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GEMS (?) OF
GERMAN THOUGHT
COMPILED BY
WILLIAM ARCHER
[Illustration]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1917
_Copyright, 1917, by_
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
_All rights reserved, including that of
translation into foreign languages,
including the Scandinavian_
THOR'S HAMMER-CAST
Thor stood at the midnight end of the world,
His battle-mace flew from his hand:
"So far as my clangorous hammer I've hurled
Mine are the sea and the land!"
And onward hurtled the mighty sledge
O'er the wide, wide earth, to fall
At last on the Southland's furthest edge
In token that His was all.
Since then 'tis the joyous German right
With the hammer lands to win.
We mean to inherit world-wide might
As the Hammer-God's kith and kin.
FELIX DAHN (1878).
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 3
I
"DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES" 31
German Humility 31
The Gentle German 49
The Great Misunderstood 55
Kultur 57
Der deutsche Gott 69
The Chosen People and its Mission 78
"Other Peoples" 84
Christ 88
Die deutsche Wahrheit 94
German Insight and Foresight 98
German Freedom 100
The German Language 101
II
GERMAN AMBITIONS 107
Expansion in Europe 107
Expansion beyond Europe 118
Weltmacht 122
III
WAR-WORSHIP 133
The Lust of Battle 133
War and Religion 135
War and Ethics 137
War and Biology 140
War and Kultur 143
Blood and Iron 145
War Necessary to Germany 149
War Need not be Defensive 153
Contempt for Peace 154
Militarism Exultant 159
IV
RUTHLESSNESS 169
V
MACHIAVELISM 185
Mendacity and Faithlessness 185
Might is Right 194
VI
ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND BELGIUM--ESPECIALLY ENGLAND 199
The False Islanders 199
Hymns of Hate 201
British Vices--Hypocrisy, Envy, and Greed 208
British Vices--Cowardice and Laziness 215
Treachery to Germanism 218
Sir Edward Grey and his Colleagues 220
Britain's Great Illusion 223
Comic Relief 228
France 233
Belgium 235
Index of Books and Pamphlets from which quotations are made 243
Index of Authors 255
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
In accordance with classic precedent, this anthology ought to have
consisted of "1,001 Gems of German Thought," I have been content with
half that number, not--heaven knows!--for any lack of material, but
simply for lack of time and energy to make the ingathering. After all,
enough is as good as a feast, and I think that the evidence as to the
dominant characteristics of German mentality is tolerably complete as
it stands.
Though I hope it is fairly representative, the collection does not
pretend to be systematic. I have cast no sweeping drag-net, but have
simply dipped almost at random into the wide ocean of German thought.
Some of my most precious "finds" I have come upon by pure chance; and
by pure chance, too, I have no doubt missed many others. Some books
that I should have liked to examine have not been accessible to me;
and there must be many of which I have never heard. On the other hand,
the list of books from which my gems have been selected by no means
indicates the extent of my reading--or skimming. I have gone through
many books and pamphlets which furnished no quotable extracts, but
none that diverged in tone from the rest, or marred the majestic
unison of German self-laudation and contempt for the rest of the
world. I have read of (but not seen) a book by one F.W. Förster which
is said to contain a protest against theoretic war-worship, and even a
mild defence of England. How very mild it is we may judge from this
sentence: "England has given us not only men like Lord Grey,
scoundrels and hypocrites, who have this war upon their conscience; it
has also given us the Salvation Army," etc., etc.
One voice the reader may be surprised to miss from the great
chorus--the voice of William the Second. He is unrepresented--save in
one passing remark (No. 136)--for two reasons. In the first place,
his most striking utterance--the injunction to his soldiers to emulate
the Huns of Attila--though almost certainly genuine, is not official,
and could not be quoted without discussion.[1] In the second place, to
confess the truth, I shrank from the intolerable monotony of reading
his Majesty's speeches--that endless array of platitudes in full
uniform--on the chance of discovering one or two quotable gems.
Practically all my quotations are taken from books and pamphlets. The
sole exceptions are a few extracts from pre-war newspapers, cited in
Nippold's "Der deutsche Chauvinismus." It would have been an endless
and unprofitable task to garner up the extravagances of German
newspapers since the outbreak of the war; not to mention that a German
anthologist could probably make a pretty effective retort by going
through the files of the British war press.
Is my anthology as it stands open to a telling _tu quoque_ by means of
a selection of gems from British books and pamphlets of the type of
those from which I have made my gleanings? Is it a case of the mote
and the beam? I think we may be pretty confident that it is not. I
doubt whether the literature of the world can show a parallel to the
amazing outburst of tribal arrogance, unrestrained and unashamed, of
which these pages contain but a few scattered specimens. In the
extracts from literature "Before the War" (which have always been kept
apart from those which date from "After July, 1914"), the reader may
see this habit of mind growing and gathering strength: the declaration
of war opens the floodgates, and the torrent rushes forth, grandiose,
overwhelming, and, I believe, unique. I know of only one English book
in which the German taste and temper is emulated. It is certainly a
deplorable production; but it is the work of a wholly unknown man,
whereas many of the most incredible utterances in the following pages
proceed from men of world-wide reputation. Indeed, few contemporary
German names of much distinction are absent from my list.
