The Pan-German Programme / The Petition of the Six Associations and the Manifesto of the Intellectuals

THE PAN-GERMAN PROGRAMME
THE PETITION OF THE SIX ASSOCIATIONS AND THE MANIFESTO OF THE INTELLECTUALS
Translated from the German
With an Introduction by
EDWYN BEVAN
LONDON: GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. 1 1918
THE PAN-GERMAN PROGRAMME.
INTRODUCTORY.
The two documents presented in this pamphlet are the fullest statement of the programme of the Pan-German party in Germany. They were both drawn up in the earlier months of 1915. After the series of rapid German successes in the West, with which the war opened, had seemed to come to a check, and month after month went by without the expected advance on Paris being resumed, it was felt to be necessary that the German people should get some more precise idea of what it was fighting for, what it had to obtain before it could consider that the war had attained its end.
In March, 1915, the rumour got about that the German Government was contemplating a peace of compromise, and Pan-German circles took alarm. Pan-Germanism was not strong in the working class and many of the Radical Intellectuals disapproved of it. But it was very strong among the country landowners, i.e. the class called Junkers , and the rich manufacturers, especially the great ironmasters of the Rhenish-Westphalian country, who wanted to get hold of the French iron-districts of Briey and Longwy. These interests were organised in a number of powerful Associations.
If there was danger of the Government under Bethmann Hollweg's direction weakening, it appeared necessary that pressure should be brought to bear upon it in time. Five Associations in March drew up a Memorandum to be presented privately to the Chancellor. They were afterwards joined by a sixth, and the Memorandum in its final form was laid before the Chancellor on May 20, 1915. This is the first of the two documents here translated.
The second is the so-called Manifesto of the Intellectuals. It was read on June 20, 1915, to a great gathering of professors, diplomats, and high Government officials in the Artists' Hall ( Künstlerhaus ) in Berlin. It was not published, but circulated as a strictly confidential manuscript, and was submitted to the Chancellor on July 8. When 1341 signatures had been appended to it the Government stepped in and forbade further canvassing. It is therefore claimed that the 1341 do not represent the amount of the support which the manifesto would have got in the country had it been allowed free course.