Since the month of August a strict censorship has been exercised over the Press. Vorwärts and other Socialist sheets have several times been suspended. The Kölnischer Volkszeitung was suspended on the 11th September, 1914, for having published articles disposing of at least a part of the so-called Belgian atrocities.... And then, apparently, it proceeded to take them for granted; for afterwards it even aggravated the accusations brought against the Belgians.
The Vossische Zeitung itself, official as it is, had its issue of the 1st December, 1914, seized on account of an article on a commission of the Reichstag (N.R.C., 3rd December, 1914, evening). At the same time the Government was careful to stop all foreign books and newspapers. This prohibition is so strict that Dutch working-men going to work in Germany are not allowed to wrap their sandwiches in newspaper (N.R.C., 10th December, 1914, evening).
In Germany even people are beginning to find the censorship a little too strict. Before the Budget Commission of the Reichstag Herr Scheidemann, the Socialist deputy, complained that in the district of Rüstringen certain of the German official communiqués even were prohibited. The newspapers may not leave blank the spaces caused by the censorship, as the latter must not appear. At Strasburg the censorship prohibited the publication of articles dealing with the increased price of milk. At Dortmund the Socialist newspapers were subjected to a preventive censorship for having inserted an article by the sociologist Lujo Brentano, one of the "Ninety-three," professor at the University of Münich (N.R.C., 16th May, 1913, morning).
Does the German public, knowing that the newspapers publish none but articles inspired by authority, or at least controlled thereby, accept this sophisticated mental pabulum in good part? Or does it make an effort to procure foreign publications? One must believe that it does not, for in that case the "intellectuals," better informed, would cease to blindly accept the official declarations.
"But," it will perhaps be said, "since the Government forbids the introduction of foreign newspapers, it is radically impossible to obtain them." We do not know just how the Germans could obtain pamphlets and newspapers, but we do know that in Belgium we read prohibited literature every day—French, Dutch, and English. Any one who does not intend to resign himself to living in an oubliette will succeed, in spite of everything, in opening some chink that the light may shine through; and this light, when we have received it, we hasten to share. It is forbidden, under the severest penalties, including the capital, to introduce newspapers into Belgium; it is forbidden, under the same penalties, to publish and distribute "false news," as our masters call it. It makes little difference to us; not an article or book of importance appears abroad but it reaches us, and two days later it is secretly distributed in thousands of copies. There will be a curious book for some one to write when the war is over, on the subject of the strange and ingenious means employed by the Belgians, prisoners in their own country since August 1914, to obtain and distribute prohibited letterpress.
There is accordingly no doubt that if the Germans really wished it they could without great difficulty obtain reliable "documentation." But they do not wish it. They, of late so proud of their critical spirit, who made it their rule, so they professed—and their glory, as was thought—to accept only that which their reason commanded them to believe! They have abdicated their critical faculty; they have sacrificed it to the militarist Moloch. And to-day, with eyes closed, they swallow all that the Government and its reptile Press presents to them.
The Abolition of Free Discussion in Germany.
What am I saying? Not only are they ready to swallow all the lies offered to them; they have even abolished liberty of speech among themselves. A striking example of this fact was given by the N.R.C. (of the 16th November, 1914, morning edition). Dr. Wekberg, one of the three editors of a German periodical, the Revue des Volksrechts, retired from his editorship because his colleagues refused to insert an article in which he declared that Germany's attitude towards Belgium was perhaps disputable. It would be difficult to push intolerance of criticism much farther.
In the same connection we may recall the sessions of the Reichstag of the 4th August, 1914, the 2nd December, 1914, and the 20th March, 1915. At the first session not a voice protested against the war. At the second, the Socialist deputy, Dr. Karl Liebknecht, asked leave to present some objections, which indeed were timid enough; he was at once disowned by his party. On the 20th March the deputy Ledebour permitted himself to criticize the proclamation of Marshal von Hindenburg, prescribing the burning of three Russian villages for any German village burned by the Russians. Both these deputies expressed the opinion that it is iniquitous to punish the innocent in the place of the guilty. Immediately the whole assembly, Socialists included, copiously abused and insulted the two speakers. We may remark that Herr Ledebour was discussing not a strategical measure, but a prescription that was merely inhuman (see K.Z., 20th March, 1915, evening).
These few examples are enough to show that the Socialists lend themselves to militarist domestication with the same docility as the "bourgeois" parties. As for the Catholic remnant in the Reichstag, its docility surpasses even that of the Socialists.