¶ Perhaps, after all, German National faith is only another name for the tremendous earnestness that set the whole land ablaze with singleness of purpose, consecrated to a high cause.
Bismarck in a very real sense because of faith in himself and in his ultimate cause, directed this National faith in the Fatherland and won thereby a magnificent United Germany. If we do not grasp the significance of this unseen but gigantic National German faith, as expressed in the increasing unity of will of the whole people, harked on by Prussia, we might as well close the book on Bismarck—and know him not.
¶ To comprehend, somewhat, the firm roots of racial strength, as expressed by German National faith, let us for the moment pass from the 1840’s, ’50’s and ’60’s, which we are now endeavoring to present with their psychological message of faith, and turn our eyes to the year 1914, when Germany and Austria, no longer enemies, now battle side by side, against armed forces of the world—British, Russian, Italian, Servian, French, Australian, East Indian, African, Belgian, Canadian, and Japanese!
The sustaining spirit in this life-and-death struggle, as in the wars that made Germany an empire, is bulwarked on German National faith.
¶ For Germans are no longer soft-hearted heroes of lyrical poetry, as depicted by Arndt! They are men of blood and iron.
¶ Bismarck’s mother threw her wedding ring into the public melting pot for the benefit of the War Fund of 1813 and received in exchange a ring of iron; and thousands of German women did the same; and Bismarck’s wife exchanged her gold ring for one of iron, for the War Fund of ’66. Tens of thousands of German women did likewise, not only in Germany, but in foreign lands, wherever hearts beat for the Fatherland.
They did it in 1813, and in 1864, and in 1866, and in 1870;—and again in 1914!
¶ For example, in the great war of 1914, Baroness von Ropp, granddaughter of Geo. Ebers, Germany’s most foremost woman novelist, cries out for her country in the accents of true German nationality, the self-same spirit which Arndt stimulated in days of French and Austrian domination. And since it is this elusive spirit that we are endeavoring to bring home to you, in grasping the higher significance of Bismarck’s work, and its true inner meaning, we quote freely from a private letter penned by the Baroness, from Magdeburg, August, 1914.
Ilse Hahn-Ropp did not write for publication, and therefore her words have the more weight.