The second or weaker grade includes the substitution of German for the
national language. For the diabolical means by which he proposes to
secure the extinction of "undesired and enslaved races," see E.P.D., p.
159.
[24] That is, until the original landowners are forcibly expropriated.
[25] It is not quite clear what the Professor means by
"colonization"--but it does not greatly matter.
III
WAR-WORSHIP
III
WAR-WORSHIP
=The Lust of Battle.=
(BEFORE THE WAR.)
240. How often, in such a charge [during manoeuvres] has my ear caught
the yearning cry of a comrade tearing along beside me: "Donnerwetter,
if this were only the real thing!" (_wenn das doch Ernst
wäre_).--KRONPRINZ WILHELM, D.I.W., Chapter II.
240a. When the Gordian knot is ready to be cut, God sends the
Alexander! Does not the Crown Prince William's confession of his
belief in courage as the highest flower of the human spirit, in his
book "Deutschland in Waffen," sound like an answer to the longing that
thrills through our whole people?--_Deutsche Tageszeitung_, 5th May,
1913. NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 34.
241. In philosophic form, the idea of the beneficence of war may be
traced back to the saying of Heraclitus, "_polemos patêr pantôn_" [war
is the father of everything].... War is held to be a divine
institution, a law of the universe, present in all nature; not for
nothing do the Indians worship Siva the Destroyer; the warrior is
filled with the enthusiasm of destruction; wars purify the atmosphere
like thunderstorms....[26] We may here refer to H. Leo's phrase as to
the "fresh and joyous war that shall sweep away the scrofulous rabble"
[_vom "frischen und fröhlichen Krieg, der das skrofulöse Gesindel
wegfegen soll."_].--J. BURCKHARDT, W.B., p. 163.
242. The Kaiser may have thought that war was not necessary ...
because every year of peace increased the power of the Empire, and
because the German hegemony in Europe was safe enough without shedding
a drop of blood. To this one may reply that the noblest weapon rusts
if its use is too long restricted to reviews and parades ... and that
every ascent to a higher mental Kultur impairs the barbaric energy of
warriors, and encumbers them with scruples which damp their joyous
courage.--M. HARDEN, _Zukunft_, 19th August, 1911.
=War and Religion.=
243. It is no mere chance that the earliest piece of poetry, the
oldest three distiches of the Old Testament, the Song of Lamech, is a
song of triumph over the invention of the sword. (Genesis, iv., 23):--
Ada and Zillah hear my voice;
Ye wives of Lamech hearken unto my speech:
For I have slain a man for wounding me,
And a young man for bruising me:
If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.
--E. v. LASAULX, P.G., p. 85.
244. Perpetual peace is a dream, and it is not even a beautiful dream:
war forms part of the eternal order instituted by God.... Without war
humanity would sink into materialism.--COUNT V. MOLTKE, letter to
Bluntschli, 11th December, 1880.
245. To appeal from this judgment to Christianity would be sheer
perversity, for does not the Bible distinctly say that the ruler shall
rule by the sword, and, again, that greater love hath no man than to
lay down his life for his friend?--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p.
67.
245a. But it is not worth while to speak further of these matters, for
God above us will see to it that war shall always recur, as a drastic
medicine for ailing humanity.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p. 69.
246. Christian morality is based, indeed, on the law of love. "Love
God above all things, and thy neighbour as thyself." This law can
claim no significance for the relations of one country to another,
since its application to politics would lead to a conflict of
duties.... Christ himself said: "I am not come to send peace on earth,
but a sword." His teaching can never be adduced as an argument against
the universal law of struggle. There never was a religion which was
more combative than Christianity.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 29.
247. When here on earth a battle is won by German arms and the
faithful dead ascend to Heaven, a Potsdam lance-corporal will call the
guard to the door, and "old Fritz," springing from his golden throne,
will give the command to present arms. That is the Heaven of Young
Germany.--_Weekly Paper for Young Germany_, January 25, 1913.
_Compare "God and the old Kaiser" No. 97._
=War and Ethics.=
248. Nothing is more immoral than to consider and talk of war as an
immoral thing. "War is the mother of all good things" (Empedocles)....
