329. Much that is dreadful and inhuman in history, much that one hardly likes to believe, is mitigated by the reflection that the one who commands and the one who carries out are different persons—the former does not behold the sight, therefore does not experience the strong impression on the imagination; the latter obeys a superior and therefore feels no responsibility.—Fr. Nietzsche, H.T.H., section 101.
330. The warrior has need of passion. It must not ... be regarded as a necessary evil; nor condemned as a regrettable consequence of physical contact; nor must we seek to restrain it and curb it as a savage and brutal force.—General v. Hartmann, D.R., Vol. XIII., p. 122.
331. One must ... resist all sentimental weakness: life is in its essence appropriation, injury, the overpowering of whatever is foreign to us and weaker than ourselves, suppression, hardness, the forcing upon others of our own forms, the incorporation of others, or, at the very least and mildest, their exploitation.—Fr. Nietzsche, B.G.E., section 259.
332. We may depend upon the re-Germanizing of Alsace, but not of Livonia and Kurland. There no other course is open to us but to keep the subject race in as uncivilized a condition as possible, and thus prevent them from becoming a danger to their handful of conquerors.—H. v. Treitschke, P., Vol. i, p. 122.
333. A morality of the ruling class [has for] its principle that one has duties only to one's equals; that one may act towards beings of a lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as seems good to one ... and in any case "beyond good and evil."—Fr. Nietzsche, B.G.E., section 260.
334. The "argument of war" permits every belligerent State to have recourse to all means which enable it to attain the object of the war; still, practice has taught the advisability of allowing in one's own interest the introduction of a limitation in the use of certain methods of war, and a total renunciation of the use of others.... If in the following work the expression "the law of war" is used, it must be understood that by it is meant only ... a limitation of arbitrary behaviour which custom and conventionality, human friendliness and a calculating egoism have erected, but for the observance of which there exists no express sanction, but only "the fear of reprisals" decides.—G.W.B., pp. 52, 53.
335. A new type of philosophers and commanders will some time or other be needed, at the very idea of which everything that has existed in the way of occult, terrible and benevolent [!] beings might look pale and dwarfed. The image of such leaders hovers before our eyes.... The conditions which one would have partly to create and partly to utilize for their genesis [include] a transvaluation of values, under the new pressure and hammer of which a conscience should be steeled and a heart transformed to brass, so as to bear the weight of such responsibility.—Fr. Nietzsche, B.G.E., section 203.
336. Since the tendency of thought of the last century was dominated essentially by humanitarian considerations which not infrequently degenerated into sentimentality and weak emotionalism, there have not been wanting attempts to influence the development of the usages of war in a way which was in fundamental contradiction with the nature of war and its object. Attempts of this kind will also not be wanting in the future, the more so as these agitations have found a kind of moral recognition in some provisions of the Geneva Convention and the Brussels and Hague Conferences.... The danger can only be met by a thorough study of war itself. By steeping himself in military history an officer will be able to guard himself against excessive humanitarian notions, it will teach him that certain severities are indispensable to war, nay, more, that the only true humanity very often lies in a ruthless application of them.—G.W.B., pp. 54, 55.
337. Those very men who are so strictly kept within bounds by good manners ... who, in their behaviour to one another, show themselves so inventive in consideration, self-control, delicacy, loyalty, pride and friendship—those very men are to the outside world, to things foreign and to foreign countries, little better than so many uncaged beasts of prey. Here they enjoy liberty from all social restraint ... and become rejoicing monsters, who perhaps go on their way, after a hideous sequence of murder, conflagration, violation, torture, with as much gaiety and equanimity as if they had merely taken part in some student gambols.... Deep in the nature of all these noble races there lurks unmistakably the beast of prey, the blond beast, lustfully roving in search of booty and victory.—Fr. Nietzsche, G.M., i., II.
338. However much it may ruffle human feeling to compel a man to do harm to his own Fatherland, and indirectly to fight his own troops, none the less no army operating in an enemy's country will altogether renounce this expedient.—G.W.B., p. 117.