Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View

by Price Collier

The German of this type looks down upon the spiritual and intellectual development of other countries as far inferior to his own. Such an one in talking to an Englishman feels that he is conversing with a high-spirited, thoroughbred horse; to a Frenchman, as though he were a cynical monkey; to an American, as though he were a bright youth of sixteen.

The German considers his dealings with the intangible things of life to be a higher form, indeed the highest form, of intellectual employment. He is therefore racially, historically, and by temperament jealous or contemptuous, according to his station in life, of the cosmopolitan exchanger of the world, the Jew. He denies to him either patriotism or originality, and looks upon him as merely a distributer, whether in art, literature, or commerce, as an exchanger who amasses wealth by taking toll of other men’s labor, industry, and intellect. It has not escaped the German of this temper, that the whirling gossip and innuendoes that have lately annoyed the present party in power in England, have had to do with three names: Isaacs, Samuels, and Montagu, all Jews and members of the government.

German politics, German social life, and the German press cannot be understood without this explanation. The German sees a danger to his hardly won national life in the cosmopolitanism of the Jew; he sees a danger to his duty-doing, simple-living, and hard-working governing aristocracy in the tempting luxury of the recently rich Jew; and besides these objective reasons, he is instinctively antagonistic, as though he were born of the clouds of heaven and the Jew of the clods of earth. This does not mean that the German is a believer, in the orthodox sense of the word, for that he is not. He loves the things of the mind not because he thinks of them as of divine creation, and as showing an allegiance to a divine Creator, but because they are the playthings of his own manufacture that amuse him most. His superiority to other nations is that he claims to enjoy maturer toys. Not even France is so entirely unencumbered by orthodox restraints in matters of belief.

So far, therefore, as the German press is Jew-controlled, it is suspected as being not German politically, domestically, or spiritually; as not being representative, in short. It should be added that, though this is the attitude of the great majority in Germany, there is a small class who recognize the pioneer work that the Jew has done. Few men are more respected there, and few have more influence than such men as Ballin and Rathenau and others. For the very reason that the German is an idealist the Jew has been of incomparable value to him in the development of his industrial, commercial, and financial affairs. Not only as a scientific financier has he helped, not only has he provided ammunition when German industrial undertakings were weak and stumbling, but along the lines of scientific research, as chemists, physicists, artists - perhaps no one stands higher than the Jew Liebermann as a painter - the Jew has done yeoman service to the country in return for the high wages that he has taken. There are Germans who recognize this, and there are in the Jewish world not a few men to whom the doors of enlightened society are always open.

Whatever one may feel of instinctive dislike, the open-minded observers of the historical progress of Germany, all recognize that Germany would not be in the foremost place she now occupies in the competitive markets of the world, if she had not had the patriotic, intelligent, and skilful backing of her better-class Jewish citizens.

Printing was born in Germany, and the town of Augsburg had a newspaper as early as 1505, while Berlin had a newspaper in 1617 and Hamburg in 1628. Every foreigner who knows Germany at all, knows the names of the Kölnische Zeitung, the Lokal Anzeiger and Der Tag, Hamburger Nachrichten, Berliner Tageblatt, Frankfurter Zeitung, and the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, this last the official organ of the foreign office. The Neue Preussische Zeitung, better known by its briefer title of Kreuz Zeitung, is a stanch conservative organ, and for years has published the scholarly comments once a week of Professor Shiemann, who is a political historian of distinction, and a trusted friend of the Emperor. The Deutsche Tageszeitung is the organ of the Agrarian League. The Reichsbote is a conservative journal and the organ of the orthodox party in the state church. Vorwärts is the organ of the socialists and, whatever one may think of its politics, one of the best-edited, as it is one of the best-written, newspapers in Germany. The Zukunft, a weekly publication, is the personal organ of Harden, is Harden, in fact. The Zukunft in normal years sells some 22,000 copies at 20 marks, giving an income of 440,000 marks; this with the advertisements gives an income of say 500,000 marks. The expenses are about 350,000 marks, leaving a net income to this daring and accomplished journalist of 150,000 marks a year. In Germany such an income is great wealth. The Zukunft and its success is a commentary of value upon the appreciation of, as well as the rarity of, independent journalism in Germany.

The Vossische Zeitung, or “Aunty Voss” as it is nicknamed, is a solid, bourgeois sheet and moderately radical in tone. It is proper, wipes its feet before entering the house, and may be safely left in the servants’ hall or in the school-room. Die Post represents the conservative party politically, is welcome in rich industrial circles, and is rather liberal in religious matters, though hostile to the government in matters of foreign politics, and of less influence at home than the frequent quotations from it in the British press would lead one to suppose. The two official organs of the Catholics are the Germania and the Volks Zeitung, of Cologne, whose editor is the well-known Julius Bachern. The Lokal Anzeiger and the Tageblatt of Berlin attempt, with no small degree of success, American methods, and give out several editions a day with particular reference to the latest news.

Leipsic, Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Strasburg, Dresden, Königsberg, Breslau, with its Schlessische Zeitung, and the Rhine provinces and the steel and iron industries represented by the Rheinisch- Westfälischer Zeitung, and other cities and towns have local newspapers. A good example of such little-known provincial newspapers is the Augsburger Abendzeitung, with its first-rate reports of the parliamentary proceedings in Bavaria and its well-edited columns. The circulation of these journals is, from our point of view, small. The Berliner Tageblatt in a recent issue declares its paid circulation to have been 73,000 in 1901; 106,000 in 1905; 190,000 in 1910; and 208,000 in 1911.

The custom in Germany of eating in restaurants, of taking coffee in the cafés, of writing one’s letters and reading the newspapers there, no doubt has much to do with the small subscription lists of German journals of all kinds, whether daily, weekly, or monthly. The German economizes even in these small matters. A German family, or small café or restaurant, may, for a small sum, have half a dozen or more weekly and monthly journals left, and changed each week; thus they are circulated in a dozen places at the expense of only one copy. Where a family of similar standing in America takes in regularly two morning papers and an evening paper, several weekly and monthly, and perhaps one or two foreign journals, the German family may take one morning paper. The custom of having half a dozen newspapers served with the morning meal, as is done in the larger houses in America and in England, is practically unknown. Economy is one reason, indifference is another, provincial and circumscribed interests are others.

The German has not our keen appetite for what we call news, which is often merely surmises in bigger type. Only the very small number who have travelled and made interests and friends for themselves out of their own country, have any feeling of curiosity even, about the political and social tides and currents elsewhere.