WATCH RUSSIAN television or listen to Vladimir Putin’s chilling speeches, and Russia is a besieged fortress, struggling to preserve humanity against the decadent West, defending the traditional values of family life, and defying death by its readiness to sacrifice life. Walk on Moscow streets, however, and it looks nothing like a city in the grip of a death cult. But neither did Berlin in the early 1940s, with its entertainments, consumption and comforts.