THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT
Although Bismarck gave the Germans a Constitution and a Parliament
after the Franco-Prussian War as a sop for their sacrifices in that
campaign, he never intended the Reichstag to be a Parliament in the
sense in which the institution is understood in Great Britain.
What Bismarck gave the Germans was a debating society and a
safety-valve. They needed a place to air their theories and
ventilate their grievances. But the Chancellor of Iron was very
careful, in drawing up the plans for the "debating society," to see
that it conferred little more real power on the nation's
"representatives" than is enjoyed by the stump-speakers near Marble
Arch in London on Sundays.
Many people in England and the United States of America, I find, do
not at all understand the meaninglessness of German Parliamentary
proceedings. When they read about "stormy sittings" of the
Reichstag and "bitter criticism" of the Chancellor, they judge such
things as they judge similar events in the House of Commons or the
American House of Representatives. Nothing could be more
inaccurate. Governments do not fall in Germany in consequence of
adverse Reichstag votes, as they do in England. They are not the
peopled Governments, but merely the Kaisers creatures. They rise
and fall by his grace alone.
Even this state of affairs needs to be qualified and explained to
the citizens of free countries. The Government is not a Cabinet or
a Ministry.
_The German Government is a one-man affair. It consists of the
Imperial Chancellor_. He, and nobody else, is the "Government,"
subject only to the All-Highest will of the Emperor, whose bidding
the Chancellor is required to do.
The Chancellor, in the name of the "Government," brings in Bills to
be passed by the Reichstag. If the Reichstag does not like a Bill,
which sometimes happens, it refuses to give it a majority. But the
"Government" does not fall. It can simply, as it has done on
numerous occasions, dissolve the Reichstag, order a General
Election, _and keep on doing so indefinitely_, until it gets
exactly the kind of "Parliament" it wants. Thus, though the
Reichstag votes on financial matters, it can be made to vote as the
"Government" wishes.
As I have said, the Reichstag was invented to be, and has always
served the purpose hitherto of, a forum in which discontented
Germany could blow off steam, but achieve little in the way of
remedy or reform. _But during the war the Reichstag has even
ceased to be a place where free speech is tolerated_. It has been
gagged as effectually as the German Press. I was an eyewitness of
one of the most drastic muzzling episodes which has occurred in the
Reichstag during the war--or probably in the history of any modern
Parliament--the suppression of Dr. Karl Liebknecht, member for
Potsdam, during the debate on military affairs on January 17, 1916.
That event will be of historic importance in establishing how
public opinion in Germany during the war has been ruthlessly
trampled under foot.
The Reichstag has practically nothing to do with the conduct of the
war.
Up, practically, to the beginning of 1916 the sporadic Social
Democratic opposition to the war, mainly by Dr. Liebknecht, was
ignored by the Government. The war-machine was running so
smoothly, and, from the German standpoint, so victoriously, that
the Government thought it could safely let Liebknecht rant to his
heart's content.
Dr. Liebknecht had long been a thorn in the War Party's side. He
inherited an animosity to Prussian militarism from his late father,
Dr. Wilhelm Liebknecht, who with August Bebel founded the modern
German Social Democratic Party. Four or five years before the war
Liebknecht, a lawyer by profession, campaigned so fiercely against
militarism that he was sentenced to eighteen months' fortress
imprisonment for "sedition." He served his sentence, and soon
afterwards his political friends nominated him for the Reichstag
for the Royal Division of Potsdam, of all places in the world,
knowing that such a candidature would be as ironical a blow as
could be dealt to the war aristocrats. He was elected by a big
majority in 1913, the votes of the large working-class population
of the division, including Spandau (the Prussian Woolwich), being
more than enough to offset the military vote which the Kaiser's
henchmen mobilised against him. Some time afterwards Liebknecht
was also elected to represent a Berlin Labour constituency in the
_Prussian Diet_, the Legislature which deals with the affairs in
the Kingdom of Prussia, as distinct from the Reichstag (the
_Imperial Diet_), which concerns itself with Empire matters only.
