German Culture Past and Present
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Ernest Belfort Bax >> German Culture Past and Present
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That the above is an over-coloured statement as regards the importance
of Germany for wellnigh a century and a half past in the history of
human culture, in the sense of intellectual progress in its widest
meaning, I venture to think that no one competent to judge will
allege. Is then, it may be asked, the railing of public opinion and
the Press of Great Britain and other countries outside Germany and
Austria, against the Germany of the present day, and the jeers at the
term "German culture" wholly unjustified and the result of national or
anti-German prejudice? That there has been much foolish vituperative
abuse of the whole German nation and of everything German
indiscriminately in the Press of this and some other countries is
undoubtedly true. But, however, our acknowledgment of this fact will
not justify us in refusing to recognize the truth which finds
expression in what very often looks like mere foolish vilification.
The truth in question will be apparent on a consideration of the
change that has come over the German people and German culture since
the war of 1870 and the foundation of the modern German Empire. The
material and economic side of this change has been already indicated
in a short summary in the quotation which closes the last chapter. But
these changes, or advances if you will, on the material side, have
been accompanied by a moral and material degeneration which has been
only very partially counteracted at present by a movement which,
though initiated before the period named, has only attained its great
development, and hence influenced the national character, since the
date in question.
It is a striking fact that in the last forty-four years--the period of
the new German Empire--there has been a dearth of originality in all
directions. In the earlier part of the period in question the
survivors from the pre-Imperial time continued their work in their
several departments, but no new men of the same rank as themselves
have arisen, either alongside of them or later to take their places.
The one or two that might be adduced as partial exceptions to what has
been above said only prove the rule. We have had, it is true, a
multitude of men, more or less clever _epigoni_, but little else.
Again, it is, I think, impossible to deny that a mechanical hardness
and brutality have come over the national character which entirely
belie its former traits. It is a matter of common observation that in
the last generation the German middle class has become noticeably
coarsened, vulgarized, and blatant.
Again, although I am very far from wishing to attribute the crimes and
horrors committed by the German army during the present war to the
whole German nation, or even to the _rank and file_ of those composing
the army, yet there is no doubt that some blame must be apportioned at
least to the latter. The contrast is striking between the conduct of
the German troops during the present war and that of 1870, when they
could declare that they were out "to fight French soldiers and not
French citizens." Such were the military ethics of bygone generations
of German soldiers. They certainly do not apply to the German army of
to-day. The popularity of such writers as Von Treitschke and
Bernhardi, respecting which so much has been written, is indeed
significant of a vast change in German moral conceptions. The
practical influence of Nietzsche, who--with his corybantic whirl of
criticism on all things in heaven above and on the earth beneath, a
criticism not always coherent with itself--can hardly be termed a
German Chauvinist in any intelligible sense, has, I think, been much
exaggerated. The importance of his theories, considered as an
ingredient in modern German Chauvinism, is not so considerable, I
should imagine, as is sometimes thought.
We come now to the movement already alluded to as a set-off and,
within certain boundaries at least, a counteractive of the degeneracy
exhibited in the German character since the foundation of the present
Imperial system. The rise and rapid growth of the Social Democratic
movement is perhaps the most striking fact in the recent history of
Germany. The same may be said, of course, of the growth of Socialism
everywhere during the same period. But in Germany it has for a
generation past, or even more, occupied an exceptional position, alike
as regards the rapidity of its increase, its direct influence on the
masses, and its party organization. Modern Socialism, as a party
doctrine, is, moreover, a product of the best period of
nineteenth-century German thought and literature. Its three great
theoretical protagonists, Marx, Engels, and their younger
contemporary, Lassalle, all issued from the great Hegelian movement of
the first half of the nineteenth century. Their propagandist
activity, literary and otherwise, was in the German language. The
analysis of the present capitalist system, forming the foundation of
the demand for the communization of the means of production,
distribution, and exchange, as resulting in a _human_ society as
opposed to a _class_ society, and ultimately in the extinction of
national barriers in a world-federation of socialized humanity--these
principles were first appreciated, as a world-ideal, by the
proletariat of Germany, and they have unquestionably raised that
proletariat to an intellectual rank as yet equalled by no other
working-class in the world.