Wilamowitz-Möllendorf, Harnack, Wundt, Oncken, Eucken, Haeckel,
Naumann, Rohrbach, Sombart, Liszt, all join with a will in the chorus
of arrogance, ambition, and hate. Many quotations come from a series
of pamphlets called _Deutsche Reden in schwerer Zeit_, to which all
the most eminent professors of Berlin University have contributed,
with some from other universities. I have also, no doubt, culled
passages from a good many nobodies and busybodies; but when the
nobodies and the somebodies are found to echo and re-echo each other,
the inference is that the general tone of the public mind is very
fairly represented. It will be noted that many of the wildest shrieks
of self-glorification and ferocity proceed from clerics and
theologians.
The world as a whole has been curiously blind to the inordinate
self-valuation characteristic of the German spirit. So long ago as the
beginning of last century, we find Fichte assuring his countrymen
that: "There are no two ways about it: if you founder, the whole of
humanity founders with you, without hope of any possible restoration."
Even Heine, in the preface to "Deutschland" (1844) could write
half-jestingly that "if only the Germans would out-soar the French in
deeds, as they already had in thought," and if they would carry out in
their spiritual and political life some rather vaguely indicated
reforms, "not only Alsace and Lorraine, but all France, all Europe,
the whole world, would become German." "I often dream," he adds, "of
this mission, this universal dominance of Germany." Of course we are
not to write Heine down a Pan-German of the modern, realistic type.
There is more than a dash of irony in this passage--he obviously
implies that there is very little chance of Germany fulfilling the
conditions that he lays down as indispensable to her world-domination.
Nevertheless, there is a sinister significance in the fact that a
spirit like his should be found dallying for a moment with dreams of
world-supremacy. It was, of course, the war of 1870, with its
resounding triumphs, that brought these visions, so to speak, within
the range of practical politics. For fifteen or twenty years, Germany
was, as Bismarck said, "sated"; but with the coming of the youthful,
pushful, self-assertive Kaiser, her aggressive instincts re-awakened
and she fell to brooding over the idea that her incomparable physical
and spiritual energies were cabin'd, cribb'd, confined. The rapid
growth of her population reinforced this idea, and the increase of her
wealth, as was natural, only made her greedy for more. The result was
that she gave her soul over in fatal earnest to an ambitious and
grasping tribalism to which she was, from of old, only too prone. The
Pan-Germans were the Uhlans, the stormy petrels, of the movement; but
the whole mind of the nation was in reality carried away by it, save
for a very small section which was conscious of its dangers and feebly
protested. The egoism of which she was constantly accusing other
nations, ran riot in her own breast, was elevated into a political
virtue, and expressed itself on the spiritual side in a towering
racial vanity. The word "deutsch," always a word of magical
properties, became the synonym of an unapproachable superiority in
every walk of life[2]--a superiority that sanctified aggression and
made domination a duty. In many minds, no doubt, these sentiments wore
a decent mask; but the moment war broke out, the mask dropped off,
with the amazing results very imperfectly mirrored in the following
pages.
But self-worship and the craving for aggrandizement are in reality
very uninspiring emotions. The thing that has most deeply impressed me
in my searching of the German war-scriptures is the extraordinary
aridity of spirit that pervades them. A literature more unidea'd (to
use Johnson's word), more devoid of original thought, or grace, or
charm, or atmosphere, it would be hard to conceive. There are, of
course, some inequalities. One or two writers seem (to the foreign
reader) to have a certain dignity of style which is lacking in the
common herd. But in the very best there is little that gives one even
literary pleasure, and nothing that shows any depth of humanity, any
generous feeling, any openness of outlook. Even a happy phrase is so
rare that, when it does occur, one treasures it. I find, for instance,
in a little book by Friedrich Meinecke, a distinction between
"politics of ideas and politics of interests" that is happily put and
worth remembering. Again, Professor v. Harnack re-states the principle
that "he's the best cosmopolite who loves his native country best" in
a rather ingenious way: "There is no such thing as fruit," he says,
"there are only apples, pears, etc. If we want to be good fruit, we
must be a good apple or a good pear." These are small scintillations,
but the toiler through German pamphlet literature is truly grateful
for them.
For the rest, when you have read three or four of these pamphlets, you
have read all. The writers seem to be working a sort of Imperial
German treadmill, stepping dutifully from plank to plank of patriotic
dogma in a pre-arranged rotation. The topics are few and
ever-recurrent--"dieser uns aufgezwungene Krieg" (this war which has
been forced upon us), the glorious uprising of Germany at its
outbreak, the miracle of mobilization, the Russian knout, French
frivolity, the base betrayal of Germany by envious, hypocritical
England, the immeasurable superiority of German Kultur and Technik,
the saintly virtues of the German soldier, and so on, through the
appointed litany. There is even a set of obligatory quotations which
very few have the strength of mind to resist. By far the most popular
is Geibel's couplet:
Und es mag am deutschen Wesen
Einmal noch die Welt genesen.
