Pro-Germany

“ With this condition in mind, critics have assembled their arguments against certain textbooks in European history found in the public schools. Because it made Germany primarily responsible for the World War objection was raised to The Story of Human Progress by Willis Mason West, an author but a short time before criticized for pro-Germanism. [767] Roscoe Lewis Ashley is challenged for saying in his Modern European Civilization that “Germany wanted war and determined to rule or ruin ... ”

“ Let each one of us do all that lies in his power not to assist in any way the industry and commerce of Germany, which devour and destroy our own. Let us enlighten those near to us who in their turn will enlighten their neighbours, and let us stimulate a movement of resistance to the invasion of German produce of every kind; let every one of us contribute his share to the strengthening of public opinion for the struggle against the spirit of Germanism, which is gradually undermining the national spirit of France. ”

“ How, therefore, can this same Social Democracy, whose entire political views and aims are subordinate to the desire for a union with Germany—how can this Social Democracy demand a policy which, without doubt, must lead not only to a separation from Germany, but to a fratricidal war with the German nation? ”

“ If scandalous proceedings such as these make no difference in the relations of the Triple Alliance, why wonder at the audacity and pride of the Teutons?
Everything is a matter of exclusive right for the German. There are no other rights but German rights, and when Germany claims the exercise of a right, neither numbers, nor nationalism, nor races have any existence, confronted by the individuality, the nationalism, of the German race. ”

“ A minority drawn from the intellectual and governing castes, dreaming of victory and aggrandisement, with a passionate desire to see the colossal fabric of German supremacy towering to the heavens, steeped in a limitless hatred or disdain for those who have not the honour to be Germans. From the very opening of hostilities, the morbid conceit of the scholars and men of science was unveiled in clear outlines through those amazing manifestoes on the rights that the superior science, organization, strength, and culture of Germany empower her to claim. ”

“ While German Imperialism, to judge by the utterances of its accredited heads, and by the behaviour of Germany in the temporarily disorganised States on her Eastern Front, is still as truculent, aggressive, and treacherous as ever, the mind of her antagonists has learnt and has matured. There has arisen in the great world outside the inner lives of the Central Powers a will that grows to gigantic proportions, that altogether overshadows the boasted will to power of the German junker and exploiter, the will to a world peace. ”

“ Germany’s feet first trod that road when German policy was expanded from a European to a universal policy, from the constructive defence of German unity and interests in Europe to the unlimited megalomania of modern German Imperialism to which there could be but one issue. The world does not long tolerate a restless, powerful, covetous, braggart without combining to keep him in order. ”

“ No matter what misdeeds Germany may commit, they scarcely trouble to turn towards her their inattentive gaze. Some of them, even, whose lips are tightened with anger when they think of London, smile with a vague feeling of good-will at the thought of Berlin. And yet the other enemy, the German, emboldened by our absorption, is more ready to oppress the weak, reveals himself as bolder and greedier, more cynical and exclusive, more violent in denying to others their rights. German influence may spread all over the world, but refuses to allow any other influence whatsoever to penetrate Germany. ”

“ We may admire and reverence all that has come to us from Germany. But the world cannot look on impassively at a propaganda which is leading to Deutschland über alles!
When we take the megalomania of the Germans, their ambition to fulfil their world mission, their belief in their peculiar fitness to fulfil that mission, and their idea of the German character of the neighbouring states, and contrast the dream with the reality, we see how they must feel, especially as they are conscious of the fact that they dispose of a military strength disproportionate to their position in mondial politics. ”

“ What are to be our future relations with Germany after the war? If there is anything in the assertion that we are fighting for the cause of liberty and progress, it can only mean that we are fighting a system rather than a nation—Prussian militarism and bureaucracy, but not German civilisation. ”

“ The one desire of the lower classes of Germany, whether industrial or agricultural, is for peace and plenty. In condemning them to a continuance of war conditions for nine months after their surrender and revolution we turned them from internationalists, ready to welcome us as representatives of democracy and as crusaders for an international ideal, into either nationalists who looked on us as enemies seeking the destruction of all Germans, or into internationalists who looked on us as enemies of the revolution seeking their destruction as we were seeking that of the Russians. ”

“ He claimed the attention of the world to the great truths that the peace of Europe cannot be secured without a strong Germany, and that Germany cannot be strong without freedom. A free Germany is a bulwark against the encroachments of France and the arrogance of Russia. Germany enslaved, is either the prey of the former or the tool of the other. His prophecy is fulfilled; Germany is become half the prey and wholly the tool of Russia. Who then can calculate on security and peace and freedom, as long as Germany is thus enslaved. ”

“ They are the German people! For to the German, Nazi or not, the Mailed Fist is stimulating and meaningful as symbol of all the aims and aspirations of his nation as the Statue of Liberty is to the American. Make no mistake about it; world-dominion is not a mirage to the German; it never was, and so long as Germany exists as a nation, it never will be. A belief to the contrary, if too-long sustained, may well result in the world's enslavement by the German. ”

“ But in the same way as England represents her interests over the whole world, the Germany of today will know how to represent and to protect her interests, even if they are more limited. And these interests of the German people comprise also the protection of those Germans who, of their own accord, are not in a position to ensure for themselves along our frontiers the right of commonly human, political, and ideological independence * * *.” [End of quote from Hitler’s speech.] ”

