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GERMAN LEADERS of
YESTERDAY and TO-DAY
GERMAN LEADERS of
YESTERDAY and TO-DAY
BY
ERIC DOMBROWSKI
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
NEW YORK LONDON
1920
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Octavio, B aeon Von Seidlitz UNI) Neukibk .... 1
II. Friedrich Ebert 8
III. Erich Ludendorff 16
IV. Theodor Wolff 30
V. Mathias Erzberger 36
VI. Georg Ledebour 48
VII. Ernst Von Heydebrand tjnd der Laase 54
VIII. Alfred Von Tirpitz 60
IX. Friedrich Natjmann 73
X. WlLHELM II 79
XI. Clemens Delbruck 92
XII. Hermann Pachnicke 99
XIII. Oto Hammann 103
XIV. Adolph Hoffmann 110
XV. Hellmtjt Von Gerlach 119
XVI. Karl Theodor Helfferich 124
XVII. Philip Scheidemann 135
XVIII. Hermann Paasche 141
XIX. Hans Delbruck 147
XX. Theobald Von Bethmann-Hollweg 151
XXI. Minna Catteb 158
XXII. Paul Lensch 164
XXIII. Ernst Graf zu Reventlow 169
XXIV. Georg Michaelis 176
XXV. Gustav Stresemann 183
XXVI. Lothar Persius 191
XXVII. Friedrich Von Pater 198
XXVIII. Kuno Graf Von Westarp 205
XXIX. Hugo Haase 210
XXX. Wilhelm Von Waldow 218
XXXI. Richard Von Kuhlmann 225
v
OCTAVIO, BAKON VON ZEDLITZ UND NEUKIRCH
The political activity of Octavio, Baron von Zedlitz
und Neukirch, dates back to the time when Prussia
consisted of the Rhine provinces, the Altmark, and
East Elbia. He was born in Glatz in 1840, the year
of Friedrich "Wilhelin Ill's death. His father was
president of the Royal Prussian Government. The
son arrived at a lesser station in life but nevertheless
enjoyed great political influence. He and Prussia grew
up together, but at heart he represented the old Prussia.
Now that Monarchism, with an audible jerk, turned
onto new tracks, Octavio, the knightly old champion,
laid his tired body upon the sick-bed. With Hebbel's
Master Anton he sighed resignedly:
" I no longer understand the world whose political
bumps I have tried to smooth with cunning compro-
mises for so many decades. Now it is everything or
nothing, just like the battlefield under cannon fire, equal
suffrage or the iron rod. What have I to do with that ?
" After all, I have the right to get tired. I have had
a turn at every office and have become a political fac->
totum. I still remember passing my state examination
1
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY;
for the bar, and that, immediately thereafter, I was
sent upon an official mission abroad. Those were years
in which the fate of the European continent was
gambled for. In 1864 I was appointed to the Prussian
Civil Commission in the annexed Duchies of Elbia.
Ach ! and two years later the merry war with Austria !
In Koniggratz they picked up the badly wounded,
smart, young, militia officer from the battlefield. Yes.
And when I was well again I began slowly, slowly,
year by year, to tread the traditional, bureaucratic,
seniority march : First assessor, then sheriff in Sagan.
Then came a sudden pause. War with France mixed
everything in a mess. To be sure, when I think of it,
it was but a child's game compared to the present. All
at once I was Under-prefect in San Quentin. I wonder
if the old house is there? I don't suppose so. The
bullets will have razed it to the ground along with all
the rest. But what's the difference? Live stock and
dead, whole generations are rooted out, stock and
branch, and we old fellows have nothing better to do
than to lay the rest of our petty existences under the
scythe as soon as possible.
" In those days life had just begun for me. Bis-
marck was building the new nation with broad sweeps
and I was permitted to sit in his shadow and help. The
district of Sagan-Sprottan sent me to the Reichstag;
I took my seat there on the Conservative bench. But I
2
BARON VOX ZEDLITZ UND NEUKIRCH
did not belong to the malcontents while the Iron Man
was carrying on his liberal policy. He had a fine scent
for such things and one day I exchanged my Landsrat
office for a post as assistant in the chancelry. My ac-
tivity in the Reichstag was at an end, and after that
I only ran for the Prussian House of Representatives.
I was loyal to this from 1876 to the last. Then I
entered the Board of Trade. In between lay a long,
long, period of parliamentary strivings, fore and aft
the wings, always compromising, always welcomed by
all parties and members of the Government. I knew
the people. I saw kings come and go, systems and
tendencies change, ministers and privy councillors, rep-
resentatives and voters, and, at last, I saw that every-
thing was cooked with water, thin water; the most
clever politics were muddied by personal ambitions and
material yearnings. I sought for a compromise and
they called me Octavio, the Half-dark.
" Gradually I began to like these twilight politics.
Especially after Stumm and Kardoff departed this life
and I became indisputable tactician at the head of the
Eree Conservative party. Our party lived on the dis-
unity of the others, but you must not scold me for be-
ing a political wash-rag because I and my party were
ever ready for compromise. I enjoyed my life as every-
one else, liked my beer and loved my wine, was not
entirely oblivious to the tender passion. Naturally I
3
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
have had misfortunes in my private life, too. And you
know I have not hidden myself behind the bushes
like Adam while the public asked, ' Octavio, where art
thou ? ' It was really a heavy blow to me when my
son played that silly, student trick in Leipzig. You
remember it was in some wine-room not far from the
Bavarian station that he shot his sweetheart, a bar-
maid, in a fit of jealousy. But, he went to America
as correspondent of the Berliner Anzeiger and became
a good, steady-going fellow who earned his living like
everyone else.
" Excuse me, I digress. I was to speak of politics.
Where was I? Oh, yes, political wash-rags. That
was certainly not my failing. I was just made presi-
dent of the Sea Board of Trade when that abominable
canal project was brought up before the Landtag. The
Conservatives were against it. The Kaiser declared in
an almost autocratic tone : ' It shall be built ! ' But
the Conservatives would not bend. I was one of those
rebels, like Dallwitz, Jagow, and so on, who were pushed
out of office by an angry Government. The others
rallied long ago and have since become governors, min-
isters, presidents, and what not. And I? "When I
reached the age of seventy-five, they gave me the office
of Privy Councillor with the title of Excellency. I
never reentered the Government although I had been
Biilow's friend and assistant; even Bethmann-Hollweg
4
BARON VON ZEDLITZ TTND NEUEIRCH
gladly made use of me, for example at the time of the
great reform of the Prussian franchise in 1910, which
went so well at first on my compromise recipe, but
which failed at the last.
"Believe me, in June, 1917, I had the Right, the
Middle, and even the Center party, so far that every-
one was almost ready to swear by my pretty plural
system plan. Even Bethmann-lTollweg stood godfather
and smiled benignly from a discreet distance. And
then — he left us in the lurch and proclaimed equal
suffrage. I was simply dumbfounded! I couldn't be-
lieve it. He had a reliable majority for my plural
reform in his pocket, and then to do such a thing ! But
quickly I got another little compromise ready — and
then — then — my own party left me in the lurch!
I was too much Left for them in this question. That
was the heaviest blow of my life. I decided to resign
my seat as leader of the party. Can you possibly
imagine what will happen if the House of Representa-
tives is really dissolved? Is it comprehensible? If
you please, I still believe in the old conservative dogma,
that conservatism and Government are one and the same
thing and the only liberality permissible is that the
gentlemen of the Government may become Free Con-
servatives if they wish. All other politics are more
or less suspicious, the National Liberals, the Center,
the Progressives, the Poles, and the Social Democrats.
5
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
They should be regarded only as objects of administra-
tion by the Government. At all events, I have partici-
pated with beating heart in every exception and have
not yet been converted. How often I have sprung upon
the speaker's platform when my legs were still steady,
with my face red from excitement, my bald head gleam-
ing, and my still stately white beard forming a dignified
frame for my words. I was not an orator although I
always spoke without notes.
" But I always had the ear of the House. My adjec-
tivity, my rich experience in all branches of Prussian
administrative practice overwhelmed them. Eor the
press I was ever the political lexicon. What have I not
written about in the red Tag? And in the Post,
the chief organ of the Free Conservatives ? I was al-
ways the sign-post at every political cross-road. And
now that is supposed to be all over. I may not speak,
I may not write, I may no longer grope along hidden
paths, I may only lie in bed counting over the years of
my life, or whatever else the doctor allows. If you look
out of the window at Prinz-Albrecht Strasse you will
see there, and everywhere else, another sick man whose
heart is beginning to falter and whose feet are begin-
ning to swell. His name is Prussia. And the doctor
who administers his medicine is Democracy. I suspect
Bernard Shaw was not so far wrong when he wrote
that satire, The Doctor's Dilemma. ' Every doctor
6
BARON VOX ZEDLITZ UXD XEUKIRCH
is ten times and a hundred times over a murderer. I
would like to think that people and the whole world
would suddenly recover if we did away with doctors.'
And perhaps politicians, too!
" Excuse me if I turn over on the other side in
disgust."
The old God of the Prussians took pity upon His
servant, and when the revolution shook the temple of
Prussianism to its verv foundation, he said to his tired
and bewildered believer, "Get thee hence, son, and join
thy forbears, for here is no longer a place for thee ! n
II
FKIEDRICH EBERT
I made the acquaintance of Friedrich Ebert at a
reception given by the German Society, to which I was
invited by Dr. Self, then Secretary of the Colonies.
A middle-sized gentleman with a leaning toward corpu-
lency, who makes little of formality ; unpretentious, but
not laying his innermost soul bare for the crowd to gape
at. He is very friendly, very amiable and obliging, but
a thin veil separates him from the others. He is one
who reflects without brooding, one who is ready to back
his words with deeds, to help when necessary; a hand-
worker, a saddler ; a master who knows his public and
the people; one who has been pushed to the front line
of politics by four turbulent years of war, who daily
recognizes how little brain matter is applied to so-called
world politics. He saw them all come and go, Bethmann-
Hollweg, Delbriick, Helfferich, Jagow, M ichaelis, Zim-
mermann, Hertling, and Hintze, people and little
people with trembling hands and mysterious counte-
nances, supported by dusty records, gently infusing their
political wisdom into the representatives. How many
times He was called even late at night, as leader of the
8
FRIEDRICH EBERT
Social Democrats, to the Chancellor's palace for a con-
sultation with Mr. Chancellor.
And he saw them all, the Government people with
the Kaiser at their head — the Kaiser grown so very
small before the threatening course of events — saw
them wooing the favor of the Social Democrats, this
" rabble of rogues without a country." And he thought
his own thoughts.
He was born at Heidelberg and existed in the days
when all Germany was rejoicing at the victory over
France, when flags waved from every house in honor
of the new, imperialistic German nation which arose
at Versailles. Friedrich grew up without any particu-
lar interruption, in humble circumstances, in an almost
proletarian narrowness. His father was one of those
superfluous men whose gray and sordid lives consist only
of work. The mother was like all mothers in narrow
streets and crooked courts, shawl on head, old and care-
worn. Friedrich went to the public school and at four-
teen was apprenticed to a saddler. The world about
him was so beautiful ; the Black Forest, the Xeckar, the
Ottheinrichsbau, the exuberant students; while he be-
longed to the " disinherited." lie felt himself drawn
to the outcasts of society, to the despised ones of the
earth. Greedily he devoured the papers, the circulars
secretly passed from hand to hand, and while reading
and learning he filled his soul with socialistic ideals.
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Suddenly the bars were down. Bismarck was de-
prived of office, must leave the Chancellor's palace
within a few hours after thirty-eight years of service
as president of the Prussian ministry, as Federal and
Imperial Chancellor. The Kaiser insisted. He could
no longer resist taking the reins of the Government in
his own hands. The law against Socialists fell with the
Iron Man. The February concessions seemed to intro-
duce a new era. A mental April storm swept the land.
Even Ebert was infected. The way was open now, one
could work and fight openly for the ideals of Social
Democracy.
Friedrich's wander vears ended in Bremen; he swam
to the top with his fresh, pulsing, southern blood, and
became editor of the Bremer Burgerzeitung. Years
passed quietly by. He was elected to membership and
gradually worked his way up to the secretaryship of
the party. Five years later he was president of the
Center for Working Youths and a member of the execu-
tive committee of the whole party. He looked strange
among all those blond and brown comrades. A south
German with Roman blood? Perhaps. His tempera-
ment was thoughtful and yet energetic when occasion
required. He was great at organization, his long suit.
He came into Parliament at the Konigsplatz in 1912,
with the socialistic wave of that time. He was elected
from Elberf eld-Barmen, Scheidemann's neighboring.
10
FRIEDRICH EBERT
•district. Scheidemann and Ebert soon became good
friends. When war broke out they both supported the
Government and were true to Bethmann-Hollweg for
three years. They were not backward in acknowledging
the "spirit of August 4th, 191-A," when the radicals
began to bluster and swagger around the party, nor even
when Haase, who was chairman, unrolled the flag of
rebellion. Quarrels and scenes took place within their
four walls and outside in the forum of the Reichstag.
The Labor party split, Haase was dethroned, Ebert, his
successor, together with Scheidemann, became the tar-
gets for mockery, contumely, and persecution. Mem-
bers of the party tore each other to pieces publicly. The
last bridges to an understanding seemed to be destroyed.
The majority of Social Democrats stuck to the Progres-
sives and the Center in order to accomplish any prac-
tical, positive work. Ebert, alone, did not give up hope
of a reconciliation. In the meantime he became chair-
man of the all-powerful faction in the Reichstag and
presided with a dignity and reserve that won the recog-
nition of his opponents. "When the Prince took over the
office of Chancellor after the resignation of Hertling, he
consulted Ebert; the two understood one another at a
time when the catastrophe was no longer to be averted.
Ebert was secretary of the first cabinet to be appointed
under the parliamentary regime, but he withdrew at
the last moment, giving Scheidemann, Bauer and David
11
LEADERS 0£ YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY;
the preference. The party seemed of more importance
to him, the party which was stripped of all her
leaders. He waited. Instinctively he felt what was
coming.
It came on Thursday, the 7th of November, 1918.
The revolutionary movement, beginning at Kiel, spread
like lightning all over the nation. Sailors had sent their
emissaries to all four points of the wind and the old
regime capitulated almost without a struggle. Only
the Kaiser, who had left Berlin in time, was hard of
hearing. At this moment Prince Max invited Ebert
to a conference with him. " I will go to Headquarters
this very evening to induce the Kaiser to abdicate,"
said the Prince. " In that event we can save every-
thing." Ebert, who like Scheidemann had threatened
the withdrawal of the party from the Government, now
promised to do his utmost to get the party and the
masses to wait. But he promised too much. Events
were already too far advanced. Almost the whole na-
tion was in revolution ; only Berlin was quiet. On the
afternoon of the same day, just as the Prince was mak-
ing ready for the journey, Ebert appeared in the house
at Wilhelmstrasse 77, and handed over the ultimatum
of the Social Democrats. The die was cast. "That
compels me," the Prince answered resignedly, " to hand
in my resignation, for it means the overthrow of my
policy of persuasion, not force."
