Nazism, nationalism and the war in Ukraine: A reply to Kögler

This article considers what the figure of the Nazi means today, especially in the context of the war in Ukraine. Like Hans-Herbert Kögler, the article considers Nazism as a Russian political discourse, which has to be understood on its own terms. In this regard, the article proposes that for Putin it is unlikely that the Holocaust is Nazism’s main point of reference, but rather the murder and slavery of millions of Slavs and Russians is. In this regard, talk of Nazism is a way of recalling the existential threat that Russians experienced as Slavs.