It must be admitted, however, that with the colossal growth of the
Social Democratic party in Germany in numbers and the introduction
into it of elements from various quarters, a certain deterioration,
one may hope and believe only temporary, has become apparent in its
quality. This applies, at least, to certain sections of the party. A
sordid practicalism has made itself felt, due to a feverish desire to
play an important role in the detail of current politics. Personal
ambition and the mechanical working of the party system have also had
their evil influence in the movement in recent years. Nevertheless, we
have reason to believe that the core of the party is as sound and as
true to principle as ever it was, and that on the restoration of
international peace this will be seen to be the case. What interests
us, however, specially, at the moment of writing, is the lamentable,
yet undeniable, fact that German Social Democracy has, on this
occasion, disastrously failed to prevent the outbreak of war,
notwithstanding the vigour of its efforts to do so during the last
week of July; and still more that it has failed up to date to stem the
rising flood of militarism and jingoism in the German people. That
before many months are over the scales will fall from the eyes of the
masses of Germany I am convinced, and not less that a revolutionary
movement in Germany will be one of the signs that will herald the dawn
of a better day for Germany and for Europe. But meanwhile we must hold
our countenances in patience.
If we inquire the cause of the degeneracy we have been considering in
the German character since the war of 1870 and the creation of the new
empire--apart from those economic causes of change common to all
countries in modern civilization--the answer of those who have
followed the history of the period can hardly fail to be--Bismarck and
Prussia. We have already seen in the short historical sketch given in
the last chapter how the robber hand of Prussia, in violation of all
national treaty rights, had gradually succeeded in annexing wellnigh
all the neighbouring German territories. But, notwithstanding this,
the greater part of Germany still remained outside the Prussian
monarchy. The policy of Bismarck was first of all to cripple the rival
claimant for the hegemony of Central Europe, Austria. Her complete
subjugation being unfeasible, she had to be shut up rigorously to her
immediate dominions on the eastern side of Central Europe, in order to
leave the path clear for Bismarck, by war or subterfuge, to absorb,
under a system of nominally vassal States, the whole of the rest of
Germany into the system of the Prussian monarchy.
Now, as we know, from its very foundation the Hohenzollern-Prussian
monarchy has always been a more or less veiled despotism, based on
working through a military and bureaucratic oligarchy. The army has
been the dominant factor of the Prussian State from the beginning of
the eighteenth century onwards. Prussia has been from the beginning of
its monarchy the land of the drill-sergeant and the barracks. It is
this system which the Junker Bismarck has riveted on the whole German
people, with what results we now see. Badenese, Wuertembergers,
Franconians, Hanoverians, the citizens of the former free cities no
less than the already absorbed Westphalians, Thuringians, Silesians,
Mecklenburgers, were speedily all reduced to being the slaves of the
Prussian military system and of the Prussian military caste. The naive
German peoples, as already pointed out, accepted this Prussian
domination as the realization of their time-honoured patriotic ideal
of German unity.
The fact of their subservience was emphasized in every way. The law of
_lese-majeste_ (_majestaetsbeleidigung_), by which all criticism of the
despotic head of the State or his actions is made a heinous criminal
offence, to which severe penalties are attached, it is not too much to
say is a law which brands the ruler who accepts it as a coward and a
cur, and the Legislature which passes it as a house, not of
representative citizens, or even subjects for that matter, but of
representative _slaves_. It must not be forgotten that the law in
question strikes not only at public expressions of opinion in the
press or on the platform, but at the most private criticism made in
the presence of a friend in one's own room. The depths of undignified
and craven meanness to which a monarch is reduced by being thus
protected from criticism by the police-truncheon and the gaoler struck
me especially as illustrated by the following incident which happened
some years ago: Shortly after the accession of the present Kaiser, a
conjurer was giving his entertainment in a Swiss town. For one of the
tricks he was going to exhibit he had occasion to ask the audience to
send him up the names of a few public men on folded pieces of paper.
