PRUSSIA AND GERMANY
Stem-Rubarth's idea about Germany without Prussia is no doubt a very good one ; indeed, I consider it the only solution which might bring about, if not the final destruction, at least the humanisation of Prussianism.
But does Dr. Stem-Rubarth not do grave injustice to such splendid and civilised nations as Poland and Czecho-Slovakia, not to mention the other Slav nations of high cultural tradition, when declaring that Prussia is rather a Slav than a German State?
Is it not that the root of the ugly monster, " Prussianism," is that Prussia has become an unhealthy mixture of both these splendid races?
Does the root of all evil not lie in the fact that the con- querors of the trans-Elbian Slav districts, the Teutons who colonised along the banks of the Elbe and Havel under their Margraves, and the knights who brought Sicilian bureaucracy to (East) Prussia had to remain military masters over hostile native populations?
Master and subject intermixed in a tradition of brute force and the subject adopted the master's bad habits.
Moreover, if Prussia be cut off from Germany, why not also recreate Austria an independent State, with all inherent possibilities for that marvellous economical structure of a Danubian union?
Germany proper is quite large enough without either Austria or Prussia, and then will prove that its tradition by race and history is just as West European as that of France. On such a basis a healthy Europe might be created with the Western Democracies, to which Germany proper then would belong, as the foundation-stone for a cultural and economical union of the whole Continent—Yours faithfully,
HENRY GOTTORP.
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