The Enemy Tribunal and the Neutral Tribunal
When the Entente's demand that I and the German army leaders should
be surrendered for trial before Entente tribunals became known, I
immediately asked myself whether I could be of use to my fatherland by
giving myself up before the German people and the German Government had
expressed themselves regarding this demand. It was clear to me that, in
the opinion of the Entente, such a surrender would so seriously shake
the prestige of Germany, as a state and people, for all time, that we
could never again take our place, with equal rights, equal dignity,
and equal title to alliances, in the first rank of nations, where we
belonged.
I recognized it as my duty not to sacrifice the honor and dignity of
Germany. The question resolved itself into deciding whether there was
any way to give myself up which might benefit the German nation and not
subject it to the above-mentioned disadvantages. Were there such a way
I should have been ready without hesitation to add another sacrifice to
those already made.
The question of my giving myself up has also been debated--as I
know--in well-meaning and earnest German circles. Wherever this was
due to psychological depression or failure to realize the impression
which self-chastisement, self-debasement, and fruitless martyrdom in
the face of the Entente must arouse, all that was needed was to recall
the materially political origin of the Entente's demand, cursorily
mentioned above, in order to arrive at a clean-cut decision--in other
words, at an emphatic refusal.
It was otherwise with the considerations based upon the assumption that
I might, by taking upon myself, before the eyes of the whole world, the
responsibility for all important decisions and acts of my Government
connected with the war, contribute toward making the fate of the German
nation easier. Here was not an act of unpolitical sentimentality, but,
on the contrary, a deed which, in my eyes, had much to commend it.
The thought that, according to the Constitution of the Empire then in
force, not I, but the Chancellor alone as was well known--bore the
responsibility, would naturally not have bothered me with regard to
this.
Had there been even the slightest prospect of bettering Germany's
situation by taking such a step, there would have been no possible
doubt for me personally as to what I should do. Already I had shown my
personal willingness to sacrifice myself when I left the country and
gave up the throne of my fathers, because I had been erroneously and
deceivingly assured that I could, by so doing, make possible better
peace terms for my people and prevent civil war. I should likewise have
made this further attempt to help my people, despite the fact that, in
the meantime, one of the considerations in favor of it which have been
urged upon me--_viz._, the prevention of civil war--had already turned
out to be false.
RECALLS PLIGHT OF VERCINGETORIX
There was, however, no possibility of helping the German people by such
an act. Surrender of my person would have had no result beyond our
obedience to the demand from the Entente that I be given up. For no
tribunal in the world can pronounce a just sentence before the state
archives of _all_ the nations participating in the war are thrown open,
as has been done, and is still being done, by Germany.
Who, after the unprecedented judgment of Versailles, could still summon
up optimism enough to believe that the Entente nations would place
their secret documents at the disposal of such a tribunal? Therefore,
after careful reflection on my part, I gave the decisive importance
that was their due to the above-mentioned weighty considerations of
personal and national dignity and honor, and rejected the idea of
giving myself up. It was not for me to play the rôle of Vercingetorix,
who, as is well known, relying upon the magnanimity of his foes,
surrendered himself to them in order to obtain a better fate for his
people. In view of the conduct of our enemies during the war and in the
peace negotiations, it was surely not to be assumed that the Entente
would show any greater magnanimity than did Cæsar when he threw the
noble Gaul into chains, subsequently had him executed, and, in spite of
what Vercingetorix had done, enslaved his people just the same.
I wish to remark in a general way that it has always proved wrong to
follow the suggestions of the enemy or to heed them to any extent. The
well-meant suggestions regarding my giving myself up, emanating from
Germans, also grew from the soil of the enemy demands, though perhaps
partly unknown to those making them. For that very reason it was
necessary to refuse to heed them.
Thus the only solution remaining is an international, nonpartisan
court, which, instead of trying individuals, shall examine and
pronounce judgment upon all the happenings leading to the World War,
in all the countries taking part therein, after all the national
archives, not merely those of Germany, have been opened up. Germany can
well agree to this mode of procedure. Whosoever opposes it pronounces
judgment upon himself!
My standpoint on the subject here discussed is expressed in the letter
reproduced below, which I addressed, under date of April 5, 1921, to
Field Marshal von Hindenburg, and which the latter has made public in
the meantime. To make matters clearer, the letter which preceded it,
from the Marshal, is also given.[10]
HINDENBURG'S LETTER
HANOVER, _March 30, 1921_.
YOUR IMPERIAL AND ROYAL MAJESTY:
I beg to thank Your Majesty most respectfully for his gracious
interest in the illness of my wife. She is not yet out of danger.
