The Land of Deepening Shadow: Germany-at-War

by D. Thomas Curtin

CHAPTER XIV

THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT

Although Bismarck gave the Germans a Constitution and a Parliament after the Franco-Prussian War as a sop for their sacrifices in that campaign, he never intended the Reichstag to be a Parliament in the sense in which the institution is understood in Great Britain.

What Bismarck gave the Germans was a debating society and a safety-valve. They needed a place to air their theories and ventilate their grievances. But the Chancellor of Iron was very careful, in drawing up the plans for the "debating society," to see that it conferred little more real power on the nation's "representatives" than is enjoyed by the stump-speakers near Marble Arch in London on Sundays.

Many people in England and the United States of America, I find, do not at all understand the meaninglessness of German Parliamentary proceedings. When they read about "stormy sittings" of the Reichstag and "bitter criticism" of the Chancellor, they judge such things as they judge similar events in the House of Commons or the American House of Representatives. Nothing could be more inaccurate. Governments do not fall in Germany in consequence of adverse Reichstag votes, as they do in England. They are not the peopled Governments, but merely the Kaisers creatures. They rise and fall by his grace alone.

Even this state of affairs needs to be qualified and explained to the citizens of free countries. The Government is not a Cabinet or a Ministry.

The German Government is a one-man affair. It consists of the Imperial Chancellor. He, and nobody else, is the "Government," subject only to the All-Highest will of the Emperor, whose bidding the Chancellor is required to do.

The Chancellor, in the name of the "Government," brings in Bills to be passed by the Reichstag. If the Reichstag does not like a Bill, which sometimes happens, it refuses to give it a majority. But the "Government" does not fall. It can simply, as it has done on numerous occasions, dissolve the Reichstag, order a General Election, and keep on doing so indefinitely, until it gets exactly the kind of "Parliament" it wants. Thus, though the Reichstag votes on financial matters, it can be made to vote as the "Government" wishes.

As I have said, the Reichstag was invented to be, and has always served the purpose hitherto of, a forum in which discontented Germany could blow off steam, but achieve little in the way of remedy or reform. But during the war the Reichstag has even ceased to be a place where free speech is tolerated. It has been gagged as effectually as the German Press. I was an eyewitness of one of the most drastic muzzling episodes which has occurred in the Reichstag during the war—or probably in the history of any modern Parliament—the suppression of Dr. Karl Liebknecht, member for Potsdam, during the debate on military affairs on January 17, 1916. That event will be of historic importance in establishing how public opinion in Germany during the war has been ruthlessly trampled under foot.

The Reichstag has practically nothing to do with the conduct of the war.

Up, practically, to the beginning of 1916 the sporadic Social Democratic opposition to the war, mainly by Dr. Liebknecht, was ignored by the Government. The war-machine was running so smoothly, and, from the German standpoint, so victoriously, that the Government thought it could safely let Liebknecht rant to his heart's content.

Dr. Liebknecht had long been a thorn in the War Party's side. He inherited an animosity to Prussian militarism from his late father, Dr. Wilhelm Liebknecht, who with August Bebel founded the modern German Social Democratic Party. Four or five years before the war Liebknecht, a lawyer by profession, campaigned so fiercely against militarism that he was sentenced to eighteen months' fortress imprisonment for "sedition." He served his sentence, and soon afterwards his political friends nominated him for the Reichstag for the Royal Division of Potsdam, of all places in the world, knowing that such a candidature would be as ironical a blow as could be dealt to the war aristocrats. He was elected by a big majority in 1913, the votes of the large working-class population of the division, including Spandau (the Prussian Woolwich), being more than enough to offset the military vote which the Kaiser's henchmen mobilised against him. Some time afterwards Liebknecht was also elected to represent a Berlin Labour constituency in the Prussian Diet, the Legislature which deals with the affairs in the Kingdom of Prussia, as distinct from the Reichstag (the Imperial Diet), which concerns itself with Empire matters only.

