For me he's not better than Churchill. A racist bigot who would have kicked our @$$es back in 1940s like our colonial masters.
Not to forget he said what India is to Britain, Russia would be the same for Germany.
What about your views about Finnish collaboration with Nazis. Please enlighten us was it collaboration?
About Finnish collaboration. After Winter war ( where Hitler was at Russian side ) Finns knew that Winter war was only the opening act. Everybody knew, that either Stalin starts the offensive again in the summer '41 or something else happens. That something else happened: Hitler told Molotov that Germany would not allow Stalin to start the war again. Then when Germany started to prepare for the ´41 attack to Russia, Germans told secretly to Finnish government that a change to get lost lands back from Russia could come. Then Finns joined the war as a co-belligerent with Germany.
Today Finlands collaboration is seen in Finland with overwhelming positive views. The wars against SU basically formed Finnish identity: a small country can survive against superior enemy and develop to one of the best countries in the world. Collaboration with Germans were only military, in Finland were not national socialist supports ( some form existed in the thirties, but it never grew in popularity) . Also Germans kept politics out of the co-operation, with some exemptions: Himmler made a visit to Finland and met with Finnish PM Ragnell. He wanted Finns to hand jews to Germans. PM refused stating: "we have no jewish problem". After the war a lot of searching was done, and in fact Finns handed to Germany 8 jews. Those were refugees from central Europe and the decision was made by a local official in charge of refugees, not by government.
I live in Lapland and here were 200 000 Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS men, a whole thread could be made to talk about the incompetence of them in the Finnish terrain and climate, but that is another matter. Germans brought with them their military hospitals, bakeries, cinemas etc. which also locals could use. Even today locals remember those times warmly. So our collaboration with Nazis was a huge success in all levels. Without Hitler Finland would not be independent today, and Finns know and remember that always.
Hotel Pallas in Lapland which served as a holiday and recreational place for Lapland Army
Local Laplander with guests from central Europe
Memorial and cemetary of the fallen German soldiers in Lapland ( Rovaniemi )
From inside the memorial
Rovaniemi after retreating Germans burned it
Same street today
Our reindeer laugh at the stupidity of the humans.