“ 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. ”

“ Actually, Germany's monstrous conduct in violating the neutrality of a small, industrious and inoffensive Power—a neutrality to which, be it marked, Germany was as much a partner as England or France—has put her hopelessly in the wrong with the civilised world. ”

“ There is still but one spot in his great German fatherland which the German can, in a material sense, call his country. The care of a paternal government, or the narrow jealousies of his neighbours, still confine him to the stifling limits of a place which may have become a hell to him, or driven him to seek a home beyond the bounds of Germany. If the German nation would achieve the great future to which it aspires, it must first conquer for itself material freedom. Political liberty will follow quickly enough ”

“ If there are any Allies who are wavering, such action will hold them in line. Certain European neutrals—Sweden, Rumania, Greece, and others—will put up a firm resistance to Germanic influences and certain of them will take part with Great Britain and France. There will be an end at once to the German propaganda, which is now world-wide. The moral weight of our country will be a determining influence and bring an early peace. The credit [pg II-52] you will receive for such a decision will make you immortal and even the people of Germany will be forever grateful. ”

“ So long as France and Great Britain continue to enforce the principles and procedures of the Treaty of Versailles and of the Paris Council, Germany will remain a danger to Europe—a danger, not because of its recent relapse into a Conservative reaction, nor even because of the decreasing risk of a Communist "second" revolution, but because Germany is an essential and vital member of our European body politic that is being kept in a morbid, even moribund, condition by the provisions of the peace. ”

“ A united Germany would be the best safeguard against the evils of the artificial “balance of power” policy, which for long had been the bane of the German States. It might resist the evil pressure of international commerce, which makes the poorer country a natural prey for the more wealthy. Above all things, the unique richness and depth of the German character are a sufficient demonstration of the folly of these dreams of universal monarchy, which can be realised only at the cost of national individuality. ”

“ The peoples won't take the freedom and the light that is offered them. We sing to them and tempt them, but they do not respond.
Germany, however, does not believe in "free countries," and she is edified by the failure of freedom. ”

“ No confidence can be had in their self-reform, or in good-will bribed with generosity.
Is there a solution for the German problem which will remove its recurrent threat to world peace?
There is.
CHAPTER II WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? Are the German people or only their leaders to blame? If only the leaders, then the prophylactic steps against their militarism are comparatively simple. If the people, then we must cope with millions of problems. Before any consideration can be given to a proper solution of Germanism, its magnitude and nature must be assayed. ”

“ If the Germans, well aware of our unpreparedness and of our internal dissensions, have flouted us unsparingly, it is because they are, as they have always been, densely incapable of reading the souls of men. Let us not add to our own peril by misreading the soul of Germany. We lack her discipline, we lack her unity, we lack her efficiency, the splendid result of thirty years’ devotion to a single purpose. ”

“ We have no designs on other people’s possessions, but where States are too feeble to put their territory to the best possible use, it is the manifest destiny of those who can and will do so to take their places.”
No one, who has a knowledge of German political thought, and who enjoys the confidence of German friends speaking their minds openly and freely, can deny that these are the ideas which are proclaimed on the housetops, and that inability to sympathise with them is regarded in Germany as the mark of the prejudiced foreigner who cannot enter into the real feelings of Germans. ”

“ In the plenitude of his arrogance, which made him consider himself beyond all human laws, he regarded the rights and wishes of others as entirely negligible quantities where the greatness of the German Empire, which meant his greatness, was concerned. Every German child was taught that Germany should be supreme over all. In the schools they learnt that nothing, not even truth or justice, could be allowed to interfere with Germany’s commercial progress. ”

“ Obviously the question was one of neither the existence nor the freedom of Germany, but a shameful adventure of the Austrian war party; not a question of self-defense, national protection and a holy war forced upon us in the name of freedom, but a bold provocation, an abominable threat against foreign, Servian, independence and liberty. ”

“ This admiration and friendship has not blinded us to certain defects in the German character, any more than has your friendship for Americans closed your eyes to our defects. The bad manners of Germans are proverbial, not only among Americans, but all over the world; so much so that certain German writers, admitting that Germans as a nation are ill-mannered, have sought to find in this fact an explanation for the world-wide antagonism toward Germany's policy in the war. ”

“ We Social Democrats in this solemn hour are at one with the whole German nation, without distinction of party or creed, in accepting the fight forced upon us by Russian barbarism, and we are ready to fight till the last drop of blood for Germany's national independence, fame and greatness. ”

“ They have taken pains to ally the interests alike of capital and labour to their policy, and to fuse the whole nation by a uniform national education and by a series of paternal social reforms imposed from above. The real strength and danger of Germany is not what her statesmen or soldiers do, but what Germans themselves believe. We are fighting not an army but a false idea; and nothing will defeat a false idea but the knowledge of the truth. ”

“ Are those 15,000,000 Germans so valuable, so indispensable to mankind that 300,000,000 guiltless men, women and children shall fight a war with Germany every time she so decrees? Shall perpetual struggle against the German be the only future facing civilized peoples? ”