It is no less characteristic of contemporary German political philosophy that from beginning to end Bernhardi maintains consciously, deliberately, a purely national attitude, and that he does not even attempt to rise to a higher and wider point of view. Indeed, the main issue and cardinal problem, the relation of nationality to humanity, the conflict between the duties we owe to the one and the duties we owe to the other, is contemptuously relegated to a footnote (p. 19). To Bernhardi a nation is not a means to an end, a necessary organ of universal humanity, and therefore subordinate to humanity. A nation is an end in itself. It is the ultimate reality. And the preservation and the increase of the power of the State is the ultimate criterion of all right. “My country, right or wrong,” is the General’s whole system of moral philosophy. Yet, curiously enough, Bernhardi speaks of Germany as the apostle, not only of a national culture, but of universal culture, as the champion of civilization, and he indulges in the usual platitudes on this fertile subject. And he does not even realize that in so doing he is guilty of a glaring contradiction; he does not realize that once he adopts this standpoint of universal culture, he introduces an argument and assumes a position which are above and outside nationalism. For either the German nation is self-sufficient, and all culture is centred in and absorbed in Germany, in which case Prussian nationalism would be historically and philosophically justified; or culture is something higher and more comprehensive and less exclusive, in which case national aims must be estimated and appraised with reference to a higher aim, and a national policy must be judged according as it furthers or runs counter to the universal ideals of humanity.
General von Bernhardi starts his survey of the international situation with the axiom that Germany imperatively wants new markets for her industry and new territory for her sixty-five millions of people. In so doing, he only reiterates the usual assumption of German political writers. And he also resembles the majority of his fellow-publicists in this respect, that he does not tell us what exactly are the territories that Germany covets, or how they are to be obtained, or how the possession of tropical or subtropical colonies can solve the problem of her population. But he differs from his predecessors in that he clearly realizes and expresses, without ambiguity or equivocation, that the assertion of her claims must involve the establishment of German supremacy, and he admits that those claims are incompatible with the antiquated doctrine of the balance of power. And von Bernhardi also clearly realizes that, as other nations will refuse to accept German supremacy and to surrender those fertile territories which Germany needs, German expansion can only be achieved as the result of a conflict—briefly, that war is unavoidable and inevitable.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” First Part, 10th Speech.
[14] Treitschke, “History of Germany,” Vols. I. and II. (Jarrold.) Treitschke, “Politics,” with Introduction by A. J. Balfour: 2 vols, (Constable, London.)
[15] These pages were published in 1912.
[16] Nietzsche’s “Thus Spake Zarathustra,” First Part, 10th Speech.