Strictly speaking, the only man who thoroughly understands the cruelty
of the Germans is the German himself. No American or Englishman, no
Belgian or Frenchman has the gift of telepathy that enables him to know
what is going on in the German mind that guides the German's hand in
committing his horrible atrocities. Now and then, in a moment when he is
off guard, an occasional German reveals the explanation, and we look in,
just as John Bunyan's pilgrim saw the door into Hades opened by a little
crack, through which he looked upon the flames. Not otherwise was it
with that German in Baltimore, who recently exposed the German mind, and
from the German view-point explained the Germans in their hour of
brutality.
During a most intimate and personal conversation with a banker, this
German, the other day, explained his people's atrocities by saying that
what is barbarism and atrocities to England, France or the United States
is not barbarism at all to the Germans. In proof of this astounding
statement the German gave this personal incident of his boyhood. He said
that in his gymnasium there was another boy who had something that he
wanted. When the opportunity came, being the stronger, he jumped upon
the other boy, beat him up terribly and made him a cripple for life. On
reaching his home he showed his parents what he had stolen, and he was
patted on the back, praised for his might with his fists, and told that
that was the method he was to follow in after life.
He insisted that this sort of thing was drilled into every German boy,
and for that reason it never once even occurred to him that he had done
wrong. "After I became a man I settled in America, and as I came to
understand the spirit of American civilization it grew upon me that I
had committed a crime, and now for twenty-two years, as some atonement
for my sin, I have been supporting that crippled man and his widowed
mother."
The modern banker has become a sort of confessor, and to the banker many
sins are revealed as once to the priest. Nothing is more significant
than this German confession and his philosophy of the German atrocity.
In his own written letter concerning that crime of his boyhood this
German adds: "Had I remained in Germany no one would ever have thought
of suggesting to me that I had done wrong, and it would never have
entered into my head that I was under any obligation to the man I had
maimed. In the light of American civilization I understand the
difference, and I am seeking to atone for my sin, but all Germans have
been taught, as I was taught. The Germans, therefore, in their campaign
of frightfulness, are committing deeds which from the view-point of
American civilization are barbarous, but from the view-point of Germans
are not crimes at all."
The significance of this frank confession of a German, his story of how
America had redeemed his soul out of the spirit of force and cruelty
into the spirit of kindness, humanity and justice, reveals more of the
real nature of the German beast and the Potsdam gang than a thousand
volumes on the philosophy of German atrocities. The simple fact is that
the crimes of the Germans are abominable atrocities to us, but that
intellectually and morally the German officer and soldier simply do not
know what we mean by our horror and the wave of moral indignation that
has swept over the earth. Jesse Pomeroy used to pull canary birds apart,
and tortured children to death. But the boy was deficient in the nerve
of humanity. He simply stared with blank eyes when the judge and the
jury condemned him. He was incapable of knowing what the excitement over
the dead body was about. On the side of compassion and humanity the
German is, as it were, colour blind, is without musical sense, and the
nerves of kindness and humanity are atrophied. The ordinary German
prisoner when shown the bodies left behind after the flight of the
German army simply looks blankly at the mutilated corpse and exclaims:
"Well, what of it? Why not? Why shouldn't we?" and shrugs his shoulders,
taking it as a matter of course. That is another reason why a great
number of American business men, bankers, merchants, manufacturers,
scholars, statesmen, have reluctantly been forced to the conviction that
the ten millions of German soldiers should be painlessly sterilized,
that the German people (saving only the remnant who accept Jesus' idea
of compassion and kindness towards God's poor and weak) should be
allowed to die out of the world. Re-read, therefore, what this German
has said about the teaching of his German parents and the German people
in praise of cruelty, and how for twenty years now, redeemed by life in
the United States, he has tried to make atonement by supporting the man
whom he had crippled, and also his mother. Who shall explain to us the
reason why German barbarism is not barbarism to the Germans? Why, this
German shall explain it, through his personal experience as a criminal.
But the day will come when the Potsdam gang and ten million German
soldiers will stand before the judgment seat of God. And what shall be
the verdict then pronounced? You will find it in the New Testament:
"'Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee,' thou wicked and cruel
German!"