German Problems and Personalities

by Charles Sarolea

X.—Treitschke’s Hatred of the Jews.

No nation inspires Treitschke with a more instinctive repulsion than the Jews. He may be called the father of scientific and pedantic anti-Semitism. In other nations anti-Semitism was only an instinctive and irrational popular feeling. In Treitschke anti-Semitism becomes a systematic doctrine. It becomes part of a political creed. Treitschke hates the Jews because they are unwarlike, because they are absorbed in material interests, because they are Atheists. He abhors the Gospel according to Saint Marx. He denounces the cynicism of Heine. He dreads the influence of the Jewish Press. But, above all, he hates the Jews because they are denationalized, because they have no stake in the prosperity and greatness of the national State. The Jews are wanderers without a settled existence, without allegiance and loyalty except to their own race. The dual political life which the Jews are leading as members of the Jewish nation and as parasites of other national States to which they have temporarily migrated is a permanent menace to a healthy national German life. Everywhere the Jews are revolutionists, anarchists, Atheists. All the leaders of the German Social Democracy—Lassalle, Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Bernstein—are Hebrews. It is the imperative duty of all Prussian patriots to guard the people against the Jewish danger, against Jewish journalism, Jewish finance, Jewish materialism, Jewish socialism, and Jewish internationalism.

XI.—The Theory of the National State.

Let us revert to the starting-point of Treitschke’s politics, which is the theory of the national State. Only in the national State can the individual realize the higher moral and political life. The State is not part of a larger whole. It is in itself a self-contained whole. It is not a means to an end; it is an end in itself. It is not a relative conception; it is an absolute. The French people may fight for humanity. A St. Louis may be inspired with the crusading spirit. Treitschke has no sympathy for such quixotism. The national State must be selfish. To be unselfish is the mortal sin of politics. Humanity, sentimentalism, have no place in politics. Frederick William IV., the one sentimental King in the whole history of the Hohenzollern Dynasty, once rendered an unselfish service to his neighbours. A Prussian army saved the Saxon monarchy from revolution and then withdrew. Treitschke has no words strong enough to condemn this solitary instance of a disinterested Prussian policy.

The national State is alone invested with the attributes of sovereignty. There is nothing above it. National rights must be final. The national State may for the time being limit its absolute sovereignty by international agreements, but any such agreements are only conditional and temporary—rebus sic stantibus. No national State can make international agreements which are binding for the future. The time must always come when the scrap of paper has to be torn asunder. It is true that the national State is indirectly playing its part in the moral education of humanity, but it will best serve humanity by only thinking of itself.

XII.—The Heresy of Individualism.

There are many heresies which threaten the orthodox religion of the national State. The first and the most dangerous is the heresy of individualism. A school of modern theorists, William von Humboldt and John Stuart Mill, have asserted the rights of the individual apart from and above the rights of the State. They reserve for the individual a sphere where the State may not encroach. According to Mill, the political life is only a part and the minor part of his social activities. His higher activities are spent in the service of the Church, in the service of Art and Science.

Treitschke has fought this heresy of individualism in all his writings. The interest of the individual cannot be opposed to the interest of the State. The individual can only realize himself, he can only realize the higher life, in and through the State. It is the State which sets free the spiritual forces of the individual by securing for him security, prosperity, and economic independence.

XIII.—The Heresy of Internationalism.

The second deadly heresy which threatens the dogma of the national State is the heresy of internationalism. It takes the form either of the black internationalism of the Catholic Church or the red internationalism of Social Democracy. Treitschke has fought Roman Catholicism and its champions, the Jesuits, with relentless hate. Through all his writings there sounds the watchword of Voltaire, the spiritual adviser of Frederick the Great, “Écrasez l’infâme,” and the battle-cry of Gambetta, “Le clericalisme, voilà l’ennemi.” Nor is he less bitter against the Socialists. Bismarck and the Kaiser opposed the encroachments of the Social Democracy in a succession of anti-Socialist repressive measures. Treitschke may have disapproved of some of the Sozialisten Gesetze because they defeated their purpose. But he shares the Kaiser’s hatred against those irreconcilable enemies of Prussian greatness. The Social Democratic theories of the Jews—Lassalle, Marx, and Bernstein—are one of the most deadly poisons that imperil the constitution of the German body politic.

Events have shown how little even Treitschke realized the strength of the Prussian State and the fanaticism of German nationalism. We know how little his dread of the black International of Catholicism and the red International of Socialism has been justified by the servile attitude of all the Opposition parties, and how, when the crisis came, both Catholics and Socialists proved as Prussian as the Junkers of Pomerania.

XIV.—The Heresy of Imperialism.

