[!-- Note Anchor 136 --][Footnote 136: Walther Schoenborn: "Die Neutralität Belgien's." This is an appendix to a large work written by twenty university professors, entitled "Deutschland und der Weltkrieg," published by B.G. Teubner, Leipzig and Berlin, 1915.]
The nearer examination of these three works must be premised by two important considerations. Firstly, the three professors ignore the fact that Germany was a menace to Belgium, and make no mention of German aspirations for a coastline on or near the English Channel. Holland and Belgium form a twentieth century "Naboth's vineyard," on which the German Ahab has cast avaricious glances for upwards of forty years.
A casual acquaintance with Pan-German and German naval and military literature during the same period, affords overwhelming proof of this powerful current in German nationalism. If Naboth consulted strong neighbours as to necessary precautions against Ahab's plans for obtaining the vineyard, then Naboth acted as a wise man, and the only regret to-day is that the "strong neighbours" only offered Naboth assurances and words, instead of deeds. In other words Great Britain did nothing because, as Lord Haldane expressed it, the Liberal Cabinet was "afraid" (!) to offend Germany and precipitate a crisis.
Secondly, the three professors, like all others of their class in the Fatherland, have sworn an oath on taking office not to do anything, either by word or deed, detrimental to the interests of the German State of which they are official members. An ordinary German in writing on Germany may be under the subjective influences of his national feelings, but a German who has taken the "Staatseid" (oath to the State) cannot be objective in national questions and interests—his oath leaves only one course open to him, and any departure from that course may mean the loss of his daily bread.
The author has the greatest respect for the achievements of German professors in the domains of science and abstract thought; by those achievements they have deservedly become famous, but in all judgments where Germany's interests are concerned they are bound hand and foot.[[137]]
[!-- Note Anchor 137 --][Footnote 137: Towards the close of 1913 I had a conversation with half a dozen Germans (average age twenty-five) in Erlangen Gymnasium (State Secondary School); they were candidates in training for the teaching profession, all university men. I listened patiently to their diatribes concerning the perfidy of English Statesmen, and then pointed out, giving chapter and verse in German biographies, that Bismarck's record was exceedingly tortuous; the forgery of the Ems telegram was given as an instance.
A few weeks later I met the vice-principal of the school at a private party; this gentleman was a good friend of mine. He reminded me of the above conversation, and gave me a friendly warning never again to make such statements to my pupils. The candidates had talked it over, and although they had provoked the discussion, proposed to have me reported to the Minister for Education for uttering such opinions. The vice-principal had intervened and prevented the Denunziation.
If a professor of history in a German university expressed any opinion in his academic lectures unfavourable to modern Germany, he would be immediately denunziert to the State authorities by his own students. Should he publish such opinions in book form, of course the process of cashiering him would be simpler. Germans do not desire the truth so far as their own country is concerned; they do not will the truth; they will Deutschland über alles, and all information, knowledge, or propaganda contrary to their will is prohibited. If space permitted I could mention numerous cases in which famous professors have been treated like schoolboys by the German State—their stern father and master.]
When a German conscript enters the army he takes the Fahneneid (oath on, and to, the flag), which binds him to defend the Fatherland with bayonet and bullet. In like manner it may be said that German professors are bound by the Staatseid either to discreet silence, or to employ their intellectual pop-guns in defending Germany. That these pop-guns fire colossal untruths, innuendoes, word-twistings, and such like missiles, giving out gases calculated to stupefy and blind honest judgments, will become painfully evident in the course of our considerations.
That any and every German obeys the impulse to defend his country is just and praiseworthy; but in our search for truth we are compelled to note the fact that German professors are merely intellectual soldiers fighting for Germany. Without departing from the truth by one jot or tittle, readers may even call them "outside clerks" of the German Foreign Office, or the "ink-slingers" under the command of the German State.