(And the world may once more be healed by the German nature, or
character.) It came into vogue before the war. The Kaiser struck the
keynote of the whole chorus of self-exaltation when he said (August
31, 1907): "The German people will be the granite block on which the
good God may build and complete His work of Kultur in the world. Then
will be fulfilled the word of the poet who said that the world will
one day be healed by the German character." In the extracts collected
in Nippold's "Der deutsche Chauvinismus" (a pre-war publication) the
Geibel couplet appears at least four times--probably oftener. After
the outbreak of the war, it is easier to reckon the utterances in
which it does _not_ occur than those in which it does. Next in
popularity to the "Wesen--genesen" catchword comes the Kaiser's
brilliant saying, "I no longer know of any parties--I know only German
brothers." He is no good German who does not quote this with reverent
admiration. Then come four or five others which are about equally in
request: Bismarck's "We Germans fear God, and nothing else in the
world"; "the old _furor Teutonicus_"; "_oderint dum metuant_";
Arndt's
Der Gott der Eisen wachsen liess,
Der wollte keine Knechte--
(The God who made the iron grow meant none to be a bondman); and,
finally,
Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär',
Es soll uns doch gelingen--
(And though the world were full of devils, we should succeed in spite
of them.) Even a scholar of the distinction of Ulrich v.
Wilamowitz-Möllendorf, though he avoids the Geibel tag, ends one of
his orations by quoting "Deutschland über Alles." Imagine Sir Walter
Raleigh or Prof. Gilbert Murray winding up an address with a selection
from "Rule, Britannia"!
One English quotation occurs as often as any, except the ubiquitous
"Wesen-genesen." It is "My country, right or wrong," invariably quoted
in the form, "Right or wrong, my country." This is supposed to be the
shockingly immoral watchword of British patriotism. It matters nothing
to the German pamphleteer that the maxim is American, and that it is
never quoted in England--nor, I believe, in the country of its
origin--except in a spirit of irony.
And in the face of this deadly uniformity of sentiments, phraseology,
and quotations, Professor Lasson has the audacity to assure us that
"The German is personally independent. He wants to judge for himself.
It is not so easy for him as for others blindly to follow this or that
catchword!"
We are all, I suppose, unconscious of our own foibles, but I wonder
whether we are all so apt as the Germans to deny them (and very likely
attribute them to other people) while in the very act of exemplifying
them. For example, it is firmly fixed in the German mind that the
English consider themselves God's Chosen People, predestined to the
empire of the world. I have collected numerous instances of this
allegation (Nos. 453-466), but not a single one which is substantiated
by a quotation from an English writer. It is, I am convinced,
impossible to bring evidence for it, unless some expressions to this
effect may be found in the writings of persons who believe that the
English are descended from the lost Ten Tribes--persons who are about
as representative of the English nation as those who believe that the
earth is flat. The English mind, indeed, is but little inclined to
this primitive form of theism. The German mind, on the other hand, is
curiously addicted to it, and I have brought together a number of
instances (Nos. 117-135) in which German writers make the very claim
to Divine calling and election which they falsely attribute to the
English, and denounce as insanely presumptuous.[3] So, too, with
egoism. The Germans do not actually consider themselves free from
egoism; on the contrary, they are rather given to boasting of it (Nos.
212, 213, 248, 300); but while it is a virtue in them, it is a very
repulsive vice in the English. As for cant, which is, of course, the
commonest charge against the English, one can only say that, when the
German gives his mind to it, he proves himself an accomplished master
of the art (Nos. 47, 55, 79, 89, 94, 104, 237, 423). Here is an
example, from a book about Germany by a German-Austrian,[4] which
scarcely comes within the scope of my anthology, but it is too
characteristic to be lost. "_If you want_," says the writer, in
italics, "_thoroughly to understand the German, you must compare the
German sportsman with the hunters of other countries_. Then a sacred
thrill (_heiliger Schauer_) of deep understanding will come over your
heart." For the German sportsman "takes more pleasure in the life that
surrounds him and which he _protects_, than in the shot which only the
last hot virile craving (_Mannesgier_) wrings from him, and which he
fires only when he knows that he will _kill_, _painlessly kill_. For
this is the root principle of German sportsmanship: 'God grant me one
day such an end as I strive to bestow upon the game.' ... And if, by
mischance, the German sportsman wounds without killing a head of game,
he suffers with it, and does not sleep or rest till he has put it out
of its misery." If this be not very nauseous cant, where shall we seek
for it?
Another curious German characteristic is the idea that, however
truculent and menacing a writer's expressions may be, other people do
him and his country a wicked injustice if they take him at his word. A
good instance of this occurs in "Ein starkes Volk--Ein starkes Heer,"
by Kurd v. Strantz, published in 1914, shortly before the war. This
writer quotes (or rather misquotes) with enthusiasm from Goethe:--
Du musst steigen und gewinnen,
Du musst siegend triumphieren
Oder deinend unterliegen,
Amboss oder Hammer sein.[5]
Next he proceeds to quote from Felix Dahn:--
Seitdem ist's freudig Germanenrecht
Mit dem Hammer Land zu erwerben.
Wir sind von des Hammergottes Geschlecht,
Und wollen sein Weltreich erben.[6]
Then, on the same page, only four lines lower down, he remarks
plaintively:--"Foreign, and especially French, diplomacy is now
industriously spreading the calumny that the German Government and the
German people are given to rattling the sabre, and that we want to use
for aggressive ends the increased armament which has been forced upon
us." Is it mere hostile prejudice to hold that his own poetical
selections give a certain colour to the "calumny"?
