135. Germany is the centre of God's plans for the world.—"On the German God," by Pastor W. Lehmann, quoted in H.A.H., p. 78.
See also Nos. [75], [77], [239].
"Other Peoples."
(After July, 1914.)
136. We had greatly over-valued all other nations, even the French. The French are a people on the down grade.—The Kaiser, to Herr A. Fendrich, quoted in H.A.H., p. 55.
137. All the deep things: courage, patriotism, faithfulness, moral purity, conscience, the sense of duty, activity on a moral basis, inward riches, intellect, industry, and so forth [!]—no other nation possesses all these things in such high perfection as we do.—"On the German God," by Pastor W. Lehmann, quoted in H.A.H., p. 76.
138. Fichte was right in calling us the people of the soul (Gemüt) ... [in the sense that] the depth of feeling common to us Germans has become a power controlling our activity and permeating our history, to a degree unknown to any other people. In this sense we have a right to say that we form the soul of humanity, and that the destruction of the German nature (Art) would rob world-history of its deepest meaning.—Prof. R. Eucken, W.B.D.G., p. 23.
139. Bach, Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven, these men signify for us a spiritual rebirth, such as never happens to other peoples, all of whom only grow old, and can never become young again.—H. v. Wolzogen, G.Z.K., p. 49.
139a. Other peoples are young, grow to maturity and then begin to age.... We Germans have often been old, but, thank God, we have as often been quite young.... How young do we not feel ourselves in contradistinction to these Englishmen and Frenchmen.—Prof. G. Roethe, D.R.S.Z., No. 1, p. 25.
140. No other people, not even the Greeks, have so understood childhood as the Germans. It is we who, in the work of Campe ["The Swiss Family Robinson">[ have created children's literature,[16] and still hold the lead in that department; it is we who provide the whole world with children's toys. That is possible only because we have the power of identifying ourselves with the child-soul, and this we could not do if we had not in our own innermost soul something childlike, simple, primitive.—Prof. R. Eucken, W.B.D.G., p. 13.