Andrei Sannikov: Why Hitler shouldn’t be called Hitler?

Leader of the European Belarus published a political pamphlet.

Andrei Sannikov posted the pamphlet on his Facebook-account.

Below follows the complete text of the pamphlet:

From archives

The way the West treats top secret archive materials is odd. From time to time the materials are made public; access to the sacred databases is opened. That’s how the law tells works. In the UK, I had a chance to browse archives that used to be top-secret. What I found was a very interesting record of a meeting of the allies in the World War II where they discussed Belarus - or BSSR, as it was called back then. Apparently, during the war, if I understood the record correctly, somewhere in 1942, in the occupied BSSR appeared underground press: newspapers, leaflets, proclamations.

Groups of activists from the underground and guerillas faced serious problems: lack of printing devices, type cases, secure premises, paper, typographic paint, transport for distribution of the printing production and so on. And so the allies and a couple of generals met to decide how they could help. Even during this clandestine meeting everyone’s participation was secret, which made it impossible to say for sure what countries they represented. They never mentioned their countries. One could guess, but I don’t dare turn my guessing into an affirmation. Let me just put names under their lines. Random names… The level of the participants was not that high, but they had the authority to make expert decisions on behalf of their governments. And maybe they were not talking about the press at all…

Nobody uses addresses like “mister”, “comrade”, “monsieur” and “seignior” during the meeting; the last two of them can’t have been used during the meeting because they belong to the opposite party. The participants address each other “hey you”. It is weird to hear, so I changed their secretive address to “friends”; anyway, this is a story of the winning coalition.

Lets’ begin...

... It is 1942, Klaus’ residency. Klaus himself is not mentioned in the conversation below.

John: Friends, fighters with fascism from the BSSR have contacted us, they need help urgently. They need all what’s needed for underground publishing.

Roderick: Consultants?

Eric: Seminars?

Ivan: We have already helped them with everything we could.

John: They need some specific items, here’s the list...

Eric: Why is it so long? Why do we need so many editions?

Ivan: We supply them with weapons, armor, we teach their soldiers, we plan for them how they should fight, what else…

John: But they are no strangers to you, and they want to get rid of the occupants…

Ivan: That’s what I’m saying, there’s much more than just weapons. What else?

Roderick: The problem is, in fact, not that big. Compared to the cost of the weapons, it is not a problem at all. And in the war time propaganda is really important: to give hope in victory, to lift the fighting spirit of the warriors and to mobilize the nation. I suggest that we should help. Let’s take it seriously and split the costs.

John: We should establish criteria.

Eric: That’s what I’m saying, there are too many criteria. Why don’t they all unite and publish one leaflet.

John: This can be dangerous, it’s easier to discover them or take control over them. People can suffer.

Eric: But they are warriors, to suffer is their job.

Roderick: My government supports warriors.

Eric: So does mine.

John: And mine.

Ivan: Mine, too, of course.

Eric: And they should be registered.

John: Where, in Gestapo?

Eric: It doesn’t matter; there should be some administrative institution that registers the press? We need it for our reports.

John: The money is insignificant - we spend more on our conferences.

Eric: What conferences?

Roderick: You know, Teheran is on schedule, Yalta…

Ivan: Friends, Eric doesn’t have to know about that.

Eirc: I refuse to work like this, you’re hiding something from me again.

John: Friends, let’s not fight. Let’s get back to our question. I only see positive sides here. The help isn’t big, but we can report to the leaders that we’ve opened an information front against fascism in the BSSR.

Ivan: Well said about the leaders, my dear John.

Roderick: Indeed, a good cause.

Eric: We’ll help, but the press should be unbiased. It’s OK if the underground papers will write that the fascists have good weapons, are better trained and are human. Ezra Paund, von Karajan, Knut Hamsun are famous personalities. And gas chambers are a useful invention…

John: Aren’t we pushing it too far?

Roderick: The printed word should be objective, and people need to know about the fascists, perhaps, even more, than about those who fight them.

Ivan: That was an unexpected idea.

Eric: But a good one. Anyway we’ll have to live with those fascists in the future, no matter who wins now.

John: What do you mean, it doesn’t matter who’ll win? But we should do everything to win.

Eric: And if we lose? I mean, we should be cautious with the underground press. By the way, we could borrow editors from Henri. They’re professionals.

John: Henri who?

Eric: Petain.

John: Petain???!!!

Roderick: Why, a good idea. They really are professionals.

John: Let’s define the amount of help. I suggest this number (probably writing the number down; nothing is sais aloud).

Roderick: From each?

Ivan: Everything for them?

Eric: Monthly?

John: This is for one year, minus cost of our consultants, Petain’s boys, Teheran and Yalta.

Ivan: We’ll support but we have already paid our share with weapons.

John: But it’s about leaflets, not weapons. We’ve also helped with weapons, and with land-lease, too.

Ivan: Sure, we’ve heard about your land-lease. It’s all a debt, how will they pay it back? Are you pushing the soviet nation to peonage? We don’t need your underground leaflet.

Roderick: Calm down, my friend. By the way, we should help both the guys from the underground and talented journalists from occupation papers.

Eric: We could organize joint seminars with the outlawed and occupation press. Why not? They could raise their professional level and the competition would be faire…

John: I think that we’ve agreed on most points.

Eric: And one more thing: we should recommend them not to call Hitler Hitler.

John: …But he is Hitler, how else should they call him?

Eric: For example, head of state, high military man – journalists know this stuff themselves.