Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter – Mutterehrenkreuz

In the post, “Child Labour in Post-War Britain”, I mentioned how I got to childishly imagine how things would be for our family had Germany occupied Britain and dealt with Nazism.

It started with the awards that we had (or didn’t have) when we working for Higgins. If my mother would receive a reward from the colonizers, she would receive “The Cross of Honour” (Ehrenkreuz der Deutschen Mutter – Mutterehrenkreuz). She will be awarded for “the exceptional achievement of conceiving and raising five boys to build up the Reich and its Environs”. On the other hand, if the Soviets had invaded Britain, my brother would have no doubt received the “Hero of Labour Award”.

Nazism in the present

Of course, my “Boyhood Recollections” would be quite sterile, if I can’t relate them to current events. In other words, as of today 2022, the evil threat of the Nazis in Europe is ever present. Of course, ‘Nazism’ is a concept rather than a reality. And as Shakespeare has pointed out, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

In our context here, we can say that  “A scurrilous weed by any other name will cause as much damage”. Thus, the so-called ‘Communist’ Russia has learnt from its II World War German invaders. In order to ‘protect Russians’ and ensure national security, they to invade sovereign countries. Ironically, the Russians are trying to extend logic beyond any credibility.

Thus, Russia’s murder and torture of civilians in their neighbouring country is defended by its president’s claim that there is a need “to ‘denazify’ Ukraine.” Of course, such a statement would be laughed at in democratic countries. However, the Russian government controls all the media channels available to Russians. So ‘Big Brother’ can propagate any lie they like. The Russian ‘sheep’ will swallow anything that is put in their trough.

The Propaganda

There seems to be no limit to the Russians’ Nazi propaganda that ‘if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.’ The great irony here is that it is their dictator who is the ‘Nazi’; whatever name we give the scurrilous weed is irrelevant. Thus, the Russians now suggest that Hitler was a Jew who was intent on mass murdering Jews:

“So what if Zelensky is Jewish. ‘Hitler also had Jewish blood’“, says Russia’s foreign minister. Israeli foreign minister slams Russia’s ‘unforgivable, scandalous, and horrible historical error.’ 

Justifying the regime’s call to “denazify” Ukraine, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov argued that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s Jewish ancestry did not matter.

“So what if Zelensky is Jewish? The fact does not negate the Nazi elements in Ukraine. I believe that Hitler also had Jewish blood.”