we must now admit. We old fellows ... look with envy at the young, who
are risking their fresh life and strength for the Fatherland. Of this
envy, at any rate, we must acquit England: its best youth remains
quietly at home, and wins victories in the football field, leaving it
to salaried hirelings to shed their blood.--PROF. G. ROETHE, D.R.S.Z.,
No. 1, p. 11.
432. The doctrine of comfort, as a view of the world, certainly comes
of evil, and a people who are filled with it, like the English, are
little more than a heap of living corpses. The whole body of the
people begins to rot.... In England to-day every trade unionist is
stuck in the morass of comfort.--PROF. W. SOMBART, H.U.H., p. 102.
433. As soon as it comes to the sanguinary reality, the English
hireling's heart drops into his breeches. And the English Scotchmen
have not even breeches for it to drop into.--O. SIEMENS, W.L.K.D.,
p. 19.
434. Whence should courage come?... In our German soldiers it springs
from honest German wrath. But the Englishman must shout himself into
courage. When the first English troops landed in France, they sang
gaily and interrupted their songs by shouts of "Are we down-hearted?"
Whereupon the English hireling sought to keep up his spirits by an
answering shout of "No!" ... Only their own timidity suggests to the
English such questions as to their courage. One need not be any great
psychologist to realize this.--O. SIEMENS, W.L.K.D., p. 19.
435. The cunning and unscrupulousness of the pirate does, indeed,
survive in the English sailor; he lies in ambush for neutral
merchant-ships[!], lays mines in the fairway of neutral neighbour
States, and commits deeds of violence of the most manifold kinds; but
the resolution of the pirate, the daring intrepidity in attack, he no
longer possesses.--"GERMANUS," B.U.D.K., p. 43.
436. The great majority of the English Army are to this day Keltic
Irishmen and Keltic Scotchmen; the real Englishmen do not enlist. In
the English battles of the past, Englishmen of the nobility no doubt
were in command, but the armies consisted of foreign mercenaries, for
the most part Germans.--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 51.
437. England might, in league with Germany, have _dictated Kultur to
the whole world_ ... if she had not been _untrue to the Gospel of
Work_!--PROF. A. SCHRÖER, Z.C.E., p. 61.
438. The English race ... must always be stimulated by the infusion of
new blood, otherwise it would perish of its own indolence.--PROF. A.
SCHRÖER, Z.C.E., p. 21.
=Treachery to Germanism.=
439. England is now showing on what feeble feet its Germanism rests,
how unsound, how profoundly unworthy of the German Thought it is. It
cannot shake off its bitter accusers--its Shakespeare and Carlyle,
its Dickens and Kingsley. It has committed treason against the spirit
of its greatest men, who were filled with the certainty that the
German Thought must conquer, and that this victory must be _the_
victory ... of Kultur, civilization and spiritual progress.--K.
ENGELBRECHT, D.D.D.K., p. 57.
440. Would to God Professor Engel were right in maintaining that the
English are Kelts. Then we should not have to be ashamed of our
brothers!--PASTOR B. LÖSCHE, D.S.E.S.D., p. 4.
441. It is useless for publicists to encourage the popular belief that
the English prove by their behaviour that they are no longer Teutons;
for Teutons they are, and purer Teutons than many Germans.[42]--H.S.
CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 45.
442. Does one German cousin fight against another? We good-natured
idealists have always dwelt upon this German cousinship. The
three-quarters-Keltic England has no feeling of common
Germanism.--O.A.H. SCHMITZ, D.W.D., p. 15.
443. What about ... our dear cousins the English, those hucksters
whose Germanism we have at last begun openly to question.... Though
the English language is doubtless Germanic, that is by no means a
proof that the Keltic bastards have acquired the German nature
(_Wesen_). We do not count the English-speaking American negroes as
belonging to the white race.--O. SIEMENS, W.L.K.D., p. 18.
444. Against us stands the world's greatest sham of a people ... the
Judas among nations, who this time, for a change, betrays Germanism
for thirty pieces of silver. Against us stands sensual France, the
harlot (_Dirne_) among the peoples, to be bought for any prurient
excitement, shameless, unblushing, impudent and cowardly [!] with her
worthless myrmidons.--"War Devotions," by PASTOR J. RUMP, quoted in
H.A.H., p. 117.
=Sir Edward Grey and his Colleagues.=
445. Abysmal hypocrisy ... the national vice has been incarnated for
us in Sir Edward Grey.--PROF. G. ROETHE, D.R.S.Z., No. i, p. 14.