12
FRIEDRICH EBERT
Although the Social Democrats postponed their ulti-
matum at the last moment, the revolution broke out in
Berlin. I still saw the old regime's armored trucks
whizzing through the ill-lighted streets on Friday night
looking for the " inner foe." After the proclamation
of a general strike on Saturday, the 9th of November,
I saw the workmen and soldiers marching through the
streets unfurling their red flags; I saw them tearing
the epaulettes and cockades from their comrades' shoul-
ders; I heard shots, the rattling of machine guns, and
I saw Adolph Hoffman and Ledebour making wild
speeches in wagons surrounded by a howling throng of
youths; I heard Scheidemann's voice from the balcony
of the Reichstag building. It was like colored films
whizzing past.
Everything seemed a chaos. The only peaceful spot
was Ebert. A new era had entered on the wings of a
storm. The card house of the old regime had collapsed.
The saddler, Friedrich Ebert, lifted the new Germany
into the saddle. Sunday morning early newspapers and
bill-boards announced Ebert's first manifest: Peace,
Freedom, and Order. Cooperation with other parties
was made impossible by the resistance of the Independ-
ents. Thousands thronged about the Chancellor's pal-
ace on Sunday morning. At last the new, purely social-
istic Government was born. Six men divided the Chan-
cellor's portfolio: three Social Democrats: Ebert,
13
LEADEES OF YESTERDAY AXD TO-DAY
Scheideinann. Landsberg: and three Independents:
Haase, Dittniann and Earth. Enity had again been
established. But hourly nevr differences arose: argu-
ments with the executive committees of the Workmen
and Soldiers' Councils, with the Spartaeists. with Eieb-
knecht and Eosa Luxembourg. Ebert held fast to demo-
cratic principles and was against any dictation by the
proletariat. Those from the other socialistic side were
of another opinion. They wished to have at least a
part of the socialistic program realized before the
National Convention.
The sailors who had placed themselves at the service
of the revolution and who had taken up fortable
quarters in the palace, protested against being turned
out bv the Government. On the dav before Christmas
eve it became a street right. "Bloodhound Ebt
screamed the radicals, " shoots down the people.'"' Ebert
in dismay capitulated to the marines. Anarchistic radi-
calism, led by Liebknecht. spread rapidly. It threat-
ened to devour Berlin and all Germanv. A new reck-
oning came. In Berlin the battle lasted seven days.
The Ebert-Scheidemann Government battled for its
existence and Ebert for his head. The victory \
theirs. The election of the National Assemblv was
accomplished.
And the cabinet laid the portfolio in the hands of
the new Parliament.
14
FKIEDRICH EBERT
When, on February 6, 1919, the Xational Assembly
convened at Weimar, Ebert read the report on the
political situation, the house rushed through the adop-
tion of an emergency constitution, and against the votes
of the parties of the Right and those of the radical
Social Democrats Ebert was elected provisional Presi-
dent of the German Republic. Removed from the stage
of parliamentary life, he began, in a quiet and unassum-
ing way, a new activity behind the curtains. Only once
he stepped forth again, when during May of the same
year the Entente made known the terms of peace. Then
he denounced these terms and wanted to resign from
office. He lived through hours of doubt and despon-
dency. The Democrats left the Coalition Cabinet in
June. The responsibility for fixing the official signa-
tures to the peace document rested alone of all parties
with the Centrists and the Majority Socialists. Ebert
hesitated, wavered. Should, or should he not, desert his
post ? But to desert then would simply mean calling in
chaos. And so he stayed.
Ill
ERICH LUDENDOKFP
The General's Tragedy," or "In Disgrace," a -film
in eight pictures. Paul Wegener as Ludendorff.
Music furnished by the Lower. Rhine Infantry
Band, Regiment 39.
A musical potpourri ushers in the evening. It con-
tains all the patriotic songs " Lieb' Vaterland, magst
ruhig sein," " Deutschland, Deutschland iiber alles,"
" Was blasen die Trompeten, Husaren heraus ! " The
overture is over. The room is suddenly darkened.
Ludendorff's portrait appears, enormously enlarged, on
the canvas. A bulky face. Fleshy and dull. Wrinkles
like scars on the fagade. A small, stiff mustache hesi-
tatingly adorns the upper lip. The hair flows backward
from an imposing brow. It is but a sparse plain. The
eyes look defiant, almost gloomy. Personified Will and
Ambition veiled in an artificial fog of self-confidence.
The picture vanishes as quickly as it appeared. The
real play begins :
16
ERICH LUDEXDORFF
FIRST PICTURE
Rustling beech forests, calm lakes, and the ocean not
far away: Holsteinische, Switzerland. In 1877, at
twelve years of age, Erich Ludendorff entered the Cadet
school at Plon. He was to enter the fifth class but was
found advanced enough for the under third. When the
teacher asked him about his parents he proudly related
an almost romantic tale.
" My father," he said, " owned an estate in Krus-
zewnia by Schwersenz in the district of Posen. Later
he removed to Pommern. Our family tree reaches far
back. My forefathers were Pomeranian merchants
who could trace their ancestry back to that passionate
and criminal king of Sweden, Erich XIV, and his mis-
tress, Agda Pehrsdotter. My mother was a von Tem-
pelhoff, daughter of an old warrior family; her father
was prominent in two campaigns, her great-grand-
father was the General Georg Friedrich von Tempel-
hoff who was equally valued as a mathematician and
as a militarist."
The youth was no discredit to his family. He soon
became room senior (head boy). He showed no espe-
cial talent, only a thirst for knowledge. His first re-
port contained a remark painful for him : he could not
maintain his dignity. This temperament, the desire
to command, remained with him.
Quickly he went from one class to the other. Tears
17
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
passed by. He entered the head military school, became
Second Lieutenant of Infantry, Regiment 57, and had
to serve in the fortress at Wesel, a dreary and boring
service. Thus his life began in drab monotony while
his breast was still full of longing for action. Five
years of this sameness. Then all at once he was com-
manded to Berlin to a military gymnasium. When
this ended he was sent to the Second Marine Battalion
in Wilhelmshaven. At the same time his Lieutenant's
patent was dated a year earlier, a sign that his superiors
valued him highly.
SECOND PICTURE
Usual military career. He was sent for a time to the
War Academy, learned the Russian language, and after
a three years' course made a trip through Russia with
the concurrence of the General Staff. He became
Battalion Commander, First Lieutenant, and Chief of
the Division in the General Staff, then Colonel. From
1911 to 1913 he worked out the war plans for the Ger-
man army. Shortly before war broke out he became
Major at Dtisseldorf, but almost immediately afterwards
Brigadier General, then Major General at Strassburg.
The doors to glory were standing wide open. In the
prime of life, at fifty years of age, he climbed higher
and higher until he reached the stars.
In Liittich he obtained his first laurels. When the
18
ERICH LUDENDORFF
attack on the fortress and advance of the army threat-
ened to go wrong he took over the brigade and found the
way himself, after the pioneers had lost it. He pushed
through with the brigade and took the fortress. The
first lines were broken and the way to the city seemed
open. Early on an August morning the troops would
enter. Ludendorff drove on ahead in an auto with his
Adjutant. He entered sooner than his troops and the
surprised garrison surrendered to the two officers with-
out resistance. The papers gave Emmich the credit
for the capture of Liittich, but it was really Ludendorff
who had also worked out the plans for the attack. He
carried out these plans with pluck and energy. The
Kaiser was informed. Ludendorff was placed on the
list of exceptions. It was he who told the monarch
fourteen days later, when the Cossacks stood before the
gates of Konigsberg:
" There is only one who can help us and that is Hin-
denburg."
Ludendorff was commissioner to fetch the old gen-
eral A. D. from Hanover and go with him to save the
East. Blow after blow followed, the battles of Tannen-
berg, in Masuria, and on the Polish and Baltic fields.
Hindenburg and Ludendcrff became the symbols
of victory for Germany. But even then Ludendorff
reached out for higher things. The military scale alone
was not enough for him. The " hybris " crept into his
19
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
heart, pride before which the old Greeks shuddered.
]STapoleon I arose again. Ludendorff reached out
after political fame. The occupied eastern territory
was now put under military rule. Reforms were in-
troduced and the souls of the inhabitants drilled in
barrack style. Remarkable that the Lithuanians, the
Livonians and the Poles showed no understanding for
the Kultur that was to be forced upon them for political
reasons. Therefore, one must be more strict, more com-
manding. Yes, this was LudendorfFs eastern policy;
simple and to the point. But he mistook these people
for his recruits.
THIRD PICTURE
1916. The unfortunate attack on Verdun and the
loss of the Somme led to Falkenhayn's fall — Falken-
hayn, the salon General. Only after his departure was
the bad condition of the army found out. Ludendorff
finally went to the Kaiser and said : " If Falkenhayn
is not deprived of the leadership, the army will be de-
moralized within a few months." Hindenburg had
wanted to say it but could not bring himself to com-
plain to the Kaiser. Ludendorff did it. The two
now took charge of the whole army. "Useless assaults
and obstinate defenses merely for the sake of honor
were abandoned. An elastic scheme of defense was
now employed, LudendorfFs patent. The soldiers
heaved a sigh of relief. What a senseless, even crim-
20
ERICH LTJDE^DORFI ,
inal waste of men had been going on. But that was
not all. Ludendorff did away with bureaucracy in the
trenches. Other generals replaced their own mental
work by ordering reports, covering their mistakes with
documents. Ludendorff saw that this was a waste of
time for company and battery leaders. A new spirit
had descended upon the earth.
FOURTH PICTURE
Ludendorff developed in great style from Quarter-
master General to politician. Mr. Bethmann-Hollweg
was gradually pushed to the wall. The political child-
ishness which was to lead Germany to the brink of ruin
began in Poland. Roumania then entered the war ; the
situation was critical. ISTew armies must be conjured
out of the earth. Poland must furnish one. As a re-
ward she was to have national freedom, i. e., what
Ludendorff understood as such. The double proclama-
tion of November 5, 1916, followed. Poland was made
an independent kingdom — without a king! Come
across with your soldiers now, was the command. Ac-
tivists advised and implored them to leave the recruit-
ing of a Polish army to them and the Polish Govern-
ment. The Pole was skeptical. Ludendorff understood
the psychology of the people better. He commanded,
ordered the recruiting in Poland, invested German mili-
tary stations with the necessary authority, and the re-
21
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
suit was — one hundred and eighty-one recruits for the
new Polish army. Another version gives three hundred
and nineteen as the result. Of course Bethrnann-Holl-
weg got the blame — publicly at any rate. It was he
who fought the U-boat war from week to week and
month to month, because he feared America's entrance
in the war.
But the marine bureau insisted and pulled the wires.
Confidential circulars were published prophesying Eng-
land's down-fall within a certain time if submarine war-
fare was introduced. The Alldeutschers, Conservatives
and National Liberals began to shower Ludendorfr" and
Hindenburg with thousands of greetings and resolu-
tions against the slip-shod Government. Ilelfferich suc-
cumbed first to the U-boat hypnosia, then Ludendorfr",
who set the pace for everything, and the Chancellor had
to submit. On the first of February, when the unre-
stricted warfare was announced, the following " Most
High " command was issued to the navy :
" In the impending battles it is the duty of My navy
to use the English method of starvation, by means of
which your most vindictive and stubborn foe thinks to
force Germany to her knees. It is your duty to use this
method of warfare against the sea-trade of our enemies
with every means at your command."
Ten months later they were more modest at chief
Headquarters. At the beginning of December of the
22
ERICH LUDENDORFF
same year, Ludendorff said to a Viennese journalist:
" We did not think our submarine warfare could starve
England out in a few months." They only wished to
increase her desire for peace. In many ways the supply
of wood and coal was more important to England than
food. Imagination ! The forests of Scotland furnished
wood enough, and as for coal, Cardiff alone produces the
best coal in the world. Politically Ludendorff had ex-
posed himself. And militarily ? " The war shall not
be given up as a draw," he said to the same questioner.
" It will be decided favorably for us."
FIFTH PICTURE
Ludendorff' s splendor grew and spread its rays in all
directions. USTot a few wished him at the head of affairs.
The ever more visible dictator's claws pleased them.
The deportations from Belgium aroused the whole
world. These brutal measures proceeded from Luden-
dorff alone. He had not considered it necessary to con-
fer with anyone about this fateful measure. Was he
really a powerful man or did he only wish to appear as
such before the world ? The Chief Command began to
deify itself. Only those newspapers were allowed to
appear in which Hindenburg appeared as the Father
and Ludendorff as the Holy Ghost. At bottom Luden-
dorff was but a small, political dilettante who had read
himself big in the Alldeutscher Posener Tageblatt
23
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
and Pommerschen Tagespost. One gradually began
to see that his decisions in Home and Foreign politics
were not made with that calm calculation and cool
knowledge which characterized his military measures.
One day documents will talk and the political historian
will he speechless.
For his Home and Foreign ministry he had created
a war press, and with this apparatus he squeezed every
Government to the wall and the Reichstag along with
them. Bethmann, Michaelis, Hertling, all strove in vain
against this militarizing of politics. Ludendorff tri-
umphed. He made an end of that ghost, " Russian
peace without annexation," through General Hoffman.
SIXTH PICTURE
Hindenburg and Ludendorff reconstructed the army.
They had taken it over from Falkenhayn in a not too
healthy condition. Orders show how this was done:
Sharper enforcement of compulsory obedience. Des-
sauer's system revived. Many officers silently disap-
proved. Everyone who has had anything to do with
troops knows that little is accomplished by force.
Troops and officers were too little bound by common
interests.
The great offensive came to a standstill in the sum-
mer of 1918. At first it was only whispered about by
a few at whom one shrugged one's shoulders. Most
24
ERICH LUDENDORFF
of the officers believed in the theory that pauses were
necessary and that LudendorfFs hammer would strike
a telling blow here and another one there, until the last
great victory was pulled off in triumph. The Kaiser
traveled to Aix-la-Chapelle and delivered his brilliant
town-hall speech.
LudendorfFs hammer fell a few times more, once with
success. And then all was over; Ludendorff told the
party leaders in the Reichstag that he could only be re-
sponsible for the army for a few months at most. His
nerves went back on him. The people's Government
must save the Fatherland. In accordance with Luden-
dorfFs world policy, German troops were scattered all
over the world: in Finland, in Russia, in the Baltic
provinces, in Lithuania, in Poland, in the Ukraine, in
Crimea, in the Caucasus, in Mesopotamia, in Syria, in
the Balkans, in Italy, in Austria, — and the west front
got a blow below the belt, although the double front
warfare was long since ended.
SEVENTH PICTURE
Ludendorff had proved himself incapable of judging
the situation while there was yet time. Perhaps it was
already too late after the first blow. Enemies of Ger-
many would not have accepted an offer of peace even
then, in which Germany did not recognize that she was
beaten. If the militarists had given up then it would
25
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AXD TO-DAY
have prevented unnecessary bloodshed. But no — rather
another try after too long a pause. When this instru-
ment was dulled on the mangled bodies of men, when the
third attempt failed, then Foch reached his goal. The
command given to the troops at each of these offensives
was to fight to the last ditch, utter ruthlessness with men
and material. The moment these attacks became un-
necessary the leader who ordered them was inhuman.