I have little that is pleasant to report from our country. The
troubles in Central Germany are more serious than they are
represented to be by the Prussian Government. I hope that they will
soon be suppressed.
The effects of the Versailles peace decree lie ever more crushingly
upon the German people, and the object of this peace--the policy of
annihilation of our enemies--comes more plainly to the fore every
day. For the purpose of justifying this policy of force the fairy
tale of German war guilt must be adhered to.
The spokesman of the enemy alliance, Mr. Lloyd George, is little
disturbed by the fact that, on December 20th of last year, he
declared that no statesman wished war in the summer of 1914, that
all the nations had slipped or stumbled into it. In his speech at
the London conference on March 3d he calmly remarked that Germany's
responsibility for the war was fundamental, that it was the basis
on which the Peace of Versailles was erected, and that, if the
admission of this guilt should be refused or given up, the treaty
would become untenable.
Now as before, the question of war guilt is the cardinal point
in the future of the German nation. The admission of our alleged
"guilt" regarding the war, forced from the German representatives
at Versailles against their judgment, is wreaking frightful
vengeance; equally so the untrue acknowledgment of Germany's
"complicity" which Minister Simons gave at the London conference.
I agree with Your Majesty to the uttermost depths of my soul--in my
long term of military service I have had the good fortune and honor
to enter into close personal relations with Your Majesty. I know
that all the efforts of Your Majesty throughout your reign were
bent toward maintaining peace. I can realize how immeasurably hard
it is for Your Majesty to be eliminated from positive co-operation
for the fatherland.
The _Comparative Historical Tables_ compiled by Your Majesty, a
printed copy of which Your Majesty sent me recently, are a good
contribution to the history of the origin of the war and are
calculated to remove many an incorrect conception. I have regretted
that Your Majesty did not make the tables public, but limited
them instead to a small circle. Now that the tables, owing to
indiscretions, have been published in the foreign press, partly in
the form of incomplete excerpts, it seems to me advisable to have
them published in full in the German press.
To my great joy I have heard that there has been an improvement
recently in the health of Her Majesty. May God help further!
With the deepest respect, unlimited fidelity and gratitude, I am
Your Imperial and Royal Majesty's most humble servant,
(Signed) VON HINDENBURG,
Field Marshal.
THE KAISER'S LETTER
HOUSE DOORN, _April 5, 1921_.
MY DEAR FIELD MARSHAL:
Accept my warmest thanks for your letter of March 30th, ult. You
are right. The hardest thing of all for me is to be obliged to
live in foreign parts, to follow, with burning anguish in my soul,
the awful fate of our dear fatherland, to which I have devoted the
labors of my entire life, and to be barred from co-operation.
You stood beside me during the dark, fatal days of November, 1918.
As you know, I forced myself to the difficult, terrible decision to
leave the country only upon the urgent declaration of yourself and
the rest of my counselors who had been summoned that only by my so
doing would it be possible to obtain more favorable armistice terms
for our people and spare it a bloody civil war.
The sacrifice was in vain. Now, as well as before, the enemy wishes
to make the German people expiate the alleged guilt of "Imperial
Germany."
SILENT UNDER ATTACKS
In my endeavor to subordinate all personal considerations to the
welfare of Germany, I keep myself completely in the background. I
am silent in the face of all the lies and slanders which are spread
abroad concerning me. I consider it beneath my dignity to defend
myself against attacks and abuse.
In accordance with this policy of restraint I have also kept the
_Historical Tables_ mentioned by you strictly objective and made
them accessible only to a narrow circle of acquaintances. I am
utterly at a loss to understand how they have now become public
through some sort of indiscretion or theft (?). The purpose
inspiring me when I prepared the historical tables was this:
To bring together strictly historical material by a systematic
enumeration of sober facts, such as might enable the reader to form
his own judgment of the historical happenings preceding the war. I
found my most convincing sources, be it remarked, in the literature
which has sprung up after the war, particularly in the works of
natives of the enemy countries. Therefore I am glad that you find
my modest contribution to history useful.
As to your suggestion to make the tables, which have been completed
in the meantime, accessible to the German press, I thank you, and
will follow it.[11]
Truth will hew a way for itself--mightily, irresistibly, like an
avalanche. Whoever does not close his ears to it against his better
judgment must admit that, during my twenty-six-year reign previous
to the war, Germany's foreign policy was directed solely to the
maintenance of peace. Its one and only aim was to protect our
sacred native soil, threatened from the west and the east, and the
peaceful development of our commerce and political economy.