Dr. Liebknecht is forty-four years old. Of medium build, he wears
a shock of long, curly, upstanding hair, which rather accentuates
his "agitator" type of countenance, and is a skilful and eloquent
debater. A university graduate and well-read thinker and student,
he turned out to be the one consistent Social Democratic politician
in Germany on the question of the war. When the war began the
Socialist Party was effectually and willingly tied to the
Government's chariot--including, nominally, even Liebknecht. A few
hours before making his notorious "Necessity-knows-no-law" speech
in the Reichstag on August 4, 1914, Bethmann-Hollweg conferred with
all the Parliamentary parties, and convinced them (including the
Socialists) that Germany had been cruelly dragged into a war of
defence. Later in the day, following other party leaders, Herr
Haase, spokesman for the Socialists, got up in the House, voiced a
few harmless platitudes about Socialist opposition to war on
principle, and then pledged the party's 111 votes solidly to the
War Credits for which the Government was asking. When the
Chancellor afterwards made his celebrated speech it was cheered to
the echo by the entire House, _including the Socialists_. I do not
know whether Liebknecht was present, though he is almost certain to
have been, but if so he made no note-worthy protest. How
completely the Government befooled the Socialists about the war was
proved a few days later when Dr. Franck, one of the Social
Democracy's most shining lights and the man who was in line to be
Bebel's successor, _volunteered_ for military service. He was one
of the first to fall fighting in September, somewhere in the West.
The authorities might have known that Liebknecht was a hard man to
keep quiet if he ever decided to speak out. Fresh in the
Government's mind was his bold exposure of the Krupp bribery
scandals at the War Office (in 1913) and his disclosures about how
the German munition trust for years systematically stirred up war
fever abroad, in order to convince the German people of the
necessity of speeding up their own huge armaments on land and sea.
As soon as Liebknecht's Reichstag and Prussian Diet speeches began
to show that he was tired of the muzzle, the Government called him
up for military service. They stuck him into the uniform of an
_Armierungssoldat_ (Army Service Corps soldier). This meant that
his public speeches in connection with the war had to be confined
to the two Parliaments in which he held seats. Anything of an
opposition character which he said or did _outside_ would be
"treason" or "sedition."
Liebknecht was put to work on A.S.C. jobs behind the fronts
alternately in the East and West, I believe, but was given leaves
of absence to attend to his Parliamentary duties from time to time.
On these occasions he would appear in the Reichstag in the dull
field-grey of an ordinary private--the only member so clad in a
House of 397 Deputies, among whom are dozens of officers in uniform
up to the rank of generals.
I was particularly fortunate to be able to secure a card of
admission to the Strangers' Gallery of the Reichstag on January 17,
the day set for discussion of military matters. I went to my place
early--a few minutes past the noon hour, as the Reichstag usually
convenes at 1 p.m. The floor was still quite empty, though the
galleries were filled with people anxious, like myself, to see the
show from start to finish.
The Reichstag's decorative scheme is panelled oak and gilt-paint.
The members' seating space spreads fanlike round the floor, with
individual seats and desks exactly like those used by schoolboys,
which is not an inappropriate simile. On the extreme right are the
places of the Conservative-Junker--landowners--Party; to their left
sit, in succession, the Roman Catholic Clericals (who occupy the
exact centre of the floor and are thus known as the _Zentrum_, or
Centre Party). The "Centre" includes many priests, mostly
Rhinelanders and Bavarians. Then come the National Liberals, the
violently anti-British and anti-American Party, the Progressive
People's Party, and the Social Democrats. The latter are on the
"extreme left." That is why they are often so described in reports
of Reichstag proceedings abroad. The Socialists comprise 111 out
of 397 members of the House, so their segment of the fan is the
largest of all. Next in size is the Centre Party, with eighty-five
or ninety seats, the Conservatives, National Liberals, and
Progressives accounting for the rest of the floor in more or less
equal proportions.
