РУССКИЙ
16:41 02.10.2025 •
“REGARDING THE ACTIONS (OR INACTION) OF THE AUTHORITIES OF ITALY, THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY AND JAPAN RESULTING IN DESTRUCTION AND FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY, JUSTIFICATION OF FASCISM AND ITS ACCOMPLICES”.
Report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation. Moscow. 2025
Introduction
Today – in the year of the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory in World War II – not only in Russia, but around the world, many people rightly ask themselves the question: how well have the lessons of the fight against Nazism, fascism and militarism been learned following that terrible war?
The public of both friendly and unfriendly towards Russia states, aware of the horrors of those times, witnesses the dangerous attempts made by a number of modern leaders and political elites to change the objective reality, destroy and rewrite the history of World War II, revise its results, whitewash the war criminals who created and put into practice the theory of racial superiority, and their accomplices, glorify Nazi collaborators.
In a number of countries, the crimes of Hitlerism are deliberately hushed up, and the glorification of Nazism and the rewriting of the history of World War II reach the level of state policy.
It is especially alarming that such destructive processes are developing most rapidly in Germany, Italy and Japan – the founders of the aggressive Nazi bloc of the Axis countries (Achsenmächte (German); 枢軸国 Sūjikukoku (Japanese); potenze dell'Asse (Italian) according to the term "axis: Berlin – Rome – Tokyo"), which during the World War II opposed the Anti-Hitler coalition.
Copy of the Tripartite Pact
Signing on 27 September 1940 the Tripartite Pact on the delimitation of zones of influence in the establishment of a "new order" and military mutual assistance (also known as the Axis alliance, the Three-Power Pact, the Berlin Pact), Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and militaristic Japan proceeded from the common strategic goals and ideological basis uniting them – all these states sought to revise the existing world order, assert their dominance in various regions, and spread ideological principles opposing democracy and communism.
As part of the pact, Japan recognized "the leadership of Germany and Italy in the establishment of a new order in Europe." In response, Germany and Italy recognized Japan's right to establish a new order in "Greater East Asia."
History repeats itself, and the patterns developed in Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and militaristic Japan find application these days. Attempts are being made to reform public consciousness, erase historical memory, inter alia, among younger generations, support and legalize neopagan and satanist movements, oppose canonical Orthodoxy, etc.
Thus, Nazi collaborators who committed war crimes and crimes against humanity are declared participants in national liberation movements that allegedly fought for the "independence" of their states. Curricula and cultural projects serve to glorify the "feat" of volunteer members of the national SS legions who fought for Nazi Germany and were involved in numerous massacres of civilians. The tacit consent of the authorities or their encouragement has unleashed the activities of radical nationalists and right-wing extremists, who are often the main perpetrators of the cynical "war" against monuments to Soviet soldiers-liberators.
For their achievements in fighting the "Russian world" and Soviet memorial heritage, the nationalists are privileged to preach the idea of the "true patriotism" to the society as a whole. In most cases, the national authorities do not take any measures to suppress such bacchanalia, but, on the contrary, they stimulate it. Protests against such incidents expressed by Russian diplomatic missions remain vastly without response. Representatives of civil society are simply ignored or even subjected to repressive measures.
The "vaccine against Nazism," developed as a result of the Nuremberg Tribunal, becomes ineffective in a number of European countries, including Germany. Many decades after the end of World War II, such political elites come to power in this country, who begin to gradually, step by step, deny its results, digress from the policy of denazification and rehabilitate Nazism, in fact openly engaging in historical revanchism.
At the behest of the top political leadership of Germany, which doctrinally proclaimed Russia "the main threat to security and peace," a massive militaristic manipulation of public opinion is carried out in the public space of the Federal Republic of Germany, theses about the existential nature of the "Russian threat" and the inevitability of an imminent military clash with Russia are instilled through mainstream media. Revanchists do not mince words. Chancellor Friedrich Merz, for example, agreed that "Russian aggressive revisionism threatens security in Europe and throughout the Euro-Atlantic region." Federal Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul bluntly stated that Russia had become a German "enemy for life." Some of the most aggressive Russophobes from the deputy corps publicly urged "to show the Russians what it is like to lose the war."
Revisionist tendencies are gaining momentum in Germany. The false postulate about the equal responsibility of the "two totalitarian regimes" for unleashing the World War II has long become the basic postulate in the German culture of memory, and the results of the post-war settlement are the main target of official propaganda. The promoted falsifications are focused on the fragmentation of the historical memory and deeds of the Soviet people, including the division of the victims of war on the basis of their nationality, the denial of the Great Victory as an act of liberation of Europe with reference to "replacing one tyranny with another." The process of repentance in Germany for the crimes of the Nazi regime is reduced mainly to the topic of the Holocaust; they prefer not to remember the victims among the Soviet citizens. It is not surprising that in this atmosphere, the German law enforcement agencies have not considered unlawful the actions of the leadership of the museum of the former Nazi concentration camp "Dachau", which ordered its employees to cut off ribbons that bore colours of the national flags of Russia and Belarus on the wreaths laid during a commemorative ceremony dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the Victory.
