I.
THE POLES IN THE EAST OF GERMANY.
It might be supposed that the expression Pangermanism embodies the theory in virtue of which the Germans claim to annex only the regions inhabited by dense masses of Germans, on the borders of the Empire, which, after all, would be in accordance with the principle of nationalities.
But Pangermanism has by no means such a restricted and legitimate aim. Again, it might be thought that its object was to gather within the same political fold the peoples who are more or less Germanic by origin. Such a claim would of itself be quite inadmissible. But Pangermanism is more than that. It is really the doctrine, of purely Prussian origin, which aims at annexing all the various regions, irrespective of race or language, of which the possession is deemed useful to the power of the Hohenzollerns.
THE DANES IN PRUSSIA.
It was in the name of Pangermanism, a theory bred of cupidity and wanton greed, that Prussia charged the Parliament of Frankfort to claim as German lands the Eastern Provinces, where in reality the Slavs predominate to such an extent, that they still contain a population of about four million Poles.
It was in the name of Pangermanism that in 1864 Prussia seized that part of Schleswig which was entirely Danish.
THE GERMANS AND THE NON-GERMANS IN AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.
It is in the name of Pangermanism that Austria-Hungary has been for long the object of German covetousness, although the Germans in that country are in a very small minority. Statistics show 12 millions of Germans against 38 millions of non-Germans, and that must be above the mark, for we have to remember that German statistics systematically exaggerate the number of Germans dwelling in the Hapsburg Monarchy.
Already in 1859 the Augsburg Gazette avowed the object of Germany’s designs on Austria with absolute cynicism:
“We loudly declare that if Austria[1] were not a member of the Confederation; if it were not Austria who happened to be the legitimate owner of these non-German regions, it would be the duty of the German nation to conquer them at all costs, because they are absolutely necessary for her development and for her position as a great power.”
The future Marshal von Moltke, also inspired by Pangermanism, had written, as far back as 1844: “We hope that Austria will uphold the rights and protect the future of the Danube lands, and that Germany will finally succeed in keeping open the mouth of her great rivers” (see V. Moltke Schriften, t. II., p. 313).
The author of a pamphlet published in 1895, i.e. exactly twenty-one years ago, inspired by this doctrine of fraud and protected by the Alldeutscher Verband, the most powerful Pangerman Society, after expounding the main plan of future annexations, concludes with simple effrontery thus:
No doubt the newly-constituted Empires will not be peopled merely by Germans, but: “Germans alone will govern; they alone will exercise political rights; they alone will serve in the Army and in the Navy; they alone will have the right to become landowners; thus they will acquire the conviction that, as in the Middle Ages, the Germans are a people of rulers. However, they will condescend so far as to delegate inferior tasks to foreign subjects subservient to Germany” (see Grossdeutschland und Mitteleuropa um das Jahr 1950, published by Thormann und Goetsch, Berlin, p. 48).
Identity of race and language served for a long time to justify Pangermanism; but the facts we have shown and the explicit declarations we have quoted prove clearly that race and language were merely a pretext for the diffusion of the Pangerman doctrine inspired by Prussia. If we dissect this doctrine we find it is composed of cupidity both political and economic. The truth is that Pangermanism is a scheme of piracy to be carried on for the benefit of the Prussian monarchy. Its object is, by successive and indefinite expansions of territory to include within the same boundaries, at first economic but afterwards political, such lands and such peoples as are likely to prove a profitable possession to the Hohenzollerns themselves and to their main support, the German aristocracy.
To sum up, Pangermanism is a doctrine of international burglary, and therefore it is exactly the reverse of the principle of nationality, that noble idea ushered into the world by the French Revolution.