Dr. Liebknecht is forty-four years old. Of medium build, he wears a shock of long, curly, upstanding hair, which rather accentuates his "agitator" type of countenance, and is a skilful and eloquent debater. A university graduate and well-read thinker and student, he turned out to be the one consistent Social Democratic politician in Germany on the question of the war. When the war began the Socialist Party was effectually and willingly tied to the Government's chariot—including, nominally, even Liebknecht. A few hours before making his notorious "Necessity-knows-no-law" speech in the Reichstag on August 4, 1914, Bethmann-Hollweg conferred with all the Parliamentary parties, and convinced them (including the Socialists) that Germany had been cruelly dragged into a war of defence. Later in the day, following other party leaders, Herr Haase, spokesman for the Socialists, got up in the House, voiced a few harmless platitudes about Socialist opposition to war on principle, and then pledged the party's 111 votes solidly to the War Credits for which the Government was asking. When the Chancellor afterwards made his celebrated speech it was cheered to the echo by the entire House, including the Socialists. I do not know whether Liebknecht was present, though he is almost certain to have been, but if so he made no note-worthy protest. How completely the Government befooled the Socialists about the war was proved a few days later when Dr. Franck, one of the Social Democracy's most shining lights and the man who was in line to be Bebel's successor, volunteered for military service. He was one of the first to fall fighting in September, somewhere in the West.

The authorities might have known that Liebknecht was a hard man to keep quiet if he ever decided to speak out. Fresh in the Government's mind was his bold exposure of the Krupp bribery scandals at the War Office (in 1913) and his disclosures about how the German munition trust for years systematically stirred up war fever abroad, in order to convince the German people of the necessity of speeding up their own huge armaments on land and sea. As soon as Liebknecht's Reichstag and Prussian Diet speeches began to show that he was tired of the muzzle, the Government called him up for military service. They stuck him into the uniform of an Armierungssoldat (Army Service Corps soldier). This meant that his public speeches in connection with the war had to be confined to the two Parliaments in which he held seats. Anything of an opposition character which he said or did outside would be "treason" or "sedition."

Liebknecht was put to work on A.S.C. jobs behind the fronts alternately in the East and West, I believe, but was given leaves of absence to attend to his Parliamentary duties from time to time. On these occasions he would appear in the Reichstag in the dull field-grey of an ordinary private—the only member so clad in a House of 397 Deputies, among whom are dozens of officers in uniform up to the rank of generals.

I was particularly fortunate to be able to secure a card of admission to the Strangers' Gallery of the Reichstag on January 17, the day set for discussion of military matters. I went to my place early—a few minutes past the noon hour, as the Reichstag usually convenes at 1 p.m. The floor was still quite empty, though the galleries were filled with people anxious, like myself, to see the show from start to finish.

The Reichstag's decorative scheme is panelled oak and gilt-paint. The members' seating space spreads fanlike round the floor, with individual seats and desks exactly like those used by schoolboys, which is not an inappropriate simile. On the extreme right are the places of the Conservative-Junker—landowners—Party; to their left sit, in succession, the Roman Catholic Clericals (who occupy the exact centre of the floor and are thus known as the Zentrum, or Centre Party). The "Centre" includes many priests, mostly Rhinelanders and Bavarians. Then come the National Liberals, the violently anti-British and anti-American Party, the Progressive People's Party, and the Social Democrats. The latter are on the "extreme left." That is why they are often so described in reports of Reichstag proceedings abroad. The Socialists comprise 111 out of 397 members of the House, so their segment of the fan is the largest of all. Next in size is the Centre Party, with eighty-five or ninety seats, the Conservatives, National Liberals, and Progressives accounting for the rest of the floor in more or less equal proportions.

