This book should be in every man's home; every woman should read it.
It is a pity that it is not in every German's home. But before your
ordinary man can grasp its full significance, it is as well that he
should know something of the man who wrote it, and still more why he
wrote it.
Mr. Otto H. Kahn, one of the leading financiers of America, and widely
renowned for his manifold charities, his strenuous public life, and
his generous patronage of the Arts, is of German blood and was born in
Germany. But, from his great-grandparents, who were French Alsatians,
he inherited a great love of France. His father, after taking part in
the German Revolution of 1848, fled to America, became naturalized as
an American citizen, and finally returned to Germany after ten years
of banishment. From this father, Kahn inherited the love of liberty.
He left Germany when he was twenty-one years old, after having served
his year in the army; and, deciding to find his future elsewhere, gave
up his German nationality thirty years ago. Returning, however, almost
every year, to visit the country of his birth, and having important
relations with governmental, business, social, and other circles, he
had exceptional opportunities for becoming acquainted with and
studying the development of German mentality and morality under the
influence of Prussianism. That development filled him with horror and
dismay. Long before the war he realized the terrible menace to the
entire world which was subtly concealed in the poison growth of
Prussianism. As he himself here puts it in one of his speeches: "From
each successive visit to Germany for twenty-five years I came away
more appalled by the sinister transmutation Prussianism had wrought
amongst the people and by the portentous menace I recognized in it for
the entire world. It had given to Germany unparalleled prosperity,
beneficent and advanced social legislation, and not a few other things
of value, but it had taken in payment the soul of the race. IT HAD
MADE A DEVIL'S BARGAIN."
When the war broke out, in 1914, Otto Kahn did not hesitate for a
second on which side to take his stand. For him, neutrality in the
fight between light and darkness, between right and atrocious wrong,
was unthinkable. And as he felt and thought, being a man of honour, of
courage, and of decision, so he acted, totally regardless of the
consequences to himself. He had "searched his conscience in sorrow and
in anguish"; and where it led him there he followed unhesitatingly.
Although his most important business relations were in Germany,
although he knew that he would be attacked in Germany and by all
pro-Germans as a renegade, and would have to face a very difficult
position even in America as long as America was neutral, he at once
became a firm, open, and active adherent of the cause of the Allies,
and threw his entire influence, personal and financial, on their side.
No work for the Allies remained without his support. The calculated
expectations of the German Government on German-American aid,
particularly their reliance on access to the money market of America,
were disappointed and defeated; the chief part of the credit for that
vital result was due to Otto Kahn.
But, perhaps the greatest service to the Allied cause which Mr. Kahn
rendered--which he was the first, as well as the most prominent,
American of German blood to render--was his oratory through the United
States. There are about twelve million Americans of German descent in
the United States, and many more millions spring from races more or
less affiliated with them. Most of these went to America over
twenty-five years ago; they did not know modern Germany; they did not
believe the accounts of German atrocities as reported in the Press;
they were unable to realize the hideous change which had come over
Germany since they or their parents had left it; they did not
understand the origin, the cause, and the meaning of the war. And many
Americans, especially in the West, held the like views.
Mr. Kahn, notwithstanding threats and malignities, went out to speak
to them--individually, through newspaper articles, or at great mass
meetings. He brought to bear the authority of his personality,
fortified by the confidence and prestige which attach to it; and he
made it plain that he spoke, not from hearsay, but from personal
experience, observation, and knowledge. He succeeded in showing up
modern Germany as it is, and in proving its horrible guilt for the
war. He pleaded in flaming words to Americans of German birth that not
only did their oath of allegiance compel them to be whole-heartedly
and undividedly American, without regard to their origin, but that
what could still be preserved of honour to the German name was largely
in their keeping, and that even for the sake of the German blood in
their veins they must prove to the world that those Germans who are
not under the Prussian yoke, hate and loathe the ruling caste who have
poisoned the German blood, who have made Germany a hideous, monstrous,
barbarous thing, and who have robbed them of the old Germany which
they loved and in which they took pride.
If, as is fortunately the case, America is now in the war by our side,
unanimous, enthusiastic, undivided; if the people, East and West,
realize the abominable doctrines and actions of modern Germany and the
necessity at whatever cost in blood and treasure of defeating that
abomination utterly, then no man is more entitled to a high place of
honour among those who have brought about this happy achievement than
Otto Kahn.
In his youth, Kahn had done military service in Germany; and the
German youth studies and understands strategy in a far larger and
broader way than even professional soldiers study it amongst us.
Strategy acts in peace, as well as in war--strategy never ceases. For
what is strategy? It is the leadership of a people so that its moral,
its ideals, and its will shall make it develop its destiny in such
vigour that it shall be safe from the assault of any enemy will that
may assail it. All statesmanship worthy of the name is strategic--all
other statesmanship is but a glittering bubble, floating in an empty
void. If the moral and ideals of a people be not deep-rooted in vigour
capable of defending those ideals, that people is doomed.
I am proud to know that Otto Kahn sees eye to eye with me. The utter
degradation of the fine old Germany by Prussia was a bitter
disillusion of my young manhood. What must it have been to Otto Kahn?
He loved the old Germany to which he was "linked by ties of blood, by
fond memories and cherished sentiments." To cast her out of his
soul--to range himself in the forefront of those fighting the
abomination which had made her an outcast amongst the peoples of the
world--to brave attack, misunderstanding, misinterpretation of his
motives, loss of lifelong friends, not to speak of financial
sacrifices--these touch well-nigh upon the tragic. I am proud to think
that the strategic revelation of Germany, which I published last year,
receives such overwhelming proof in every page of Otto Kahn's
book--this laying bare of the meaning, processes, and purposes of
modern Germany by a great German of that fine school of honour which
once made Germany a noble people. And it is good to know that when at
last America struck for civilization, the vast mass of the Americans
of German blood remembered that they were Americans, and that their
ancient State was wholly departed. No man did more to steady them to
nobility of action in the day of their trial than the man who wrote
this book.
One of the first tributes I received from across the seas was a copy
of one of his addresses from Otto Kahn; and I am proud that it should
have fallen to my good fortune to pay back that tribute between the
covers of this noble volume on its issue to our people. There has been
no more valuable testimony written upon the war than this small book.
Otto Kahn tells us that the hideous thing "Prussianism" must be struck
down--or peace will have left the earth. There is no other way to
victory; no other way from bondage for the whole wide world.