And there is nothing more moral than the collective egoism, the
self-conserving instinct, of nations.--PROF. E. HASSE, Z.D.V., p. 127.
248a. The idea of war is the child of _healthy egoism_, which is
honest to the marrow of its bones, is ashamed of nothing in
Nature.... but is the basis of all Kultur, of all morality.--K.
WAGNER, K.
249. We must therefore reckon with war as a necessary factor towards
higher development.... A people really learns to know its full
national strength only in war ... only then, indeed, does its full
strength come into existence.--J. BURCKHARDT, W.B., p. 162.
249a. War makes room for the competent at the expense of the unsound.
War is the source of all good growth. Without war the development of
nations is impossible--K. WAGNER, K., p. 183.
250. The sight of blood and wounds steels the nerves of the soul, the
horrors of war stimulate the spirits, so that instead of the falsehood
and cowardice of enervation, the old heroic virtues are restored ...
fear of God, martial bravery, obedience, up-rightness of mind,
constancy, truth ... manlike courage, manly pity, and all that is
great and good in humanity.--E. v. LASAULX, P.G., p. 86.
_Compare Nos. 254, 311._
251. The brutal incidents inseparable from every war vanish completely
before the idealism of the main result.... Strength, truth and honour
come to the front and are brought in to play.--GENERAL V. BERNHARDI,
G.N.W., p. 27.
252. War is the most august and sacred of human activities.... For us,
too, the great, joyful hour of battle will one day strike.... The
openly expressed longing for war often degenerates into vain boasting
and ludicrous sabre-rattling. But still and deep in the German heart
must the joy in war and the longing for war endure.--OTTO VON
GOTTBERG, in _Weekly Paper for the Youth of Germany_, 25th January,
1913. NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 1.
253. Life as the most necessary medium of Kultur--that is the ground
on which the modern apostles of peace take their stand.... But our
German morality makes short work of all such rubbish. It says with
Moltke: "Eternal peace is only a dream, _and not even a beautiful
dream_!" No, certainly not beautiful, for a peace which could no
longer look forward to war as the issue even of the worst
complications would poison and rot away our inmost heart, until we
became loathsome to ourselves.--F. LANGE, R.D., p. 157 (1893).
254. Whosoever has crossed a great battlefield and has shuddered in
the depths of his soul at all the horrors confronting him, will have
found new strength and exaltation in the thought that here the whole
tragic gravity of military necessity is regnant, and here a
justifiable passion has done its work.--GENERAL v. HARTMANN, D.R.,
XIV., p. 84.
255. The appeal to arms will be valid until the end of history, and
therein lies the sacredness of war.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p.
29.
_See also No. 314._
=War and Biology.=
256. We children of the future ... do not by any means think it
desirable that the kingdom of righteousness and peace should be
established on the earth.... We rejoice in all men who, like
ourselves, love danger, war and adventure ... we count ourselves among
the conquerors; we ponder over the need of a new order of things, even
of a new slavery--for every strengthening and elevation of the type
"man" also involves a new form of slavery.--FR. NIETZSCHE, J.W.,
section 377.
257. Unless we choose to shut our eyes to the necessity of evolution,
we must recognize the necessity of war. We must accept war, which will
last as long as development and existence; we must accept eternal
war.--K. WAGNER, K., p. 153.
258. "War is the father of everything," says Heraclitus. It will be
the father of the new German race of the future.--PROF. E. HASSE,
Z.D.V., p. 126.
259. The efforts directed towards the abolition of war must not only
be termed foolish, but absolutely _immoral_, and must be _stigmatized
as unworthy of the human race_.... The weak nation is to have the same
right to live as the powerful and vigorous nation! The whole idea
represents a presumptuous encroachment on the natural laws of
development.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 34.
260. It is proved beyond all shadow of doubt that regular war (_der
regelrechte Krieg_) is, not only from the biological and true kultural
standpoint, the best and noblest form of the struggle for existence,
but also, from time to time, an absolute necessity for the maintenance
of the State and society.--DR. SCHMIDT, of Gibichenfels, at meeting of
Pan-German League, Berlin, October, 1912. NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 73.
