Right Above Race

by Otto H. Kahn

Rather than take the awful responsibility of initiating war, and thus uniting England, France and Russia whole-heartedly against you, you could well have afforded, in calm confidence in your superior efficiency and preparation, to take the lesser risk of letting the Russians come on whenever, in fatuous arrogance, they might have believed themselves strong enough to tackle you and Austria.

In an offensive war, undertaken by Russia, France would have joined, if at all, only half-heartedly, and with her public opinion strongly divided. No English Government, however jingo-militarist, could have obtained the sanction of Parliament to take part in such a war. Your ally, Italy, would in that case not have forsaken you. Public opinion and the moral support of the neutral nations would have been strongly with you. You would assuredly, under such circumstances, have given the Russians a bad beating, and the world in general would have rejoiced exceedingly at the aggressor's discomfiture.

That the large majority of the people of Germany did not want war, I do not doubt, although (as was not the case in England and France) there has been in existence in your country for years a rather alarmingly active and influential party whose open aim was war, and particularly a reckoning with England.

Many of your intellectuals, and particularly many of the teachers of your youth, had come to preach the deification of sheer might. They proclaimed with fanatical arrogance the doctrine that the German nation being the chosen people, superior to all others, was therefore not only permitted, but, indeed, called upon, to impose the blessings of its civilization and "Kultur" upon other countries, by force if necessary, and to help itself to such of their possessions as it deemed necessary for the fulfilment of its destiny.

I believe it is not too much to say that that doctrine and the spirit which bred it are very much akin, in their intolerance, self-righteous assumption of a world-improving mission, lack of understanding of and contemptuous disallowance for the differing view-points, qualities and methods of others, to the doctrines and the spirit that lay at the bottom of the religious wars throughout the long and evil years when Catholics and Protestants killed one another and wrought appalling bloodshed, destruction and ruin, for the purpose of conferring upon their respective countries the blessings of "the true religion."

Liberal press organs and calm-thinking men in Germany frequently before the war expressed their disapproval of, and misgivings at such preachings and the tendencies and agitation of the jingo party, though naturally you now all stand together and have put aside for the time being the party differences and conflicting opinions and points of view which prevailed prior to the war.

I agree with you in believing, notwithstanding the machinations of the war party, that the Kaiser and the Chancellor, up to a certain fatal moment, when they yielded their judgments to others, meant, bona fide, to preserve peace. I am quite persuaded as well that the mass of the German people did not want war and are entirely honest in their practically unanimous belief that Germany is not responsible for the war, although, unfortunately, the facts prove the contrary.

It is conceivable that you might have been justified in coming forward boldly and straightforwardly and saying to the Triple Entente:

"We are 70 millions strong. We have demonstrated to the world our capabilities in every department of human endeavour and human achievement. We require (or, at least, our people believe, rightly or wrongly, that we require) wider territorial scope for our growth than we possess in our own country and in our colonies. We require, too, an assurance of greater security as to the conditions of our national existence and our economic development.

"You have pre-empted the best part of the world. It is far more than you require. Either see that an appropriate provision is made for us, or, failing that, give us a free hand to conclude mutually agreeable arrangements with Belgium, Portugal or Holland with respect to their over-sea possessions.