The diagnosis of the German obsession

Contents

PAGE

I The Chosen People ... 1

II Atavistic Kultur .... 28

Preface

THIS book represents the development of a chapter (written in Dec., 1917) on "Germany — an Illustration of Pernicious Nationalism," which the author originally outlined as a section on "National Loyalty" to be incorporated in a larger work on "Loyalty." The first three essays have already appeared in pamphlet form under the title of "The German Obsession." The remaining chapters were written during the Summer of 1918, from notes gathered since the Fall of 1914.

There is nothing new in this book; it merely represents an attempt to unbiasedly portray truth and record history, and it therefore deals solely with evidence and fact.

The presentation of the German case has been made by representative Germans, and their statements and arguments repeated before the tribunal of humanity have been considered in most cases so self-condemnatory and perniciously immoral that any counter-arguments would be superfluous and only reflect upon the intelligence, culture and spirituality of democratic peoples, who believe in that Universal Religion which demands individual liberty coupled with social obligations, and claims as its basic creed the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God.

For such a work as this it is impossible to present a satisfactory bibliography. The author has drawn

PREFACE

almost exclusively from official documents anjd the writings of German scholars, and generally accepted German authorities. He is, however, deeply indebted to many British and American scholars for their admirable and extremely valuable research work and translations of German writings and records.

The four most valuable German works of recent date from which the writer has drawn, and which represent the finest thought of real, and therefore repudiated or exiled, German patriots are: The Coming Democracy, by Hermann Fernau; J' Accuse, by "A German;" The Vandal of Europe, by Wilhelm Miihlon, and the Memorandum of Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador to London prior to the commencement of hostilities.

Acknowledgment should also be made of the following admirable works: The Evidence of the Case, by James M. Beck; The Peril of Prussianism, by Douglas W. Johnson; Gems of German Thought, compiled by Wilham Archer; Conquest and Kultur, by Professors Wallace Notestein and Elmer Stoll and German Plots and Intrigues, by Prof. Earl E. S perry — the last two issued by the Committee on Public Information; British and German Ideals — The Round Table, etc.

If, in the arranging of hastily prepared notes and the development of these essays, written under most unfavorable conditions, proper credit has not been given to the original writer of any quotation, the omission is quite unintentional and is regretted.

It is to be hoped that the horrible world war will be at an end by the time this book reaches the hands of my friends. But unless the war ends with the overwhelming military defeat of the Germans

PREFACE

and their Allies, the moral regeneration of the Teutonic people, with their repudiation of the Hohenzollern and Hapsburg absolute dynasties, and the formation of a League of Nations along practical lines, the future peace of the world will still be menaced. No peace of negotiation and compromise will justify the sacrifices of the noble heroes who have bled for liberty, justice, truth and democracy.

W. A. F.

Great Barrington, Mass.

September 14, 1918.

I. "The Chosen People^^

THE nationalism of Germany has shaken the entire world and plunged hmnanity into horror and despair. Germany stands forth as a hideous example of an irrehgious loyalty which deifies country, rulers and people, and in doing so, damns himianity and the soul of the world. It would be unfair to study the case of Germany as a pernicious example of exclusive and extreme nationalism, if the evidence considered emanated from bitter enemies or malicious adversaries in the countries with which she is at war. In such times as these, justice demands that Germany be given an opportunity to explain her attitude and ideals, her motives and actuating beliefs, and if Germans are placed on the witness stand to give testimony in a judicial consideration of the worth, nature and substance of German nationalistic loyalty, we shall err on the side of the accused, whose actions have brought Teutonia before the bar of the peoples of the world and the tribunal of Humanity's God.

Much of the testimony to be presented for consideration is the written word of Germans penned for the eyes of Germans and not for foreign circulation, for it is fairer to the German "loyalist" to permit him to explain his psychological attitude in his own way, and as we read we see Germany's soul in the mirror of Germany's own making.