The whole offensive was a huge mistake, as one could
clearly see after the breakdown. There was a lack of
knowledge of enemy strength. Ludendorff was wholly
mistaken on this point. He lacked perception and pene-
tration in regard to the reports made to him. The man
who brought him these reports was the same who
whipped up the German press for him : First Lieutenant
!N"icolai. Here is the tragedy of it all. On account of
political incapability Ludendorff was blinded to mili-
tary events by a tool who catered to his ambition. Even
during the offensive Ludendorff could not see the ridicu-
lousness of it.
" Foch still has forty divisions ; thirty divisions ; ten ;
now they are all demolished. "Where is Foch ? " so
wrote a Berlin paper. Ludendorff looked on at this sort
of reckoning and seemed to believe in it. He could
not pass the test of greatness which knows the essen-
tial, discards everything else and rejects false honor.
This inner victory, the victory over oneself, this ruth-
26
ERICH LUDENDORFF
lessness which alone is great, seemed too bitter for this
most ruthless of men.
The submarine warfare was the chief factor in the
downfall. If Germany had not had faith in that, a
cheaper peace might have been won. Ludendorff bears
the responsibility for this step. It is an open secret that
that there were very few boats. There was no founda-
tion for other reports than the hope of new boats. Why
did Ludendorff not investigate these conditions before
giving the command ? It can hardly be comprehended.
Is it possible that he really was as superficial and cred-
ulous as they say?
Optimism held full sway in Rhineland industrial
circles where he daily came and went. " A few weeks
ago Hindenburg visited us. Everybody was on parade.
It was like a visit from the Kaiser. Ludendorff looked
unconcerned. He had a wave of the hand as much as
to say : ' I'll manage everything.' " Such was the re-
port of a Landsturm man.
Because Ludendorff had this motion of the hand no
one on the whole general staff ever contradicted him.
He suffered no contradiction. That really means that
whoever contradicted probably lost his position. To
comprehend the development of the whole misfortune
one must add the ambitions and strivings of many other
staff officers to Ludendorff's picture. Then one may
delve deeper for the damage done to the German nation.
27
LEADEKS OF YESTERDAY AXD TO-DAY
EIGHTH PICTURE
Ludendorff drove his madness further after the col-
lapse. The retreat succeeded but that was no fault of
his. The troops once more stood firm as a stone wall.
The enemy was thrown back. Ludendorff was again
on top and ready to retract what he had yielded in a
moment of weakness. Then came collision with the
People's Government. He hoped to be able to make one
more attempt. But it was already too late. A year or
so ago he had been able to bring about Betkmann-Holl-
weg's fall by a simple " He or I." This time it didn't
work. At the decisive moment Hindenburg dropped
him for the Kaiser. That finished Ludendorff. He
refused eveiy order, every honor, every decoration, even
the Imperial handwriting, as an insult. Hindenburg
and Ludendorff left on two different trains, parted for
the first time, the one to take up his work again, the
other to retire on a pension.
The play is over. Go home, good people, go home.
Ludendorff is no more. A nightmare has been lifted
from your souls. A Xapoleon has been sent to rest.
He fled to Sweden when the revolution made an end of
all those military spooks, and started without delay the
work of writing his War Memoirs, a book of astounding
volume considering its absolute emptiness as regards its
28
ERICH LUDEXDORFF
contribution to military and political science as well as
to the interests of civilization. Bourgeois and military
reaction, after recovering from its shock over the down-
fall of its hero, is looking up to him once more as the
coming savior of the Fatherland. And, by and by,
Erich Ludendorff begins again to look upon himself in
that light and to play, evidently to his own satisfaction,
the part of the slumbering lion, growling in his sleep,
ready to awake at any moment with the terrible roar of
the king of the jungle.
IY
THEODOR WOLFF
Facts have always interested the average person, the
general public, less than the personalities who stood be-
hind them directing their course. Carlyle built up an
historical theory on this fact. He reflected on the
history of heroes. Antiquity idolized Plutarch whose
biography everyone should read. Modern history has
developed and been greatly influenced by an entirely
new type of such " heroes," namely, the political writer.
In democratic lands this pen heroism opened the way
much earlier. France, or more correctly Paris, is the
classical soil for it. In Germany the press was valued
for decades rather as a cleanser of public morals than as
a spiritual guidepost. At least this was the usual opin-
ion in official or officious circles in regard to that neces-
sary evil — the press. Under the pressure of war we
also were converted and the papers could no longer com-
plain of having to occupy a back seat. On the contrary,
presumptions became so prevalent that it needed a firm
character to resist the influence of all sorts of rumors.
A good many German journalists failed to stand the
test to which they were suddenly subjected. Most of
'6(f
THEODOR WOLFF
them, in fact the compact majority, came to a com-
promise during the war. The people, who are not as
simple as they look sometimes, scented this, and doubt
crept into their despairing breasts.
Theodor Wolff belongs to those who maintained
their backbone during all the- various mental phases
of the war. He was a fanatic for the truth, who even
tried to fight against the daily lies of life. Wolff
was originally purely literary; form was everything
to him, aesthetics the main thing. Like all youths
with their own mental life he composed poetry at
school, but with all his youthful enthusiasm there
remained a skeptical, a critical streak in him.
Critical Passages at Arms was the name of the first
journal published by him during his school days. He
was assisted by a number of school comrades, many of
whom afterwards became pupils of Erich Schmidt. By
encouraging a free stage he acknowledged his belief in
naturalism, which was growing ever more powerful.
Plays and romances soon arose from his pen. Kleist
was not his model, rather Heine or perhaps Borne. But
this is only a comparison, for he had a thoroughly in-
dependent nature whose strength was concealed by a
mantle of gentleness and courtesy. His characters were
spiritual, they were stamped with beautiful words and
their lives were, unintentionally, a cult of beauty, an
evening conversation with discreetly lowered lights.
31
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
A long residence at Paris was determined upon for
Wolff. Here his talent for style and form received its
last polish in the fascinating atmosphere of the Boule-
vards. He did not remain long at f euilleton work ; poli-
tics soon captured him. At first it was the political
heads of France, all the impulsive rhetoricians and po-
litical heroes that took his fancy. Then politics itself
fascinated him, the eternal hither and thither, for and
against of people, things and opinions; the eternal at-
tempts to balance contradictions without ever coming to
a harmonious whole : Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis.
It was at the time of the political tension in France as
well as in all Europe; the time of Dreyfus and Alge-
ciras. Theodor Wolff was everywhere, writing and
acting.
His literary reputation was already established when
he returned to Berlin in 1907 to take Arthur Levysohn's
place at the head of the Berliner Tageblatt. Many and
varied were the things he brought home from Paris : a
clean political shirt, a wide knowledge of people, a
familiarity with the tricks of diplomacy, and an honest,
democratic heart. He continually tried to induce Prus-
sian Germany to lay aside the half-absolutism of the
Friedrich period and to live up to the political stand-
ards of the rest of the Western Europe culture world.
The new Theodor was keen and sharp and was not
to be deterred by traditions. Inexhaustible were the
32
THEODOR WOLFF
weapons lie used against the existing political system.
He fought with wit and satire, with anger and indigna-
tion. At this time even liberalism had given way be-
fore the smooth business policy of Prince Biilow. In
this black period, the Berliner Tageblatt fought almost
single-handed against a policy which sought to veil and
falsify the ineradicable differences between the Right
and the Left. In spite of all opposition or more gra-
cious wooing, Theodor Wolff remained firm. In most
pronounced fashion he kept the Prussian franchise re-
form in the foreground. This was the apple of discord
he continually rolled between the immoral marriage of
the parties. The results after ten years proved him
right. The Government itself finally proposed equal
suffrage.
Theodor Wolff is undoubtedly one of the most at-
tacked persons in the political life of Germany. Be-
sides the integrity and strength of his character there
is one thing no one can deny, and that is a political in-
stinct of unusual certainty. The psychological is the
fundamental trait that distinguishes his political writ-
ings. His Monday articles are the watchword for the
political week. In the enemy's camp they tried to put
an end to him by accusing him of journalism, of having
little economical or social knowledge. But what is
that? Is Count Hertling any the less a politician be-
cause he probably never belonged to a college of national
33
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
economy? Or was Disraeli, Lord Beaconsfield, the
novelist ?
We are more interested in how Theodor Wolff con-
templates politics and the State. We find the following
definition in Schiller's letters to the Duke von Holstein-
Augustenburg : "The State should not honor merely
the objective and the generical in the character of the
individual, it should also honor the subjective and the
specific, and while spreading the invisible kingdom of
morals and customs should not depopulate the kingdom
of phenomena." It is the human that counts even in
politics. This is not merely a platonic, democratic pro-
fession ; it is a daily going out to do battle not only for
ideas but for the people, that they may be brought a
step further forward in the development of culture
through the realization of the idea. This effort com-
prises everything — humanitarian thoughts, cosmopoli-
tanism, democracy, ethics and aesthetism. Everything,
and yet in this Wolff mixture there is something espe-
cial: the original personality behind all else.
According to Hegel, the State is a spiritual idea in
the externality of human will and its freedom. That
is what it should be at least. But a short time ago we
were not so far as that in Prussia. The milestones on
the way to it were: equal suffrage in Prussia, parlia-
mentary system, international court of arbitration and
universal disarmament. It is Theodor Wolff more than
34
THEODOR WOLFF
any other that deserves the reward for continually point-
ing to this necessity. Politicians were not able to with-
stand this suggestion forever. This struggle for equal
suffrage, for a parliamentary system, and for pacificism,
is faithfully reflected in his war-book, Accomplished
Facts, a collection of Monday articles. Taken as a
whole, it is a moral philosopher's balancing of accounts
with the shadow side of war. " Like desecrated priest's
garments," he writes in the introduction, " many have
hung the worthless principles of justice, of truth and
human dignity in the pawnshop. The joyless races of
Philistines and Pharisees are increasing. Those who
wish to keep out the enemy and guard the legacy of the
noblest souls, feel themselves united for a common task.
Out of this destruction it is they who will carry the true
household gods into the future."
The revolution gave him a new impulse. The time
seemed ripe for the discarding of the rusty, old, liberal
party models, and so he became the instigator and actual
founder of the " German Democratic Party " on a re-
publican basis.
This is Theodor Wolff and his mode of life.
CHAPTER V
MATHIAS ERZBERGER
Through a narrow, creaking, little door we carefully
enter the Dome. A murky twilight swallows us up.
The last fine wisps of incense caress our senses. A tired
little bell tinkles in our ears. Suddenly two forms arise,
two men. Not hesitatingly like sinners or dreamers —
they step out energetically like men who have a certain
goal to reach. One is a priest, tall and thin, with an
aesthetic face ; fanaticism and indomitable energy gleam
out from under gray lashes, energy that knows no com-
promise, no turning aside. A Jesuit father ? The curi-
ous robe looks like it. His companion is rather short,
round and well-fed. Red-cheeked, lively, bright eyes
behind discreet, gold-rimmed glasses, blond hair, his
face beams like the sun at noon-tide. Hans Thema has
no chubbier, rounder, happier little angel on his flowery
meadows than this.
Who are these remarkable figures ? The priest I do
not know, but he seems of high rank. But the other
seems familiar ; have I not seen him somewhere before ?
Is it not Mathias Erzberger? Yes, without a doubt
that is who it is. But what is he doing here in this
36
MATHIAS ERZBERGER
half-forgotten Dome, in this pilgrims' church near the
frontier? Has a secret political mission sent him to
this quiet corner? Is he holding a secret conference
with a messenger from the Vatican ? Not a soul here
knows them. They can whisper and plot and throw out
new peace nets undisturbed.
Absorbed in their conversation they pass by ; in pass-
ing they hardly raise their eyes. A confessional reaches
out its arms invitingly toward them. The priest pulls
back the purple, shimmering curtain and seats himself.
On the other side, separated only by a thin wooden wall
with a barred grating, sits Mathias Erzberger. The
confession begins with the words of St. Augustine : No
one puts trust in himself in the impending discussion;
in God alone do we put our trust. In God? Or in
Christ's substitute, the Pope in the Vatican ?
Who is this Mathias Erzberger that he undertakes to
juggle with nations as with dogmatic formulae and play
the benevolent Providence? How does it happen that
wherever we go we come across his tracks ? In the press
or wherever there is a political wound still festering he
is the first to recognize the situation, to apply the knife
to the abscess. Who is Mathias Erzberger whose spirit
floats over the inky oceans of the Germania, that organ
37
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
of Berlin's Center party; who not only writes for the
party but also for the Government although he never
signs his name ?
Let him speak for himself:
" I was born in Buttenhausen on the 20th of Septem-
ber, 1875. You will not find Buttenhausen on the map,
it is so small. It is situated in the quietest corner of
"Wurttemberg ; cattle dealers are its excuse for existing.
I was educated in Biberach, that ancient city with its
medieval walls and its venerable church dating from
the twelfth century. I wanted to become a teacher —
a pedagogue — and had reached my goal at the age of
nineteen. But my young blood left me no peace ; it was
not enough for me to teach the young idea how to shoot.
"At twenty-one I became editor and politician ; after
leaving the Catholic Teacher's Seminary I spent a few
semesters at the Swiss Catholic High School at Frei-
burg, studying constitutional law and national economy.
For seven years I was occupied journalistically for the
Christian Guild movement. In 1897 I was sent to the
International Labor Congress at Zurich ; here at scarce
twenty-two years of age I made my first tender attempts
at establishing foreign connections.
" I had the power of persuasion and 'a gift of gab' so
that I soon became the spoiled pet of the masses. It
was no wonder that Biberach and Buttenhausen sent me
to the Reichstag at the tender age of twenty-eight.
38
MATHIAS ERZBERGER
3(
" Here I was looked upon as a Benjamin hardly to 1:
taken seriously. But I had a head full of ideas and was
soon the only one among the Center who really longed
for deeds to free us from the sticky atmosphere of party
politics. I peered like a thief in the night for oppor-
tunities. My thoughts wandered far, even across the
equator to German Southwest Africa. The Colonies —
here was my field ! For only the specialist amounts to
anything in the Reichstag. So it came ahout that on
the 21st of January, 1905, I emerged from the darkness
of specialization into the glare of the footlights and
cockily disputed the claims of the settlers for damages
resulting from the uprising. Those who go out to earn
money must take the risk, I said. Such tones had not
been heard from the Center of the House for a long time.
They were accustomed to hearing such things from the
Social Democrat side only. The gentlemen around the
green table shivered slightly in this cool breeze and put
their heads together.
" ' What does this young badger want ? What does
he know about the suffering and distress in the South-
west? He is mixing in other people's business. It is
impossible for the Center to identify itself with such
things.'
