Germany has not neglected England, but of late she has paid her the wrong kind of attention. Erasmus, the scholar-rapier, as Luther was the hammer, of the Reformation, visits England and writes: “Above all, speak no evil of England to them. They are proud of their country above all nations in the world, as they have good reason to be.”
Kant, the German philosopher, on his clock-like rounds in Königsberg, knew something of England and writes of her: “Die englische Nation, als Volk betrachtet, ist das schätzbarste Ganze von Menschen im Verhältniss unter einander; aber als Staat gegen fremde Staaten der verderblichste, gewaltsamste, herrschsüchtigste und kriegerregendste von allen.”
(“The English, as a people, in their relations to one another are a most estimable body of men, but as a nation in their relations with other nations they are of all people the most pernicious, the most violent, the most domineering, and the most strife-provoking.”)
Another German, something of a scholar, something of a philosopher, but a wit and a singer, Heine, visited England, and, as he handed a fee to the verger who had shown him around Westminster Abbey, said: “I would willingly give you twice as much if the collection were complete!” To him Napoleon defeated was a greater man than the “starched, stiff” Wellington; and the “potatoes boiled in water and put on the table as God made them” and the “country with three hundred religions and only one sauce were a constant source of amused annoyance. The German professors and students, who in the early part of the nineteenth century lauded English constitutional liberty to the skies and made a god of Burke, have soured toward England since.
“What does Germany want?” asked Thiers of the German historian Ranke. “To destroy the work of Louis XIV,” was the reply. Professor Treitschke and his successor in the chair of history at Berlin, Professor Delbrück, have been outspoken in their denunciation of England. Mommsen, Schmoller, Schiemann, Zorn of Bonn, and his colleague there, von Dirksen, Professor Dietrich Schaefer, Professor Adolph Wagner, and many other scholars have been, and are, politicians in Germany, and none of them friendly to England, to France, or to America. Bismarck himself remarked of these gentlemen: “Die Politik ist keine Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Professoren sich einbilden, sie ist eben eine Kunst” (“Politics is not a science as many professorial gentlemen fancy; it is an art”); and again: “Die Arbeit des Diplomaten, seine Aufgabe, besteht in dem praktischen Verkehr mit Menschen, in der richtigen Beurtheilung von dem, was andere Leute unter gewissen Umständen wahrscheinlich thun werden, in der richtigen Erkennung der Absichten anderer; in der richtigen Darstellung der seinigen” (” The work of the diplomat, his chief task, indeed, consists in the practical dealing with men, in his sound judgment of what other people would probably do under certain circumstances, in his correct interpretation of the intentions and purposes of other people, and in the accurate presentation of his own”).
He began his political life in 1862 with the phrase: “Die grossen Fragen können durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse nicht entschie den werden, sondern durch Eisen und Blut” (“The great questions cannot be decided by speeches and the decisions of majorities, but by iron and blood”).
It is a well-known professor who writes: “Denn die einzige Gefahr, die den Frieden in Europa und damit den Weltfrieden droht, liegt in den krankhaften übertreibungen des englischen Imperialismus” (“The only danger to the peace of Europe, and that includes the peace of the world, lies in the morbid excesses of British imperialism”). Another quotation from the same pen reads: “So far as other perils to the British Empire are concerned, they are of much the same character, but the empire suffers too from the selfish policy of English business, which, in order to create big business, does not hesitate to interfere with the declared policy of the state.” Then follows the statement that English traders have smuggled guns to the Persian Gulf.
Professor Zorn writes: “The possibility that while our Emperor was seeking rest and refreshment in Norwegian waters and enjoying the beauties of the Norwegian landscape, English ships were lying in readiness to annihilate German ships.” It is hard to believe that such lunatic lies can come from the pen of a professor in good standing.
“Ohne zu übertreiben kann man sagen dass heute nur der allerkleinste Teil der deutschen Presse geneigt ist, den Engländern Gerechtigkeit widerfahren zu lassen, bei Behandlung allgemeiner Fragen sich auch einmal auf den englischen Standpunkt der Betrachtung wenigstens zeitweise zu versetzen. England ist fur viele ‘der’ Feind an sich, und em Feind dem man keine Rücksichten schuldet.”
(“It is no exaggeration to say that nowadays only the tiniest minority of the German press is inclined to do justice to the English by at least occasionally looking at questions from the British point of view. England is for many the enemy of enemies and an enemy to whom no consideration is due.”) Thus writes one of the cooler heads in the Kölnische Zeitung.