I’ve noticed that the Ukrainian propaganda machine, surely the world’s best-funded, has been running with the story that Vladimir Putin told Tucker Carlson, during their long, recent interview, that Poland was to blame for WW2 because it rejected Adolf Hitler’s reasonable terms for a landbridge to Eastern Prussia.
This is not true, and it matters that it’s not true because I’ve seen many of these claims spread and then be regurgitated for years on end (“Donald Trump said that all Mexicans are rapists“). So let me go to the transcriopt of the Putin-Tucker interview:
In 1939, after Poland cooperated with Hitler — it did collaborate with Hitler, you know —Hitler offered Poland peace and a treaty of friendship and alliance – we have all the relevant documents in the archives, demanding in return that Poland give back to Germany the so-called Danzig Corridor, which connected the bulk of Germany with East Prussia and Konigsberg. After World War I this territory was transferred to Poland, and instead of Danzig, a city of Gdansk emerged. Hitler asked them to give it amicably, but they refused. Still they collaborated with Hitler and engaged together in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia.
Tucker Carlson: May I ask… You are making the case that Ukraine, certain parts of Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine, in fact, has been Russia for hundreds of years, why wouldn’t you just take it when you became President 24 years ago? Your have nuclear weapons, they don’t. It’s actually your land. Why did you wait so long?
Vladimir Putin: I’ll tell you. I’m coming to that. This briefing is coming to an end. It might be boring, but it explains many things.
Tucker Carlson: It’s not boring.
Vladimir Putin: Good. Good. I am so gratified that you appreciate that. Thank you.
So before World War II, Poland collaborated with Hitler and although it did not yield to Hitler’s demands, it still participated in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia together with Hitler. As the Poles had not given the Danzig Corridor to Germany, and went too far, pushing Hitler to start World War II by attacking them. Why was it Poland against whom the war started on 1 September 1939? Poland turned out to be uncompromising, and Hitler had nothing to do but start implementing his plans with Poland.
By the way, the USSR — I have read some archive documents — behaved very honestly. It asked Poland’s permission to transit its troops through the Polish territory to help Czechoslovakia. But the then Polish foreign minister said that if the Soviet planes flew over Poland, they would be downed over the territory of Poland. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the war began, and Poland fell prey to the policies it had pursued against Czechoslovakia, as under the well-known Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, part of that territory, including western Ukraine, was to be given to Russia. Thus Russia, which was then named the USSR, regained its historical lands.
It’s clear that what Putin is saying is not: wow, the Poles really triggered good old Adolf. He’s making a much more complex argument — that one can agree or disagree with: everyone has an opinion on WW2 shit — that Poland brought German and Soviet hostility upon itself because of short-sighted policies including its very real, very damaging support for a partition of Czechoslovakia, and its refusal to allow the Soviets to act as guarantors of Czechoslovakia’s sovereignty by moving troops there across Poland (I marked the region involved in red in the map below). He’s saying that the Poles played with fire, and got burned. Agree or disagree with the thing that Putin did say, not with BS Ukrainian propaganda.
Neotenianos 