Germany In Peril

G E R IN PERIL A Study by ERICH MEISSNER CONTENTS CHAP. TAIJE L THE THESIS OF THIS BOOK II. THE-ORIGINS OF PRUSSIA AND THE PRUSSJAN, - SYSTEM 12 III. FREDERICK THE GREAT AND THE PRUSSIA LEGEND. 21 IV. PRUSSIA IN NAPOLEONIC TIMES THE STAGE OF HOPE 28 V. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION .... 39 VI. THE BISMARCK REICH 1871-1918 ... 52 . VII. AUSTRIA 70 VIII. POST-WAR GERMANY THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC . 79 IX. THE HITLER MOVEMENT . . . . .88 X. OPEN REBELLION AGAINST TRADITION THE PHILOSO PHY OF NIHILISM . . . . .106 INDEX OF NAMES . 119 THE THESIS OF THIS BOOK THE exaggerations and misstatements of war propaganda have one very serious effect. Peace comes one day the guns cease to fire and the busy mills of propaganda cease to grind. The abusive political pamphlets are laid aside and forgotten but the element of truth which they often contain is also forgotten and discarded. This I consider dangerous. No book should be pub lished in wartime about an acute political problem unless the author would like to see it reprinted after the conflict has come to an end. This general consideration has been the principle that I have tried to follow. The problehi of Germany that has puzzled so many minds is the subject of this book. This problem is not an abyss of psycho logical intricacies we are not called upon to probe the depths of an entirely alien mind that worships Gods as strange as Mexican idols. We must of course admit that strange Gods are worshipped in Germany to-day. But the men and wornen who are kneeling in front of new altars are very much like the people whom you meet anywhere else and the question arises How was this possible Why did these people yield to strange new standards The lazy minded answerAll this is perfectly simple, the Germans are like that 7 is, I consider, no answer at all, for it makes real under standing impossible. It tries to shift the whole problem on to psychological ground, for once this trick has been performed and the problem is stated and accepted as an entirely psychological one, only small efforts are needed to finish it off, like the bad hunter who clubs a sitting bird. All attempts to explain the German problem psychologically can be safely disregarded. It matters little whether they are journalistic or scholarly the starting-point is wrong. They fail to realize the fellowship of European nations which is more than an ideSil it is a fact and remains a fact whether recognized or riot. For the nations of Europe are not only the makers of our common civilization, they are its creatures as well hence their fellowship. The thesis that the Germans do not really belong to this civilization, that it is all veneer with them, deserves no serious answer ignorance alone can excuse such statements. Our sus picions and misgivings should be extended to another category of books the collections of German self-criticisms and self-7 GERMANY IN PERIL condemnations. These anthologies always contain the same gems, differently arranged. But none of the great Germans whose occasional bitter remarks about his own nation have thus been laboriously collected would ever have presented such criticisms as his well-considered verdict. Schopenhauers wounded vanity, Nietzsches solitary despair, Holderlins juvenile melancholy these are all passing moods leading to no more than angry remarks expressing the irritation of the moment. No great German has ever denounced his own parentage.Great men obey the fifth commandment, if not from conviction, then by instinct. The German problem is an historical problem. It is a story that has to be told. The story is by no means simple, for a subtle, slow-working process of disintegration has to be revealed, cover ing, roughly speaking, two hundred years and passing through many different stages. The thesis of this book will meet with contradiction and criticisms from ir ny quarters...