Thread by @akoz33

These remarks of Radzinsky about his religiousness in his interview with Posner connect with a lot of my own thoughts, so I will write a few threads on it, of which this is the first one.

https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1407399539917606916

What Radzinsky told Posner about the way he sees the “hand of God” in history, “even to the point of comedy”, is actually quite apparent in all his books and videos. It is probably one reason why he so often smiles or even loughs talking about terrible events:

like Camille Desmoulins being taken to the guillotine and shouting “it was I who started this revolution”. Radzinsky sees Russian revolution as a kind of God’s punishment for the terrible crimes of Russian history,

just like he sees Stalin as the terrible but natural culmination of the Revolution. His interest in Napoleon is clearly related to what was probably his greatest historical interest: Stalin.

Stalin like Napoleon was the “pacifier” of the revolution but Stalin as so much more terrible because the Russian revolution was so much more terrible.

And the reason why the Russian revolution had to be much more terrible than the French was Russian history, which was so much more terrible, and so much more offensive to God than French history.

There is a fascinating talk by Radzinsky about Solzhenitsyn, whom he admired, although he says he did not quite agree with with him and considered Andrei Sakharov the greater figure.

He also briefly remarks that he didn’t like Solzhenitsyn’s famous “Letter to Soviet Leaders”, which, amazingly they carefully read and discussed - Radzinsky talks about it.

It would be interesting to know Radzinsky’s view of the famous Pipes-Solzhenitsyn dispute about Russia’s history, see

https://twitter.com/akoz33/status/1069649827351445505?s=20

Clearly, Radzinsky views is quite close to Richard Pipes’s, who also thought Stalinism was born out of Russia’s history -

a view which is an anathema to Solzhenitsyn).
Many past historians saw “the hand of God” in history, even those who, like Tocqueville, had doubts about their faith.

And of course, a teleological viewpoint of history, was adopted by secular historians of the 19th century and became a central feature of historicism, and in particular, the marxist version (a subject for another thread).

But that is very far from Radzinsky, whose God is very much the God of Judeo-Christian morality. What I really wanted to comment on here was his mention of the failures of the assassination attempts against Hitler,

which Radzinsky sees as God not letting the German people escape their responsibilities. In fact, the number of attempts on Hitler’s life was much larger than Radzinsky mentions, it was over 20.

Moreover those attempting these assassinations were all believing Christians. Contrary to the black legend that has been spread about them, very few were former Nazis, who only changed their views when they saw the inevitability of Germany’s defeat.

Some, like Hans Oster, believed that Hitler should be removed by force from the moment he came to power (Oster even went as far to commit treason by passing German war plans to the allies - but these were ignored - which could also be seen as an example of God’s work).

The officers directly involved in the plot were all fairly junior ones (and almost all staff officers). The two very senior ones: General Oberst Beck and Field Marshal von Witzleben were retired, the first resigned as Chief of General Staff because of his opposition to Hitler

on the Sudeten Crisis, the second was ostensibly retired for health reason but actually because his distaste for nazism was too public.

But many of the senior commanders knew about the plans although they refused to be directly involved (von Manstein said to von Gersdorff who urged him to overthrow Hitler: “Prussian Field Marhsals do not rebel”, but he did not denounce him).

Two of the field marshals whose knowledge of the plots was revealed, von Kluge and Rommel, committed suicide, the former after writing a suicide note in which he declared his loyalty to Hitler.

But the officers who actually were involved in the attempts directly were very different and, at least some of them actually shared Radzinsky’s view that it was God who prevented them from succeeding.

Axel von dem Busche, who was half-Danish (his cousin Anders Lassen fought for the British and was posthumously awarded the Victoria cross) was 20 when the war started.

In 1943 he witnessed a massacre of the Jews in 1942 at Dubno Airport in Ukraine and volunteered to blow himself up with Hitler. Here he is talking about what happened. Note the way he described Hitler’s escape…

Helmuth von Tresckow was, together with Hans Oster, the brain behind the largest number of assassination attempts. After many failures, he also became convinced that they were not going to succeed and he also saw the matter in religious terms.

Before committing suicide after the failure of von Sauffenberg’s final attempt on July 20 1944, he also spoke in religious terms, expressing perhaps not quite the same view as Radzinsky but one that is complementary to it.

“When, in few hours' time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler.

God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if only ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope for our sake God will not destroy Germany”.

But as usually happens when one looks for a teleological purpose (or Hand of God) in human affairs, things are not simple. For while it is probably true that had any of these assassinations succeeded, Germany would have escaped cheaply, as Radzinsky says, millions of Jews &

others victims of nazism would have been saved.