" I admit it was not easy to convince the party of my
opinions. But I pounded on the mass of material in
my possession, which increased enormously in the course
39
LEADEKS OF YESTERDAY AXD TO-DAY
of the following months. The Colonial Government had
not used its money scrupulously, so I wrote in the
Kolnische YoTkszeitung. Immediately the semi-official
Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung fell upon me with a
lot of publications of documents trying to prove that my
speech had been but empty talk. And I confess that
my informers had not been absolutely reliable. But
I was young and inexperienced.
" In 1906 I brought my whole party on the down-
grade with colonial affairs. I had a scandal up my
sleeve: the affair of Secretary Poplau who had fur-
nished me a great deal of material from Colonial Gov-
ernment records. Herr Spahn, our party leader, de-
clared he was not convinced by Representative Erz-
berger ; the latter had not proved any of his statements.
Herr Spahn spoke in the name of the party, hoping to
squelch me thereby. But the lightning ran down the
rod and thunder did not scare me. Even the court did
not bring me off my perch. In the Poplau process I
first maintained silence until Poplau — under pressure — ■
gave me permission to speak. But the court refused to
put me under oath after hearing my statement. The
others reproached me with this, saying the court wished
to save me from perjury. My answer to this was that
courts in general were not so squeamish, and moreover
I did not know why they should make an exception in
my case.
40
MATHIAS ERZBERGER
"In December, 1906, I exposed some German in-
trigues on the Spanish island, Fernando Po, that might
have led to complications with Spain. I pressed the
party to refuse credit for an increase of troops in the
Southwest. I admit I was dismayed myself, when
Prince Billow arose solemnly from his place at the long
Bundesrat table, took up a red portfolio, and in the
name of the Kaiser adjourned the Reichstag. Naturally
it was not easy for me in the party and I soon felt their
displeasure. When the speeches of all the Center mem-
bers were published mine was simply left out as if it
had never existed.
" In a debate over Ostmark and Poland, Prince Salm
brought up my name in connection with a theft in
order to put me on the grill. I smile to think of it.
The Bayerische Kurier, the leading South German Cen-
ter paper, had published some especially intimate
passages from the documents of the German ]STavy
Verein. These documents were only to be obtained
with the aid of a key from a private drawer in a writ-
ing table belonging to the Yerein. They thought they
had found the thief in the shape of one Oscar Janke, a
messenger boy in the service of the Verein. He escaped
and knocked at the door of a Jesuit monastery seeking
admittance and perhaps absolution from his heresy (he
was a Protestant at the time of the theft).
" The process continued and I made the following
41
LEADERS OE YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
statement before the prosecuting attorney: 'I refuse
to give any information in regard to the following ques-
tions: whether it was known to me in what manner or
through whom the article " Navy Yerein Propaganda "
appeared in the Bayerische Kurier of February 5, 1907,
or whether the father or brothers of Janke had contrib-
uted any material or information for this article,
because in answering either of these questions I make
myself liable to prosecution. I beg to take an oath to
this effect.' The proceedings had to be stojDped. The
prosecuting attorney frothed at the mouth, gathered up
his books and papers, held his robe together which was
napping in the wind like a loose sail, and left the room.
I had put him out of the ring and robbed him of his
one day's glory. I didn't pass through the rigid school
of church dialectics for nothing. If Theseus had at-
tended a priests' seminary or even a Catholic high
school, he would never have needed Ariadne's ball of
yarn to escape from the Minotaur." He broke off.
The violet curtain was pushed aside ; the priest arose
from his carved Roman chair and stepped out, Erzberger
by his side. In the meantime the church had gradually
filled. The middle nave was already full. Feet tram-
pled above in the choir loft. Youths and maidens in-
toned a pious cantus firmus. Under cover of the noises
that now filled the church the two continued their con-
versation :
42
MATHIAS ERZBERGER
" I must have a short account of your doings during
the war, my son," began the priest.
" Twenty-eight million marks," answered the other
smiling, " I have given out for my mission. That proves
my eagerness to bring about a peace in the sense of the
church. The Government gave me everything I wanted
of their own free will. I work in the Foreign Office
with official stamps and ink-pads near my writing ma-
terials, and am often, much too often, sent on journeys.
Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg makes use of me only
too gladly. I took great pains in the effort to main-
tain Italy's and Roumania's neutrality; I have used
considerable sums in Rome and Bucharest. It pains
me to the bottom of my soul that Monseignor
Gerlach was mixed up in that unfortunate treason
affair. It must also be painful to the Holy Father, but
the good cause — that of bringing the peace of Christ
into the world — sustains me. I was in Stockholm, too,
throwing out my lines toward Russia while the Little
Father still trembled on his throne, and a Radziwill
helped me.
"After that I was in Switzerland, most of the time
with Ledochowski, Marchetti, Fruhwirth, and Hoffman,
who compromised himself as a member of the Swiss
Bundesrat ; everywhere you can find traces of me cling-
ing to the Alpine rocks.
" It was I who said if Lloyd George or Balfour would
43
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
only listen to me for a few hours we could easily come
to an understanding. It was also my project (I wrote
it down somewhere in a confidential document) to invest
German capital in English undertakings and English
money in German banks, factories, etc.
"And then I fought against the submarine warfare,
too. I saw the political danger of such a step. And was
I not right at least as far as U-boats are concerned?
" I haven't said anything about Austria yet or about
Czernin, his letters, his desire for peace, or the peace
resolutions I proposed and carried out. There was a
row in the Center in July, 1917, when I brought up my
project. His Excellency, Peter Spahn, trembled with
indignation at my arbitrariness; in a fit of rage he
accepted the post of minister in the Prussian Ministry
of Justice, although this place was to have been adorned
by his friend Persch.
" I was in Holland, too, where I came into conflict
with Thyssen, although he could have made such good
use of me. I was complimented out of the executive
council of the Thyssen concern because they felt obliged
to be ashamed of me before the public.
" Have I not been a martyr for the cause of peace ?
Have I not prepared the way for the peace message of
His Holiness, Benedict XV?
"But every crown, even the crown of service, has
thorns and sharp ones at that.
M
MATHIAS ERZBERGER
" What have I gained by it all ? Always driven to
action, to deeds, my conscience would not let me rest
while this frightful slaughter was going on."
"Right you are, my son. Absolvo te, Ecclesia te
coronat. Labora . . ."
At this moment the choir began to sing with one ac-
cord the old song of peace which is the portion of all
mankind — or should be his portion sometime or other.
From this peaceful island he returned to Berlin to
take up his work once more. It was livelier than ever
in his office on Budapester street. To his many other
affairs was added the patronage over the Lithuanians,
to whom he presented as king the Duke von Urach, his
old Wurttemberg countryman.
Then he made preparations for a thorough change of
system in Germany. Count Hertling must go, and with
him the old regime. Prince Max von Baden appeared
on the scene and in an hour of need grouped the People's
Government about himself. The war cabinet was com-
posed of State Secretaries, the Chancellor, and his sub-
stitute. Erzberger was not passed over; he became
Secretary of State, Privy Councillor, and Excellence,
Secretary of State for Propaganda, and after that head
of the truce commission which brought Germany a not
very joyful armistice.
45
LEADEKS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Ulysses' ten years of wandering were at an end. In
his official Ithaca he at last found firm ground under
his feet, and soon again cast about for new shores.
When in June, 1919, the Democrats refused to sign
the Peace Treaty and quit the Coalition Cabinet, and
when in Weimar, five minutes before the expiration of
the Entente ultimatum, everybody seemed to lose his
head, Erzberger took a hand in the matter and the
Treaty was signed. Erzberger became Minister of
Finances and Vice-President of the Cabinet. He was
confronted by new and weighty problems, such as the
sanitation of the finances and the organization of a new
and unified system of taxation, enough to cause any man
to break down under the mental and physical strain of
the task. Erzberger went at it with all his wonted
energy that balks at nothing. A flood of new taxes
poured over the German people. The budget of the
Empire that before the war hovered around twenty-five
billion marks, rose to ten times its former size, not
counting in the {still unknown) indemnities and de-
mands of the creditors of the Entente. The running
expenses are growing continually. The value of the
German mark on foreign exchange is continually sink-
ing. But Erzberger's optimism is in no way affected.
" Erst mach dein' Bach',
Dann trinh und loch'! "
he wrote, the smile of good humor and the glow of
46
MATHIAS EEZBEKGER
robust health on his round face, into the guest-book of
the Weimar " Fiirstenkeller." Ten days after the bul-
lets of a foolish youth whom the Nationalist fame of
the murderer of Eisner, Count Arco, would not let
sleep, had struck Germany's " strongest " man, he was
facing his bitter antagonist and inveterate foe, Ilelf-
ferich in the court room, ready to give and take, per-
haps the only living German who will never know
when he is beaten. The trial ended. As a result of
the evidence in the court room it was announced that
Erzberger had retired from public life. Was he beaten
at last? And, if so, did he know it?
VI
GEORG LEDEBOUR
Georg Ledebour was an Emanuel Striese and had
the speech and gestures of an actor. He was smooth-
shaven, round-faced, not very tall, with frowning brows
and piercing eyes. His role was Cato, the warning,
threatening, morose, moralist probing the wounds of
his own nation; a comedian, grown lame and toothless
in his sixty-eighth year, still posing as the glorious
Achilles when he was only fit for a Thersites.
Lebebourski was his nickname in the Reichstag,
acquired at the time when no one proteged the Poles
as much as he. Ledebour-Bude leer (hall empty) was .
another pun because everyone ran, fled, scrambled out
in any manner when he began his tirade against state
and society. The period of his greatness was long
past. In the days of Biilow he was still respected. He
was then a Socialistic Thor flashing thunder and light-
ning from mouth and eyes. The Imperial Chancellor
was in the habit of rising after one of his awful speeches
to pour oil upon the excited waves. Ledebour beamed
and the whole red Left beamed with him.
Before he became the heart of all things, before ho
48
GEORG LEDEBOUR
became consequential and left off treading false paths,
before he became the true leader of the people, before
he arose to these spiritual heights, he was once but a
man — a very small, human being. While he was at-
tending high school in Hanover, his native city, he
wanted to become an actor. Like Demosthenes, he, too,
put pebbles in his mouth in order to strengthen his
voice so that it might drown the mighty roar of the
ocean (even if the only water in his neighborhood was
the gently flowing Leine). Rolling speech and rolling
eyes : the great tragedian was ready. But there's many
a slip. The tragedian contracted some sort of trouble
with his legs and had to give up a stage career. He
became a teacher. At least he would have a patient
audience of children. But it was difficult to climb to
the stars on pedagogics. He was not a Comenius or a
Pestalozzi; he sought larger audiences. He became
author and editor, a democrat, a real beer Berliner
democrat. Slouch hat, cape with fur collar, and knotted
staff* were acquired, and a pince-nez with a long, silken
string showed the new tendency. His motto was : For
folk and freedom.
At first he wrote for the Democratische Blatter,
and then for the Berliner Volhszeitung until 1889-90,
just as Bismarck, the terrible Ivan of home politics,
gave his last official snort.
Ledebour took to the platform with whole Berlin-
49
LEADEES OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Pankow at his feet. He talked to the crowd with hands
and feet as well as mouth. Bismarck and the Junkers
he flayed alive; he charged the Socialists with fixed
bayonet. Socialistic ideas ? Nonsense. Slavery, prison
house. The only real freedom was democracy — I re-
peat it once more, democracy !
Twice he was to discover freedom elsewhere. Lede-
bourski later gnawed his way through to social democ-
racy and here discovered the only real, genuine
democratic ideals. Vorwarts offered him a seat on the
editorial staff. (These times are long past — Vorwarts
and Ledebour are now as fire and water.) Here the
savage raged and rampaged worse than ever against
serfdom, and dogma (but only in the church, not in the
party), against capitalism, and at least three times a
day he brought out a hurrah for the social battle. He
raged in ink and screamed with the glue-pot, and daily
cut in a thousand tiny scraps the whole Junker brood,
capitalism and tyranny of the church. August Bebel
prophesied the whole jamboree for the near future;
Ledebour pounded the whole putrified, Philistine soci-
ety into a mess, took the consequences of his actions,
left the church — this Union of Souls — and became a
dissenter. From this hour on he frequented smoke im-
pregnated atmospheres preaching against priesthood
and brain-muddlers, with wildly waving arms and ten
outspread fingers.
50
GEOEG LEDEBOUR
Althougli his eyes rolled in beautiful madness, lie was
not exactly loved by his party. Bebel couldn't stand
him. Ledebour was always at the front on every party
day, always a desperado, always the most radical, not
to be beaten even by Adolph Hoffman, always thor-
oughly opposition, never ready for any sort of under-
standing or compromise. Bebel avoided him; said be-
hind his back that he was not politically respectable.
Many other party members gave him a wide berth, too.
In Dresden at the great party house-cleaning, Bebel
gave him a good going-over, a thorough, blasting, blight-
ing dressing down. But Ledebourski went on speaking
with even more sweeping gestures. In the meantime
he was sent to the Reichstag from Berlin's sixth voting
district, one of the most populous sections of the city,
where Wilhelm Leibknecht formerly reigned supreme.
Thenceforth he represented the Rosenthaler Tor and
Pankow districts with the dignity of Robespierre's
moral guardian.
Have you ever heard him speak in the Reichstag?
There he is enveloped in the cloak of conviction ; every
word that springs from his round, little mouth is a pearl.
His right arm is stretched out, hurling insult after in-
jury. He moves his eyes around recklessly, the pince-nez
loses its hold, the marrow of your bones begins to freeze.
The judge of the world has arisen, the great reckoning
is about to be made. Just at this moment the presi-
51
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
dent tinkles his little bell. Once — twice — thrice!
Ledebour goes on. A call to order falls upon his head.
He hestitates. After a few minutes another warning.
The present order of the world won't give up without
a fight. Once when statistics were taken it was dis-
covered that Ledebour had ignored fifty calls to order
in one day.
He was witty, too, — witty, sharp, and cutting as a
razor blade. He prepares his speeches himself at home
days ahead. At the proper moment during the sitting a
party comrade interrupts. Swift as the dot on an " i v '
he gets a little well-prepared satire hurled at his unsus-
pecting head. If it didn't strike home, which happened
sometimes, Ledebour would repeat the comedy until the
gallery applauded.
He was one of the first to play split party politics.
He it was who discovered the " Independent " social
democratic freedom. Always ready to help, he traveled
now here, now there, cheering up the masses. His
specialty is foreign politics, especially Eastern. He
long maintained a warm friendship for Russian revolu-
tionists. This is comprehensible for they only loved
one another from afar.
The 9th of November arrived. Ledebour's highest
ideals were fulfilled. The theater demagogue mixed in
" big politics." They placed him at the head of the
executive committee of the Workmen and Soldiers'
52
GEORG LEDEBOUR
councils. He took infinite pains to set the whole
nation against Berlin. His ambition knew no bounds.
Everybody else was to lie down, the Government along
with them. He even came into conflict with his
bosom friends, Haase and Dittmann, in the cabinet.
In short, the whole affair pleased him no longer; he
thirsted for more blood, so he went over to Liebknecht,
Rosa Luxemburg, and Eichhorn, to the Sparticists and
communists, to upset the Government and put himself
in its place. Already he dreamed of Imperial Dictator,
Ledebour, Georg I.
