To the editor:

During the holiday truce in the first World War, a British officer talked to a German soldier. The German told him, “I am a Saxon. You are an Anglo-Saxon. Why do we fight?”

Anglo-Saxons came to Britain from Germany in the Sixth Century. Saksa (“Saxony”) is the name for Germany in the Finnish language.

Putin has mentioned the kinship of Russians and Ukrainians. Both ethnic groups speak East Slavic languages and are, mostly, members of the Eastern Orthodox churches.

However, Putin twisted that link between Russians and Ukrainians to justify Russia’s war against Ukraine. He lacks the wisdom and compassion expressed by that German soldier more than 100 years ago.

After Germany’s reunification in 1989, historian Lucy Dawidowicz said that she hated Germans. As a historian, she should have known about the German officers who tried to assassinate Hitler. They were tortured and then executed by the Nazis.

Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Fifty years later (1991), the USSR collapsed. Germany sent more aid to Russia than did all other European countries combined.

A Russian woman, with tears in her eyes, said on TV, “Germans are good people.” So, there are Russians like her.

When the Soviet Union invaded Finland on Nov. 30 1939, starting the Winter War, Russian and Ukrainian soldiers fought against the Finns. Thousands of those invaders died in the forests of Finland as the Finns fought for 3 1/2 months to defend their homeland.

Tyrants like Hitler, Stalin, and Putin start wars in which they are not combatants. They force young soldiers to fight and die for them. They are not worth fighting for.