PRUSSIA OR GERMANY P
[To TH2 EDITOR OF TH2 " tiPtOTLT01.1 SIR,—There is an enormous chasm which separates the Germany of to-day from the old Germany which we had learnt to love and reverence, from which we drew noble inspirations, and to which we owe a debt of undying gratitude. It was the Germany which we grappled to our hearts with hoops of steel, with its immortal musicians, its dreamers of beautiful dreams and fairy tales, its weavers of golden poems and romances and splendid dramas, its creative thinkers in
religion and spiritual philosophy. And 'now we have a. Germany intoxicated with Ws, which Nietzsche elevates into a virtue, but which the Greeks and all civilized peoples have condemned as the unpardonable sin. hateful alike to God and man. We see it dominating the Kaiser and his immediate surroundings, the aristocracy of East Prussia and Branden- burg, the imperious military and naval circles, and, last but not least, the Professors of the Universities :—
" Professors we
From over the sea,
From the land where professors in plenty be; And we thrive and we flourish as well we may, In the land which produces one Kant with a K,
And many Cants with a C."
Not that the evil is not of very ancient growth. We trace it through the Seven Years' War of Frederick the Great, which began the consolidation of Prussia ; through the iniquitous partition of Poland; by taking to heart the Machiavellian and pitiless policies of Clausewitz, through the decadent philosophy of Schopenbauer, Nietzsche's acknowledged master, till it culminated in Bismarck, the man of blood and iron. The three wars that he boasted that he " made "—and it was a legitimate boast—consolidated Germany and crowned the hegemony of the German peoples, by transforming the King of Prussia into the Kaiser of Germany without contest and without rival.
And these three wars have been followed by forty-four years of peace, during which the nation has marvellously increased in wealth, in population, in commerce, in national influence. The Kaiser's will was nearly supreme over Europe. And if intellect, and energy, and brute force, and pitilessness were the only things necessary to make the "perfect" man, Germany would have accomplished its destiny and would have had rule over the two hemispheres. No one would have wagged his head without permission. But Heine long ago perceived that Germany was stupid—dumm, dumn, (holm.
It is a crime and a blunder. The strong man is the perfect
man who develops all sides of his nature proportionately. Brute force is good in due subordination. But the arrogant man or nation can never continue a strong man or nation. A nation which has forgotten its humanity, its social sympathies, its honour, is not a strong nation. Germany, great in many noble virtnes, is essentially weak. The bubble is pierced.. The seed of evil is without controversy a Prussian seed. All history proves it. But the tree has flourished exceedingly and borne fruit abundantly. And with the poison of its fruit the whole of Germany has been inoculated—South as well as North, peasant and proprietor, tradesmen of the town and Socialistic Trade Unionists, Evangelical and Catholic, town and country. The "Hymn of Hate" has had its origin in
kindly and sober Bavaria.
I have taken the trouble to date and mark the birthplace of
thirty-four representative Germans in all phases of art, science, literature, statecraft of the last hundred and fifty years. Among them I can find only eight who were born in Prussia—Frederick the Great, Herder, Beethoven, Clausewitz, Heine, Mendelssohn, Bismarck, and Haeckel. The list is interesting, though perhaps it does not prove that birthplace indicates character. For instance, Treitschke was born in Dresden and had Slav blood in his veins, but he naturalized himself as a Prussian, made Berlin his home, despised his own and the Southern States of Germany, and was Prussian
of the Prussians. Very different from Heine.—I am, Sir, &c., H. C.
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