446. When that English gentleman, Minister Grey, who has a cancerous
tumour in place of a heart, in the end has to reap the infamy he
deserves, he will promptly cast it from him as dirt with his
horse-hoof.--PASTOR TOLZIEN, in "Patriotic-Evangelical War Lectures,"
quoted in H.A.H., p. 141.
447. The Englishman treats the foreigner, when he does not need him,
as thin air, when he does need him, as a piece of goods; consequently,
when he sits in the Cabinet, he considers that, towards a foreign
State, a lie is not a lie, deceit is not deceit, and a surprise attack
in time of peace is a perfectly legitimate measure, so long as it
serves England's interests.--PROF. W. WUNDT, D.N.I.P., p. 131.
448. Sir Edward Grey possesses in a singular degree the gift of
carrying on business with complete control of all emotion and
elimination of all deep thought. Every third word of such person is
the untranslatable, elusive, "I dare say."--O.A.H. SCHMITZ, D.W.D.,
p. 14.
449. The untruthfulness and unscrupulous brutality with which the
English Cabinet carries on the war place it far below the level of
Muscovite morality.--"GERMANUS."--B.U.D.K., p. 35.
450. The English diplomatist of the type of Sir Edward Grey holds
honesty in political matters to be a blunder and a sin. Therefore he
usually expresses himself in a form which is capable of several
interpretations.--"GERMANUS," B.U.D.K., p. 18.
451. Sir Edward Grey has for years presided over all the peace
conferences--only to ensure the coming of the projected war; he has
for years sought a "better understanding" with Germany--only to
prevent the honest German statesmen and diplomats from suspecting that
a war of annihilation had been irrevocably decreed; the German
Emperor, at the last moment, had almost averted the danger of
war--Grey, the unctuous apostle of peace, contrived so to shuffle the
cards as to render it inevitable.--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 66.
_For "shuffling the cards" compare No. 371._
452. The President of the United States, Professor Wilson ... allows
American munition works to supply our enemies with unlimited
quantities of war material, favours the infamous design of England to
starve out Germany, and rises in his "peace" speeches to a height of
political and religious hypocrisy in no way inferior to that attained
by the English "million-murderer" Grey.--PROF. E. HAECKEL, E.W., p. 61.
=Britain's Great Illusion.=[43]
453. The English regard themselves as the Chosen People, towards which
all others are predestined to stand in a relation of more or less
complete dependence.--PROF. U. v. WILAMOWITZ-MÖLLENDORF, R. pt. iv.,
p. 19.
454. Strange as it may appear to us, it is nevertheless unquestionable
that all England has from of old been penetrated with the idea that
her attainment of uncontested colonial and maritime power was not only
to her interest but to that of the whole world, _the dominion over
which God had Himself assigned to her_, and that therefore all means
to this beneficent end were permissible and well-pleasing to God.--J.
RIESSER, E.U.W., p. 10.
455. Just because the English found their national feeling on the
consciousness of their kultural successes, and the belief that they
alone are _God's chosen people on earth_, every desire of other
peoples to assert equality of rights appears to their self-conceit an
offence against the will of God.--PROF. A. SCHRÖER, Z.C.E., p. 31.
456. The belief in the Kultur-mission entrusted to it by God, in
preference to all other peoples, has grown into the very flesh and
blood of the English people.--PROF. F. KEUTGEN, B.R.K., p. 7.
457. The English hold that they are literally descended from the ten
tribes [!]. But we Germans do not base our relation to Israel on any
such fleshly foundation. The German people are the spiritual, the
religious parallel of the people of Israel, they are "the true Israel
begotten of the Spirit."--DR. PREUSS, quoted in H.A.H., p. 213.
458. Many of the best, most unselfish and most modest Englishmen pray
to God in all good faith that He would at last open the eyes of the
German people, and especially of the German Emperor, that they may see
how wrong and even sinful it is to place any further hindrances in the
way of the expansion of the Kingdom of God on earth by "His chosen
people," that is to say, the English themselves.--PROF. A. SCHRÖER,
Z.C.E., p. 12.
459. The Briton regards himself as chosen by Providence, the elect of
the Lord, entrusted with a special _mission on this earth_, and placed
under the immediate protection of Heaven, with a first claim upon all
the good things of the earth.--"GERMANUS," B.U.D.K., p. 11.
460. Our duty to ourselves, and to our English fellow-creatures--since
we would fain be, not an imaginary "chosen people" but true children
of God--is to give them such a thorough thrashing that they may once
for all be cured of the fatal illusion that they have established a
monopoly in the dear Lord God, and that the rest of humanity is
destined only to serve as a stool for their clumsy feet!--PROF. A.