The outstanding aspect of the Reichstag is the tribune for speakers, which faces the floor and is elevated above it some five or six feet. It is flanked on the right by the Government "table," consisting of individual seats and desks for Ministers. In the centre of the tribune the presiding officer, who is "President," not Speaker, of the House, sits. On his left is a row of seats and desks, like the opposite Government "table," for the members of the Federal Council. The Federal Council, I may remind my readers, consists of the delegates of the various States of Germany. They are not elected by the people, but are appointed by the rulers of the several States. They constitute practically an Imperial Upper Chamber, and are the real legislative body of the Empire. Bills require the Federal Council's approval before submission to the Reichstag.

On so-called "big days" in the Reichstag a host of small fry from the Departments collects behind the Government and this dominent Federal Council. The Chancellor, whose place is at the corner of the Government "table" nearest the President, is always shepherded by his political aide-de-camp, Dr. Wahnschaffe. There is always a group of uniformed Army and Navy officers on the tribune, too, and to-day, of course, as the Army discussions were on the agenda, there was an unusually brave array of gold braid and brass buttons. Herr von Oldenburg, a prominent Junker M.P., once said if he were the Kaiser he would send a Prussian lieutenant and ten men to close up the Reichstag.

Liebknecht arrived early, a slight and unimpressive figure in somewhat worn field-grey, the German khaki. The "debate" having begun, I noticed how he listened eagerly to every word spoken, jotting down notes incessantly for the evident purpose of replying to the grandiloquent utterances about our "glorious army of Kultur-bearers" which were falling from the lips of "patriotic" party orators. Liebknecht had earned the displeasure of the House a few days before by asking some embarrassing questions about Turkish massacres in Armenia. He was jeered and laughed at hilariously; when he went on to say that a "Black Chamber" was spying on his every movement, shadowing other members of the Reichstag, even eavesdropping on their telephone conversations and opening their private correspondence.

While a Socialist comrade, Herr Davidssohn, was speaking from the desk in the centre of the tribune, at which all members must stand when addressing the House, I now saw Liebknecht walking up the aisle leading from the Socialist seats to the President's chair as unobtrusively as possible. He was walking furtively and he cut the figure of a hunted animal which is conscious that it is surrounded by other animals anxious to pounce upon it and devour it if it dares to show itself in the open.

Liebknecht has now reached the President's side. The President, a long-whiskered septuagenarian, is popularly known as "Papa" Kaempf. I see Liebknecht whispering quietly in Kaempf's ear. He is asking for permission to speak, probably as soon as comrade Davidssohn has finished making his innocuous suggestions of minor reforms to relieve discomforts in the trenches. Kaempf is shaking his head negatively. As the official executor of the House's wishes, the old man understands perfectly well that Liebknecht must under no circumstances have a hearing. Davidssohn has now stopped talking. Liebknecht has meantime reached the bottom step of the stairway of five or six steps leading from the tribune to the level of the floor. He can be plainly seen from all sections of the House. I hear him start to say that he has a double right to be heard on the Army Bill, not only as a member of the House, but as a soldier. He gets no further. The Chamber is already filled with shouts and jeers. "Maul halten!" (shut your mouth!) bursts from a dozen places in the Conservative and rational Liberal and Centre benches. "'_Raus mit ihm!" (throw him out!) is another angry taunt which I can distinguish in the bedlam. Liebknecht has been howled down many times before under similar circumstances. He is not terrified to-day, though his face is pale with excitement and anger. He stands his ground. His right arm is extended, a finger levelled accusingly at the Right and Centre from which imprecations, unceasingly, are being snarled at him. But he cannot make himself heard amid the uproar.