The Israelites in the early Old Testament days worshipped Yahweh, a tribal God, who fought with them in battle, harassed their enemies and advocated savage cruelty and a ruthless warfare of extermination against all other peoples. The Jews have advanced in their knowledge of God, but the conception that they long since discarded the Germans have taken up, and thus we see the barbarities of millenniums past enacted in modern Europe and sanctioned by the "religious" leaders of a people cursed by their depraved and essentially inhuman nationalism.

Prof. Werner Sombart in Hucksters and Heroes has said, "Now we understand why the other nations pursue us with their hatred ; they do not understand us, but they are sensible of our enormous spirtual superiority. So the Jews were hated in antiquity because they were representatives of God on earth," and again, "A good Providence watches over the fate of the German people which is destined to the highest things on this earth." Pastor Rump in War Devotions declares that the Germans "have become heirs of Israel, the people of the Old Testament covenant. We shall be the bearers of God's promises" and "Verily the Bible is our Book. It was given and assigned to us, and we read in it the original text of our destiny, which proclaims to mankind salvation or disaster according as we will it." Pastor Tobzien in My German Fatherland says, "As was Israel among the heathen, so is Germany among the modern nations — the pious heart of Europe." The Israelites, however, advanced beyond this crude, primitive conception of Yahweh, a tribal God, and their ethical prophets taught that there is only one God and He, a universal God of righteousness. The Germans still worship Odin, their tribal god of war, and to them in their egoistic hypocrisy, applies with pecuhar emphasis the admonition of the real Judaic and Christian God of love. "When ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: Your hands are full of blood." (Isaiah 1 :15.)

Dr. Preuss, the theologian, has written "The German people are the spiritual, the religious parallel of the people of Israel, they are 'the true Israel begotten of the spirit.' " And again, "It was the hidden meaning of God that He made Israel the forerunner of the Messiah, and in the same way He has, by His hidden intent, designated the German people to be His successor." What diabolical sacrilege! What insufferable national conceit and psychological viciousness! But to prove that the sentiment is general, one has only to consult the German press, clerical and state utterances and Reichstag deliberations. Francke said, "German craving for truth and German strength of faith working along Biblical paths have attained to the true faith, the pure religiousness . . . The Germans are the very nearest to the Lord and may claim that they have 'continued His Word.' "

Hauptmann, near the beginning of the war, averred that the "cultured" German soldier carried Nietzsche and the Bible in his knapsack, and Henning states that in war time the Old Testament becomes "the book for everj^ day reading." Ernst V. Lasaulx in Philosophy of History (1856) tells us "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 (Gen. 4:22-24)." Thus in the middle of the nineteenth century we see forsaken the humane, ethical and spiritual teachings of Fichte, that great and loyal German nationalist, and the sword — which he used in defense of his beloved land, but nevertheless hated — becoming deified in heu of brotherhood and the spirit of the peaceful, loving Christ, — the sublime democrat of all ages. Fichte scathingly condemned the militaristic mania of Napoleonism, with its deification of brute force and physical might, and he urged his countrymen to build a nationalism of culture upon a firm and lasting foundation of reality and spirit, with its universal truth, loyalty and world-wide humanity. Germany claims that her nationalism has been built upon the philosophical teachings of the noble Fichte, but materialistic Teutonism is diametrically opposed to the spiritual teachings of Fichte, who, in that period of national humiliation, when Berlin was occupied by the troops of Napoleon, sought to arouse his shaclded and despoiled countrymen from their despair, and "replace what they had lost in physical resources, by moral strength."

Fichte told the down-trodden and discouraged Germans that they must arise again, strong after their defeat ; and to inspire and encourage them to reconstructive action, he affirmed that it was "they on whom the future of the world depended." He also admonished his fellow countrymen to ''Seek not to conquer with bodily weapons, but stand firm and erect in spiritual dignity. Yours is the greater destiny — to found an empire of mind and reason, to destroy the dominion of rude, physical power as the ruler of the world" Napoleon sought to conquer the world, and in the reaction to such mihtaristic domination, the Germany of today was born. Fichte struggled to place the rock of spiritual understanding beneath the feet of the nation, and the Tugendhund or "League of Virtue" was formed; but brotherhood was soon restricted to one's fellow countrymen, and a German God supplanted the Universal God of Humanity.