Had we ever had warlike intentions we should have struck the blow
in 1900, when England's hands were tied by the Boer War, Russia's
by the Japanese War, at which time almost certain victory beckoned
us. In any event, we assuredly would not have singled out the year
1914, when we were confronted by a compact, overwhelmingly superior
foe. Also, every impartial man must acknowledge to himself that
Germany could expect nothing from the war, whereas our enemies
hoped to obtain from it the complete realization of the aims which
they had based, long since, upon our annihilation.
The fact that my zealous efforts and those of my Government
were concentrated, during the critical July and August days of
1914, upon maintaining world peace is being proved more and
more conclusively by the most recent literary and documentary
publications in Germany, and, most especially, in the enemy
countries. The most effective proof thereof is Sazonoff's
statement: "The German Emperor's love of peace is a guarantee to
us that we ourselves can decide upon the moment of war." What
further proof of our innocence is needed? The above means that the
intention existed to make an attack upon one who was absolutely
unsuspecting.
CALLS ACCUSATION FUTILE
God is my witness that I, in order to avoid war, went to the
uttermost limit compatible with responsibility for the security and
inviolability of my dear fatherland.
It is futile to accuse Germany of war guilt. To-day there is no
longer any doubt that not Germany, but the alliance of her foes,
prepared the war according to a definite plan, and intentionally
caused it.
For the purpose of concealing this, the allied enemies extorted
the false "admission of guilt" from Germany in the shameful
Peace Treaty and demanded that I _be produced before a hostile
tribunal_. You, my dear Field Marshal, know me too well not to be
aware that no sacrifice for my beloved fatherland is too great for
me. Nevertheless, a _tribunal in which the enemy alliance would
be at once plaintiff and judge would be not an organ of justice,
but an instrument of political arbitrariness, and would serve
only, through the sentence which would inevitably be passed upon
me, to justify subsequently the unprecedented peace conditions
imposed upon us_. Therefore, the enemy's demand naturally had to be
rejected by me.
But, in addition, the idea of _my being produced before a neutral
tribunal_, no matter how constituted, cannot be entertained by me.
_I do not recognize the validity of any sentence pronounced by any
mortal judge whatsoever, be he never so exalted in rank, upon the
measures taken by me most conscientiously as Emperor and King--in
other words, as the constitutional, not responsible, representative
of the German nation_--since, were I to do so, I should thereby be
sacrificing the honor and dignity of the German nation represented
by me.
_Legal proceedings having to do with guilt and punishment_,
instituted solely _against the head_ of one of the nations which
took part in the war, _deprive that one nation of every vestige
of equality of rights with the other nations_, and thereby of
its prestige in the community of nations. Moreover, this would
cause, as a consequence, _the impression desired by the enemy that
the entire "question of guilt" concerns only this one head of a
nation and the one nation represented by him_. It must be taken
into consideration, moreover, that _a nonpartisan judgment of the
"question of guilt" is impossible_, if the _legal proceedings
are not made to include the heads and leading statesmen of the
enemy powers_, and if their conduct is not subjected to the same
investigation, since it goes without saying that the conduct of
the aforesaid one nation at the outbreak of the war can be judged
correctly only if there is simultaneous consideration of the
actions of its opponents.
_A real clearing up of the "question of guilt,"_ in which surely
Germany would have no less interest than her foes, could be
accomplished only if _an international, nonpartisan tribunal,
instead of trying individuals as criminals, should establish all
the events which led to the World War_, as well as all other
offenses against international law, in order thereafter to measure
correctly the guilt of individuals implicated in every one of the
nations participating in the war.
Such an honest suggestion was officially made in Germany after
the end of the war, but, so far as I know, it was partly refused,
partly found unworthy of any answer at all. Furthermore, Germany,
immediately after the war, unreservedly threw open her archives,
whereas the enemy alliance has taken good care so far not to follow
such an example. The secret documents from the Russian archives,
now being made public in America, are but the beginning.
This method of procedure on the part of the enemy alliance in
itself, combined with overwhelming damaging evidence coming to
hand, shows where the "war guilt" is really to be sought! This
makes it all the more a solemn duty for Germany to collect, sift,
and make public, by every possible means, every bit of material
bearing on the "question of guilt," in order, by so doing, to
unmask the real originators of the war.
Unfortunately, the condition of Her Majesty has become worse. My
heart is filled with the most grievous worry.
God with us!
Your grateful
(Signed) WILHELM.
[10] This letter and the letter from the Field Marshal which preceded
it are reprinted herewith. The parts which are most important in
relation to the matter in question are underscored in the text.
[11] This has meanwhile been done. The _Comparative Historical Tables
from 1878 to the Outbreak of the War in 1914_ were published in
December, 1921, by K. F. Koehler, Leipsic.