261. War is a biological necessity of the first importance, a
regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot be dispensed
with.... "War is the father of all things." The sages of antiquity,
long before Darwin, recognized this.... "To supplant or to be
supplanted is the essence of life," says Goethe, "and the strong life
gains the upper hand."--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 18.
_See also No. 386._
=War and Kultur.=
262. It is nothing but fanaticism to expect very much from humanity
when it has forgotten how to wage war. For the present we know of no
other means whereby the rough energy of the camp, the deep impersonal
hatred, the cold-bloodedness of murder with a good conscience, the
general ardour of the system in the destruction of the enemy ... can
be as forcibly and certainly communicated to enervated nations as is
done by every great war. Kultur can by no means dispense with
passions, vices and malignities.--FR. NIETZSCHE, H.T.H., section 477.
263. It is here demonstrated with rare cogency and conclusiveness that
war is not only a factor, but the main factor, in true, genuine
Kultur--not only its creator but its preserver.... Although the author
thus recognizes war as an element in the divine world-order, he by no
means ignores the blessings of peace, as the second factor in true,
genuine Kultur, in a certain measure complementary to war.--_Berliner
neueste Nachrichten_, 24th December, 1912, in review of _Der Krieg als
Kulturfaktor_, by DR. SCHMIDT, of Gibichenfels. NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 20.
264. No sooner are airships invented than the General Staffs set to
work to devise methods of applying them to destruction.... Thus every
achievement of "Kultur"[27] and of the human intelligence is only a
means to more barbarous processes of war: and yet the pacifists see in
the progress of the human intelligence a guarantee of world-peace!--L.
GUMPLOWICZ, S.I.U., p. 161.
265. I must first of all examine the aspirations for peace, which seem
to dominate our age and threaten to poison the soul of the German
people.... I must try to prove that war is not merely a necessary
element in the life of nations, but an indispensable factor of Kultur,
in which a truly civilized nation finds the highest expression of
strength and vitality.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 14.
266. If the Twilight of the Gods that has now so long brooded over
the European race and Kultur is at last to vanish before the light
of morning, then we Germans in particular must no longer see in war
our destroyer ... but must recognize in it our healer, our
physician.--_Tägliche Rundschau_, 12th November, 1912. NIPPOLD, D.C.,
p. 23.
267. Our own country, by employing its military powers, has attained a
degree of Kultur which it never could have reached by the methods of
peaceful development.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 119.
268. War is to us only a means, but the state of preparation for war
is more than a means, it is an end.--PROF. E. HASSE, Z.D.V., p. 126.
_See also Nos. 84, 91._
=Blood and Iron.=
269. The time for petty politics is past; the next century[28] will
bring the struggle for the dominion of the world--the _compulsion_ to
great politics.--FR. NIETZSCHE, B.G.E., section 208.
270. I greet all the signs indicating that a more manly and warlike
age is commencing, which will, above all, bring heroism again into
honour!--FR. NIETZSCHE, J.W., section 283.
271. General Keim from Berlin insisted that the path to German unity
and power was not paved with sealing-wax, printers' ink and
parliamentary resolutions, but marked by blood, wounds and deeds of
arms. States could be maintained only by the means by which they were
created.--At meeting of Pan-German League, Augsburg, September, 1912.
NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 72.
272. It is only since the last war [1870] that a sounder theory has
arisen of the State and its military power. Without war no State could
be.... War, therefore will endure to the end of history, so long as
there is multiplicity of States.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p.
65.
273. We owe it to Napoleon ... that several warlike centuries, which
have not had their like in past history, may now follow one
another--in short, that we have entered upon _the classical age of
war_, war at the same time scientific and popular, on the grandest
scale (as regards means, talents and discipline) to which all coming
millenniums will look back with envy and awe as a work of
perfection--for the national movement out of which this martial glory
springs, is only the counter-_choc_ against Napoleon, and would not
have existed without him. To him, consequently, one will one day be
able to attribute the fact that man in Europe has again got the upper
hand of the merchant and the Philistine.--FR. NIETZSCHE, J.W., section
362.
274. What men tower highest in the history of the nation, whom does
the German heart cherish with the most ardent love? Goethe? Schiller?
