* I apologize to Marx for persiflaging the Communist Manifesto: A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of Communism.
Why do so many "bad" German words find their way into English? To cite a few: Berufsverbot, Blitzkrieg, Dummkopf, Kristallnacht, Lebensraum, Luftwaffe, Realpolitik, Rinderpest, Waldsterben, and Wehrmacht. The list is barely compensated by somewhat better words like Bockwurst, Doppelgänger, Kindergarten, Lederhosen, Mannschaft, Oktoberfest, Sauerbraten, Weltschmerz, and Wunderkind. One reason foreign languages adopt such words is the possibility in German to create new and handy words by gluing two "old" words together and giving this combination a unique and precise meaning. Other languages sometimes need a whole phrase to describe the same thing.
When these days, the world press uses the word Anschluss, it refers to the imminent integration of Crimea into the Russian Federation. With this Unwort in mind, Hillary Clinton even compared Putin to Hitler, but the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 must not be compared with what is happening in Ukraine in 2014.
When I leave out all the propaganda roar - here: the West subverted the elected Kyiv government and fascists ousted the pro-Russian president, there: Putin's troops were needed to protect a Russian majority against Ukrainian and Tatar minorities on Crimea - I note when looking at the linguistic map that Ukraine is a melting pot of people with a majority of them speaking Russian in some parts of the territory. As in Yugoslavia, such a multi-ethnic mix will cohere under a strict communist regime but breaks up when the oppressive forces slacken.
Percentage of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine. Map thanks to ©BILD |
Ukraine and Russia for all eternity (©Wikipedia) |
In the a priori referendum, Putin may expect a solid majority of two-thirds of the votes. Hitler wanted to be on the safe side. In an a posteriori referendum, he obtained more than 99% of the Austrian votes for the Anschluss to the Reich in 1938.
What I fear most is that the Crimea referendum is just the start of a new trouble spot. Will there be ethnic cleansing? Will the Muslim Tatars, where they left off in 1783, start new guerrilla warfare?
Ukrainian soldier, too young to die (©Die Zeit) |
*
A very interesting estimation (and Information), thank you.
ReplyDeleteBests,
anmargi