Most of the German attacks on England will be found, in the last
analysis, to rest on this quaint habit of mind--the habit of assuming
that, no matter how hostile and threatening Germany's words and deeds
might be, we had no right to do her the injustice of supposing that
she meant anything by them. We ought to have known that she was merely
"dissembling her love."
Some readers may be disposed to regret that the great Germanic
trinity, Nietzsche-Treitschke-Bernhardi, contribute so largely to my
anthology. In the first place, it may be said, we are tired of their
names; in the second place, Germans deny that they have had anything
like the influence we attribute to them. There is a certain validity
in the first of these objections. The constant recurrence of these
three names is certainly a little tedious. They are like a
three-headed Charles I--or a triplicate Geibel. I would gladly have
omitted them had it been by any means possible. But one might as well
compile an Old Testament anthology and omit Isaiah, Jeremiah, and
Ezekiel. For, whatever the Germans may say, they are the major
prophets of the new-German spirit. Treitschke is the prophet of
tribalism, Nietzsche of ruthlessness, Bernhardi of ambition. It is
absurd to say that they are not influential. Treitschke may have
fallen somewhat out of fashion in the years immediately preceding the
war, but his spirit had permeated the political thought of a whole
generation. To the living influence of Nietzsche there is a host of
witnesses. Gerhart Hauptmann, near the beginning of the war, averred
that the cultured German soldier carried "Zarathustra," along with
"Faust" and the Bible, in his knapsack. Nor was this an idle guess.
Professor Deissmann, of Berlin, tells us that he enquired into the
matter, and learned from book-sellers that the books most in demand
among soldiers were the New Testament, "Faust" and "Zarathustra."
O.A.H. Schmitz, in "Das wirkliche Deutschland," says of the German
youth born in the 'seventies and early 'eighties that Nietzsche was
"the lighthouse toward which their enthusiasm was directed." Prof.
Wilhelm Bousset, of Göttingen, writes: "There is among us much unripe,
unclear Nietzsche enthusiasm: many a German ass has thrown the lion's
skin of the great man round his shoulders, and thinks he has thereby
become a philosopher and prophet." Such testimonies could be
multiplied indefinitely. There is no question that Nietzsche has been
by far the greatest single force among the spiritual shapers of
new-Germany. It may be true that he did not intend his "immoralism" to
be read literally as a guide to conduct--it may be true that, in some
of his most characteristic passages, he knew himself to be talking
reckless and dangerous nonsense (that was his way of "living
dangerously")--but can we reasonably suppose that soldiers in a
"conquered" country, soldiers full of the belief that any opposition
to Germanism was in itself a crime (see No. 344), paused to look
beneath his surface eulogies of murder and lust for some esoteric
meaning that may possibly underlie them? Can it be a mere coincidence
that, in the first war which Germany has waged since Nietzsche entered
upon his apostolate of ruthlessness, the German armies should have
been animated, to all appearance, by a literal interpretation of his
"beast of prey" ideal?
As for Bernhardi, whom some German writers profess never to have heard
of until we began to talk about him in England, one can only say that
he is an ex-member of the Great General Staff, and is probably a
pretty faithful interpreter of the ideas prevalent in that not
un-influential organization. Moreover, his "Germany and the Next War,"
which appeared in the spring of 1912, ran through five editions at 6
marks before that year was out, and was then republished in a cheap
and somewhat condensed popular edition under the title of "Our
Future." Reviewing this edition, _Die Post_ says that, in its original
form, the book "was received with the most serious attention in
political and especially in military circles," and adds that this
cheaper reprint "_must_ now become a book for the people."
It is an error, however, to suppose that a writer's importance is to
be measured solely by the influence he can be shown to have exerted. A
book or pamphlet may have had little or no active influence, and may
yet be a very illuminating symptom of the national frame of mind.
Every book must be an effect before it can become a cause. That
Treitschke, Nietzsche, and Bernhardi have been very efficient causes I
see no reason to doubt; but at any rate they are immensely significant
effects of the psychological conditions of which I am here gathering
up some random evidences.
It was a more difficult question to decide whether the lucubrations of
Herr Houston Stewart Chamberlain came within my scope. Yet I had
little hesitation in including him. The fact that he is by birth an
Englishman does not make him any the less a characteristic and
recognized mouthpiece of the new-German spirit. It may be objected
that he caricatures it, that he is more German than the Germans. That,
in the first place, is impossible; in the second place, while we have
many evidences that Germans, from the Kaiser downward, set a high
value on Herr Chamberlain's writings, we hear little or nothing of any
protest against them as misrepresentations of "Deutschtum." Shall I be
suspected of a quaint perversity of national prejudice if I say that
Herr Chamberlain's war pamphlets are distinctly better reading than
the great majority of their kind? They are much more individual, much
less stereotyped and monotonous. One finds in them an occasional idea
that is not the common property of every man in the street. It is
generally (not always) a more or less crazy idea, but one hails it as
an oasis in the desert of blusterous commonplace.