His reception of the names written down was accompanied by the
"patter" proper to his profession. On coming to the name of Kaiser
Wilhelm II he ventured the remark, "Ah! I'd rather it had been the
poor man just dead" (meaning the Emperor Frederick), "for I'm afraid
this one's not much good." Will it be believed that the whole
diplomatic machinery was set on foot to induce the Swiss Government to
prosecute the unfortunate entertainer, abortively of course, since it
could not have been legally done? Surely the head of a State who could
allow his Government to descend to such contemptible pettiness must be
devoid of all sense of common self-respect, not to say personal
dignity. And this is the fellow who claims to be hardly second in
importance to his "dear old God"! In this connection it is only fair
to recall the very different behaviour of King Edward VII when an
Irish paper published not a mere criticism but an unquestionably
libellous article reflecting on his private character. The police
seized the copies of the paper and were prepared to take steps to
prosecute, when the late King interfered and stopped even the
confiscation of the paper. The least monarchical of us must, I think,
admit that here we have a good illustration of the distinction between
a man sure of his reputation and a cur nervously alarmed for his.
This severe law of _lese-majeste_ in Bismarck's Prusso-German Empire
is only an illustration of the way in which the German people have
been made to grovel before the Prussian jack-boot. The Prussification
of Germany in matters military and in matters bureaucratic has gone on
apace since 1870. Prussia, it is not too much to say, has hitherto
consisted in a nation of slaves and tyrants and nothing else. It is
the Prussian governing class which has everywhere and in all
departments "set the pace" since the empire was established. No man
known to hold opinions divergent from those agreeable to the interests
of the Prussian governing class can hope for employment, be it the
most humble, in any department of the public service. This is
particularly noticeable in its effects in the matter of education. The
inculcation of the brutal and blatant jingoism of Von Treitschke at
the universities by professors eager for approval in high places has
already been sufficiently animadverted upon in more than one work on
modern Germany. The defeat of Prusso-German militarism will be an
even greater gain to all that is best in Germany herself than it will
be to Europe as a whole.
_Delenda est Prussia_, understanding thereby not, of course, the
inhabitants of Prussian territory as such, but Prussia as a
State-system and as an independent Power in Europe, must be the
watchword in the present crisis of every well-wisher of Humanity,
Germany included. A united Germany, if that be insisted upon, by all
means let there be--a federation of all the German peoples with its
capital, for that matter, as of old, at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, but
with no dominant State and, if possible, excluding Prussia altogether,
but certainly as constituted at present. Who knows but that a united
States of Germany may then prove the first step towards a united
States of Europe?
But it is not alone to the political reconstruction of Germany or of
Europe that those who take an optimistic view of the issue of the
present European war look hopefully. The whole economic system of
modern capitalism will have received a shock from which the beginnings
of vast changes may date. Apart from this, however, the avowed aim of
the war, the destruction of Prussian militarism and, indirectly, the
weakening of military power throughout the world, should have
immediate and important consequences. The brutalities and crimes
committed in Belgium and the North of France at the instigation of the
military heads of this Prusso-German army do but indicate
exaggerations of the military spirit and attitude generally. Von
Hindenburg is not the first who has given utterance to the devilish
excuse for military crime and brutality that it is "more humane in the
end, since it shortens war." To refute this transparent fallacy is
scarcely necessary, since every historical student knows that military
excesses and inhumanity do not shorten but prolong war by raising
indignation and inflaming passions. The longest connected war known to
history--the Thirty Years' War--is generally acknowledged to have been
signalized by the greatest and most continuous inhumanity of any on
record. But whether military crime has the effect claimed for it or
not, we may fain hope that public opinion in Europe will insist upon
giving the "humane" commanders who "mercifully" endeavour to "shorten"
war by drastic methods of this sort a severe lesson. A few such
treated to the utmost penalties the ordinary criminal law prescribes
to the crimes of arson, murder, and robbery would teach them and their
like that war, if waged at all nowadays, must be waged decently and
not "shortened" by such devices as those in question.
If the present war with all its horrible carnage issues, even if only
in the beginning of those changes which some of us believe must
necessarily result from it--changes economical, political, and
moral--then indeed it will not have been waged in vain. With the great
intellectual powers of the Germanic people devoted, not to the
organization of military power and of national domination, but to
furthering the realization of a higher human society; with the
determination on the part of the best elements among every European
people to work together internationally with each other, and not least
with the new Germany, to this end, and the great European war of 1914
will be looked back upon by future generations as the greatest
world-historic example of the proverbial evil out of which good, and a
lasting and inestimable good, has come for Europe and the world.
UNWIN BROTHERS LIMITED THE GRESHAM PRESS WOKING AND LONDON.
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