But the second revolution failed miserably in spite
of the many sacrifices, and one night Ledebour was
called from his bed and arrested. He was placed on
trial, was acquitted, and, — for the time being, — Lede-
bour retired to country life in order to regain his
health.
VII
ERNST VON HEYDEBRAND UKD DER LAASE
Conspicuously short in stature, a dark brown, sun-
burned face, an uncared-for, pointed, grayish beard and
a thick mat of hair like a close trimmed hedge on his
head, from the middle of which a lock ventures forth,
Mephistopheles-like, on his brow; a shiny, iridescent,
holiday coat (military fabrication), frayed trousers;
such is Herr von Heydebrand, insignificant little man,
as he goes through the streets. Xo one would suspect
the "uncrowned King of Prussia " in him ; rather, an
old clothes peddler.
But he is a born ruler, an East Elbian Junker of
the purest water, landowner, master of Gellkewe,
Klein-Wiesenthal, and Klein-Tschunkawe. Here on
these lower Silesian estates with the Chinese-Hotten-
tot sounding names he rules supreme — here is his
voting district for Landtag and Reichstag. He is
no longer young, having already passed his sixty-
seventh milestone. In Jena, he got his degree of Doctor
of Law, passed the usual state examination, and became
assistant judge in more than one court. He then
entered the Government of Opplen, became Land-
rat in Keselin, 1882, and five years later Landrat in
54
ERNST VON HEYDEBRAND UXD DER LAASE
Militsch-Trachenberg. After eight years lie left the
service and devoted himself exclusively to politics. lie
has been a member of the Prussian Diet since 1888.
Herr von Heydebrand was not spectacular. For many
years no one heard anything from him. lie was only
one of many, but he grew with the people and the ma-
terial, because he was industrious and did not regard
his seat as a sport. As one by one the front men died
off, he took his place in the conservative faction. A
few years before the war he became leader of the
Reichstag faction after Herr von JNTormann dejiarted
this life.
There we must leave him. He was always on the spot.
When all fled before some speaker from the Left, he
remained. As party chief he maintained strict disci-
pline. He was not only general but also little corporal
of the party. The members of his faction might re-
main away from the sittings, they might listen to the
speeches over a glass of wine in the Parliament res-
taurant, they might even go walking, but they must be
present when the ballot was taken. That he insisted
upon and the members parried like recruits. At the
second reading of the Prussian franchise bill, when the
Left too hastily counted on the absence of a large part
of the Right, they were all in place to a man. Herr
von Heydebrand had commanded " Right about face,"
and the Government suffered its first heavy defeat.
55
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Five men made the politics in the House of Repre-
sentatives — Heydebrand, Zedlitz, Persch, Friedberg,
and Pachnicke — all ripe in years and wisdom, cool
and objective. The most temperamental was Heyde-
brand; he ran like a Daimler motor with continuous
little explosions. For hours he could sit with folded
arms listening to speeches from the Right. All at once
he would spring up and run like a weasel to the speak-
er's platform. lie would not stand behind the desk —
that would have hidden him from view — but stood
between the desk and the Government's table and
began to fire away.
His talk sounded like the rattling of a machine gun.
He did not speak like most of the others, wearily
reading from a manuscript; a tiny visiting card on
which were jotted a few hurried notes was crumpled
in his hand. Rapid and witty was his talk; interrup-
tions did not disturb him. lie received them, worked
them over in a trice, and answered with pointed
phrases that sometimes dripped poison. He would
also suddenly pause, turn each word in his fingers like
a gem, and then snap the glittering, venomous things at
the Government or the Left. One listened to him will-
ingly for he is a personality with his own charm. But
after all he is only a desperado, a fencer seeking a weak
place for his slender steel, more dialectic and tactical
than clever, far-seeing policy.
56
ERNST VON HEYDEBRAND UND DER LAASE
Heydebrand fought many a battle against the land-
owners, against the agrarian demagogues, but they were
stronger than he. As the cleverer, he gave in, and after
that he stood by them through thick and thin. In the
battles for finance reform in 1909 he tormented the party
to the utmost, broke the Conservative-Liberal block,
drove the whole Government into a corner, made them
renounce what they had repeatedly determined upon,
undermined their authority, and forced Prince Biilow
to retire. And why? Because he fought tooth and
nail against the inheritance tax — a tax which must
come sometime or other as he said himself. In the
same way he damned the three-class-system franchise
which he had once declared " almost ideal." But the
result was that both the inheritance tax and the fran-
chise system came about in the natural course of events.
In regard to foreign politics the Conservatives were
already in Alldeutscher (Pan-German) waters before
the war broke out. Bethmann-Hollweg steered for
reconciliation; Heydebrand stoked the fire against
England. Then came the famous clash between the
two. While the Conservative party leader spoke against
England, the Crown Prince sat in the Court loge
listening to his words. I can still see him sitting there,
both hands resting on his saber propped up in front of
him. And while Herr von Heydebrand, downstairs in
the noisy hall, was casting his fire rockets across the
57
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
channel, the German hereditary prince applauded en-
thusiastically by lifting one hand and letting it fall
repeatedly on the back of the other.
It was a stream of boiling water which Bethmann
let loose in the face of his opponent. Heydebrand tried
to preserve his dignity, but his face visibly changed
color. He had not exj>ected such a cannonade from the
State Hemorrhoidarius. After that he left the field to
Count Westarp and devoted himself almost exclusively
to the Landtag. One saw him rarely in the Reichs-
tag, but he never failed to appear when Bethmann
spoke. Then the little man was wont to growl and
mumble from his place almost directly beneath the
Chancellor. From this moment on Bethmann-Hollweg
forfeited his position with the Conservatives.
A battle unheard of in Prussian history began against
him. Everything Bethmann did was used against him
in one way or another. There was no regard for for-
eign countries, for the Monarch, or for the one at-
tacked. He was accused of shilly-shallying because for
a long time he could not approve of introducing sub-
marine warfare. When he warned of the danger of
America's entering the war he was laughed down.
Herr von Heydebrand, who very seldom took to the pen,
published an article in the Kreuzzeitung whose twenty
lines swept aside the danger. "America and Us " was
the title of this composition signed with his full name.
58
ERNST VON HEYDEBRAND UND DER LAASE
Again Herr von Heydebrand rode the wrong horse.
Bethmann's attempt to approach the Social Democrats
and Free organizations was one of the worst reproaches
against him. Insinuations were ponred into His Ma-
jesty's ears. The idea of a League of Nations supported
by Bethmann-Hollweg was mocked and laughed at, and
finally Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg was overthrown.
Heydebrand remained victor upon a field of corpses.
But it was a clearly bought victory, for Bethmann's
legacy still remained : the wish for peace, compromise,
parliamentary system, and election reform. A solid
majority was formed in the Reichstag consisting of the
Center, the Progressives, and the Social Democrats;
the Conservative party was left in splendid isolation.
They were merely passed over after this. They made
all the more noise in the House of Representatives,
where they held sway for a little while longer.
But Herr von Heydebrand was played out with one
full sweep when Germany's military position grew so
bad and all signs pointed to a storm. " This is the end
of the Conservative party," he moaned. " We have been
betrayed."
Prom this hour even the Conservatives were for equal
suffrage and after the revolution Herr von Heydebrand
retired from political life, a " compromised personage."
VIII
ALFRED VON TIRPITZ
I must devote a few critical lines to the man who
more than any other German politician has tried to
influence public opinion through literary channels.
Journalism in the widest sense of the word. I begin
pedantically with the first chapter.
Kis propagandistic activity dates back to the year
1884. Even then as a young staff officer, he composed
a memorial for the Reischstag, advocating the construc-
tion of one hundred and fifty torpedo boats. After this
little episode his name was forgotten. Wholly unknown
to the public, he continued his service in the marine
department. Twelve years later he again emerged from
oblivion with another memorial. In the meantime he
had become Rear Admiral. This time he went directly
to the Kaiser and laid an extensive, costly plan for a
new fleet before him. When the fact became known
and parliamentary circles began to get uneasy, the Gov-
ernment published the following article on the 12th of
September, 1896:
" Plans for increasing the navy have not been laid
before His Majesty nor before any other responsible
60
ALFRED VON TIRPITZ
person. Rear Admiral Tirpitz has never been called
upon for any such plans nor has he ever been in a posi-
tion to be called upon for such. It is not the intention
of the marine executives to deviate from former customs
of sending in a statement of their needs to the Reichstag,
nor will they ask the Admiralty for any extensive plans
or propositions for the navy."
A few months later, in March, 1897, the Imperial
Chancellor, Prince Hohenlohe, as well as Secretary of
the marine department, Ilerr Hollmann, insisted that
the new propositions be placed in the budget. Herr
Hollmann especially insisted in regard to the Tirpitz
document : " Neither the allied Governments nor the
Reichstag can bind themselves to any such formal regu-
lations for years ahead. It is quite impossible, even if
both desired to do so, for the simple reason that the art
of naval warfare is quite as changeable as that on land.
It is quite impossible for the marine department to say
what may be needed ten years from now; if conditions
change then you may be sure our requirements will
change with them."
But Tirpitz, who was not yet knighted for his great
services, pulled the strings from behind, and when the
Reichstag Budget Commission did not swallow all the
naval demands, Herr Hollmann got his walking papers.
At the same time Herr Tirpitz, who until now had been
commander of the cruiser division, was called to the
61
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
head of the marine department. Here was a pretty
kettle of fish ! His memorial, which the Reichstag had
just denied, was now authoritative. A new bill must
be introduced covering expenses for such plans. This
bill excited almost universal opposition. Even the
Free Conservative and Liberal press were against it.
The Post wrote sarcastically that the navy would be
rendering a very poor service with such airy plans and
that altogether it was bad policy. Tirpitz listened but
was not convinced. He knew the value of the press,
therefore a press bureau was organized for the marine
department. Under the harmless title of Reports, the
papers were furnished free of charge with news from
the naval department. The official papers were wholly
exploited for this purpose, and gradually the other
papers bit. After years of such press work, Count
Hertling declared it unbearable and Representative
Miiller-Meiningen requested the Chancellor to take care
that the possibility of a double foreign policy did not
arise on account of the marine department's special
press bureau. The Reichstag did not scent the danger
at that time. The Kaiser sent comparative statistics to
the Reichstag and even put himself in the service of
the marine as general enlightener : " The trident be-
longs to us ! " and at another time, " National power
means sea power; one cannot exist without the other."
[When Prince Heinrich was sent to strengthen the di-
62
ALFRED VON TIRPITZ
vision in East Asia, in a toast to his brother in the
castle at Kiel, the Monarch remarked : "If any one
undertakes to hinder us in the acquirement of our
rights we will go for them with the mailed fist ! "
And Prince Heinrich answered : " Fame does not en-
tice me, nor laurel wreaths ; one thing alone moves me
and that is the desire to preach the Gospel of Your
Majesty's holy person to all foreign lands who wish to
hear it and to those who do not."
On the 30th of November the Eeichstag finally ac-
cepted the new navy bill : nineteen battleships, twelve
large and twenty-four smaller cruisers. The fleet was
increased one third, the construction and payment —
almost a milliard — was to cover a period of six years.
This program was accepted by a majority ; at least they
would now have a rest for six years. But Tirpitz left
them no peace. The press propaganda of the marine
bureau was not enough for him. The advertising drum
must be beat a little harder. On the 30th of April the
German Navy Verein was founded and began its course
of enlightenment in great style. Correspondence was
sent out, lectures given, placards and statistics placed in
every railroad station, and thousands of bureaus, even
the " movies " were drawn into the service. The sug-
gestion began to work. One year and a half later Tir-
pitz came out with a new navy law, again made in
the dark. It was all arranged with the " Most High "
63
LEADERS OF, YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
before lie went to Baden-Baden to obtain the approval
of the Chancellor.
The new program meant doubling the program of
1897-98 for the years 1901 to 1917. Once again Tir-
pitz had walked over the rights of the Reichstag. Lib-
eral speakers pointed out the danger of alarming the
world with such a program, but it made no difference,
Tirpitz carried off the victory. Would one at least have
peace until 1917? Not a bit of it. In less than twelve
months another breach of trust leaked out in the shape
of a secret mandate of the marine Secretary dating
from January 6, 1902. It contained still another navy
law modestly expressed for 1904-05. A pretty little
maneuver was discovered in it: instructions to the of-
ficials of the marine department to stuff the payroll
for the Reichstag. Later he tried to justify this, but
the Reichstag had grown distrustful. On the 7th of
February, 1902, Eugen Richter said:
" I have seen many ministers come and go, but I
have never seen any who were so little to be trusted as
Herr von Tirpitz. I cannot but say that Herr von Tir-
pitz's decree contains a confession of dissimulation and
a lack of honesty unfortunately not met with for the
first time."
Richter was not called to order by the president.
Even Dr. Oertel, chief of the Deutsche Tages Zeitung,
writes : " Does Herr von Tirpitz really think he has
64
ALFRED VON TIRPITZ
any claim to the confidence of the Reichstag after
this ? " Iierr von Tirpitz pocketed everything with a
smile. He still had the confidence of the monarch. He
heard these hitter truths more than Once. Said Repre-
sentative Leonhart:
" We see once more the pupillary security of Herr
von Tirpitz's explanation confirmed."
The strictly Conservative president, Count Schwerin-
Lowitz, was called upon for order, but he smilingly
shook his head with the remark that he was not in a
position to call to order for the reproach was meant for
the Imperial marine department. With light sarcasm
Dr. Struve said more than once that the State Secre-
tary's flights into higher mathematics were difficult to
follow.
Three times more, although everything was supposed
to be settled until 1917, the State Secretary came be-
fore the Reichstag with new bills for 1906, 1908, and
1912. New cruisers, new battle ships, the old song.
It was old Bismarck who said with prophetic insight :
" I am very mistrustful of parade ships which serve
only as a mark of prestige ; when things become serious
they are no good. The most important thing for us is
a strong army. That was also Moltke's opinion. I am
thoroughly convinced that we shall have to fight our
decisive battles on land, even those in regard to our
colonial possessions. Therefore no fantastic plans that
65
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
we shall have to fight over later." And further: " I
should like to know what assailant is thought of. I hope
not one who may first become our foe when un-German
greed for prestige and a hurried equipment at sea serve
to drive him into a coalition against us." Tirpitz was
of another opinion. He built and built and drove Eng-
land into that coalition feared by Bismarck.
Although he was really the father of the war, he pre-
tended not to know it. Perhaps he really did not know
it, which makes it all the more incomprehensible for a
politician.
In November, 1914, he was interviewed by von Wie-
gan, an American journalist. He said : " I was one
of those who would not believe this war would come."
In the spring of 1914 his speeches were so cheerful and
self-confident that Herr Bassermann cried out with joy:
" I am convinced that the relaxation between us and
England is made possible only by our large navy. This
relaxation is the best proof of the correctness of our
naval policy."
