@holdengraber Fleeing Paris, Benjamin entrusted the Angelus Novus print to Georges Bataille for safekeeping. He handed his 'Theses on the Concept of History' to Hannah Arendt in Marseilles, where she was in hiding, having already escaped the Gestapo in Germany and an internment camp in France.
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“For the Messiah arrives not merely as the Redeemer; he also arrives as the vanquisher of the Anti-Christ. The only writer of history with the gift of setting alight the sparks of hope in the past, is the one who is convinced of this: that not even the dead will be safe from the enemy, if he is victorious. And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.” Walter Benjamin, Thesis VI, ‘Theses on the Concept of History’
@Samantharhill The Angel of History flew with its own wings. Shortly before his doomed flight, Benjamin entrusted the Klee print - his most treasured possession, he claimed - to Georges Bataille. Then, it found its way to Theodor Adorno and, later, to Benjamin's dear friend, Gershom Scholem.
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Excerpt from tweet thread here: "For the rebirth of messianic thinking out of the catastrophe of Christian humanism in WWI, we are indebted to #martinbuber, #ernstbloch & #franzrosenweig, #walterbenjamin & #theodoradorno, #gershomscholem & #margaretesusman, and after WWII... #karllowith & #jacobtaubes." 1/ "Out of the ruins of historical rationality they rescued hope as a theological category. Without their messianic thinking, eschatology today is literally unthinkable." - The Rebirth of Messianic Thinking in Judaism, 'The Coming of God', Christian Eschatology. #juergenmoltmannn 2/