Kuhn acknowledges the perversion of German ambitions from the more spiritual ideals of Fichte, when he says, "History has made us Germans the inheritors of the Napoleonic idea." Treitschke tells us "The Bible distinctly says that the ruler shall rule by the sword," and "A nation's military efficiency is the exact coefficient of a nation's idealism." Bernhardi makes the bold statement, deplorably true in practice but absolutely false in the idealistic sense in which it is used, that "There never was a religion which was more combative than Christianity." This may be true of the German brand of Christianity, but there are many people in the world who found their conception of Christianity on the teachings of Christ, and who worship the Universal God of Christ, the Pleavenly Father of all men, and not a tribal or national god.

Germany has abandoned Christianity for a pagan tribal god, and Odin, "the mad and raging one," has come back to his own ; Valhalla with its boastf ulness, banquets and brawls has displaced the heaven of peace and righteousness, and only German heroes, slain in physical combat, will be transported by the Valkyries to the life beyond.

Prof. Cramb in Germany and England completely changes the Christ spirit as expressed in the Beatitudes of The Sermon on the Mount, and in the New Imperative, gives to the world a definite expression of the real German spirit of barbaric militarism: — "Ye have heard how in old times it was said, 'Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth,' but I say unto you. Blessed are the valiant, for they shall make the earth their throne. And ye have heard men say, 'Blessed are the poor in spirit ;' but I say unto you. Blessed are the great in soul and free in spirit, for they shall enter into Valhalla. And ye have heard men say, 'Blessed are the peacemakers;' but I say unto you. Blessed are the warmakers, for they shall be called, if not the children of the Judaic-Christian God, the children of Odin (the ancient German god of war) who is greater than the Judaic-Christian God."

In the realm of religion. Prof. Cramb has proved as honest as Maximihan Harden in the field of politics. Harden urged his countrymen to stop lying and admit that Germany deliberately planned and willed the war, and that for them the war was one of aggression and conquest. Prof. Cramb drops the hypocrisy of claiming Christian sanction for Prussian brutality, and among German religionists he stands as solitary a figure as does Harden in the field of politics. German militarists, professors and philosophers for decades have preached the doctrine of aggressive force, but when Germany expressed this doctrine by action, they all hypocritically and completely changed their front, and under Imperial direction, urged that the war — forced upon the world by the HohenzoUern and Hapsburg dynasties — was a justifiable war of defense.

We are told by the Germans that "This war is a world ordeal arranged by God." Those who have read and compared the White, Blue, Red, Gray, Yellow and Orange books prepared by the governments of the various belligerent nations, know that Germany and Austria forced this world-war upon peace-loving peoples. If God decreed this war, then the Teutons are assuredly His chosen people, for no other people could be found in the whole world wicked enough to undertake it. A people's conception of God is an index of their culture and morality. The God of a people is a reflection of those qualities which the people value the most highly and consider the most potent. The German God, like Yahweh of Old, is an intolerant, exclusive tribal God of War, jealous and passionate, capricious and revengeful. There is truth in the bitter and ironical saying of Voltaire, "Since God created man in His own image, how often has man endeavored to render a similar service to God?" Luigi Luzzatti, protesting against the Teuton abuse of the name of God, has said, "Let us save God from such profanation! Let us leave in peace the Father of all mankind who punishes guilt and rewards virtue, and who gives no one the right to represent Him on earth and to claim for himself His omnipotence in this 'tragedy of war.' "

Pastor Lehmann in On the German God says, "The German soul is the world's soul; God and Germany belong to one another. . . . The German soul is God's soul; it shall and will rule over mankind. . . . Germany is the center of God's plans for the world," and again he says that Germans, the "ultimate purpose" of God, must defend "God against the world." Karl Engelbrecht tells us that God will help the Germans, "for He is German," and "there lurks in our people something of that Godconsciousness which inspired the Old Testament prophets."

