German Democratic Republic

“ Democratic Germany therefore, must be republican. In reality the National Assembly arrived at a republic much less by logical compulsion than through actual necessity; like the French Assembly of 1875, it adopted the republican form because it was difficult for it, if not impossible, to do otherwise. It seems that the great modern democracies do not become republican until monarchy has been demonstrated as impossible. The republic is at the outset only a last resort ”

“ The two Socialist parties were, of course, advocates of a republic and bitter opponents of monarchs and monarchies.
The Democratic Party came into existence mainly through the efforts of Theodor Wolff, the brilliant editor of the Berlin Tageblatt. No other non-Socialist editor realized so early or so completely as Wolff whither the policy of the old government was taking Germany. He had opposed the submarine warfare, condemned the treaty of Brest-Litovsk, attacked the methods and influence of the pan-Germans and constantly advocated drastic democratic reforms. ”

“ Dethronement of the Kaiser, election of a socialist for president of the German Republic, even the Spartacide uprisings and the attempts at the establishment of a communist government have not changed the German character. The Germans do not know what it means to be democratic, they have not learned to have any regard for the rights of others, they still consider themselves the superior race entitled to lord it over the inferior races who are their neighbors. ”

“ But this policy, which made Social Democracy the ally of bourgeois parties and the support of the Government, was fiercely attacked by the Opposition, which finally constituted itself as a separate party. * * * The bloc policy and action of the masses are mutually exclusive policies; those who themselves belong in the Reichstag to the majority which supports the Government cannot create the atmosphere in which alone a united action of the masses is possible. Nor, indeed, was that the intention of the German Social Democratic majority ”

“ Five of the six Reichstag members elected from Greater Berlin in 1912 were Social-Democrats, and the sixth was a Progressive with advanced democratic ideas.
With the shifting population and the consequent distortion of the election districts, a tremendous advantage accrued to the rural communities; in other words, the forces opposed to democratic reforms and in favor of maintaining and even increasing the powers of the King and Emperor steadily increased proportionately their representation in the Reichstag at the expense of the friends of democracy. ”

“ Even the German Social Democratic Party cannot be shown to be other than of the same stripe, and its success in point of numbers has lain in the political sagacity of its leaders, which has effected the assembly of liberal elements on a large scale under the apparently revolutionary banner of socialism. ”

“ It is a weak Government at a moment when strength is essential, and such strength as it possesses is largely of the wrong kind.
This upshot, as I see it, is wholly devoid of comfort to any one who desires the rehabilitation of Germany on right lines. The election is the writing on the wall which even at the eleventh hour should command the attention of the little ring of politicians who control the Entente policy. This shifting of German opinion to the right and to the left is an ominous sign. The party standing for ordered democratic development has been knocked out. ”