In an extensive interview with Die Zeit, former German ambassador to Moscow Rüdiger von Fritsch reflects on growing up with a father who remained committed to Nazi ideology throughout his life, the responsibility inherited from history rather than guilt itself, his years representing Germany in Russia, and his encounters with Vladimir Putin. Drawing on decades of diplomatic experience and personal reflection, von Fritsch argues that understanding Russia must never become a justification for its actions, while insisting that the country’s people, culture and political leadership should be viewed as fundamentally distinct.
For Rüdiger von Fritsch, history has never been an abstract subject confined to archives or diplomatic briefings. It has been a deeply personal inheritance that shaped his family, his career and his understanding of responsibility. In an interview with Die Zeit discussing his new book Die Geschichte in mir, the former German ambassador to Moscow confronts one of the most difficult aspects of his own past: being raised by a father who joined the Nazi Party early, served in the Waffen-SS, participated in the German occupation of Lithuania and remained convinced of his beliefs until his death.
Von Fritsch recalls that, as a child, he accepted the explanations offered by adults without question. His parents’ families had suffered devastating losses during the Second World War, losing their homes, possessions and, above all, family members. His parents’ brothers had been killed, and his father explained those events through a narrative in which Germany had been attacked, had merely defended itself, and others bore responsibility for what followed.
The certainty of that account began to unravel only when von Fritsch encountered classmates whose families remembered the war differently. Those conversations created his first doubts, which deepened through school lessons and student exchanges in France and Scotland. There he discovered that the destruction of his native Dresden could not be understood without recognising the bombing of Coventry. Returning home with those new perspectives led to repeated confrontations with his father over history and responsibility.
His father defended Germany’s bombing of the British city by insisting that Britain had threatened Germany and that military action had therefore been defensive. Rather than accepting those explanations, von Fritsch embarked on his own study of history, repeatedly presenting new evidence and interpretations to his father. Looking back, he describes those debates as an essential process of confronting difficult truths through discussion and disagreement, even when agreement proved impossible.
According to von Fritsch, his father never admitted he had been wrong because he genuinely believed he had not erred. He lived within what the diplomat describes as a closed worldview, one in which contrary evidence amounted only to lies and falsifications. Von Fritsch draws a parallel between that mindset and contemporary conspiracy movements, arguing that such self-contained systems of belief reject facts that challenge their internal logic. His own objective, he says, was simply to leave no important question unasked so that he would never later regret remaining silent.
Despite profound disagreements, father and son never severed their relationship. Von Fritsch notes that his father recognised that his children would have to live in a different world and actively encouraged them to pursue independent paths. He sent his four sons to a boarding school co-founded by a Jewish educator and later led by a British naval officer, despite viewing Britain as Germany’s principal wartime enemy. When that headmaster proposed a student exchange in Scotland, his father supported the idea without hesitation. Family, von Fritsch reflects, ultimately remained more important to him than ideology.
The diplomat believes those early experiences profoundly influenced his professional life. The stories of war became what he calls the “dark underlying melody” of his childhood and helped shape his decision to enter diplomacy, a profession dedicated to preserving or restoring peace. Before serving as Germany’s ambassador to Moscow between 2014 and 2019, he was ambassador to Warsaw, experiences that reinforced his understanding of Europe’s complex historical responsibilities.
One particularly significant moment came during a visit to a military cemetery in southern Russia, where he honoured his maternal uncle Polja, who had been killed during the Second World War. Severely short-sighted, with plus 6.5 dioptres in both eyes, his uncle had little realistic chance of surviving combat. For von Fritsch, that personal tragedy symbolised the complete absurdity of war.
Reflecting on Germany’s past, von Fritsch distinguishes sharply between guilt and responsibility. Guilt, he argues, is individual and cannot be inherited. Responsibility, however, passes from one generation to the next. That sense of responsibility informed his work as ambassador, particularly in commemorating the victims of war. Asked whether there can be collective guilt, he responds that anyone who knowingly supports a criminal regime may bear individual guilt, including his own father, whose administrative work in occupied Lithuania contributed to the functioning of Nazi rule.
