Like Putin, Hitler once visited occupied Mariupol. And it didn’t work for Hitler

History does not repeat itself, but rhymes. Old archival photographs have surfaced showing a World War II Nazi leader visiting occupied Mariupol.

Ukrainian historian Anton Gerashchenko notes on Twitter that Adolf Hitler, like Russian President Vladimir Putin, once visited occupied Mariupol.

“Another dictator also once visited Mariupol. We know how his story ended. Photo : Hitler visits the headquarters of Army Group South in Mariupol, Ukraine, in December 1941. Many historians and contemporaries claim that it was here that Hitler first realized that the war was lost.

“People who do not know history are forced to repeat it. Photo 1: Hitler in occupied Mariupol. Photo 2: Putin in occupied Mariupol,” wrote Alexandra Matviychuk.

Mariupol, a thriving city of 400,000 on the Black Sea east of Crimea, was occupied by the Russian army after heavy fighting in May 2022. The population was reduced to 100,000 people, many thousands of inhabitants were killed. Before the war, the city was 80% Russian-speaking and possibly half ethnic Russian.

Twitter

On the right is Hitler in Mariupol; left, Putin in Mariupol.

Both dictators ordered their armies to completely raze the city to the ground in order to occupy it.

The Russians falsely claimed that they needed to occupy Ukraine in order to save the population from the “Nazis”.

“Putin makes a surprise trip to the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

March 19 (UPI) — Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a surprise visit to the occupied city of Mariupol in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Sunday, a day after he traveled to the Ukrainian province of Crimea on the anniversary of its illegal annexation by Russia.

Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of ​​Azov, has been occupied by Russian troops since May after the troops held a three-month siege that led to the surrender of militants at the Azovstal steel plant and the destruction of much of the city. “