The outstanding aspect of the Reichstag is the tribune for
speakers, which faces the floor and is elevated above it some five
or six feet. It is flanked on the right by the Government "table,"
consisting of individual seats and desks for Ministers. In the
centre of the tribune the presiding officer, who is "President,"
not Speaker, of the House, sits. On his left is a row of seats and
desks, like the opposite Government "table," for the members of the
_Federal Council_. The Federal Council, I may remind my readers,
consists of the delegates of the various States of Germany. They
are not elected by the people, but are appointed by the rulers of
the several States. They constitute practically an Imperial Upper
Chamber, and are the real legislative body of the Empire. Bills
require the Federal Council's approval before submission to the
Reichstag.
On so-called "big days" in the Reichstag a host of small fry from
the Departments collects behind the Government and this dominent
Federal Council. The Chancellor, whose place is at the corner of
the Government "table" nearest the President, is always shepherded
by his political aide-de-camp, Dr. Wahnschaffe. There is always a
group of uniformed Army and Navy officers on the tribune, too, and
to-day, of course, as the Army discussions were on the agenda,
there was an unusually brave array of gold braid and brass buttons.
Herr von Oldenburg, a prominent Junker M.P., once said if he were
the Kaiser he would send a Prussian lieutenant and ten men to close
up the Reichstag.
Liebknecht arrived early, a slight and unimpressive figure in
somewhat worn field-grey, the German khaki. The "debate" having
begun, I noticed how he listened eagerly to every word spoken,
jotting down notes incessantly for the evident purpose of replying
to the grandiloquent utterances about our "glorious army of
_Kultur_-bearers" which were falling from the lips of "patriotic"
party orators. Liebknecht had earned the displeasure of the House
a few days before by asking some embarrassing questions about
Turkish massacres in Armenia. He was jeered and laughed at
hilariously; when he went on to say that a "Black Chamber" was
spying on his every movement, shadowing other members of the
Reichstag, even eavesdropping on their telephone conversations and
opening their private correspondence.
While a Socialist comrade, Herr Davidssohn, was speaking from the
desk in the centre of the tribune, at which all members must stand
when addressing the House, I now saw Liebknecht walking up the
aisle leading from the Socialist seats to the President's chair as
unobtrusively as possible. He was walking furtively and he cut the
figure of a hunted animal which is conscious that it is surrounded
by other animals anxious to pounce upon it and devour it if it
dares to show itself in the open.
Liebknecht has now reached the President's side. The President, a
long-whiskered septuagenarian, is popularly known as "Papa" Kaempf.
I see Liebknecht whispering quietly in Kaempf's ear. He is asking
for permission to speak, probably as soon as comrade Davidssohn has
finished making his innocuous suggestions of minor reforms to
relieve discomforts in the trenches. Kaempf is shaking his head
negatively. As the official executor of the House's wishes, the
old man understands perfectly well that Liebknecht must under no
circumstances have a hearing. Davidssohn has now stopped talking.
Liebknecht has meantime reached the bottom step of the stairway of
five or six steps leading from the tribune to the level of the
floor. He can be plainly seen from all sections of the House. I
hear him start to say that he has a double right to be heard on the
Army Bill, not only as a member of the House, but as a soldier. He
gets no further. The Chamber is already filled with shouts and
jeers. "_Maul halten_!" (shut your mouth!) bursts from a dozen
places in the Conservative and rational Liberal and Centre benches.
"'_Raus mit ihm!" (throw him out!) is another angry taunt which I
can distinguish in the bedlam. Liebknecht has been howled down
many times before under similar circumstances. He is not terrified
to-day, though his face is pale with excitement and anger. He
stands his ground. His right arm is extended, a finger levelled
accusingly at the Right and Centre from which imprecations,
unceasingly, are being snarled at him. But he cannot make himself
heard amid the uproar.
A Socialist colleague intervenes, Ledebour, a thin, grey-haired,
actor-like person, of ascetic mien and resonant voice. "Checking
free speech is an evil custom of this House," declares Ledebour.
"Papa" Kaempf clangs his big hand-bell. He rules out "such
improper expressions as 'evil custom' in this high House." Ledebour
is the Reichstag's master of repartee. He rejoins
smilingly:--"Very well, not an 'evil custom,' but not altogether a
pleasant custom." Now the House is howling Ledebour down. He,
too, has weathered such storms before. He waits, impassive and
undismayed, for a lull in the cyclone. It comes. "Wait, wait!" he
thunders. "My friend Liebknecht and I, and others like us, have a
great following. You grievously underestimate that following.