In the year of the 80th anniversary of the Great Victory over Nazi Germany, former German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who came to power with the ideas of rabid and fierce revanchism and is making her career on supporting and rehabilitating Nazism, was nominated for the position of President of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, that was created after World War II and that categorically and unequivocally condemned fascism. Berlin's decision to nominate this extremely dubious figure for a high UN post was a slap in the face of the universal organization. It was under the leadership of this avid Russophobe that the German Foreign Ministry recommended not inviting the representatives of Russia and Belarus to commemorative events on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. It turns out that the grandchildren of Nazi executioners – and Baerbock's grandfather is known to have served in the SS – are allowed to exclude from the events commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Victory over Hitler's Germany the descendants of those who, at the cost of 27 million of lives, liberated not only their country, but also the whole Europe from fascism.
The revanchist essence of modern Japan's politics is clearly confirmed by official Tokyo's persistent imposition of false interpretations of the events of the mid‑twentieth century that determined the fate of humanity.
In fact, today, this country is the only one on the planet that refuses to fully recognize the results of the post-war settlement, seeking to whitewash or silence the numerous crimes committed by the Japanese military as part of the barbaric expansionist campaign in East Asia in the first half of the twentieth century.
Instead of fully realizing the responsibility for the aggression unleashed in the 1930s-1940s in Asia and offering sincere apologies for the suffering caused to its peoples, Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya during a press conference on 8 August 2025, on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Victory over militaristic Japan and the end of World War II celebrated on 3 September, cynically declared the "unlawfulness" of the USSR's entry into hostilities against Japan on 9 August 1945 and the "illegal occupation" of the southern Kuril Islands.
Such rhetoric is unacceptable for a statesman of this level, and even more so it cannot change the reality in any way: the southern Kuril Islands passed to the USSR, whose successor State is the Russian Federation, on legal grounds enshrined in the Allied powers' post-war agreements and the UN Charter.
Since the centre-right government headed by Giorgia Meloni came to power in Italy in October 2022, there has been a tendency towards a more tolerant attitude on the part of the authorities towards apologia for the fascist regime's values and "achievements", which has intensified in some segments of society, cases of public display of symbols and rituals of the two decades of fascism. In 2024, Ignazio La Russa, the President of the Italian Senate and a member of the Brothers of Italy party, made several high-profile statements that he did not want to celebrate the day of Italy's liberation from fascism (25 April) and that he wanted to keep his home collection of fascist relics (photographs, medals, and a bust of Benito Mussolini). During her tenure, the Prime Minister herself has never made a statement strongly and uncompromisingly condemning fascism. Giorgia Meloni also stated that Ukrainians had the right to glorify Stepan Bandera, a fascist.
This study consists of three sections which, using the example of criminal actions (inaction) of the current authorities of Germany, Italy and Japan, show in detail how history is being destroyed and falsified, how fascism and its accomplices are being justified, how unpleasant facts of the historical past of the Axis countries are being retouched, how the role of the Soviet Union in achieving the Victory is being downgraded, including by hindering the celebration of 9 May on the territory of the mentioned states. The report focuses on the ideological proximity of modern leaders and political elites of the mentioned states to the fascist and militaristic regimes of the 1930s‑1940s, as well as the current spread of revanchist ideas in these states (especially in Germany and Japan). This is reflected, among other things, in their efforts to whitewash their own criminal past, in the fight against anti-fascists, as well as in the support for neo-Nazi regimes in Kiev and the Baltic states. This topic was included in the second joint report of the Foreign Ministry of Russia and the Foreign Ministry of Belarus on the Human Rights Situation in Certain Countries published in June 2025, and is also regularly mentioned in the annual reports of the Russian Foreign Ministry on human rights record, including regarding the situation with the glorification of Nazism and the spread of neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.
Since 2022, for the third consecutive year, the three main partners of the Axis alliance – Germany, Italy and Japan – have voted against the adoption of the UN General Assembly resolution "Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fuelling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance" that is put forward every year by Russia and other co-sponsors.
This is the first time in history that the member countries of the Hitler coalition of the World War II period have openly opposed the document condemning the glorification of Nazism and various forms of racial discrimination.
The fact that for the past three years these countries, which are directly responsible for killing tens of millions of people, have voted against the resolution demanding to prevent the revival of Nazism, makes think about the ideological processes in these countries and in the West as a whole. It is also obvious that these states have decided to ignore the commitments and promises made when joining the UN.
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