The Kaiser, in his speech at Bremen on March 22nd, 1905, proclaimed to his people, "We are the salt of the earth." And in Protestantenhlatt (1915) we read, "If you ask me 'How shall I build up the Kingdom of God?' my answer is 'Be a good German.' . . . Seek to submerge yourself in German spirit, in German mind. Help as best you can toward our victory; help to make our fatherland grow and wax mighty."

In one of a series of pamphlets published by the professors of Berlin University, we read these words by Prof. Deissmann, "The German God is not only the theme of some of our poets and prophets, but also a historian like Max Lenz has with fiery tongue and in deep thankfulness borne witness to the revelation of the German God in our Holy War. The German, the national God! . . . This (war) is no relapse to a lower level, but a mounting up to God Himself," and again he says, "In the age of the most tremendous mobilization of physical and spiritual forces the world has ever seen, we proclaim . — no, we do not proclaim it, but it reveals itself — the Religion of Strength."

In this elective alhance with God, the Germans are purely selfish ; they are not actuated by any spirit of idealism beyond their o^n temporal benefit; Naumann, a member of the Reichstag, brazenly said that Germans "hold the alliance between Providence and our people to be a matter of necessity." It was probably for the same reason that Germany, feeling that the German God would not be powerful enough to conquer the Triple Entente, made an alliance with the god of the Turkish Mohammedans. Francke in War Sermons says, "We fight them (the Allies) for Christianity as against degeneration and barbarism. . . . God must be with us and victory ours. This is guaranteed us by the truth of our nature, which is as German as it is Christian," but Dr. Huber wrote, "We look for the most valuable aid from Pan-Islamism, from the living sense of solidarity between ail Moslems of the whole world, dependent on their common religion. . . . If all accounts be true, the whole Moslem world is flocking round the Sultan-Kalif and regards this war as a 'Holy War.' " Much that is said by Teutonic pastors of Christ could be more fittingly said of Mohammed, and what they please to term "Christianity" is a form of Islamism robbed of its spiritual nature. It is, therefore, amusing to read the following which emanated from Dr. Preuss, "The thief who expiated a sinful past by his repentance in the last hour and was outwardly subjected to the same suffering as our Lord, is the type of Turkish nation which now puts Christianity (outside of Germany) to shame."

Wilhelm Miihlon wrote in his diary under date of September 1st, 1914, "Appeals to God and praise to Him never cease. There is no despatch or bulletin in which the Kaiser does not say : 'God has helped us. May He help us further. He will help us further, the Christian's God, the German God, the God of Battles, who never deserts the righteous (German) cause." And again on November 10th, 1914, "The Turkish Government, just like the rest of us, calls loudly in its proclamations and war bulletins on God, who recognizes the justice of the Turkish cause and protects that cause. The Tm-kish Government also describes itself as the attacked and persecuted party, forced to enter the war by implacable enemies of the Turkish Empire. This hypocritical croaking on the part of accomplices in crime must be a pleasing concert for the ears of the Ruler of the world."

German nationalism is made superior to religion, and its demand upon the human soul greater than that of any other loyalty, no matter how real, humane and essentially spirtual it may be. Germany mobilizes all organized religions as well as the inherent spiritual natures of her people for her own material, nationalistic ends ; thus the innate religious sense of a people is deadened, and this atrophy of the spirit is accompanied by an arrogant egoism — the antithesis of that universal loyalty which emanates from the soul of the world. Heinrich Leo has said, "The Celtic race has always been moved by an animal instinct, while we Germans only act under the influence of a holy and sacred thought." It is interesting to note that two millenniums ago Caesar distinguished the Gaul and Celt from the German in their basic conceptions of religion, and in the influence of religion upon their hves and thought. He noticed that the Germans put no trust in unseen gods or in the learned and spiritually-minded Druids, but worshipped "those alone whom they see and by whom they are benefited — the sun, fire and the moon," — a truly Teutonic characteristic.