If it be true that the citizen can only realize himself through the national State, if the whole course of human history is essentially a conflict of national States, and if the rich variety of civilization is made up of the rivalry of those national States, it logically follows that the expansion of any national State into a world empire must necessarily be baneful. The State must, no doubt, expand, but there is a limit to that expansion. The State must not incorporate any alien races which it cannot assimilate. When the State is unable to absorb heterogeneous elements and grows into a world empire, it becomes a danger both to itself and to humanity.

Civilization has been threatened in the past by such monstrous conglomerates of heterogeneous nations. It has been threatened by the Spanish tyranny of Charles V. and the French tyranny of Louis XIV. and Napoleon. It is still threatened to-day by a similar danger. Two national States, Great Britain and Russia, have again grown into world empires. If their ambitions were to succeed, if the greater part of the civilized world were to become either Anglo-Saxon or Russian, there would be an end to the diversity and the liberty of modern civilization. Only the good sword of Prussia and Germany can save humanity from that Anglo-Saxon and Slav peril.

XV.—The Dogma of the “Will to Power.”

But the fact that there is danger in the unlimited expansion of the national State ought not to prevent us from recognizing that irresistible tendency to expansion. The “will to power” is the essence of the State. “The State is power” (Der Staat ist Macht) must ever be the first axiom of political science. Muddled political thinkers, who confuse the spiritual with the temporal activities of man, may hold that the end of the State is social justice, or the diffusion of light, or the propagation of religion, or the advancement of humanity. But the cause of justice, the spread of education, will best be furthered if the State is strong. Only the strong can be just, partial, and enlightened. The sole criterion of political values is strength. It is the supreme merit of Machiavelli that he has been the first to emphasize this cardinal truth. The mortal sin of a State is to be weak. Only the strong man, only a Bismarck, a Richelieu, a Cavour, is a true statesman.

And that strength of the State which is its chief attribute must not be dispersed; that political power must neither be divided nor alienated. Many writers on politics still echo the absurd theory of Montesquieu on the division of the executive, legislative, and the judiciary. Treitschke, following Rousseau, lays down the axiom that the power of the State is indivisible and inalienable.

XVI.—The End justifies the Means.

If the one virtue of the State is to be strong and to assert its strength, it follows that the ethics of the State cannot be the ethics of the individual. The ruler of the State is not the head of a monastery or the president of an academy of fine arts. The end must justify the means, and any means may be employed which will add to the strength of the State. It is the glory of Frederick the Great that he has always had the moral courage of brushing away conventions and scruples to achieve his object, and that he has always had the political insight and wisdom of adjusting the means to the end.

XVII.—War as the Vital Principle of Political Life.

Prussia is not, like France, the result of a thousand years of natural growth. It has no definite natural boundaries. The Prussian State is an artificial creation. It has grown and expanded through conquest. It is the Order of the Teutonic Knights, it is the warrior dynasty of the Hohenzollern, who have built up Prussian power. That purely military growth of the Prussian State is made by Treitschke into a universal rule of all political growth. According to him war always was and will remain the master-builder of national life. Other thinkers, like Joseph de Maistre, have glorified war in the name of theology. Treitschke extols it in the name of politics. War not only makes a State: it makes the citizen. The heroic virtues are warlike virtues; they are the outcome of military institutions. It is not war but peace which is the evil. Woe to the nation which allows itself to be deceived by the sentiment and cowardice of pacifists.

XVIII.—The Monarchy as the Ideal Form of Government.

War is the essential activity of the State. But in order to be strong in war, unity and concentration are essential; they are the conditions of victory. That unity may, no doubt, be achieved under any form of government. It may be achieved under a republic, as it was during the wars of the French Revolution. It may be achieved under an aristocracy, as in the case of Great Britain, which is a monarchy only in name, which, in reality, is a Parliamentary oligarchy, and which is always waging some guerilla in some outlying post of empire. But the fact remains that unity can be best achieved under a monarchic form of government, which concentrates all powers into the hands of the responsible monarch. That is why monarchy is the best form of government.

XIX.—The Aristocracy as the Mainstay of the Monarchic State.

A loyal military aristocracy like the Junkers is the mainstay of a national monarchy. An aristocratic constitution of the State is in conformity with the nature of things. Not only all military activities but all social and economic life depends on the distinction of classes, on the existence of different grades corresponding to a difference in natural endowment, in social service. The equality of man not only is an unattainable ideal, it is also an undesirable and a mischievous ideal. Suppress inequality and distinctions and honours and you suppress the main stimulus of human endeavour; you suppress that rich differentiation of social life, that generous rivalry, that noble ambition, which are the conditions of all intensive human activity.

XX.—The French Revolutionary Dogma of Equality.