A Socialist colleague intervenes, Ledebour, a thin, grey-haired, actor-like person, of ascetic mien and resonant voice. "Checking free speech is an evil custom of this House," declares Ledebour. "Papa" Kaempf clangs his big hand-bell. He rules out "such improper expressions as 'evil custom' in this high House." Ledebour is the Reichstag's master of repartee. He rejoins smilingly:—"Very well, not an 'evil custom,' but not altogether a pleasant custom." Now the House is howling Ledebour down. He, too, has weathered such storms before. He waits, impassive and undismayed, for a lull in the cyclone. It comes. "Wait, wait!" he thunders. "My friend Liebknecht and I, and others like us, have a great following. You grievously underestimate that following. Some day you will realise that. Wait——" Ledebour, like Liebknecht, can no longer proceed. The House is now boiling, an indistinguishable and most undignified pandemonium. I can detect that there is considerable ironical laughter mixed with its indignation. Members are not taking Ledebour's threat seriously.

Liebknecht has temporarily returned to his seat under cover of the tornado provoked by Ledebour's intervention, but now I see him stealthily crawling, dodging, almost panther-like, back to the steps of the tribune. He is bent upon renewing the attempt to raise his voice above the hostile din. The sight of him unchains the House's fury afresh. The racket is increased by the mad ding-donging of "Papa" Kaempf, trying hopelessly to restore a semblance of quiet. It is useless. The House will not subside until Liebknecht is driven from the speakers' tribune. He is not to have even the chance of the lull which enabled Ledebour to say a pertinent thing or two. A score of embittered deputies advance toward the tribune, red-faced and gesticulating in the German way when excitement is the dominant passion. Their fists are clenched. I say to myself that Liebknecht will this time be beaten down, if he is not content to be shouted down. He makes an unforgettable figure, alone there, assailed, barked and snarled at from every side, a private in the German Army bidding defiance to a hundred men, also in uniform, but superior officers. Mere Kanonenfutter (cannon fodder) defying the majestic authority of its helmeted and epauletted overlords! An unprecedented episode, as well as an unforgettable one. . .

Liebknecht insists upon tempting fate once more. He is going to try to outshout the crazy chorus howling at him. He succeeds, but only for an instant and to the extent of one biting phrase:—"Such treatment," I can hear him shrieking, "is unverschaemt (shameless) and unerhoert (unheard of)! It could take place in no other legislative body in the world!"

With that the one German Social Democrat of conviction, courage, and consistency retires, baffled and discomfited. Potsdam's representative in the Reichstag is at last effectually muzzled, but in the muzzling I have seen the German Government at work on a task almost as prodigious as the one it now faces on the Somme—the task of keeping the German people deaf, dumb, and blind.

Of what has meantime happened to Liebknecht the main facts are known. He was arrested on May 1 for alleged "incitement to public disorder during a state of war," tried, convicted, and sentenced to penal servitude. A couple of months previously (on March 13) he had delivered another bitter attack on the War Government in the Prussian Diet. He accused the German educational authorities of systematically teaching hate to school children and of distorting even contemporary history so as to poison their minds to the glorification of Prussian militarism. He said it was not the business of the schools to turn children into machines for the Moloch of militarism.

"Let us teach history correctly," declared Liebknecht, "and tell the children that the crime of Sarajevo was looked upon by wide circles in Austria-Hungary and Germany as a gift from Heaven. Let us. . . ."

He got no farther, for the cyclone broke. He had dared to do what no other man in Germany had done. He had publicly accused his Government of making the war. From that moment his doom was certain.

This narrative should be instructive to those Britishers and Americans who think it possible that German Socialists may one day have the power to end the war. There are two effective replies to this curious Anglo-Saxon misunderstanding of Germany. The first is that Liebknecht had not, and has not, the support of his own party; the second, that were that party twice as numerous as it is its votes would be worthless in view of the power wielded by the Kaiser's representative, von Bethmann-Hollweg, backed up by the Federal Council.

It is difficult to drive this fact into the heads of British and American people, who are both prone to judge German institutions by their own.

For, remember always that behind the dominant Imperial Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, stands the All-Highest War Lord, and behind him, what is still, if damaged, the mightiest military machine in the world—the German Army. Opposed to that there is at present a slowly increasing Socialist vote—the two have grown to about twenty.