Valleius Paterculus (19 B. C.-31 A. D.), the Roman historian who served for eight years as Praefect of cavalry and Legatus in Germany, wrote, "The character of the Germans presents a terrible blend of ferocity and trickery ; they are a people of born liars." What a stubborn, persistent thing type is ! Nineteen centuries have rolled by since Valleius Paterculus penned his description of the Germans, yet the picture is as pertinent today in the twentieth century as it was at the dawn of the Christian era.

The "religion" of Germany has in reality thoroughly repudiated Christ and the teachings of the New Testament. But Germany calls herself a "Christian" nation, and the German Emperor a Christian ecclesiastic, the head of the Protestant United Church of Prussia ; for, while Pan-Germanism professes to find justification for its ruthless nationahsm in the Old Testament and in the ancient writings or Bible of Judaism, it cannot afford to openly and officially adopt an anti-Christ policy. The words of Christ and the teachings of the apostles are therefore perverted, profaned and mobilized in the interest of German nationalism ; Christ is pictured as the patron Saint of Germany ; and the German nation, with its cruel, pitiless heart and hands wallowing in human blood, is likened to the compassionate Christ.

Hofpradikant Stipberger has said "A hard and steep via Cruets lies before the great benefactor and magnanimous liberator of the kultur-world, the German people. Although it looks beyond the gloom of Good Friday to the dawn of Easter Morn, beyond the dark days of war to the beacons of triumph — yet the Cross still rests on its shoulders, and the Golgotha of the hardest decision still awaits it." Teutonic "pastors" seem to particularly revel in that devilish hypocrisy that likens the German nation to Christ. Francke in War Sermons has said, "As Jesus was treated, so also have the German people been treated," and Miinch goes still further and elaborates on this pernicious theme, — "Is not Germany itself transformed into a suffering Christ? We, too, have gone through our hour of trial on the

Mount of Olives when, with our Kaiser, we prayed that the cup of sufering might pass from us; and we, too, obeying the unfathomable will of God, have begun to drain it. . . . We, too, were betrayed by those to whom we had shown nothing but justice and kindness ; and around us, too, resounded in accents of hatred and envy, the cry of 'Crucify Him!' " Many people in Germany, as in other lands, undoubtedly prayed during the last week in July, 1914, that the world might be saved from the horrors of war, but they most assuredly did not pray "with our Kaiser." He and his ministers with "Ems Telegrams" were proving to the world that even Bismarck, the unscrupulous nationalist and the man of "blood and iron," who successfully willed and inaugurated the Franco-Prussian war by fraud and deliberate lies, was an amateur as compared with the present ruling power of Germany, in the production of false telegrams and forged, mutilated and fictitious official documents.

Dr. Preuss, the German theologian, says, "Our people are experiencing a repetition of the Passion of Christ," and Pastor Rump in War Devotions writes, "A Jesus-less horde, a crowd of the Godless are in the field against us. . . . May God surround us with His protection . . . since our defeat would also mean the defeat of His Son in humanity," and again, "We are fighting for the cause of Jesus within mankind." Pastor Erdmann in The Christianity of the Belligerent Nations says that "The German people, bearing forward in victory the Evangel of the Cross of Christ, is the great Christophorus in the world of nations." William Archer, commenting on this assertion, remarked that the particular injunction of the Evangel of

Christ which inspired the sinking of the Lusitania was no doubt "suffer Httle children to come unto me." And we might fittingly ask if the Zeppelins and Gothas, which bombed unprotected homes and schools and atrociously murdered seven hundred and fifty-seven innocent English children and three hundred and forty-two women, — up to the end of March, 1918 — carried forward on their diabolical flight of death the "Evangel of the Cross of Christ?"

Dr. Deissmann, Professor of New Testament Exegesis at Berlin, and a man who has obtained honorable degrees at Aberdeen, St. Andrews and Manchester, well illustrates how the subtle Pan- German poison has completely deadened the finer discriminating, rational faculties of even the most worthy Teuton citizens: — "Christianity is possessed of potent spiritual energies, since it inspires our minds, not only with patience, but also with dignified pride. 'Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake !' I quite understand Friedrich Naimiann's declaration that this text has meant much to him in these days."