The arrangement of my little jewel-heap was more difficult, if less
laborious, than the ingathering. Many of my extracts, perhaps most,
might with equal appropriateness have been ranged under any one of
three or four rubrics. Thus my classification is at best rough and, to
some extent, arbitrary. There is, however, a certain reason in the
sequence of headings. The first section, "Deutschland über Alles,"
represents the "badge of all the tribe"--the characteristic which lies
at the root of the whole mischief--Germany's colossal self-glorification,
self-adoration. If there is anything like it in history, it is unknown
to me. Other nations may have been as vain, but, not having the
printing-press so readily at command, they gave their vanity less
exuberant expression. Besides, they may have had a sense of humour. The
manifestations of this foible (if a thing of such tragic consequences
can be called by such a name) fall under certain sub-headings. It was
clear, for instance, that the vauntings of German Kultur must have a
compartment to themselves--likewise the assertions of a special
relation to God, the claims to the status of a Chosen People, and the
comparisons, direct and indirect, between Germany and Christ. Having
established, by means of a cloud of witnesses, the ruling passion of
the national mind, I present in the following section proofs of the
"Ambitions" in which this megalomania finds its natural utterance. In
the sections, "War-Worship," "Ruthlessness" and "Machiavelism," are
grouped evidences of the methods of force and fraud by which it was
hoped that these ambitions were to be realized. Then, in a final
section, I have assembled evidences of the inevitable corollary to
morbid self-adoration--the boundless and almost equally unprecedented
contempt and loathing for all adversaries, but especially for England.
The great majority of my quotations are taken direct from the original
sources, the references being exactly given. I was scrupulous on this
point, not only that the reader might be able to test the accuracy and
fairness[7] of my work, but because I hoped that some one, some day,
might be moved to republish the anthology in the original German. One
cannot but think that, when the war-frenzy is over, a brief retrospect
of its extravagances may be salutary for the German spirit. In a
certain number of cases, however, I have not been able to give exact
references, because the originals have not been accessible to me. This
applies to my selections from three previous volumes of selections:
Nippold's "Der Deutsche Chauvinismus," Andler's "Collection de
documents sur le Pangermanisme," and Bang's "Hurrah and Halleluiah."
Andler's excellent and scholarly method has, however, enabled me to
"place" quotations from his collection to within a page or two. Thus,
if some very Pan-German utterance does not occur on the precise page I
have indicated, it will certainly be found on the preceding or on the
following page.
Italics in my text always represent italics, or, rather, spaced type,
in the original; but Germans are very lavish in their use of spaced
type, and I have not always thought it necessary to reproduce this
peculiarity. Points of exclamation, unless enclosed in square
brackets, are the author's, not mine. I have almost always resisted
the temptation to employ typographical devices to enhance the lustre
of individual gems. In the Index of Authors I have added to many names
a brief note which will enable the reader to estimate the position of
the different writers in the public life of Germany.
In bringing together my material, I have found valuable help in many
quarters. I should like especially to acknowledge my deep obligation
to Mr. Alexander Gray for manifold aid and suggestion.
W.A.
_6th December, 1916._
FOOTNOTES:
[1] On the other hand, the almost equally remarkable warning to
recruits that they must be ready to shoot down their nearest and
dearest at the All-Highest command, is undoubtedly authentic.
[2] In a pamphlet by Professor A. Lasson, entitled _Deutsche Art und
deutsche Bildung_, the adjective "deutsch" occurs 256 times in 42
pages--sometimes 13 times in one page, often 10 or 11 times--and
always, of course, with a sort of unctuous implication that human
language contains no higher term of eulogy. This enumeration does not
include the constantly recurring "deutsch" in "Deutschland," nor the
frequently repeated "germanisch" and "teutonisch."
[3] It may, of course, be possible to find many passages in which
English writers say that, as a matter of history, God, or Heaven, or
Providence, has given the British race great possessions throughout the
world--a fact which the Germans are the first to admit and resent. But
this is totally different from claiming a Divine mission to rule, or to
civilize, or to "heal" the world.
[4] "Das Deutsche Volk in schwerer Zeit," by R.H. Bartsch, p. 118.
[5] Thou must mount and win, thou must triumph in victory or else sink
into subjection--thou must be either anvil or hammer.
[6] Since then 'tis the joyous German right with the hammer to win
land. We are of the race of the Hammer-God, and mean to inherit his
world-empire. [This poem appeared in 1878, was reprinted by the author
in 1900, in a selection from his own works, and is quoted in "Deutsche
Geschichte in Liedern," Vol I., p. 10. The last two lines form the
motto of Otto Richard Tannenberg's _Gross-Deutschland: die Arbeit des
20 Jahrhunerts_.]
[7] It will be found by any one who puts the matter to the test that in
no case is there any unfairness in taking these brief extracts out of
their context. The context is almost always an aggravating rather than
an extenuating circumstance.
I
"DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES"
I
"DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES"
=German Humility.=
(BEFORE THE WAR.)
1. No people ever attains to national consciousness without
over-rating itself. The Germans are always in danger of enervating
their nationality through possessing too little of this rugged
pride.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p. 19.
_For further testimonies to German humility see Nos. 17, 20, 23, 36,
51, 106, 122, 206, 206b, 394._
2. The German people must rise as a master-folk above the inferior
peoples of Europe and the primitive peoples of the colonies.--G.U.M.,
p. 8.
2a. The German people is always right, because it is the German
people, and numbers 87 million souls.--O.R. TANNENBERG, G.D., p. 231.
3. The French, under Napoleon, wanted to sacrifice the whole world to
their insatiable thirst for glory, and the English treat every barrier
opposed to their hunger for exploitation as a challenge to their
superiority. Great is the gulf that separates these cupidities from
the hitherto unrivalled moral elevation of the sense of honour in the
German people.--F. LANGE, R.D., p. 220 (1901).