SCHRÖER, Z.C.E., p. 70.
461. Perhaps the reason that England's power now stands in so great
peril is that, in her self-deceiving vanity, she thought that God had
guaranteed her the dominion of the world.--PASTOR M. HENNIG, D.K.U.W.,
P. 86.
462. It is a matter of fact that the greater part of the English
people cherish the pathological imagination that they alone are the
true pioneers of Kultur and culture.--PROF. E. HAECKEL, E.W., p. 115.
463. The English now assert the claim of _their_ Kultur to be the only
existing, and, indeed, the _God-appointed_ summit of human
development, which to attain would mean salvation for all humanity.
This is a positively grotesque mixture of national pride and
religiosity.--PROF. A. SCHRÖER, Z.C.E., p. 12.
464. "England über alles" has in England a very solid meaning, as
compared with our quite ideally conceived "Deutschland über alles." An
immense self-assurance, partly reposing on the notion of being in a
special sense God's chosen people, gives to these claims a certain
inward foundation. In the consciousness of an alleged superiority of
moral Kultur, the English aspire to rule the world.--PROF. R. SEEBERG,
D.R.S.Z., No. 15, p. 28.
465. Alone among Kultur-peoples, the English know only themselves, and
regard all others, without exception, as foreign, inferior creatures,
towards whom Nature decrees that the laws of morality, as between man
and man, should not hold good, any more than they hold good towards
animals and plants.[44]--PROF. A. SCHRÖER, Z.C.E., p. 49.
466. There are, of course, many sincerely pious Christians in England.
But either they are impotent as against the prevailing passion, or
they are blinded by the illusion of the "chosen people," and have
therefore lost all power of sober self-criticism.--OBERLEHRER HERMANN
SCHUSTER, D.K.K.
=Comic Relief.=
467. England understands by freedom only club-law, with the club
always in her own hand.--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 22.
468. Since the Cromwellian rule of the sword, the army is so hated in
England that an officer, going on duty from his home to the barracks,
has to drive in a closed carriage.--O.A.H. SCHMITZ, D.W.D., p. 41.
469. I found everywhere in England, during my last visits in 1907 and
1908, a positively terrifying blind hatred for Germany, and impatient
longing for a war of annihilation.--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 12.
470. England's army of postal officials amounts to 213,000,
distributed through 24,245 post offices; the German Empire has 50,500
post offices and 305,000 officials. Now we can understand--can we
not?--why England envies us.--PASTOR M. HENNIG, D.K.U.W., p. 39.
471. One finds in England no geniality, no broad, kindly humour, no
gaiety. Everything--so far as the outward life is concerned--is hurry,
money, noise, ostentation, snobbery, vulgarity, arrogance, discontent,
envy.--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 60.
472. King Edward VII., while he was Prince of Wales, was often a guest
of the London Savage Club, which is so "exclusive" that the Prince
could not become a member.--O.A.H. SCHMITZ, D.W.D., p. 131.
473. Discipline within the parties is maintained with Draconian
severity by the so-called "Whips" (i.e., _Peitschenschwingern_,
lash-wielders); and woe to the member who should dare to express his
own opinion!--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 17.
474. The English admit that, owing to the demoralizing influence of
Edward VII., they are in a state of religious, social and economic
decadence, but their illusion as to the incomparable superiority of
England prevents them from tracing the evil to its true source, and as
some one must be to blame for it, the fault must of course lie with
the rapidly climbing Germany.--PROF. A. SCHRÖER, Z.C.E., p. 34.
475. Every man wears the same trousers, every woman the same hat. I
remember once being unable to find in all London a single blue
necktie--blue was not the fashion. This would have been unthinkable in
Berlin, Paris or Vienna.--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 18.
476. Thus science, which to us is a very serious matter, is to the
Englishman, _like everything else_--except money-making!--like, for
instance, politics, administration, the care of the poor, &c.,--_a
private hobby, a sort of sport_.--PROF. A. SCHRÖER, Z.C.E., p. 43.
477. On the day of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, one walks, in
the giant city of London, through literally empty (_buchstäblich
leere_) streets. From the oldest duchess to the youngest chimney
sweep, all are seized with the same mad enthusiasm for this
event.--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 18.
478. [Puritanism leads to] that shrinking from the frank expression of
emotions which (for example) explains the fact that cultivated England
reads its great poet Shakespeare for the most part in editions in
which everything is deleted that could give offence to a sensitive old
maid.--PROF. W. WUNDT, D.N.I.P., p. 32.