Oh, yes, the gentlemen representatives all gradually
learned to dance to his music. He knew how to ar-
range everything so beautifully. Now they were in-
vited to visit the Imperial yards at Kiel and Danzig,
now to inspect the ships or attend a maneuver, and
always the Secretary of the Navy was the most gra-
cious host who had drilled his people on board to be
66
ALFRED YON TIRPITZ
equally obliging. He always managed to talk confi-
dentially to one or another of the parliamentarians.
He assured liberal men that he was thoroughly liberal
in his views — of course he must preserve a certain re-
serve for the public — approached the Center with a
friendly mien, expressed his sympathy for the Catho-
lics, promised to see to it that strict church discipline
was maintained on board, and what was no joke — he
transplanted several Catholics to that purely Protestant
island, Heligoland, in order to impress the Center. He
soft-soaped them all. Even when the war unraveled the
whole submarine question, he knew how to maintain the
aura of a dignified statesman falsely accused. With
that we come to the second chapter.
We have already said that von Tirpitz's naval policy
was the real cause of the World War. Have we had any
success at sea from his plans ? Here we see the tragedy
of the policy for which Tirpitz had most of the Ger-
man people hypnotized. We had to dismantle a part
of our ships because the material was needed for sub-
marines. Our warfare at sea was almost entirely con-
fined to U-boats. Tirpitz not only did not encourage
the building of submarines, but actually hindered it,
because he did not understand the significance of this
weapon. This was his second great political mistake.
While England and France feverishly built submarines,
Tirpitz would hear nothing of them. He adopted the
67
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
"watchful waiting" policy. Technical people and
progressive politicians pressed him; he showed them
the cold shoulder and went on building large ships even
after the war started. One could not put commanders,
captains, and admirals at the head of a U-boat, and
there must be some place for such high personages.
There were put in service before the war: in 1906, one
submarine; in 1907, one; in 1908, one; in 1909, two;
in 1910, one; 1911, five; 1912, five; 1913, six; and in
1914, up to the outbreak of war, four.
In November, 1914, Tirpitz boasted to von Wiegand,
the American, that he could cut England off with big
submarines; he could torpedo every ship that left the
harbors of Scotland or England, and starve them out.
The whole world pricked up its ears. What real power
had the Secretary behind him then? Fantastic num-
bers were mentioned. In February, 1915, he came out
with the proclamation: War against merchant ships!
Eighteen submarines with oil motQrs — old iron from
1909 — and perhaps a dozen newer ones with Diesel
motors were at his disposal according to Representative
Struve. This was the iron curtain he was to drop all
round England! Then came his demand for unre-
stricted submarine warfare. Bethmann-Hollweg prop-
hesied war with America in this event. Tirpitz laughed
at him. In January of 1918 he said to the Berlin cor-
respondent, Paul Lothringer, of the Neuen Poster Jour-
68
ALFRED VON TIRPITZ
nal: "America's help is, and always will be, a myth."
He was overthrown in 1916 on account of his desire
for unrestricted submarine warfare. Now he brought
everything he could catch in his nets against the Gov-
ernment. A campaign without equal was begun against
Bethmann-Hollweg, and Tirpitz was boosted in the All-
deutsch, the Conservative, and the Liberal press, as a
" misjudged genius." In a memorial he assured the
public that England could be starved out in six months.
In 1916 he had already told Representative Erzberger
that it could be done in six weeks. After January,
1917, we had the submarine warfare and, as a result,
war with America and several other seafaring na-
tions — and England began to triumph.
But Tirpitz knew how to avoid criticism for several
months. It is not difficult to guess how. He could
occupy Conservative publicity mongers who lauded him
as the prophet of the U-boat war and damned Bethmann-
Hollweg, while the other side was compelled to keep
silent because the censor demanded it. Tirpitz became
the powder keg of home politics. Civil peace was shat-
tered on account of him and the battle about his person.
So we come to the third and last chapter.
The German Fatherland's party was founded. Tir-
pitz at the head associated with the wildest annexa-
tionists. It was chiefly directed against England. In
the most diverse assemblies he began his song of hate
69
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
for England which invariably ended with the words:
" We must have the coast of Elanders ! " One must
not forget that Tirpitz had not always had the words
" perfidious Albion " in his mouth. He once said : " I
grew up in friendship for England and the English;
as seaman I have never failed to recognize the great
side of this world power." His offshoot, who wore
father's blue coat with fewer stripes on the sleeve, fell
into British hands at the very beginning of the war in
1914. Later when the joyful telegram was sent from
London that son was well and enjoying himself at ten-
nis with the wife of the Naval Minister, Churchill, the
English papers wrote : " Surely ' Gott strafe England '
is not a prayer that Herr von Tirpitz be received into
the lap of the family. His wife and two daughters were
educated in Chattenham College ; his son, now our pris-
oner, is an Oxford man. Tirpitz himself has never
concealed his admiration for the English character ; he
has introduced the methods of our soldiery at home
down to the last uniform button." And to-day ? Well,
times do change ; but no quicker than Herr von Tirpitz.
He puffed the Fatherland party with money and ad-
vertising; sent his agitators up and down the land.
Advertisements were let off by the thousands, like the
sparks from skyrockets. They penetrated bureaus and
officers; placards in glaring colors were pasted every-
where: in stations, on houses, on the streets, and the
70
ALFRED VON TIKPITZ
dernier cri in political propaganda — a storm of tele-
grams — was rained upon the Kaiser, the Crown
Prince, and Hindenburg. With huge sums at his dis-
posal Tirpitz organized a campaign against the Govern-
ment and the Reichstag majority. His confidants
reckoned he would be at the head of things by February,
1918, at the very latest. Then Count Hertling would
be laid on the shelf. And the coast of Flanders ? Grad-
ually the leading lights explained that they would leave
Belgium intact. The Belgian question was a moral
factor for the whole world. Without a moral victory
the world markets would remain closed to Germany
after peace was declared, and Germany's economical
life would receive a mortal wound. But Tirpitz over-
looked all this. Like a naughty child he would have
his Flanders coast. Of course, for strategic reasons,
" we must have a naval base against England."
These " practical politics " collapsed in a few months,
and this same Fatherland party saw itself compelled
to support Prince Max's cabinet and mix with the demo-
crats if they did not wish to lose the ground beneath
their feet. During his twenty years of political activity
Tirpitz always rode the wrong horse. He can look back
over an unbroken chain of mistakes and failures. Even
the Alldeutscher papers, whose idol he was, reproached
him ten years ago with " not having made the most of
his opportunities."
71
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
When the Tirpitz navy started the revolution, Tirpitz
made tracks for Switzerland in order to write in Swit-
zerland's rarified mountain air his memoirs — a fairy-
tale, though not devoid of strong personal interest,
filled with acrimonious charges against his colleagues
and former associates, but still — a Tirpitz book.
Perhaps he is Admiral of the Swiss navy now.
IX
FEIEDRICH NAUMANN
There is a large cleft between the secular Evangelical
Church and ordinary mankind. Secularized Christian-
ity has so many thousand interests that have nothing
to do with love or charity. Consistories and synods have
shoved the whole bureaucratic apparatus of the church
somewhere between heart and intellect, thereby winning
the purely worldly protection of the throne and the self-
ish, economical interests of all those who surround the
throne. Those who look upon Christ as a Comforter,
as a Kedeemer, those who are weary and heavy-laden,
were pushed aside and left to wander their own way in
socialism.
This Royal Prussian Evangelical Secular Christian-
ity stripped itself of the last vestige of human charity
during the war; over the horsehair garment of for-
giveness they drew on the mailed shirt of battle. With
my own ears I have heard from the pulpit a justification
of hate. The father of literary Satanism would have
rejoiced at it. It was good tone in church circles to
belong to the Fatherland party whose motto was war
ad infinitum. Traub was an example of this.
73
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
This discordance between the teachings of Christian-
ity and the ways of life has always appalled the genu-
ine preachers of God's Word — especially the modern
technical world, the world of machinery that atomizes
human work and renders the life of the masses joyless.
Shall I name a few of these genuine souls such as
Kierkegaard, Emerson, Kalthoff, Jatho? There are
many more.
Eriedrich ISTaumann's name must not he omitted in
this list of upright men. He, too, sees the misery of the
masses with clairvoyant insight that penetrates to the
innermost recesses of the soul ; would like to help but can
do so very little as an individual. As pastor, as theo-
logian, shall he only talk and talk? Shall he seek to
satisfy mankind with the hard bread of ancient history,
with comparisons from a book of the past ? Or shall he
spring into the horrors of daily life, leave the word for
the deed ? He chose the latter.
Naumann was born in 1860, in a little Saxon village,
Stormthal; entered the Nikolai gymnasium at Leipzig
and was then sent to the Fiirsten school at Meissen. He
studied theology at Leipzig and Erlangen, but mere
preaching did not satisfy him. Like a friar of the
Middle Ages, he entered the Rauhe House at Hamburg.
His field was home missions. He came to Glauchau,
that dingy, poverty-stricken factory district in Saxony,
where there were only chimneys and chimneys; where
74
FRIEDRICH NATTMAXN
the people walked with crooked backs through narrow,
smoky streets. He was then called to Frankfurt am
Main as pastor of the southwest German conference.
It was the year 1890 that Bismarck's era came to an
end. In the world of literature young Germany ap-
peared with her crass naturalism. The youthful Kaiser
proclaimed the beginning of a new social epoch. In an
intoxication of enthusiasm the intellectuals turned to
socialism. The Bismarckian nightmare seemed lifted
from humanity. Naumann took his place in the ranks
of those who were pressing forward, believing he could
do good work from the pulpit. His first book ap-
peared: The Social Program of the Evangelical Church.
" What is Christian Socialism ? " he asks in a second
book. In 1894: he wrote his Social Letters to Rich
People, at the same time working on other ideas:
Jesus as a Man of the People, God's Help, etc.
He had the courage of his convictions. A number
of fellow-thinkers gathered to his support, theologians,
students, people who longed to break loose from the
heartbreaking monotony of an officially approved and
stamped career. The National Socialist party was
founded; national socialism and democracy on the one
side, army and navy enthusiasm on the other. Eugen
Richter made fun of this socialistic imperialism, but it
made no difference to them. The Hilfe became the
organ of these disciples with Naumann as publisher,
75
LEADEKS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Martin Wenck, a theologian, as editor-in-chief, and
Friedrich Weinhausen, also a man of God, as general
secretary of the new party. Everything looked rosy.
In Berlin a paper called Zeit was started with ISTau-
mann as editor. Paul Rohrbach lent his services, but
it did not last long. After three quarters of a year the
paper went to sleep, appearing for a short time there-
after as a weekly.
In the meantime, these young theologians plunged into
the election battle. In 1898 Naumann was candidate
in Jena-iSTeustadt. Bassermann carried off the victory.
Eive years later he again ran for the Reichstag but in
vain. Only two National Socialists reached the goal:
Hellmut von Gerlach and Heinz Potthof. After this
unsatisfactory showing the party regarded the affair
as hopeless and was soon after dissolved. Some went
over to the Social Democrats and the others, among
whom was Friedrich Naumann, went over to the Liberal
organization. Naumann had devoted himself in the
meantime to political journalism. Every year two or
three books appeared from his pen.
The confession of his faith is laid down in Democracy
and Imperialism. He held both factors as compatible.
In the Norddeutschen Wirtschaftspolitik he justifies the
economical demands of capitalism but leaves the ques-
tion open, whether in the future, when the whole world
is capitalized, socialism will not come of itself. Aes-
76
FKIEDRICH NAUMAira"
ttietic problems interested him, pedagogy also; tie cast
a network of new thoughts over everything, wrote on the
most diverse subjects. His publications were enormous.
At the end of 1907 he finally reached the Reichstag.
His hour had come at last, so it seemed. "Now he could
get busy in great style, and the nation, the world of cul-
ture, would listen to his words. His first speech on
the relationship of employers and employees in the mod-
ern industrial world created a sensation in the press.
It was far above petty party quarrels. He uttered great
thoughts in splendid language. Only those in the party
thoughtfully shook their heads, and slowly a glass wall
was built around him. The " slave uprising " began.
He might talk all he pleased on party days, he could
let himself be applauded by enthusiastic audiences else-
where, but in the Reichstag he was frozen out. Here
reigned minores dii — arteriosclerosis — and new blood
was not desired.
jSTaumann, who had discovered the fairy flower of
liberalism, was himself pushed to the wall. This was
shameful but unfortunately true. He was not practical
enough. That may be; a trace of romanticism was
not to be denied. Intuitively he found interpreta-
tions, formulas easily comprehended by the masses, for
even the most rigid political conceptions. He had a
tendency to formulize his policies. His happily dis-
covered word, " Middle Europe," in a book of the same
77
LEADERS OF YESTEEDAY AND TO-DAY
name, led to the suspicion that Germany intended pro-
longing the present economical war indefinitely.
He speaks as he writes, picturesquely, clearly, often
playing with allegories. His voice is not full, not even
sympathetic; it is rather creaking, almost hoarse, but
a wealth of ideas and viewpoints adorns all he says.
He failed at the last Reichstag election in Heilbronn
in 1912. He was finally elected by Waldeck-Pyrmont
where anti-Semitism courageously lifted up its head.
An inner demon drove him over onto new shores. He
continued his Samaritan service every week in the col-
umns of the Eilfe. He found new ways and aims for
the Home Mission — Home Mission as he saw it. In
the National Assembly he found a field for his political
romanticism. He became the leader of the Democratic
Party. But just when his hand reaches out for new
plans, the heart of the great exponent of eternal human
rights stops beating and — Naumann is no more.
WILHELM II
A fresh, lively youth, bubbling over with spirits,
Hinzpeter once complained that Prince Wilhelm was
a wide-awake and gifted lad but difficult to lead. In a
letter of another teacher, we find the following:
" You reproach me for not being more strict with
the Prince. You do not know the difficulties with
which I have to contend. Wilhelm has slipped out of
my hands altogether and is wholly in the hands of the
military camarilla; the unfavorable influence of the
Potsdam guards shows itself more plainly from day
to day." Wilhelm was sent to the Potsdam Govern-
ment to acquaint himself with the work under President
Achenbach. 3Iad, hobbledehoy days began.
The Prince played the silliest pranks with the beau-
tiful Kitty at Kietz's, and in the casino of the First
Regiment of the Guard he was the wildest of all. Cham-
pagne glasses were smashed on the candelabra ; mirrors
served as targets, and drinking was carried on on a
wager. The Potsdam Philistine shook his head dis-
approvingly, but in a residence city it was the custom
of the subject to speak only when he was told to by the
authorities.
79
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Marriage did not put a stop to this fermenting pro-
cess. Grandfather grew old and older (would he live
forever?), father Was ill with no hope of recovery, and
iWilhelm began to play with the idea of very soon
ascending the Imperial German throne.
Flatterers crowded around him, people looking for-
ward to future favors. He made plan after plan in
secret : " When I am Kaiser the world will sit up and
take notice; I shall make Germany great and set the
pace for everything: politics, music, art, literature' —
in short, Kultur. If I could only get rid of that
nasty old hear, Bismarck, respectably ! "
The hour came that placed him at the head of Ger-
many's destiny. He was now a man of thirty, but
juvenility remained in his blood, as shown by his plans,
his continual self-aggrandizement, troubling about his
own soul, this eternal grasping after new impressions,
lack of perseverance, craze for publicity, and monstrous
egoism.