_Compare Section V., "Machiavelism."_
4. My soul is heavy when I see the many enemies surrounding
Germany.... And my thoughts fly forward into the far future, and ask,
"Will there ever be a time when there is no more Germany?" ... How
poor and empty would the rich world then become! Then all men would
ask themselves, "How comes it that the peoples no longer understand
each other? Whither has that great, serene power departed, that
brought near the souls of the peoples, each to each? Who has shattered
the marvellous mirror from which the countenance of the world was
thoughtfully reflected?" Then they would strike their heads and their
breasts in despair, crying: "We have criminally robbed ourselves of
our wealth! The world, the great, rich world, has grown waste, poor,
and empty: the world has no longer a soul, she has no longer a
Germany!"--E. v. WILDENBRUCH (1889), quoted in D.R.S.Z., No. 12.
5. The proud conviction forces itself upon us with irresistible power
that a high, if not the highest, importance for the entire development
of the human race is ascribable to this German people.--GENERAL v.
BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 72.
6. The German is a hero born, and believes that he can hack and hew
his way through life.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p. 230.
7. We are still child-like in our inmost feelings, innocent in our
pleasures, simple in our inclinations, in spite of individual
aberrations; we are still prolific, and our race multiplies, so that
our own soil has long been insufficient to support us all. It is
therefore doubly imperative for us to remain heroes, for who knows
whether the Germanic migrations are destined to remain isolated
phenomena in history! The peoples around us are either overripe fruits
which the next storm may bring to the ground, such as the Turks,
Greeks, Spaniards, Portuguese, and a great part of the Slavs; or they
are, indeed, proud of their race, but senile and artificial in their
Kultur, slow in their increase and boundless in their ambition, like
the French; or, confident in the unassailability of their country,
like the English and the Americans, they have forgotten justice and
made their selfishness the measure of all things. Who knows whether we
Germans are not the rod predestined for the chastening of these
degeneracies, who knows whether we may not again, like our fathers in
dim antiquity, have to gird on our swords and go forth to seek
dwelling-places for our increase?--F. LANGE, R.D., p. 159 (1893).
8. We are distinguished from other nations by our honourable love for
outspoken convictions, which would make a cut-and-dried party system
distasteful to us.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p. 148.
9. The surest means of serving the ends of humanity is to work at the
elaboration of our national personality, and to develop the full
strength of its crystalline radiance.--F. BLEY, W.D.D., p. 23.
10. We have forced ourselves, though the last-comers, the virtual
upstarts, between the States which have earlier gained their place, and
now claim our share in the dominion of the world, after we have for
centuries been paramount only in the realm of the intellect.--GENERAL
v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 13.
11. Why must teachers and schoolboys, year out, year in, worry about
the old Greeks and Romans? To foster idealism in the young, we are
told! But for that there is no need to go to Rome and Athens. Our
German history offers us ideals enough, and is richer in deeds of
heroism than Rome and Athens put together.--GENERAL KEIM, at meeting
of the German Defence League, Cassel, Feb., 1913; NIPPOLD, D.C., p.
82.
12. History teaches us that supreme treasure of humanity, German
idealism, can be preserved only in the stout bark of national
development.--F. BLEY, W.D.D., p. 23.
_On Idealism, see also Nos. 45, 276, 442, 464._
13. A war fought and lost would destroy our laboriously gained
political importance ... would shake the influence of German thought
in the civilized world, and thus check the general progress of mankind
in its healthy development, for which a flourishing Germany is the
essential condition. Our next war will be fought for the highest
interests of our country and of mankind. This will invest it with
importance in the world's history. "World-power or downfall!" will be
our rallying-cry.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 154.
14. In our German people, peaceful dispositions and war-like prowess
are so happily mixed that in this respect no other people on the
earth can rival us, and none seems so clearly predestined to light
humanity on the way to true progress.--F. LANGE, R.D., p. 158 (1893).
15. The Latin has no feeling for the beauty of a forest; when he takes
his repose in it he lies upon his stomach, while we rest upon our
backs.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p. 206.
(AFTER JULY, 1914.)
16. If we compare our time with the great eras of our fathers, we are
perfectly capable of a sober self-criticism. We have no use for
illusions and self-deceptions on the way to our indispensable
victory.--PROF. F. MEINECKE, D.D.E., p. 10.
17. Where in the whole world can a people be found who have such cause
for manly pride as we? But we are equally far removed from presumption
and from arrogance.--"War Devotions," by PASTOR J. RUMP, quoted in
H.A.H., p. 117.
18. As the German bird, the eagle, hovers high over all the creatures
of the earth, so also should the German feel that he is raised high
above all other nations who surround him, and whom he sees in the
limitless depth beneath him.--PROF. W. SOMBART, H.U.H., p. 143.
19. Germany is our existence, our faith, the meaning and depth of the
world.--"On the German God," by PASTOR W. LEHMANN, quoted in H.A.H.,
p. 84.
20. It is not only our enemies who, by their underground intrigues,
have sought to divert from us the sympathies of other peoples. If we
would speak frankly, we must admit that we ourselves are partly to
blame in the matter. A great part of the blame is due to our
insufficient self-esteem and self-valuation--an inveterate German
failing.--PROF. DR. R. JANNASCH, W.D.U.S., p. 22.
