After conducting a research project on the history of verbal propaganda financed by the Swiss National Foundation from 1996 until 2001, which has led to the publication of 12 papers on the linguistic diagnostics, the main historical changes and the range of genres of Soviet propag-andistic discourse, I will now tackle a related, but more provoking topic: my present paper aims at a systematic comparison of Nazi and Soviet propagandistic language. The main idea behind this comparison is that despite some striking parallels to be found at the surface of both idioms (to name but two of them: the principle of phraseological boundedness and the principle of sem-antic extremism), a more in depth analysis will prove that divergencies between them pre-vail.This is partly due to some evident inner contradictions of Nazi ideology such as: modern-ism vs. fascination of the (Germanic) past; fascination of technology vs. return to nature (cf. the “Blubo” cult); rationalism and belief in scientific progress vs. irrationalism and preference for instinct and emotions. Further principal divergencies may be observed in the enemy´s image (according to different mechanisms of terror) and the personality / Führer cult. All this boils down to the statement that Soviet discourse despite its Stalinist mythological superstructure still maintains the inner consistency of Marxist-Leninist ideology, preserving its whole system of axiological oppositions (e.g. totality vs. singularity, stability vs. change, new vs. old, health vs. illness etc.), whereas Nazi speech perhaps reveals more contradictory systems of values than unity of thought. On the whole, my conclusion will be that the idea of any ‘universal totalitarian discourse’ has to be dismissed.