribed Ukrainians and other Slavs the status of Untermenschen, or subhumans.

Although Hitler placed little value on the people that lived there, he had long-standing plans for the economic role of geographical Ukraine.

If you think that #NATO looks at #Ukraine any differently today, think again.

Ukraine’s role in German economic and political machinations before and during #WWII shows why, despite the persuasions of some sympathetic #Nazi officials like Rosenberg, Ukrainian nationalist dreams of statehood through collaboration were ultimately unfeasible.

It is for the same reasons that, in the 21st Century, #Ukraine’s dream of joining #NATO will never happen — despite Western pledges to the contrary.

History does indeed repeat. 🇺🇦