21. Germany is the future of humanity.--"On the German God," by PASTOR
W. LEHMANN, quoted in H.A.H., p. 78.
21a. God defend the noble cause of Deutschtum. There is no other hope
for the future of humanity.--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, in _Hamburger
Nachrichten_, September, 1914.
21b. We must vanquish, because the downfall of Germanism would mean
the downfall of humanity.--"Six War Sermons," by PASTOR K. KÖNIG,
quoted in H.A.H., p. 99.
22. When the German stands leaning on his mighty sword, clad in steel
from top to toe, whosoever will may, down below, dance round his
feet--they may rail at him and throw mud at him, as the
"intellectuals" ... of England, France, Russia and Italy are now
doing--in his lofty repose he will not allow himself to be disturbed,
and will only reflect as did his ancestors. _Oderint dum
metuant._--PROF. W. SOMBART, H.U.H., p. 131.
23. We will not conceal from ourselves that these victories for which
our bells ring and our flags wave, and for which we thank our God, may
become a danger to us, should they make us vain and arrogant,
boastful and indolent! God forbid! We will hold fast to our old
modesty, with which we have so often been reproached, and which has
indeed often enough degenerated into the undervaluing of ourselves and
overvaluing of that which is foreign and despicable.--K. ENGELBRECHT,
D.D.D.K., p. 53.
24. We must develop, not into "Europeans,'" but into ever higher
Germans.... What sort of a European would be formed by a mixture of
the heroic German with the calculating Englishman? If the result was a
man who thought half calculatingly and half heroically, it would be an
exaltation for the Englishman, but a degradation for the
German.--O.A.H. SCHMITZ, D.W.D., p. 125.
25. If we come victorious out of this war, we shall be the first
people on the earth, a rich stream of gold will pour over our land,
and this greatness, these riches, may be a blessing to us if we always
remember that true greatness, true riches, lie only in the possession
of _moral_ advantages, and that to the fact of our possessing such
advantages we owe our success.--W. HELM, W.W.S.M., p. 33.
26. Do you not see, Albion, that the German Michel,[8] on whom you
looked down with such contempt, is now transformed into the Archangel
Michael, and, encountering you with his flaming sword, triumphs over
the race of the fallen angels and all the offspring of hell.--F.
DELITZSCH, D.R.S.Z., No. 13, p. 21.
27. We must win, because, if we were defeated, no one in the _whole
world_ could any longer cherish any remnant of belief in truth and
right, in the Good, or, indeed, in any higher Power which wisely and
justly guides the destinies of humanity.--W. HELM, W.W.S.M., p. 8.
28. Every great artistic achievement of France and Italy since the
time of the Romans can be traced to families and classes with a strong
mixture of German blood, and, especially in earlier times, to the
descendants of Germanic stocks, who had kept their blood, or at any
rate their nature (_Art_) pure.--H.A. SCHMID, D.R.S.Z., No. 25, p. 21.
29. Germany is precisely--who would venture to deny it--the
representative of the highest morality, of the purest humanity, of the
most chastened Christianity. He, therefore, who fights for its
maintenance, its victory, fights for the highest blessings of humanity
itself, and for human progress. Its defeat, its decline, would mean a
falling back to the worst barbarism.--"War Sermons," by PASTOR H.
FRANCKE, quoted in H.A.H., p. 68.
30. No nation in the world can give us anything worth mentioning in
the field of science or technology, art or literature, which we would
have any trouble in doing without. Let us reflect on the inexhaustible
wealth of the German character, which contains in itself everything of
real value that the Kultur of man can produce.--PROF. W. SOMBART,
H.U.H., p. 135.
31. We have in Germany the best Press in the world, and are in that
respect superior to all other countries.--PROF. A.V. HARNACK,
W.W.S.G., p. 19.
32. Germany's fight against the whole world is in reality the battle
of the spirit against the whole world's infamy, falsehood, and
devilish cunning.--"On the German God," by PASTOR W. LEHMANN, quoted
in H.A.H., p. 81.
33. German patriotism strikes its deep roots into the fruitful soil of
a heroic view of the world, and around its crown there gleam the rays
of the highest spiritual and artistic culture.--PROF. W. SOMBART,
H.U.H., p. 71.
34. This combination of clearness of purpose and heroic spirit of
sacrifice was unknown in world-history before August, 1914. Not till
then was the new German human being born.... Is this new creation to
be the human being of the future?--O.A.H. SCHMITZ, D.W.D., p. 103.
35. Verily it has long been an honour and a joy, a source of renown
and of happiness, to be a German--the year 1914 has made it a title
of nobility.--"War Devotions," by PASTOR J. RUMP, quoted in H.A.H., p.
133.
36. When Luther, in the domain of religion, characterized as
unevangelical the conception of merit and reward, and energetically
banished the huckster-spirit from religious feeling, he opened to the
German thought the widest possibilities of victory.... A specially
Germanic way of feeling, a Germanic modesty and distinction of
thought, was here powerfully promoted by means of the Gospel. True
distinction is always modest, in the sense of being unobtrusive and
not bragging of deserts!--K. ENGELBRECHT, D.D.D.K., p. 56.
