Hitler, a Yiddishe bocher

Did you know Hitler was a Jewish lad (Yiddishe bocher, in his real mother tongue)?

Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov can educate you on this point. As far as he is concerned, there’s no doubt: Hitler was an orthodox Jew, who in the privacy of his own bunker must have spoken the German equivalent of Jackie Mason’s English.

Historians are still undecided whether or not Adolf went to shule every Sabbath, studied at a Yeshiva and forswore pork. Come to think of it, since he didn’t eat meat of any kind, he certainly didn’t eat pork either. There you have it: for all intents and purposes, he was a kosher Jew.

True, Hitler professed hatred of Jews and actually acted on his feelings. But that doesn’t prove he wasn’t Jewish, quite the opposite.

As Otto Weininger, himself a converted Jew, explained in his 1903 book Sex and Character, “the bitterest anti-Semites are to be found among the Jews themselves”. To prove that point, when he was 23, Weininger shot one Jew dead – himself. It’s a known fact that Hitler kept Weininger’s book on his bedside table, next to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

By implication, the Holocaust (if it happened at all, Lavrov was vague on that point) was largely perpetrated by Jews themselves. It was an exercise in self-hatred, not racism.

Since Mr Lavrov doesn’t speak off the cuff, his startling historical discovery must have been prompted by his boss’s explicit instructions. There goes the only good thing one could say about Putin.

He is many rotten things, in fact most of them. But one rotten thing he hasn’t been until now is an anti-Semite. Some of his best friends are indeed Jewish – in his case, that’s not the typical excuse of a Jew-hater. So in this one area he used to break the fine tradition of all post-Lenin Soviet leaders, none of whom escaped that charming trait.

Lavrov’s little foray into modern history has achieved the unlikely diplomatic feat of turning a reliable ally into an enemy. Israel, practically alone among the civilised nations, has been reticent in introducing sanctions against Russia and criticising her too vehemently.

There are two realpolitik reasons for this. One is that millions of Israelis come from Russia, and a large swathe of them have left their motherland only physically, not spiritually. The other reason is more tangible: there are Russian military bases next door, in Syria, which is a good reason not to upset Putin too much.

Nevertheless, after Lavrov’s diatribe, the two countries are on the verge of breaking diplomatic relations. A real triumph of Russian diplomacy.

So why has Putin, speaking through his dummy Lavrov, decided to pull the anti-Semitic card out of his sleeve? That has nothing to do with his personal feelings and everything to do with the corner he has painted himself in.

You see, President Zelensky is Jewish. He also presides over a country described by Russian propaganda as institutionally Nazi. And Putin’s original casus belli against the Ukraine was the de-Nazification of that hotbed of fascism.

He has since moved the goalposts, with Ukrainian Nazism receding into the background of hysterical Russian propaganda. But Putin’s fans in the West are still banging on the distinctly brown tint of Ukrainian politics and national character.

I shan’t name anyone in particular, but you know them as well as I do if you ever read ‘conservative’ publications or visit the social media. Those shills still can’t mention the Ukraine without adding ‘institutionally Nazi’.

While so far they’ve refrained from pinning the yellow star to Hitler’s tunic, they do mention those thousands of Jews who fought with the Nazis. The implication is one I mentioned earlier: the Holocaust didn’t happen. But if it did, it was the Jews himself who did a collective Otto Weininger.

Those who don’t mind arguing with morons, never a productive activity, counter with Zelensky’s ethnicity. How can you say the Ukraine is Nazi if both her president and defence minister are Jewish?

Funny you should say this, reply the morons. Don’t you know that Hitler himself was Jewish, and at least 150,000 Jews were Wehrmacht soldiers? QED.

Putin couldn’t leave his Western admirers fending for themselves and eventually running out of ammunition. Hitler simply had to become Jewish in the latest twist of Russian propaganda.

At least this twist has some novelty appeal. Threats of nuclear annihilation don’t: this is a constant theme on Russian TV and has been for years. Back in 2014, Putin’s top Goebbels, Dmitry Kisilyov, embellished Khrushchev’s threat to bury the West with a visual image.

Russia, he said, could easily turn the US into radioactive dust. That was a step in the right direction, but the imagery still lacked the pow factor. Mr Kisilyov corrected that oversight the other day.

He spoke on Russia’s equivalent of the BBC against the backdrop of an outline map of Britain, identified in large type as a “Sinkable Island”. Mr Kisilyov didn’t mean that figuratively.

According to him, Russia could explode a 100-megaton underwater charge off the coast of Britain, which would create a radioactive tidal wave 1,600 feet high. The wave would turn Britain into a modern-day Atlantis, and if by some chance a few people survived the water, they’d be finished off by the radiation.

I’ll leave you to decide what kind of country can countenance such threats on its government TV channel. To help your thought process, try to imagine a BBC, Sky News or for that matter CBS talk show host saying that Nato could turn every Russian city into a smoking charnel house.

Can you imagine that? No? That’s exactly my point.