The name of Professor Joseph Kohler is known, all over the world to men who have the slightest acquaintance with German jurisprudence. His literary output has been enormous and he has unquestionably made many valuable contributions to legal science. Even he, however, cannot do the impossible, and his "Not kennt kein Gebot" (Necessity knows no law), an attempt in the summer of 1915 to justify the German invasion of Belgium, makes Germany's case on this particular point appear worse than ever.
The Empire of Rome and the Empire of Napoleon worked upon the principle that necessity knows no law. Why should not the Empire of William II.? That is the introductory theme. The reader then wades through page after page of classical philosophy, biblical philosophy, and modern German philosophy which support the theory that a sin may not always be a sin. One may steal, for example, if by so doing a life he saved. It naturally follows from this that when a nation is confronted by a problem which involves its very existence it may do anything which may work to its advantage. Thus Germany did right in attacking the little country she had solemnly sworn to defend, and history will later prove that the real barbarians of the war are the Americans, since they are so abjectly ignorant as to call the Germans barbarians for acting as they did. So argues Joseph Kohler, who certainly ranks among the first half-dozen professors of Germany.
There are a few professors of international law in Germany, however, who have preserved a legally-balanced attitude despite their sympathies. One of these wrote an article for a law periodical, many of the statements of which were in direct contradiction to statements in the German Press. The German people, for example, were being instructed—a not difficult task—that Britain was violating international law when her vessels hoisted a neutral flag during pursuit. This professor simply quoted paragraph 81 of the German Prize Code which showed that orders to German ships were precisely the same. Were this known to the German population one of the ten thousand hate tricks would be out of commission. Therefore, this and similar articles must be suppressed, not because they are not true, but because they would interfere with the delusion of hate which saturates the mind of the new Germany. I have seen articles returned to this distinguished writer with the censor stamp: Not to be published till after the war.
When a winning Germany began to grow angry at American munition deliveries I heard much talk of the indemnity which the United States would be compelled to pay after Europe had been duly disposed of. Professor Hermann Oncken, of the University of Heidelberg, made this his theme in a widely read booklet, entitled, "Deutschlands Weltkrieg und die Deutsch-Amerikaner."
Professor P. von Gast, of the Technical College of Aachen, does not appear to realise that his country has a sufficient job on her hands in Europe and Africa, but thinks the midst of a great war a suitable time to arouse his countrymen against the United States in Latin America. He explains that the Monroe Doctrine was simply an attempt on the part of the great Anglo-Saxon Republic to gobble up the whole continent to the south for herself. "All the world must oppose America in this attempt," he feels.
Then there is Professor Mendelssohn Bartholdy, who writes on reprisals in the Juristenblatt of July, 1916. It should be borne in mind that he is a professor of law and that he is writing in a book which is read by legal minds and not by the general public; all the more reason that we should expect something that would contain common sense. Professor Bartholdy, after expressing his profound horror over the French raid on Karlsruhe, hastens to explain that such methods can be of not the slightest military advantage to the French, but will only arouse Germany to fight all the harder. He deplores enemy attacks on unfortified districts, and claims that the French military powers confess that such acts are not glorious by their failure to pin decorations on the breasts of the aviators who perpetrate them, in the same way as the German Staff honours heroes like Boelke and Immelmann, who fight, as do all German aviators, like men.
There have been many incidents outside of Germany of which the professor apparently has never heard, or else his sense of humour is below the zero mark.
My talks with German professors impressed me with how little most of them keep in touch with the war situation from day to day and from month to month. A Berlin professor of repute with whom I sipped coffee one day in the Cafe Bauer expressed the greatest surprise when he heard that a neutral could actually get from America to Germany. I heard this opinion very often among the common people, but had supposed that doctors of philosophy were somewhat better informed.
During my conversation with another professor, whose war remarks
have been circulated in the neutral countries by the Official News
Service, he remarked that he read the London Times and other
English newspapers regularly.
"Oh, so you get the English papers?" I asked, fully aware that one may do so in Germany.