Pan-Germanism

“ It is important at the outset to differentiate in this article between the tendencies and aims of Pan-Slavism and Pan-Germanism, for the similarity of the terms might, perhaps, confuse the casual reader. Pan-Germanism attempted to organize “Deutschthum”, Germans in Germany, Austria, and those found anywhere else, for the purpose of advancing the influence and power of the German empire all over the globe. ”

“ It is not Prussian militarism that constitutes the crime of modern Germany. Militarism in the sense of courage, patriotism, discipline, and devotion to duty is a splendid thing. But the spirit of Pan-Germanism differs from the British conception of patriotism in that it overrides the rights of all other peoples and seeks to establish its domination over the whole world. Under German domination every German would be free and every other human being a slave. ”

“ American interests and policy demand the destruction of Pan-Germanism because it propagates Prussianism, the subjection of nations and races, the extension of exclusive economic understandings, and exalts German nationalism above the common interests of mankind. ”

“ On the whole M. Andler concludes that the Pan-Germanic programme is old and had until 1888 been repeatedly rejected by German statesmen, including Bismarck, as bad statecraft. The prefaces of the second and third volumes contain the narrative of German diplomacy from 1888 to 1914, and the texts furnish an elaborate and admirable exposition of Pan-Germanism, drawn from the writings of the professed propagandists, the second volume being devoted to plans regarding Europe and Asia Minor and the third to Africa, South America, the United States, and colonization generally. ”

“ Nor shall we for a long time have much else. Indeed the older material can be finally evaluated only in the light of information which will for decades be locked in diplomatic and official archives. It is this problem which Professor Andler has tried to meet by studying the older diplomatic materials in connection with the published works of the Pan-Germanists. He has sketched in his prefaces a history of German policy and statecraft since 1800 which makes Pan-Germanism an integral part of German development. ”

“ Pan-Germanism has been a striking example of democracy, endeavouring to have a say in governmental policies. The Naval and Army Leagues, the German Colonial Society, and the Pan-Germanic Society are private groups, irresponsible from the standpoint of the Government. They have declared the governmental programs for an increase in armaments insufficient, and have bitterly denounced and attacked them from the point of view exactly opposite to that of the Socialists. The Pan-Germanic Society refused to recognize the treaty concluded between Germany and France after the Agadir incident. ”

“ If Americans, then, see things as they really are, and perceive the dangers to which they are pledging their future, they will be convinced that they, as much as Europeans, [Pg 74] have a vital interest in the annihilation of Pan-Germanism. In a word, it is clear that any peril accruing to the United States from Europe can arise only from so formidable a power as Pan-Germany, and not from a Germany kept within her legitimate frontiers, and forced to behave herself, by the balance of other powers. ”

“ Viewed under the aspect of exaggerated Nationalism, the spirit of Pan-Germanism is nothing new. The dream of world-domination has haunted the imagination of many races from the time of Alexander the Great to Napoleon I, but nowhere has the plan been carried out by the Machiavellian methods which have characterized Prussian foreign policy and diplomacy from the days of Frederick the Great onwards. ”

“ If there were still any one senseless enough to plead the erstwhile popular cause of Pan-Germanism, he would be likely to find more support for his argument in the writings of the de-gallisized Frenchman, Count Joseph Arthur Gobineau, or of the germanized Englishman, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, than in those of the "hermit of Maria-Sils," who does not even suggest, let alone advocate, German world-predominance in a single line of all his writings. ”

“ There are, then, in Central Europe alone, 55,000,000 people determinedly hostile to Germanism, forming an enormous, favorably grouped mass, occupying a vast territory, commanding a part of the German lines of communication, and comparatively far from the fronts where the bulk of the German military forces is. ”

“ Anyone who reads the literature of Pan-Germany constantly meets it. These enthusiasts for a German world have deliberately planned, as part of their programme, the ousting of the French from certain parts of France, of Belgians from Belgium, of Poles from Poland, of Slavs from Russia, and other indigenous peoples from the territories which they have inhabited for thousands of years, and the establishment in the vacated lands of solid honest Germans. ”

“ It is plain, therefore, that the huge profits which the Germans would stand to gain by such a state of affairs—a direct result of military Pan-Germany—form an element of advantage worthy of being considered by itself. ”

“ To our enemies, however, even these narrow limits and a share of the world's trade necessary to our existence seemed too much, and they formed plans which aimed at the very annihilation of the German Empire. Then we Germans rose as one man, from the highest to the meanest, realising that we must defend not only our physical existence but also our inner, spiritual, and moral life—in short, defend German and European civilisation (Kultur) against barbarian hordes from the east, and lust for vengeance and domination from the west. ”

“ In further explanation of the above statutes the League issued a manifesto declaring that "the fate of the Germans in Austria cannot be a matter of indifference to Germany; it cannot be a matter of indifference whether the Saxons or Swabians in Hungary are Magyarized, or the Germans in Switzerland or the Flemish in Belgium are Gallicized. Germans must actively support all movements in those countries in support of Germanism. Germanism across the seas must be preserved and fostered by every possible means."12
We already know how well the German has heeded and obeyed such advice. ”

“ The proud boast of the Pan-Germans that it is the destiny of the German race to rule the world would appear to be correct, were it not for a singular phenomenon which, so far, has remained almost unobserved. ”

