By royal command these ninety-three professors signed a statement
saying: "It is not true that we wronged Belgium." In the Kaiser's
address that he himself published, we read, "Give no quarter, take
no prisoners"; he adds, "Let all who fall into your hands be at your
mercy; make yourself as terrible as the Huns." This address was
circulated on millions of letter cards all over Germany. Realizing the
mistake made by the Kaiser these professors signed a statement saying:
"It is not true that our soldiers ever injured the life of a single
Belgian." Socrates, Savonarola or Lincoln would have died a thousand
deaths upon the rack, rather than have consented to sign their names
to a lie, but the Kaiser and the Chancellor had only to command their
servants to lie, and they lied like slaves. It makes the university
professor ashamed of the German teachers. Think of Harnack and Eucken,
with their moral cowardice and their intellectual subserviency. Plainly
that is what Nietzsche meant when he said (page 134, "Ecce Homo"),
"Every crime against culture that has been committed for a hundred
years rests upon Germany."