The men who surrounded him were more cunning
than he; Generals began to kiss his hand, he liked to
see it in his Caesar romancing. Bismarck, the brake-
man and admonisher, was thrown out and now began
the race for royal favor. It fairly rained orders, titles,
and patents of nobility. In the Golden Book of Munich,
this monarch ever greedy for homage, wrote: Regis
voluntas swprema lex. And the people, lowered by
80
WILHELM II
these words from mastery to mere subjection, hurrahed
and threw flowers at him in their enthusiasm. He jour-
neyed from city to city making speech after speech
amidst waving flags and garlands.
A characteristic picture: On the 1st of July, 1901,
the Kaiser was on board the little cruiser, Ny raphe, in
the bay of Liibeck, in order to watch the torpedo prac-
tice for Kiel week. There was a large following on
board. In the intervals between shooting, the Kaiser
would enter the chart room in order to attend to the
signing of documents. Tirpitz laid the papers before
him and the Kaiser scrawled his enormous Wilhelm
underneath. When this grew monotonous he glanced
up at an officer standing near and said : " Terrible,
this Tirpitz with his ink ! I would rather have a glass
of champagne." " At your service, sir," rumbled the
officer, and ordered a bottle of Ileidsieck. (French
champagne had to be labeled " Burgeff-Grun " because
the Kaiser wished to believe he had good old German
wine before him.) The Kaiser drank all but a little,
then went, glass in hand, on the bridge and called down
to the deck where the whole gathering stood in gala
uniform : " Ha — Hahnke, you like champagne, too ! '
and threw the rest of the glass onto the people below.
" Too gracious, Tour Majesty," stammered the gentle-
man underneath, bowing deeply. The Kaiser, in high,
good humor, again entered the chart room and de-
81
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AXD TO-DAY
manded sometHng to eat. He was handed caviar on
toast. He smeared the butter and caviar from one piece
with his forefinger, licked his finger off and went back
to the bridge : " Ha — Hahnke, you'd like some bread,
too ! " and threw the piece of toast down upon Hahnke
and his consorts. Another " Gracious, Your Majesty."
was the devoted answer. Then in a whisper His Ma-
jesty asked an officer standing near about the speed of
the boat. " Ha — Hahnke, how manv knots does this
ship make an hour \ ' As the Colonel stammered his
lack of knowledge: " Ha — Hahnke doesn't know any-
thing. It makes twenty-one knots an hour and with
vou it's twentv-two."
The conceit of the Kaiser was partly due to the
people around him; he valued them as they wished to
be valued. He treated them like old clothes. His
lackeys suffered under his moods and temper and his
use of men in the ministrv. in the armv and in socierv
was ruthless.
Another picture: It was on the 6th of September,
1901, before the slender, Gothic, Rathaus tower in
Danzig. The Empress' bodyguards were sent to Lang-
fuhr to join the Emperor's Hussars. The entrance into
the city through the triple-arched Griine Tor on Langen
Markt was particularly impressive. The parade stopped
before the Rathaus at the entrance to Langgasse, with
Mackensen, the new commander, at the head, the Kaiser
82
WILHELM II
opposite, both on horseback. Dr. Clemens Delbriick,
mayor of the city, bade him welcome. A thousand
people thronged the streets, windows and balconies, wait-
ing to join in the " Hoch " which was to be led by the
dignified Behren, president of the city council. All at
once a whisper went through the throng. An adjutant
rode up to the Kaiser; he inclined his head and the
adjutant whispered something in his ear. The mon-
arch's cheerful face suddenly grew black; his horse
reared. William McKinley, his friend, the great presi-
dent of the United States, had just been shot by the
anarchist, Czolgosz, while visiting the exposition at
Buffalo. The relentless Goddess of Fate lifted a warn-
ing finger in the midst of this jubilation. " Re-
member," she whispered to the Kaiser, " remember
America."
He tried to put his stamp on the whole human cul-
ture of his period, from pointed mustache to poetry,
music, art, even machinery and architecture. He went
mad over monuments. Xot even the tiniest village
dared be without a Kaiser TVilhelm monument. He
grasped the lyre and composed that frightful song to
Aegir; he interfered with the work of the stage man-
ager, painted pictures, and corrected architectural de-
signs. Everything he touched must be pompous, sense-
lessly overloaded with adornment. This Wilheim tam-
83
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY A!N T D TO-DAY
tarn baroque was little suited to the simple, industrious
German people who, more than any other nation in the
world, worked day and night, unceasingly, to bring
their nation up to the standard and win the respect of
the world. This parvenu succeeded in gradually in-
fecting the whole people with his blow-your-own-horn
propaganda. When the architect brought the plans for
the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial church, Wilhelm rejoiced
at the star above the cross on the steeple, praising it as
an original idea. The architect did not venture to tell
him the star merely pointed to a remark in the foot-
notes. This was the Kaiser — superficial, incidental,
casual.
Only one thing he recognized in foggy mysticism as
being above him, and that was God. Lucky for God
that he remained invisible and let Wilhelm talk on with-
out putting himself in the painful position of having
to contradict him. On the Seventh Sunday after Trin-
ity, A. D. 1900, at the time of the troubles in China,
the Kaiser preached on board the Holienzollern, tak-
ing as his text Exodus xvii, verse 11: And it came
to pass, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel pre-
vailed: and when he let down his hand, Amalek
prevailed. "Our text for to-day brings a profound
picture before our souls. Israel wanders through
the desert from the Red Sea to Mount Sinai. Sud-
84:
WILHELM II
denly the heathen Amalekites cross their path. A
battle ensues. Joshua leads Israel into battle; sword
rattles against sword; a bloody struggle begins in
the valley of Raphidim. While the armies rage to
and fro the pious men of God, Aaron and Hur, climb
to the top of the mountain and lift up their hands in
prayer. Below in the valley, battling troops, above, the
praying men; that is the battle cry of our text. Who
does not understand the meaning of this image ? Again
the Amalekite hordes have arisen in the far East. With
fire and sword, with power and cunning, will we pave
the way for European trade and European culture;
Christian customs and Christian faith shall win the
victory," and so on. Fourteen years later Wilhelm
prayed and prayed all through the war, but his
enemies carried off the victory. He was always
playing theater; like a bad comedian he mistook fan-
tastic imagination for reality and seriously believed
himself to be the prophet of his people, the Chosen One
of God. The men surrounding him strengthened
this notion although they themselves saw through this
clerical spook. Bismarck said he was a man who
wanted to celebrate his birthday every day.
"Just leave social democracy to me," he remarked to
one of his ministers as, undisturbed by the Old Man
of the Sachsenwald, he sowed a few political wild oats.
85
LEADERS OF YESTEEDAY AND TO-DAY
Indeed, at first Wilhelm was full of grand ideas, social
reforms, etc. He wislied to satisfy everybody — Social-
Democrats, Liberals, and Center. This wise, thirty-
year-old father of his country wished to display his
imperial graciousness to all. The social reform proc-
lamation of February, 1890, was issued; duties on grain
were reduced; Bismarck's laws against social democracy,
the Center, and the Poles, were rescinded ; a great school
reform was announced ; in public speeches the monarch
promised his people the beginning of a glorious epoch.
This lasted scarcely three years. Even on the 20th of
February, 1891, he complained that he was neglected
and shook his fist at the bogey man in Friedrichsruh.
" He spreads the spirit of disobedience throughout the
land; veiled in seduction he attempts to confuse the
will of my people and those about me. He uses oceans
of ink and printer's black to fog the ways that ought
to be clear to everyone who recognizes my principles.
I will not be confused by him." And then came the
reaction.
The rudder was twisted toward the right. A zigzag
policy was carried on after the " foolish people," " the
parties who followed only their own interests," refused
to recognize the Kaiser and opposed the Junkers. Step
by step the prison bill was introduced, the return to
Ostmark politics was made, to high tariff, to banish-
ment of Social Democrats, and the Prussian three-class
86
WILHELM II
suffrage system was strengthened. Old Prince Hohen-
lohe spilled soup on his frock coat in joyful embarrass-
ment as the Kaiser raised his glass to drink to the health
of the new Chancellor. Blilow knew how to curry favor
with his Imperial Lord with all sorts of witty ideas and
mishmash politics. Bethmann-IIollweg was the only one
who wanted to carry on an honest policy, but he could
not get rid of his conservative, bureaucratic past, was
always in terror of his own courage, and thought to ac-
complish something by continual compromises.
When the Kaiser finally decided to democratize Ger-
many it was too late. As a conservative politician,
Count Hertling declared he could not participate in
such an action; he asked for his release, explaining to
the Kaiser that he could not accept a parliamentary
regime without denying his Lord, by the Grace of God.
But the Kaiser had already learned something ; he knew
even in those gloomy September days that the war was
lost and that he must make his peace with the people.
So he became hard of hearing and remained.
When he ascended the throne of his fathers there
were eleven Socialists in the Reichstag; in 1912 there
were already one hundred and twenty. When he lost
his crown there seemed to be nothing but Socialists.
All the other dynasties lost their right of existence and
with them the Bundesrat and the Beichstag ; the whole
kingdom threatened to disunite.
87
LEADERS OV YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
In thirty glorious years he had governed the German
nation to pieces.
His foreign policy was still more deplorable. Even
here he wanted to do everything himself, wanted to be
his own Minister and Chancellor. He was an extremely
bad psychologist. He thought he could make every-
thing all right by friendly personal relations with neigh-
boring potentates. He drove into Bismarck's clever,
diplomatic net with clumsy but admirable lack of per-
ception, tore down the wires leading to Russia to throw
himself into the arms of decayed, old Austria-Hungary.
He provoked England with his loud-mouthed naval
policy, and Russia at the same time, with his sudden love
for the sick man on the Bosporus. He came out like
a glorious Lohengrin against France's Morocco policy
and threw down the gauntlet before Casa Blanca. Al-
ways the same game: ambition for personal greatness
and Germany's world importance, which embittered the
others until they decided to stop the mouth of this brag-
ging parvenu by a diplomatic coalition.
This nightmare which had caused Bismarck so many
sleepless nights, although it was then but the product of
fancy, now became reality, and war broke out.
" I did not wish it ! ' Certainly not. Wilhelm was
much too weak a character to wish for it. But he had
88
WILHELM II
acted as if he wanted it, and even if he did hope for
peace to the last moment he let himself be influenced
by his generals who were stronger than he. For fear
of being considered a coward he let himself be pressed
into a war that could have been prevented (he clung
to the great example of his ancestor, Frederick the
Great), committed a breach of neutrality against Bel-
gium, and gambled on submarine warfare with the
others. At the beginning of his career he could not get
out of Bismarck's gigantic shadow; now the shadows
of Hindenburg and Ludendorff oppressed him. Now
that the time for action had come, when he could really
be the great leader of his people and the nation, he was
only a very small, helpless, dangling, little man, a
comedian whose make-up melted in the glaring light of
day. He occupied the whole four years between whim-
pering prayers and imperialistic revenge speeches or
posing before court painters, now as a B.oman Impera-
tor, now in the field-gray uniform of a general. And
the result ? Millions of dead and wounded, a lost war,
bankruptcy of a nation, degeneration of a whole people,
loss of territory, and inner revolution. Men, mothers
and children lift up their hands against him. This is
the glorious epoch he promised his people.
After a heavy night the gray morning of the 9 th of
November dawns. The Kaiser arises to leave the train
89
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
in which he has spent the last night. Hindenburg
awaits him in the Villa Eraineuse. Staff officers appear
as delegates to report on the condition of the troops.
The universal opinion is : " Against the enemy, stead-
fast; against his own comrades no one will fight. The
field troops are retreating in disorder. The Rhine
bridges should be guarded. All communications with
home are cut off. Telephones are mostly under the con-
trol of the Soldiers' Councils."
Crushing ! In the meantime the telephone rings con-
tinually from Berlin: the Kaiser must abdicate. The
monarch does not respond. Has His Majesty not yet
decided? No. Finally the Imperial Chancellor pro-
claims the abdication himself in the hope that the fait
accompli will ward off the revolution. Too late. At
last the monarch declares himself ready to lay aside the
Emperor's crown but not that of Prussia.
But Hindenburg, Greener, and Hintze insist, and a
quarter of an hour later Admiral Scheer leaves the
royal apartments with a very red face. He enters the
front room and reports to Adjutant Count Dohna-
Schlodien, commander of the Move: "You no longer
have a Commander-in-Chief."
Event piles upon event. The Kaiser must leave Spa
as quickly as possible. He does not wish to and cries
out in despair : " I have always known before what I
should do, but now I do not know how to help myself."
90
WILHELM II
One of the adjutants, on being asked for his opinion,
replied : " If I were to decide for my own person, I
would remain. If the troops will not fight for Your
Majesty we will form a body guard of officers. We can
occupy almost every point for this purpose."
At ten o'clock Herr von Hintze warned His Majesty
again: "Tour Majesty, it may soon be too late."
Hastily the last measures were taken, everything was
packed, and at five o'clock in the morning the court
train pulled out in the direction of Le Reid, the next
station on the Spa-Pepinster line. The Kaiser followed
in an automobile headed for the Dutch frontier station
Eyst.
No flags, garlands, or maids of honor accompanied
the last journey; no hurrahs or music. He fled like a
thief in the night. In Amerongen he enjoys the haven
of refuge Holland has granted him, listening with bit-
terness in his heart to the voices of the outside world
that penetrate into his asylum, refusing to believe that
the days of " Gottesgnadentum " are gone and clinging
to the hope of a return to power, and of imperial splen-
dor, as of yore. He is convinced that the German
people have paid him with shameful ingratitude.
LSI
CLEMENS DELBRltCK
Clemens Delbriick made a stately appearance. He is
large with a slight inclination towards embonpoint, has
a short, drooping, light-blond mustache, almost bald
head, lively, light blue eyes, with a firm, steadfast ex-
pression — a splendid, imposing personage in the gala
uniform of a State Secretary, but at bottom only an
official type of the war period. For many years he was
persona grata with the Kaiser without being conserva-
tive. He trod the narrow path between conservatism
and liberalism, turning now to the right, now to the
left, with obliging readiness just as the moment de-
manded. Always he had one or more compromises
ready to hand and always a ready solution for resist-
ance or disinclination on the part of the Ministry,
Bundesrat, or Reichstag. This clever, adroit politi-
cian who, as soon as the war broke out, began to flirt
with democracy, has now been out of office more than
two years. In 1916, when the food system threatened
to go to pieces, he was one of the first of Bethmann-
Hollweg's stand-bys to leave. The grateful monarch
hung the Order of the Black Eagle around his neck
92
CLEMENS DELBRUCK
and knighted him for his services. He went because
as an advocate of free trade he could not approve of a
socialistic food system. He retired from office ill, tired,
and resigned; built himself a quiet little Sans Souci
in Jena, and settled down as professor of political
science at the old Thuringian university where Melanch-
thon, Schiller, Fichte, and Hegel once taught. He
wrote a little book with suggestions for reforming
higher Government careers. Then, after two and a half
years he again entered public life. As von Berg's suc-
cessor, he took over the presidency of the civil cabinet
for a few weeks only. With the downfall of the Kaiser
he was finished.