“ The Germans have developed a philosophy which makes a religion of war and a cult of mass murder. They consider it their mission to subjugate all other peoples to slavery. They exclude the doctrines of the sacredness of human life and liberty and substitute for it the ideal of war. The unique phenomenon of Germanism is that its conspiracy against world peace is not mere gangster- ism or nihilism. It is an intellectual movement, if you please. It is supported by a philosophy carefully devised, nurtured and inculcated into every citizen. ”

“ In this Pan-German Empire, Germans alone will govern; they alone will exercise political rights; they alone will serve in the army and navy; they alone will have the right to hold land; and they will thus be made to feel that they are a people of rulers, as they were in the Middle Ages. ”

“ But certainly, if human relationships can be ascribed to nations, Germany is our near of kin. German blood has enriched ours for fifteen hundred years. Pan-Angle ideals of religious and political freedom came originally from Germany. Pan-Angle language, Pan-Angle law, and many of the qualities of which we are most proud had the same source. Individualism has developed more highly among the Pan-Angles—at least in matters of government. ”

“ Neither would it be intelligible why modern Germany should never have pursued the policy of unifying all German-speaking peoples in Europe, why she should not covet the large German provinces of Austria, and should patiently witness the forcible Russianization of the German towns in the Baltic provinces and the Magyarization of the Germans in Hungary.
Neither the bonds of blood nor those of language alone make a nation. ”

“ First of all, it is essential that the three races which, by reason of their geographical situation and their ethnographical characteristics are indispensable in any reconstitution of Central Europe based on the principle of nationalities, and who consequently have a leading part to play in the centre of the Pan-Germany of to-day, should be, one and all, absolutely convinced that the victory of the Entente will make certain their complete independence. ”

“ For he who has sinned against the German language has desecrated the mystery of all our Germanity. Throughout all the confusion and the changes of races and of customs, the German language alone, as though possessed of some supernatural charm, has saved herself; and with her own salvation she has wrought that of the spirit of Germany. She alone holds the warrant for this spirit in future ages, provided she be not destroyed at the sacrilegious hands of the modern world. ”

“ Thus ignobly fell the noblest of the ancient Germans, the man whose patriotism saved the realm of the Teutonic tribes from becoming a province of the empire of Rome. Had not Hermann lived, the history of Europe might have pursued a different course, and the final downfall of the colossus of the south been long averted, Germany acting as its bulwark of defence instead of becoming the nursery of its foes. ”

“ The map of Pan-Germany at the beginning of 1917, which is printed above, shows clearly the essential, but all-too-little-known elements of the present situation, which is characterized by the fact that 73 million Germans, aided by 21 million vassals,—Magyars, Slavs, and Turks,—have reduced to slavery 82 millions of Latins, Slavs, and Semites, belonging to thirteen different nationalities. ”

“ The power of Germany comes not from the west but from the east, from Prussia, from the country built nearly on the Slavonic side, and every progress in the east means a new increase of the German power, and the first thing for Europe to do in the future if she wants to have Germany less dangerous is to stop the progress of Germanism in the east. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If Germany can still continue to float new internal loans with comparative ease, it is because her wholesale territorial and Pan-German seizures are considered by her people as new pledges of the credit of the German state as the heart of Pan-Germany. ”

“ But many episodes, such as Kiao-Chau, and the Philippines, and the ceaseless warfare in the German colonies, and the restless enterprises of Pan-German intrigue, provided a commentary upon these pretensions which ought to have revealed the dangerous spirit which was conquering the German people.
It is difficult, in the midst of a war forced upon the world by German ambition, to take a sane and balanced view of the aims which German policy was setting before itself during these years of experiment and preparation. ”

“ A man must first and foremost be "German," he must belong to "the race"; then only can he pass judgment upon all values and lack of values in history—then only can he establish them.... To be German is in itself an argument, "Germany, Germany above all," [4] is a principle; the Germans [Pg 124] stand for the "moral order of the universe" in history; compared with the Roman Empire, they are the up-holders of freedom; compared with the eighteenth century, they are the restorers of morality, of the "Categorical Imperative." ”

“ Moral regeneration of a nation, the education of the individual to the great general interests, is only possible when there is a free and living national spirit, capable of uniting the several members in the service of a common end. The German spirit is free and living, for the German people is pure and unmixed, and its history is the development of a single stock. The wonderful plasticity of the German language, which renders it capable of expressing in vivid and pictorial fashion the profoundest thought, is in itself a sufficient proof that the German people has the stamp of originality. ”

“ They have created the modern world by uniting the political heritage of classical Europe with the true religion that lingered in Asia, and they have raised the two to a higher unity in their Kultur. From them is drawn the best blood of most other nations and the spiritual force that has fashioned them all.
The Germans have never forsaken their native land nor suffered seriously from immigration. Their language is primitive, and they have never exchanged it for a foreign one. Hence German alone is truly a mother-tongue. ”

“ The business of German nationalism was to keep them all in Germany and mould them into so much more power behind the sea wedge. The German teaching—that teaching of a partisan youth which is never complacent—did not contemplate a world composed of human beings, but a world composed of Germans, loyal to the Kaiser, and others who were not. Within that tiny plot on the earth’s surface the German system was giving more people a livelihood and more comforts for their resources than anywhere else, unless in Belgium. ”

“ I know that Germany is an ugly beast ready to jump at the throat of civilization the moment the word is said, the moment the leash is slipped. I know how they are working here, for that one end, blood and conquest and booty, with all their might, their energy, their strength. I know Germans. They believe. They obey. They think that whatever is told them by their master is the truth. ”