479. At the parliamentary elections [before the war] nothing is spoken
of but the hatred for Germany, which animates the speaker and his
audience.--K.L.A. SCHMIDT, D.E.E., p. 10.
480. [British ignorance is] so horrific that a German can scarcely
conceive it. Five years ago, in a town of 40,000 inhabitants, it was
impossible to find a single man, who, for payment, could read English
correctly to an invalid.--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 18.
481. Attention has recently been drawn, by an authoritative writer, to
the fact that English biology and the theory of evolution, which have
achieved so much celebrity, are in essence nothing but the
transference of liberal middle-class views to the processes of life
seen in nature.--PROF. W. SOMBART, H.U.H., p. 17.
482. Is the noble land of Shakespeare fighting against us? Not at all;
for Shakespeare we have long conquered. He has long been more a German
than an English poet.--O.A.H. SCHMITZ, D.W.D., p. 15.
483. About the middle of the last century, England was in a fair way
to save herself from decadence through the revivifying virtue of the
philosophico-ethical influence of Germany.--PROF. A. SCHRÖER, Z.C.E.,
p. 69.
484. England is incapable of producing a people's army
(_Volksarmee_).[45]--H.S. CHAMBERLAIN, K.A., p. 50.
_See also Nos. 3, 146, 147, 174, 176, 178, 179._
=France.=
485. The English pirate-soul and French Chauvinism were bound to seek
and find each other.--P. ROHRBACH, W.D.K., p. 14.
486. Beasts who spring upon us we can only treat as beasts, but the
bestial hatred which impels them we must not allow to arise in
us.--PROF. F. MEINECKE, D.D.E., p. 51.
487. At no former time could the French soldier be reproached with
cowardice.... If his present conduct is so far beneath his reputation
... it is because he lacks the stimulus of enthusiasm, because he
knows that it is not his country that is sending him forth to battle,
but only an ambitious and short-sighted Government, because he is
conscious that he is not fighting for a great and noble cause, but for
a mean and dirty one.--W. HELM, W.W.S.M., p. 11.
488. For honour's sake another hundred thousand men may be sacrificed,
but there must be an end to that. Then it is all over with France as a
great Power.... These men [the French Ministry] or others like them
must make peace! Some one must make it, for the bloodshed cannot go on
forever. But what sort of a peace will it be? _Væ victis! Not till now
has Bismarck's victory been complete._--F. NAUMANN, Member of the
Reichstag, D.U.F., p. 8.
489. We will do well to leave to France the outward boundaries of a
great Power, if only that we may not figure as the tyrants of
Europe.--P. ROHRBACH, W.D.K., p. 28.
490. The defeat which France is now suffering is only the expiation of
guilt which is already a century old.... The twenty years of the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had left the French a mere set of
individuals who care nothing for the maintenance of their race:
æsthetes and dandies, money-grubbers and Bohemians.--K. ENGELBRECHT,
D.D.D.K., p. 51.
491. [As to the origin of the war] the French, as England's trusty
henchmen, obediently repeat what England tells them. If Don Quixote
rides at the windmills, Sancho Panza must keep pace with him.--PROF.
W.V. BLUME, D.D.M., p. 11.
_See also No. 3._
=Belgium.=
492. Belgium, the granary and armoury, is predestined to be the
battlefield in the struggle for the Meuse and the Rhine. I ask any
general or statesman who has seriously considered the problems of war
and politics, whether Belgium can remain neutral in a European
war--that is to say, can be respected as neutral any longer than may
appear expedient to the Power which feels itself possessed of the best
advantage for attack.--ERNST MORITZ ARNDT (1834), quoted in H.A.H.,
p. 22.
493. If Sir Edward Grey had urged neutrality [!] upon Belgium, he would
have done that country the greatest possible service.--"GERMANUS,"
B.U.D.K., p. 36.
494. Where the people of Israel had to demand a passage through foreign
territory, they were expressly enjoined first to offer the inhabitants
peace (Deuteronomy, xx., 10). Only when the right of transit was
denied them, was the sword to be drawn and the passage forced. In such
a case ... Israel calls the wars in which it has to engage, wars of
Jehovah. Its God is indeed a man of war, the Lord of the hosts of
Israel. The Scripture even goes so far as to ascribe the subsequent
corruption of the people to the fact that it did not completely
annihilate the inhabitants of the conquered country.[46]--PASTOR M.
HENNIG, D.K.U.W., p. 6.
495. If Belgium takes part in the war, it must be wiped off the map of
Europe.[47]--R. THEUDEN, W.M.K.B., v., p. 10.
