6. A POLICY OF CIVILISATION (KULTURPOLITIK) CAN ONLY BE BASED ON A POLICY OF POWER.—If the signatories of this Petition—particularly the men of science, the artists, and ecclesiastics—are reproached, on the ground that the demands which they put forward are solely to promote Germany's political and economic power, and perhaps also to satisfy some of her social requirements, whilst the purely spiritual tasks of Germany's future have been forgotten, our answer is as follows:—
Care for the development of the German Mind and Genius (die Sorge um den deutschen Geist) cannot be made a war-aim or a condition of peace.
If, nevertheless, we are to say a few words on this subject, our position is briefly this. The German Mind is, in our opinion, beyond all doubt our one supremely valuable asset. It is the one priceless possession amongst all our possessions. It alone justifies our people's existence and their impulse to maintain and assert themselves in the world; and to it they owe their superiority over all other peoples. But, in the first place, we must emphatically insist that, if Germany is to be free to pursue her spiritual vocation, she must first of all secure her political and economic independence. And, secondly, to those who advocate the so-called Policy of Civilisation (Kulturpolitik) alone, to those whose watchword is "The German Mind without the Policy of Power," we reply: "We have no use for a 'German Mind' which is in danger of becoming, as it were, an uprooted national spirit, in danger of being itself disintegrated and the cause of disintegration in others. We have no use for a Mind which, having no healthy national body of its own, is driven to seek vainly in every country for a home and to become 'all things to all men'—a Mind which is forced to be untrue to its own character and a spurious imitation of the character of the nation that is its host. If the demands which we have formulated are satisfied, we shall create the necessary healthy body for the German Mind. The expansion of the national body which we have demanded will do the German Mind no injury, provided the precautions upon which we have also insisted are observed. On the contrary, subject to those precautions, such an expansion will strengthen the German Mind by providing it with wider opportunities."
We are well aware that the aims which we have proposed are great, and that their attainment is impossible without a spirit of resolute self-sacrifice and the most energetic skill in negotiation. But we appeal to a sentence of Bismarck's: "It is palpably true in Politics, if it is true anywhere, that 'faith removes mountains,' that Courage and Victory are not cause and effect, but identical with one another."
"Amongst the signatories to the above Petition," states Grumbach, in his Annexationist Germany, "were Dr. E. Kirdorf, engineer and general director of the Gelsenkirchener Mining Company, Ltd.; Herm. Schumacher, Professor of Political Economy; von Reichenau, Imperial Ambassador (retired); von Schwerin, President of the Government Board (Regierungs-Präsident) at Frankfort (retired); Reinh. Seeberg, Professor of Theology, Berlin; Dietr. Schafer, Professor of History, Berlin. In a controversy with Professor Delbrück in the Tägliche Rundschau, Professor Seeberg announced that the document contains 1,341 signatures in all, including those of 352 professors of universities and colleges; 158 schoolmasters and clergymen; 145 superior administrative officials, mayors, and town-councillors; 148 judges, magistrates, and lawyers; 40 members of the Reichstag and the Landtag; 18 retired admirals and generals; 182 manufacturers, business men, and bankers; 52 agriculturists; 252 artists, authors, and publishers."
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