Wagner? Marx? Oh, no--but Barbarossa, the great Frederick, Blücher,
Moltke, Bismarck, the hard men of blood. It is to them, who offered
up thousands of lives, that the soul of the people goes out with
tenderest affection, with positively adoring gratitude. Because they
did what now we ought to do.... Our holiest raptures of homage are
paid to these Titans of the Blood-Deed.--DR. W. FUCHS, in article on
"Psychiatrie and Politics," in _Die Post_, 28th January, 1912.
NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 2.
275. I must assert with emphasis that the cardinal sin of our whole
policy has hitherto been that we have lost sight of the eternal truth:
POLITICS MEAN THE WILL TO POWER.... The history of the world teaches
us that only those people have strongly asserted themselves who have
without hesitation placed the Will to Power higher than the Will to
Peace.--GENERAL KEIM, at meeting of Central Committee of Pan-German
League, Munich, April, 1913. NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 77.
276. This nation possesses an excess of vigour, enterprise, idealism,
and spiritual energy which qualifies it for the highest place; but a
malignant fairy laid on its cradle the most petty theoretical
dogmatism.... Yet the heart of this people can always be won for great
and noble aims, even though such aims can only be attended by
danger.... An intense longing for a foremost place among the Powers
and for manly action fills our nation. Every vigorous utterance, every
bold political step of the Government, finds in the soul of the people
a deeply-felt echo, and loosens the bonds which fetter all their
forces.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 256.
277. War does not depend on the human will, but is for the most part
an ineluctable, elementary happening, a dæmonic power forcing itself
upon us, against which all written treaties, all peace conferences and
humanitarian agitations, come pitifully to wreck.--GENERAL KEIM, at
meeting of the German Defence League, Cassel, February, 1913. NIPPOLD,
D.C., p. 82.
=War Necessary to Germany.=
278. If the health and life of Germany require this mortal and
terrible remedy [war], _let us not hesitate to apply it_, so be it!
God is the Judge. I accept the awful responsibility.... God never
forsakes a good German.--"AMICUS PATRIÆ," A.U.K., p. 15.
278a. Whoever loves his people and wishes to hasten the crisis of the
present sickness, must yearn for war as the awakener of all that is
good, healthy and strong in the nation.--D. FRYMANN, W.I.K.W., p. 53.
279. The duties and obligations of the German people ... cannot be
fulfilled without drawing the sword.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p.
15.
280. It is for social as much as for national and political reasons
that we must fix our minds incessantly upon war; may the first ten or
twenty years of the twentieth century bring it to us, for we have need
of it!--D.B.B., p. 191.
281. It must be regarded as a quite unthinkable proposition that an
agreement between France and Germany can be negotiated before the
question between them has been once more decided by arms.--GENERAL V.
BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 91.
282. In one way or another _we must square our account with France_ if
we wish for a free hand in our international policy.... France must be
so completely crushed that she can never again come across our
path.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 105.
283. A pacific agreement with England is a will-o'-the-wisp which no
serious German statesman would trouble to follow. We must always keep
the possibility of war with England before our eyes, and arrange our
political and military plans accordingly.--GENERAL V. BERNHARDI,
G.N.W., p. 99.
284. Since the struggle is, as appears on a thorough investigation of
the international question, necessary and inevitable, we must fight it
out, cost what it may.... We have fought in the last great wars for
our national union and our position among the Powers of _Europe_; we
must now decide whether we wish to develop into and maintain a _World
Empire_, and procure for German spirit and German ideas that fit
recognition which has been hitherto withheld from them.--GENERAL V.
BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 103.
285. If we wish to compete further with them [the other Powers] a
policy which our population and our civilization both entitle and
compel us to adopt, we must not hold back in the hard struggle for the
sovereignty of the world.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 79.
285a. All that other nations attained in centuries of natural
development--political union, colonial possessions, naval power,
international trade--was denied to our nation until quite recently.
What we now wish to attain must be _fought for_, and won, against a
superior force of hostile interests and powers.--GENERAL V. BERNHARDI,
G.N.W., p. 84.
286. Since almost every part of the globe is inhabited, new territory
must, as a rule, be obtained at the cost of its possessors--that is to
say, by conquest, which thus becomes a law of necessity.--GENERAL v.
BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 21.