496. How our adversaries understood neutrality is most strikingly
summed up in the following passage from the Paris paper _Le National_,
which appeared as early as November 16, 1834 [!] "Le jour viendra ou
... la neutralité de la Belgique, en cas de guerre européenne,
disparaitra devant le voeu du peuple beige.... La Belgique se rangera
naturellement du côté de la France!"--PROF. C. BORCHLING, D.B.P., p. 5.
497. A Belgian journalist who had ventured into Liège writes:--"The
Germans behave quietly. What they require they pay for in ready money.
The pigeons which nest in the Place St. Lambert have a corner of the
place where they are fed. The Germans have respected this corner,
though they have occupied the rest of the place."--PASTOR D.M. HENNIG,
D.K.U.W., p. 91.
498. See what the war has laid bare in others! What have we learnt of
the soul of Belgium? Has it not revealed itself as the soul of
cowardice and assassination? They have no moral forces within them;
therefore they resort to the torch and the dagger.--PROF. U.V.
WILAMOWITZ-MÖLLENDORF, R., i., p. 6.
499. The fate that Belgium has called down upon herself is hard for
the individual, but not too hard for this political structure
(_Staatsgebilde_), for the destinies of the immortal great nations
stand so high that they cannot but have the right, in case of need, to
stride over existences that cannot defend themselves, but live, as
parasites, upon the rivalries of the great.--PROF. H. ONCKEN, S.M.,
September, 1914, p. 819.
500. Our Chancellor has, with the scrupulous conscientiousness
peculiar to him, admitted that we were guilty of a certain wrong
[towards Belgium]. Here I cannot follow him.... When David, in the
pinch of necessity, took the shew-bread from the table of the Lord, he
was absolutely in the right; for at that moment the letter of the law
no longer existed.--PROF. A.V. HARNACK, I.M., 1st October, 1914, p. 23.
501. We were in the position of a man who, being attacked from two
sides, has to carry on a furious fight for life, and cannot concern
himself overmuch as to whether one or two flowers are trodden down in
his neighbour's garden.--PROF. DR. W. DIBELIUS, W.W.E., p. 5.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] If this does not mean that England was an accessory before the
fact to the murder of the Archduke, what _does_ it mean? The passage is
quoted with approval by Dr. Prockosch. _Englische Politik und
englischer Volksgeist_, p. 34.
[39] This clergyman's pamphlet, of 24 pp., is one uninterrupted torrent
of abuse.
[40] Doubtless a punning perversion of _Flugschrift_, pamphlet.
[41] It would be easy to cite 501 repetitions of this dogma in almost
the same words.
[42] Otherwise--horror of horrors!--Herr Chamberlain himself might not
be quite assured of his Germanism.
[43] As to the prevalence of this illusion in Germany, see section "The
Chosen People and its Mission," p. 28; also Introduction, p. xxi.
[44] Repeated, in other words, again and again by this author.
[45] Written 9th October, 1914.
[46] It is only fair to state that the writer does not apply this
doctrine directly to the case of Belgium; but he cannot but have had it
in mind. Here is the passage from Deuteronomy: "When thou drawest nigh
unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it
shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it
shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall become
tributary unto thee, and shall serve thee. And if it will make no peace
with thee, but will make war against thee, then shalt thou besiege it.
And when the Lord thy God delivereth it into thine hand, thou shalt
smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword. But the women, and
the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all
the spoil thereof, shalt thou take for a prey unto thyself; and thou
shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given
thee."
[47] As to the date of this utterance, see Index of Books.
INDEX OF BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS FROM WHICH QUOTATIONS ARE MADE
INDEX OF BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS FROM WHICH QUOTATIONS ARE MADE
_Where titles are given in English only, references are to the English
editions of the works in question_
A.U.K. "Amicus Patriæ": Armenien und Kreta. Eine Lebensfrage
für Deutschland. 1896. (Armenia and Crete. A Vital
Question for Germany.)
B.D.V. Ernst Hasse: Die Besiedelung des deutschen Volksbodens.
1905. (The Colonization of the German Folk-Territory.)
B.G.E. Friedrich Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil.
B.I. Gerhart v. Schulze-Gaevernitz: Der britische
Imperialismus im 19 Jahrhundert. (British Imperialism
in the 19th Century.)
B.R.K. Friedrich Keutgen: Britische Reichsprobleme und der
Krieg. 1914. (British Imperial Problems and the War.)
B.U.D.K. "Germanus": Britannien und der Krieg. 1914. (Britain
and the War.)