37. Since the great German Renaissance of the new humanism, the
Hellenic has become the truly German.... As the Peloponnesian War
divided the States of Hellas into two camps, so this war has divided
the States of Europe. But this time it will be Athens and her
spiritual power that will conquer.--PROF. A. LASSON, D.R.S.Z., No. 4,
p. 40.
38. After the conclusive victories for which we may confidently hope
... the whole habitable earth will far more than hitherto bend its
gaze upon us, to marvel at (_anzustaunen_) our standard-setting
[artistic] achievements.--G.E. PAZAUREK, P.K.U.K., p. 23.
39. A theory of the origin of species remained in England a series of
isolated observations, which pointed to certain conjectures; in
Germany it was transformed with resolute daring into an all-embracing
whole. PROF. A. LASSON, D.R.S.Z., No. 4, p. 33.
40. Never have ye seen a strong people and Empire in whiter garments
of peace. We offered you palm branches, we offered you justice, ye
offered us envy and hate.--J. HORT, quoted in H.A.H., p. 51.
41. Take heed that ye be counted among the blessed, who show declining
England, depraved Belgium, licentious France, uncouth Russia, the
unconquerable youthful power and manhood of the German people, in a
manner never to be forgotten.--"War Devotions," by PASTOR J. RUMP,
quoted in H.A.H., p. 131.
42. We may be sure that our French adversaries, when at Metz and St.
Quentin our hosts hurled themselves upon them, saw above us in the
clouds the Germans of 1870, and even the Prussians of 1813, once more
swooping down upon them, and shuddered at the spectacle. And, in spite
of all the boasting of Sir John [Bull], our cousins from beyond the
sea must long ago have recognized that it is better to fight _with_
Prussians against the French, than _vice versa_.--PROF. G. ROETHE,
D.R.S.Z., No. 1, p. 29.
43. He who, in these days, sets forth to defend the German hearth,
sets forth in a holy fight ... in which one stakes life itself, this
single, sweet, beloved life, for the life of a whole nation, a nation
which is God's seed-corn for the future.--"On the German God," by
PASTOR W. LEHMANN, quoted in H.A.H., p. 78.
44. Our enemies are fighting us in order to restore to the world the
freedom, the Kultur, which we threaten. What monstrous mendacity!
Reproduce if you can the German national school teacher, the German
upper-master, the German university professor! You have lagged far
behind us, you are hopelessly inferior! Hence your chagrin, your envy,
your fear! Powerless to rival us, you foam with hate and rage, you
make unblushing calumny your weapon, and would like to exterminate us,
to wipe us off the face of the earth, in order to free yourselves from
your burden of shame.--PROF. A. LASSON, D.R.S.Z., No. 4, p. 38.
45. We take refuge in our quite peculiar idealism, and dream--alas,
aloud!--of our ideal mission for the saving (_Heil_) of mankind.
Foreign countries turn away enraged from such unheard-of
self-glorification and are quite certain that, behind the
high-sounding words, the arrogance of "Prussian militarism" is
concealed.--H. v. WOLZOGEN, G.Z.K., p. 64.
46. The future must lead France once again to our side, we will heal
it of its aberrations, and, in brotherly subordination to us, it may
share with us the task of guiding the fate of the world.... As we feel
ourselves free from hatred toward the kindred Kultur-people of France,
we have taken up the gauntlet with Teutonic pride, and we will use our
weapons so that the admiration of the world, and of our enemies
themselves, shall be accorded to us.--K.A. KUHN, W.U.W., p. 26.
47. When we were attacked, our German wrath awakened, and when we
could not but recognize in the attack a long-plotted treason against
our love of peace, our wrath became fierce and wild. Then, no doubt,
some of us spoke, in our first excitement, of hatred; but this was a
misinterpretation of our feeling. Seeing ourselves hated, we imagined
that hate must be answered with hate; but our German spirit (_Gemüt_)
was incapable of that passion. Lienhard rightly ... deplores the form
of the popular Hymn of Hate against England, which, characteristically
enough, proceeds from a poet of Jewish race.--H. v. WOLZOGEN, G.Z.K.,
p. 68.
48. Under the protection of the greatest of armies, we have laboured
at scientific, social, and economic progress; our enemies trusted to
the rule of force and to chatter.--O.A.H. SCHMITZ, D.W.D., p. 44.
49. Work as untiringly as we, think with as much energy, and we will
welcome you as equals at our side.... Imitate us and we will honour
you. Seek to constrain us by war, and we will thrash you to
annihilation, and despise you as a robber pack.--PROF. A. LASSON,
D.R.S.Z., No. 4, p. 38.
=The Gentle German.=
(AFTER JULY, 1914.)
50. The German Army (in which I of course include the Navy) is to-day
the greatest institute for moral education in the world.--H.S.
CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 78.
51. It is true that the breast of every soldier swelled with a noble
pride at the thought that he was privileged to wear the German
uniform, which history has made a garb of honour above all others; but
as for arrogance, not one of them, thank God, was capable of the
stupidity which alone can engender it.--K. ENGELBRECHT, D.D.D.K., p.
32.
52. From all sides testimonies are flowing in as to the noble manner
in which our troops conduct the war.--"War Devotions," by PASTOR J.
RUMP, quoted in H.A.H., p. 124.