The greatest danger, therefore, to the monarchic and aristocratic constitution of the State arises from the insidious advance of the French revolutionary dogma of equality. The spirit of envy is undermining the social hierarchy in every country. That mean spirit of democratic envy is as old as the democratic institution itself. Ostracism in the nobler elements of the community is as characteristic of the Greek democracy as of the French. All democracies have resented that Aristides should be called the “Just.” So far it is only the Prussian State which has escaped from the poisonous doctrine of Rousseau. But even in Prussia the progress of the Gospel according to Saint Marx is a disquieting symptom. To defend the prerogatives of the Junkers against the assaults of the Social Democracy must therefore be one of the main political concerns of a patriotic Prussian.

XXI.—The Plea for Protestantism.

It may be said that Protestantism is so closely identified with modern German history that it may almost be considered as the Germanic form of Christianity. Certainly Prussia is an essentially Protestant State. From the beginning it has grown from the secularization of Church property, when a Hohenzollern Grand Master, following the advice of Luther, took the bold step of confiscating the demesnes of the Teutonic Order. But it is not only Prussia that has grown and prospered through Protestantism. The Protestant form of Christianity in whatever form is essential to the very existence of the modern State. For no State can exist unless the spiritual power be subordinated to the temporal power. The Protestant Church must needs accept that subordination because Protestantism must necessarily result in a diversity of rival and powerless sects, and therefore, if it be true that Protestantism is necessary for the State, the State is even more necessary to Protestantism. The old dictum, Cujus regio, illius religio, holds good of Prussia. The spiritual allegiance follows the temporal allegiance. The State alone can secure for those different Churches that peace and toleration without which religious war becomes a chronic evil. Toleration and the peaceful coexistence of many Churches under the protection of the State have been for centuries the boast and glory of the Prussian State.

Catholicism does not accept that necessary subordination. The German State of the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire of the Hohenstaufen, perished because of the conflict with the Papacy. The modern Teutonic State, the Holy German Empire of the Habsburg, has equally perished through clericalism. Catholicism is an international power, and the State must be national. Catholicism is encroaching and threatening the national State, and the State must remain independent and supreme; therefore Catholicism, ultramontanism, clericalism, are absolutely incompatible with the modern State.

XXII.—The Necessity of Great Powers.

Inasmuch as power is the main attribute of the State, it follows that only those States which are sufficiently strong in population, in territory, and in financial resources, have a right to exist. There is a definite limit below which a State cannot fulfil its mission nor defend its existence. We must not be deceived by the example of such States as Athens, Venice, Holland, and Florence, which, although apparently small in territory, yet played an important part in political history. Those States were only small in outward appearance; in reality they were either the centres of a vast political system, like Athens and Florence, or the centres of a vast colonial empire, like Venice and Holland. Moreover, in modern times, the whole relations and proportions of States have undergone a fundamental change. Everything is on a larger scale, and there is an almost general tendency in modern times for all national States to expand and to absorb into themselves the smaller neighbouring States. It may almost be said that modern history is made up mainly of the conflicts between five or six leading States. Contemporary Europe had resulted in the unstable equilibrium of the five dominant Powers of Britain, Russia, Austria, France, and Germany. Europe has almost consolidated into a pentarchy.

XXIII.—The Anomaly of the Small State.

If it be true that the national State almost inevitably must develop into a great Power, conversely it is no less true that small States are an anomaly. Treitschke never ceased to rail at the monstrosity of petty States, at what he calls, with supreme contempt, the “Kleinstaaterei.” Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, are not really States. They are only artificial and temporary structures. Holland will one day be merged into the German Empire and recover its pristine glory.

The smallness of the State produces a corresponding meanness of spirit, a narrowness of outlook. Small States are entirely absorbed by their petty economic interests and party dissensions. They only exist as the parasites of the larger States, who ensure their prosperity and security and bear all the brunt of maintaining law and order in Europe.

But worse even than the small States is the neutral State. A neutral State in political life is as much a monstrosity as a neutral sexless animal in the natural world. A State like Belgium is only the parasite of the larger neighbouring States. Treitschke never mentions Belgium without an outburst of contempt. The country of Memlinck and van Eyck, of Rubens and van Dyck, the country whose people in the present war have borne the first onslaught of all the Teutonic hosts, are never mentioned by Treitschke except with a sneer.

In no other part of his political system does Treitschke show more sublime disregard of all those political facts which do not fit in with his theories. No other part more conclusively proves how the tyrannical dogma of Prussian nationalism can blind even a profound and clear-sighted thinker to the most vital historical realities. It must be apparent a priori to any student of politics that the life of small communities must gain in concentration and intensity what it loses in scope and extent. And it must be obvious that small States have played a much more conspicuous part than the most powerful empires. The city of Dante, Machiavelli, Michael Angelo, has done more for culture than all the might and majesty of the Hohenzollern. Humanity is indebted to one small State—Palestine—for its religion. To another small State—Greece—humanity owes the beginning of all art and the foundations of politics. To other small States—Holland and Scotland—modern Europe is indebted for its political freedom. And are not the German people themselves indebted for the glories of their literature to the contemptible cities of Jena and Weimar?