Some day you will realise that. Wait----" Ledebour, like
Liebknecht, can no longer proceed. The House is now boiling, an
indistinguishable and most undignified pandemonium. I can detect
that there is considerable ironical laughter mixed with its
indignation. Members are not taking Ledebour's threat seriously.
Liebknecht has temporarily returned to his seat under cover of the
tornado provoked by Ledebour's intervention, but now I see him
stealthily crawling, dodging, almost panther-like, back to the
steps of the tribune. He is bent upon renewing the attempt to
raise his voice above the hostile din. The sight of him unchains
the House's fury afresh. The racket is increased by the mad
ding-donging of "Papa" Kaempf, trying hopelessly to restore a
semblance of quiet. It is useless. The House will not subside
until Liebknecht is driven from the speakers' tribune. He is not
to have even the chance of the lull which enabled Ledebour to say a
pertinent thing or two. A score of embittered deputies advance
toward the tribune, red-faced and gesticulating in the German way
when excitement is the dominant passion. Their fists are clenched.
I say to myself that Liebknecht will this time be beaten down, if
he is not content to be shouted down. He makes an unforgettable
figure, alone there, assailed, barked and snarled at from every
side, a private in the German Army bidding defiance to a hundred
men, also in uniform, but superior officers. Mere _Kanonenfutter_
(cannon fodder) defying the majestic authority of its helmeted and
epauletted overlords! An unprecedented episode, as well as an
unforgettable one. . .
Liebknecht insists upon tempting fate once more. He is going to
try to outshout the crazy chorus howling at him. He succeeds, but
only for an instant and to the extent of one biting phrase:--"Such
treatment," I can hear him shrieking, "is _unverschaemt_
(shameless) and _unerhoert_ (unheard of)! It could take place in
no other legislative body in the world!"
With that the one German Social Democrat of conviction, courage,
and consistency retires, baffled and discomfited. Potsdam's
representative in the Reichstag is at last effectually muzzled, but
in the muzzling I have seen the German Government at work on a task
almost as prodigious as the one it now faces on the Somme--the task
of keeping the German people deaf, dumb, and blind.
Of what has meantime happened to Liebknecht the main facts are
known. He was arrested on May 1 for alleged "incitement to public
disorder during a state of war," tried, convicted, and sentenced to
penal servitude. A couple of months previously (on March 13) he
had delivered another bitter attack on the War Government in the
Prussian Diet. He accused the German educational authorities of
systematically teaching hate to school children and of distorting
even contemporary history so as to poison their minds to the
glorification of Prussian militarism. He said it was not the
business of the schools to turn children into machines for the
Moloch of militarism.
"_Let us teach history correctly_," declared Liebknecht, "_and tell
the children that the crime of Sarajevo was looked upon by wide
circles in Austria-Hungary and Germany as a gift from Heaven. Let
us. . . ._"
He got no farther, for the cyclone broke. He had dared to do what
no other man in Germany had done. He had publicly accused his
Government of making the war. From that moment his doom was
certain.
This narrative should be instructive to those Britishers and
Americans who think it possible that German Socialists may one day
have the power to end the war. There are two effective replies to
this curious Anglo-Saxon misunderstanding of Germany. The first is
that Liebknecht had not, and has not, the support of his own party;
the second, that were that party twice as numerous as it is its
votes would be worthless in view of the power wielded by the
Kaiser's representative, von Bethmann-Hollweg, backed up by the
Federal Council.
It is difficult to drive this fact into the heads of British and
American people, who are both prone to judge German institutions by
their own.
For, remember always that behind the dominant Imperial Chancellor,
von Bethmann-Hollweg, stands the All-Highest War Lord, and behind
him, what is still, if damaged, the mightiest military machine in
the world--the German Army. Opposed to that there is at present a
slowly increasing Socialist vote--the two have grown to about
twenty.