And not content with assaulting the Belgium that lives, you wage war on the dead, on the glory of past centuries. You bombard Malines, you put Rubens to flame, Louvain comes from your hands a heap of ashes—Louvain with its treasures of art and knowledge, the holy city! Who indeed are you and what name do you conjure us to call you, Hauptmann, you who reject the title of barbarian?
Are you the children of Goethe or of Attila? Do you wage war against armies or against the human spirit? Kill men if you must, but respect man's work. For this is the heritage of the human race. And you, like us, are its trustees. In making pillage of it as you have done you prove yourselves unworthy of this great inheritance, unworthy of holding rank in the small European army which is the garde d'honneur of civilization.
It is not to the sense of the rest of the world that I appeal against you. It is to yourself, Hauptmann. In the name of our Europe, of which up to the present you have been one of the noblest champions—in the name of that civilization for which the greatest of men have struggled—in the name of the honor even of your German race, Gerhart Hauptmann, I adjure you, I command you, you and the intellectual élite of Germany, where I have so many friends, to protest with utmost vehemence against this crime which leaps back upon yourselves.
If you fail in this, one of two things will be proved—that you acquiesce, (and then the opinion of the world will crush you,) or that you are powerless to raise your voice against the Huns that now command you. And in that case, with what right will you still pretend, as you have written, that your cause is that of liberty and human progress?
You will be giving to the world a proof that, incapable of defending the liberty of the world, you are helpless even to uphold your own; that the élite of Germany lies subservient to the blackest despotism—to a tyranny which mutilates masterpieces and assassinates the human spirit.
I await your response, Hauptmann—a response which shall be an act. The opinion of Europe awaits it, as do I. Bear this in mind; in a moment like this, even silence is an act.
A Reply to Rolland
By Gerhart Hauptmann.
You address me, Herr Rolland, in public words which breathe the pain over this war, (forced by England, Russia and France,) pain over the endangering of European culture and the destruction of hallowed memorials of ancient art. I share in this general sorrow, but that to which I cannot consent is to give an answer whose spirit you have already prescribed and concerning which you wrongly assert that it is awaited by all Europe. I know that you are of German blood. Your beautiful novel, "Jean-Christophe," will remain immortal among us Germans together with "Wilhelm Meister," and "der grüne Heinrich."