As an illustration of the complete obsession of a supposedly discriminating, rational, human mind by a pernicious nationalism, we cannot do better than refer to letters wi'itten in September, 1914, by Adolf Lasson, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Berlin, in which he says, "We are morally and intellectually superior to all — without peers. It is the same with our organizations and with our institutions. . . . We are truthful, our characteristics are humanity, gentleness, conscientiousness — the virtues of Christ. In a world of wickedness we represent love, and God is with us." Pastor Lehmann in Von Deufschen Gott (1915) said, "The German nation leads in the domains of kiiltur, science, intelligence, morahty, art and religion, and in the entire domain of the inner life. . . . The world shall ... be healed by the German spirit. . . . Germany is the leader in the entire domain of intellect, character and soul. . . . This war is a war of envy and jealousy of Germany's leadership. It is a fight of hounds against a noble quarry." Dr. Paul Conrad, Pastor of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in Berlin, in Stark in dem Herrn (1915), said, "We Germans feel ourselves to be the bearers of a superior kultur. We have no doubt that a defeat of our people would retard, by many centuries, the development of mankind. On the other hand, we hope, by the victory of our arms, to bring about a new efflorescence of humanity through the German nature, which will prove itself fruitful of blessings to other peoples." The same general thought is taught in German schools and universities, by the "authoritative" press, and is preached from the pulpits. Pastor Francke merely expressed the prevailing Teutonic sentiment decreed by the Prussian dynasty when he said, "Germany is precisely the representative of the highest morality, of the purest humanity, of the most chastened Christianity." Such egoism could only consort with wickedness.

The Germans calling themselves, in their colossal self-glorification, "Children of the future," have gravitated back to a morahty below that of the Stone Age, and made their warfare of lust the more hideous through the devices of modern science. Goethe (1749-1832) wrote, "Germans are of yesterday — a few centuries must still elapse before it will be said of them 'It is long since they were barbarians.' National hatred is a peculiar thing, you will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture," and again, "The Prussians are cruel by nature; civilization will make them ferocious." Schiller, the cosmopolitan Professor of History at Jena, is another of those "damned literary fellows" who in their day were denounced by the Hohenzollerns and their subsidized Intellectuals. In 1789, he said that a man who wi'ote exclusively for one people or one nation — as demanded by the dynasty — had a low aim and was unworthy of his calling. "A philosophic spirit cannot tolerate such limits, cannot bound its views to a form of nature so arbitrary, so fluctuating and so accidental." Schopenhauer, one of the greatest of German philosophers, and one who refused to sell his soul to the Prussian dynastic interests, said, just before he died in 1860, "In anticipation of death, I make this confession, that I despise the German nation on account of its infinite stupidity, and that I blush to belong to it." Ignorance and vice, stupidity and crime generally go together, and Prussian "sabre rattlers" are no exception to the rule.

Among the first recorded words of Nietzsche (1844-1900) are those uttered in his Bale lectures in 1873, in criticism of German educational institutions. He asked if education, the great civilizing force in the world, was to be the servant of humanity or merely a German-state instrument? It should be the former, but he affirmed that it was the latter, for the Prusso-German system compelled it "to renounce its highest and most independent claims in order to subordinate itself to the service of the state." Nietzsche compared the dissemination of hultur under the Prussianized and Bismarckian German-state to a reeling, torch-lit and self-absorbed procession of worshippers, intoxicated by the mysteries of some pagan cult. "The state assumes the attitude of a mystagogue of kultur, and, while it promotes its own ends, it obliges every one of its servants not to appear in its presence without the torch of universal state education in his hands, by the flickering light of which he may recognize the state as the highest goal, as the reward of all his striving after education;" and again, "This purpose of state is at war with the real German spirit and the education derived therefrom . . . with that spirit which speaks to us so wondrously from the inner heart of the German reformation, German music and German philosophy, and which, like a noble exile, is regarded with such indifference and scorn by the much-vaunted education afforded by the state."