(Before the War.)
1. No people ever attains to national consciousness without over-rating itself. The Germans are always in danger of enervating their nationality through possessing too little of this rugged pride.—H. v. Treitschke, P., Vol. i., p. 19.
For further testimonies to German humility see Nos. [17], [20], [23], [36], [51], [106], [122], [206], [206b], [394].
2. The German people must rise as a master-folk above the inferior peoples of Europe and the primitive peoples of the colonies.—G.U.M., p. 8.
2a. The German people is always right, because it is the German people, and numbers 87 million souls.—O.R. Tannenberg, G.D., p. 231.
3. The French, under Napoleon, wanted to sacrifice the whole world to their insatiable thirst for glory, and the English treat every barrier opposed to their hunger for exploitation as a challenge to their superiority. Great is the gulf that separates these cupidities from the hitherto unrivalled moral elevation of the sense of honour in the German people.—F. Lange, R.D., p. 220 (1901).
Compare Section V., "Machiavelism."
4. My soul is heavy when I see the many enemies surrounding Germany.... And my thoughts fly forward into the far future, and ask, "Will there ever be a time when there is no more Germany?" ... How poor and empty would the rich world then become! Then all men would ask themselves, "How comes it that the peoples no longer understand each other? Whither has that great, serene power departed, that brought near the souls of the peoples, each to each? Who has shattered the marvellous mirror from which the countenance of the world was thoughtfully reflected?" Then they would strike their heads and their breasts in despair, crying: "We have criminally robbed ourselves of our wealth! The world, the great, rich world, has grown waste, poor, and empty: the world has no longer a soul, she has no longer a Germany!"—E. v. Wildenbruch (1889), quoted in D.R.S.Z., No. 12.
5. The proud conviction forces itself upon us with irresistible power that a high, if not the highest, importance for the entire development of the human race is ascribable to this German people.—General v. Bernhardi, G.N.W., p. 72.
6. The German is a hero born, and believes that he can hack and hew his way through life.—H. v. Treitschke, P., Vol. i., p. 230.