287. Success is necessary to gain influence over the masses, and this
influence can only be obtained by continually appealing to the
national imagination and enlisting its interest in great universal
ideas and great national ambitions.... We Germans have a far greater
and more urgent duty towards civilization to perform than the Great
Asiatic Power. We, like the Japanese, can only fulfil it by the
sword.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 258.
=War need not be Defensive.=
288. Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto
you, it is the good war which halloweth every cause.--FR. NIETZSCHE,
Z., "War and Warriors."
289. We must not think merely of external foes who compel us to fight.
A war may seem to be forced upon a statesman by the condition of home
affairs, or by the pressure of the whole political situation.--GENERAL
v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 38.
290. The moral duty of the State towards its citizens is to begin the
struggle while the prospects of success and the political
circumstances are still tolerably favourable. When, on the other hand,
the hostile States are weakened or hampered by affairs at home and
abroad, but its own warlike strength shows elements of superiority, it
is imperative to use the favourable circumstances to promote its own
political aims.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 53.
291. The lessons of history confirm the view that wars which have been
deliberately provoked by far-seeing statesmen have had the happiest
results.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 45.
_See also No. 382._
=Contempt for Peace.=
292. Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars--and the short peace
more than the long.--FR. NIETZSCHE, Z., "War and Warriors."
292a. Only over the black gate of the cemetery ... can we read the
words, "Eternal peace for all peoples." For peoples who live and
strive, the only maxim and motto must be Eternal War.--K. WAGNER, K.,
p. 217.
293. The reception of the Tsar's [Peace] Manifesto was anything but
friendly.... The learned world, also, was for the most part hostile to
the idea underlying the Manifesto, and such a man as Mommsen could
even, amid great applause, characterize the proposed Conference as "a
misprint in world-history."--A.H. FRIED, H.D.F., Vol. I., p. 205.
294. The German who loves his people, and believes in the greatness
and the future of our home ... must not let himself be lazily sung to
sleep by the peace-lullabies of the Utopians.--KRONPRINZ WILHELM,
D.I.W., Chapter I.
295. A long peace not only leads to enervation, but allows of the
existence of a multitude of pitiful, trembling miserable-creatures
[_Notexistenzen_] ... who cling fast to life with loud cries about
their "right" to exist, block the way for real strength, make the air
foetid, and altogether defile the blood of the nation. War brings
real strength into honour again.--J. BURCKHARDT, W.B., p. 164.
296. Let us laugh with all our lungs at the old women in trousers who
are afraid of war, and therefore complain that it is cruel and
hideous. No, war is beautiful. Its august grandeur elevates the heart
of man high above all that is commonplace and earthly.--O. V.
GOTTBERG, in _Weekly Paper for the Youth of Germany_, 25th January,
1913. NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 2.
297. Efforts to secure peace are extraordinarily detrimental to the
national health so soon as they influence politics.--GENERAL V.
BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 28.
298. People are too much given to sentimental maunderings. To what
practical end had the vaunted Hague Peace Meetings led? The 100,000
marks spent on the Peace Palace would much better have been devoted to
the support of needy veterans.--GENERAL KEIM, at meeting of the German
Defence League, Cassel, February, 1913. NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 82.
299. The worst of hypocrisies is the participation by Germany in the
Hague Conference.... We should do better to leave that farce to those
who, for centuries, have made of hypocrisy an industry and a
habit.--PROF. E. HASSE, Z.D.V., p. 132.
300. We can, fortunately, assert the impossibility of these efforts
after peace ever attaining their ultimate object in a world bristling
with arms, where a healthy egoism still directs the policy of most
countries.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 36.
301. The so-called world-peace is not order, but chaos. It means in
the first place the forcible dominion of capitalists and the
proletariat [!] over the productive powers of the nations, and lastly,
in the struggle of all against all, a return to those prehistoric
conditions out of which, in the opinion of our "cosmopolitans," all
our culture took its rise.--_Der Reichsbote_, 14th March, 1913.
NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 26.
302. A people of parasites like the Jews strives, with all the
instincts of its craving for power and for wealth, towards the
abolition of war, for if that could be effected its work of
disintegrating the living bodies of the nations could go on
unhindered.--F. LANGE, R.D., p. 158 (1893).