Those questions acquired renewed urgency during his posting in Moscow. By the time he arrived in 2014, Russia had already annexed Crimea and was fighting in eastern Ukraine. His approach, he explains in Die Zeit, was to understand the situation while maintaining a clear moral position. Understanding Russia, he insists, must never become a justification for Russian actions.
That distinction lies at the heart of one of the interview’s most striking observations. “Russland und die russische Kultur sind großartig. Das bleibt so. Russische Menschen sind wunderbar. Das bleibt so. Die russische Politik ist furchtbar.” For von Fritsch, Russia’s culture and its people deserve admiration, while the conduct of the Russian state demands unequivocal criticism. The two, he argues, cannot be balanced against one another or treated as interchangeable.
He also reflects on Germany’s historical tendency to view the Soviet Union almost exclusively through the lens of Russia, overlooking the multinational and imperial character of the Soviet state and the experiences of the peoples subjected to it. His years in Poland during the late 1980s, when he maintained contact with the country’s illegal opposition and the Catholic Church, convinced him that democratic movements represented the future not only of Poland but of Europe more broadly.
Von Fritsch’s understanding of Vladimir Putin developed during his years in Moscow. Quoting the Russian president’s own remark, “Einmal KGB, immer KGB,” he argues that Putin’s worldview is fundamentally shaped by his intelligence background. In von Fritsch’s assessment, Putin’s increasing engagement with history culminated before the 2022 invasion of Ukraine in a complete distortion of historical events and a rejection of Russia’s own responsibility. Such manipulation of history, he argues, is a characteristic instrument of authoritarian rule.
His final meeting with Putin in 2019 left a lasting impression. Following the election of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Ukraine’s president, von Fritsch suggested that the moment offered an opportunity for Russia to engage constructively with its newly elected neighbour. Putin responded, he recalls, in language so harsh that he declines to repeat it, insisting it was inconceivable that a great Russia should move towards anyone else.
That exchange reinforced von Fritsch’s conviction that Putin’s political logic revolves around power, dominance and respect rather than compromise or peace. He argues that many in the West continue to believe concessions will moderate Russian behaviour, comparing that expectation to throwing “a piece of meat to the bear” in the hope that it will be satisfied.
History itself, he contends, has become central to maintaining the Russian political system. Putin offers citizens an attractive narrative in which Russia’s past is transformed into an uninterrupted story of national heroism while historical crimes, including those committed under Joseph Stalin, are minimised or denied. Such narratives spare society from confronting painful truths while reinforcing the state’s legitimacy.
Nevertheless, von Fritsch believes Russian society is more complex than official propaganda suggests. Speaking to Die Zeit, he argues that many Russians, as during the Soviet period, effectively live in two realities. Publicly they demonstrate loyalty because open dissent carries serious personal risks. Privately, around the kitchen table, very different conversations often take place. Putin’s extensive repression, he suggests, reflects his awareness that public conformity does not necessarily indicate genuine support.
Asked whether Russian society might one day confront the truth about the war in Ukraine, von Fritsch points to earlier periods when Russians acknowledged the crimes of Stalin. Recalling a remark by Mikhail Gorbachev that only the West believed Russia incapable of democracy, he says democratic change is unlikely to arrive quickly or immediately after Putin. Even so, he rejects the idea that dictatorship is Russia’s permanent destiny.
Concluding the interview, von Fritsch invokes the words of the late Die Zeit editor Theo Sommer: “We should not insult the future through a lack of imagination.” For the former ambassador, history demonstrates that developments once considered impossible can become reality. That belief, shaped by both painful family history and decades of diplomacy, underpins his conviction that Russia’s future may yet take a different course, even if that transformation remains distant.