A Delbriick had once before occupied a prominent
place in Prussia. Although he had been the Chancel-
lor's right hand, he, too, had to give way to political
changes and new ideas. In spite of undeniable service,
he, too, was the victim of a transitory period after the
war of 1870. In spite of his clever diplomacy, Rudolph
Delbriick was a strong character who continued to fight
Bismarck's high tariff system even after his retirement
from office.
Clemens Delbriick, former Secretary of State and
Vice-Chancellor, was not less gifted as a Government
official. What he lacked was association with the fluc-
tuating life of the people, their thousandfold emotions,
hopes, and desires ; he lacked the ability to form quick
93
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
resolutions, to take things into his own hands, or to
form original ideas. For a few years only did he rise
above the narrowness of Prussian officialdom, and these
were not enough to enable him to gain a wide perspec-
tive or to enter broad paths disregardful of the many
considerations within a bureaucratic system. He was
soon a " maid of all work " because he could accommo-
date himself quickly and soon became acquainted with
his material. But in the course of his varied career he
could not separate himself altogether from the green
table.
At twenty-nine years of age he was Landrat in
Tuchel. In this isolated "West Prussian spot he came
into close touch with landed property owners and seven
years later was called to Danzig as councillor of the
Agricultural Department. His chief, Gustav von Goss-
ler, former Minister of Education, soon recognized his
superior talents and valued him so highly that he rec-
ommended him as Baumbach's successor as Mayor of
Danzig. This conservative man took his place at the
head of the Government of a city renowned for its lib-
eralism, a city which had been represented in the
Reichstag for decades by a Heinrich Richter.
He stood the test. Important days came for Danzig.
The Kaiser's interest was awakened for the old Hansa
city on the Vistula. He sent the Posen Hussars to
join the Danzig bodyguards. Before the slender, dig-
94
CLEMENS DELBPOJCK
nified, old town hall tower, Delbriick greeted the Kaiser
and General Mackensen, former aide-de-camp, now at
the head of the Hussars. The monarch was pleased
with the Mayor of Danzig and his impressive speech;
even in 1901 it was known that Delbriick was the com-
ing man for Wilhelm II. Scarcely a year passed be-
fore he was at the head of the West Prussian adminis-
tration. Prince Biilow had just started his Ostmark
policy — Delbriick seemed the right man for the helm.
He was given three tasks; besides an extensive coloni-
zation scheme, he was to look after the educational and
economic development of West Prussia.
The funds for the colonization commission were
raised in 1902 from two hundred to three hundred and
fifty million marks; besides this, another one hundred
million was thrown out for the establishment of do-
mains, a concession to the landed proprietors. This
systematic colonization scheme soon became a two-edged
sword causing the price of land to increase enormously.
As an offensive policy it was unsuccessful, for the Poles
soon refused to sell any land to the Germans until
Biilow used the weapon of expropriation against them,
also without much success.
The thought of industrially and commercially lifting
the East to a higher plane also met with little success
because economical reasons for such a policy were
lacking. One could not shut off the Ostmark from
95
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Poland and Galicia with high tariffs and then expect
to found industrial centers in this dead corner of Ger-
many. The lack of raw stuffs and coal made competi-
tion with the West impossible and the Eastern market
was as good as closed.
The educational scheme also followed a somewhat un-
usual course. The Ostmark appropriations were meant
to bind teachers and officials to the soil, but because this
was not always complied with it made much bad blood.
The only accomplishment worthy of note was the foun-
dation of a technical high school in Danzig and the
little educational work done in the provinces.
Without any reproach to himself, Delbriick was un-
able to make much of a show with the Ostmark policy
after three years of activity. In 1905 he was called to
the presidency of the Prussian Board of Trade. This
was the third time within a comparatively short period
that he had occupied a responsible position. But here,
too, his powers were not developed to the full. There
were big beginnings but small results. In 1907 he laid
down a proposition which was to remove all difficulties
in the way of opening up mines; in November of the
same year he drew up measures which were to influence
the high prices of coal in favor of the consumer. But
everyone knew that he had promised more than he could
fulfill, like " Long Moller," his predecessor. Once
again, at the wish of His Majesty, he interfered for
96
CLEMENS DELBKUCK
the benefit of the masses against the coal barons. After
the terrible misfortune at Kaclbod in November, 1908,
he introduced a bill for the institution of a Labor Con-
troller. In his speech he declared: " It is a battle for
the soul of the individual." The ever-increasing danger
of anarchy and terrorism seemed of more importance to
him than danger to the lives of miners which was the
main object of the bill. It only meant a means to gain
his purpose — the policy of the green table.
But even here he had to satisfy himself with a com-
promise. In June and July, 1909, he threw himself in
the breach for Bulow's policy and fought against coal
export duties and mill taxes. Although the majority
listened to his speech with insulting indifference on
that hot summer day in the Reichstag (with the excep-
tion of Bethmann-Hollweg), he was one of the most,
energetic tax-diplomatists of the crumbling Govern-
ment.
He got his reward. Billow resigned. Bethmann-
Hollweg was his successor, and Delbriick, as Secretary
of the Interior, became one of the corner stones of
the new Government. Two powerful laws were passed
under his leadership: a summary of the whole insur-
ance regulations with a clause pertaining to the care of
widows and orphans, and the employees' insurance law.
But on the whole, his social and economic policies suf-
fered under halfway measures and compromises.
97
LEADERS OE YESTERDAY AXD TO-DAY
One thing must be admitted in his favor, the De-
partment of the Interior grew to enormous proportions
under his leadership. In time it was to become a reser-
voir for the most heterogeneous collection. Even Count
Posadowsky groaned over it, and the idea of dividing
it into several departments was more than once con-
sidered. The war added a thousand other tasks to the
already overburdened department. Even the intricate
food problem was loaded onto this office which soon be-
came an automatic law-making machine. This must
have been too much even for a man of Delbriick's type.
Added to this was the helplessness of the whole affair.
It could make laws but had neither control nor executive
power.
After a while he saw that things could not go on in
this manner much longer and suggested that the food
department be separated from the Department of the
Interior. This was done, and he retired. Dr. Helff erich
was his successor. Clemens Delbriick had seen the
dawning of a new political order of things, but was no
longer permitted to participate in the work of recon-
struction.
He was a man with a passion for detail, who often
overlooked the big idea, who did not allow himself to be
governed by creative principles. All in all, he loved
his office. This was his strength and his weakness at
ihe same time.
xn
HERMANN PACHNICKE
Octavio, Baron von Zedlitz, dethroned chief of the
Free Conservative party, and Hermann Pachnicke,
chairman of the Progressive Landtag faction, had
much in common. Both had acquired an unusual
routine during a long parliamentary and journalistic
career. For a time scarcely a week went by that they
did not publish their political opinions in the red Tag.
Both had grown gray over it. On the coat of arms of
both stands the word " Prudence." They glide over
the polished floor of politics in felt slippers in order
not to scratch its surface.
Twilight was their sphere; their stars gleamed only
in the night. For both are tacticians, political schem-
ers; usually they stepped upon the speaker's platform
only when there was something to debate. One of
their special themes was the franchise problem. They
forged a thousand compromises behind the scenes,
Dr. Pachnicke more than Baron von Zedlitz.
They were somewhat different in temperament, al-
though both were political foxes, but Herr von Zedlitz
could at times speak out plainly. This was the liberal
99
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
streak running through his conservatism. Herr Pach-
nicke was only a rationalist. Each word must first
pass the gates of reason before it ventured across his
lips. In general, he wrote as he spoke, in well-ordered
sentences with not a single error of construction. It
was just the same in his private conversation. In the
Reichstag they say he kissed every word he spoke and
tried to win everybody by rolling his forget-me-not eyes
graciously hither and thither. He was a man after
Bethmann-Hollweg's own heart, who hesitatingly ut-
tered his friendly feeling for democracy before the pub-
lic and under four eyes made all sorts of promises
without thinking much about the time of their fulfill-
ment. The other two eyes were not seldom those of
Herr Pachnicke, who knew how to keep himself fresh
in one's memory. Forget-me-not!
Dr. Pachnicke was born in Spandau and is already
past sixty as his dignified white beard shows. He was
a journalist, having studied philosophy and political
science in Berlin, Munich and Halle. He began his
literary career with a study of the philosophy of Epi-
curus. He has ever been true to a carefully regulated
enjoyment of life. One should not strive for every
pleasure that offers itself, so Epicurus teaches. One
must first ascertain where there is a maximum of pleas-
ure or a minimum of pain. Sufficiency is the true wis-
dom of life ; in order to preserve health and the ability
100
HERMANN PACHNTCKE
for enjoyment one must avoid sumptuous and expensive
pleasures. Pachnicke's interest in the social problem
may be traced to this. With Berlepsch he wrote a
book on the necessity of a national labor bureau. He
was never a doctrinaire. He worked for the interests
of the Government when Caprivi brought up the mili-
tary reform bill. After the two-year service for the
infantry was conceded and after a heavy conflict with
Eugen Richter, who was not in the habit of giving way
even an inch, he went over to the elements who broke
away from the People's party. He was sent to the
Landtag every year from Konigsberg and represented
the district of Parchim in the Reichstag. When
Count Hertling entered office his name was mentioned
among others for the cabinet. But the discussion came
to nothing.
In holiday time Pachnicke always left Berlin and
retired to his home in Hopferau, which belonged to the
Bavarian district of Eiissen, close to the borders of
.Tyrol, where tower the snowy Alps. After a short rest
he would again descend from his mountain heights into
the flat lands of parliamentary activity — ■ just the oppo-
site of Henrik Ibsen's Brand. Brand came near ending
as priest of the ice church; his cruel bluntness, his
" everything or nothing " drove him into a fearful lone-
liness. When Pachnicke descended from his mountains,
he always found connections; he contemplated accom-
101
LEADERS OE YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
plishing something, not everything. Goethe's censorious
words were not meant for him : " What, you make the
world ? It is already made ! "
And so as a politician he worked on the basis of
things as they were.
XIII
OTTO HAMMANN
The war was a great opportunity for the journalists.
Every office, every war society had its literary bureau
with some journalist at the head of it. It was different
in the old days. Bismarck had a " piece of white
paper" reserved for him in the Norddeutsclie ATlge-
meine Zeitung, and for quite official things there was
the ponderous apparatus of the Reichs-und Koniglich
Preussische Staatsanzeiger. Besides that, he was on
confidential terms with a few reputable journalists but
that was all. It is possible that a few newspaper cor-
respondents were nourished by the Guelph Funds, those
" Reptile Funds," in order to smuggle official things
into the Independent press. Otherwise the Government
troubled itself little about the press, did not consider it
qualified for respectable society, and officially it was
mentioned as a mere object.
When Bismarck left the Chancellor's palace in 1890
it was not much better. True, the man of Sachsenwald
was an independent coworker on the Hamburger Nach-
richten, kept a few journalistic bodyguards and made it
as difficult as possible for the new course of events. But
103
LEADERS OE YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
the people in Wilhelmstrasse kept on treading the old
path; in 1894 the German Government had but one
office for the press for home as well as foreign political
questions, and this office was occupied by one chief and
two clerks whose principal duties consisted in making
clippings from home and foreign papers. There was
not even a telephone. Rudolf Lindau worked with only-
one assessor or vice-consul and there was time enough
for him to read the proof-sheets of his master's new
novel. The chief occupation of the press bureau con-
sisted in sending Prince Bismarck a review of the day's
news and carrying out the directions that came back
from Eriedrichsruh in regard to these reports. These
directions were often written in such a way that they
needed only a head and a tail to make them ready for
publication in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
or elsewhere.
Caprivi, the Chancellor-General, like his prede-
cessor, contented himself with one confidential jour-
nalist, Dr. Otto Hammann, Berlin correspondent of
the Miinchener Allgemeine Zeitung, the Schlesische
Zeitung, the Hamburger Korrespondenten, and the
Pester Lloyd. His political beliefs were rather hazy, a
sort of National Liberal-Free Conservative mixture.
Hammann was born in the little Weimar town of
Blankenhain. He studied law and passed his examina-
tions, but two years later he went over to journalism.
104
OTTO HAMMAOT
When he first met Caprivi he had been an independent
writer for fourteen years in Berlin.
" On a June day in the year 1892, I received an in-
vitation to come to Wilhelmstrasse 77, for a consulta-
tion with the General who had taken Bismarck's place
two years before. A few articles in the Pester Lloyd
which had attracted the attention of the general were
responsible for this honor. He accompanied me to the
Chancellery garden. On the corner of the middle path
stood an old chestnut tree under whose branches we
took our seats at a table standing there. That was the
first time I had even seen him closely."
Caprivi started the conversation by remarking that
this beautiful park was the only pleasant thing about
his position. Then he spoke of his predecessor :
" It is impossible to attack him as I would like most
to do. Being an old soldier, he would beat me at it.
What is his reason for his vehement actions against the
new regiment ? He cannot, and will not, take over the
office of Chancellor again. There is only one explana-
tion left and that is passionate bitterness with the wish
to humiliate the Kaiser. Hate is the mainspring of the
greatest deeds. It began in the Eschenheimergasse."
So Hammann relates in his memorials under the
title of The New Course. He was in a painful situa-
tion ; he was a Bismarck disciple, and yet, through his
personal contact with the old General he began to have
105
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
a strong liking for Caprivi. His writings are not ex-
actly voluminous nor do they show deep penetration
of people or things. They are smooth and jfleasing,
light and flowing, as if written for Garden Leaves (a
magazine for women) , and even the most simple is not
likely to stumble upon a problem that will cause him
any brain work. This reporter has written descrip-
tively, uncritically, touching upon trifles more than
important facts, contenting himself with the mere
periphery of the thing. But perhaps herein lies the
value of the book. It is not documental secrets that
speak, but the human, all too human, side that runs
through it. Sometimes he quotes from Schiller, Bis-
marck, and, if I am not mistaken, also from Goethe.
A friendly intercourse developed from this first
meeting with Caprivi. Hammann placed himself jour-
nalistically at the disposal of the new course of events.
" In the middle of December, 1892, during the battle
over military reform, the two-year service period, the
Chancellor told me he expected a dissolution of the
Reichstag. Therefore it was necessary to spread as
much information in the election districts as possible."
]STow,;for the first time, a systematic press campaign
Was begun, reminding one almost of Bethmann-Holl-
weg's press-assault. " On the upper floor of the right
wing of the Chancellery Major Keim set up his quarters
and began a fruitful propaganda activity with the
106
OTTO TT A MM ANN
utmost confidence in its success. Everything that could,
or would, help in any way was put in action." Baron
von der Goltz-Paseka, General von Boguslawski, Gen-
eral von Kamecke, and among the scholars, Gneist,
Conrad, and Wagner, to work for the new leader, who
later used this same method of suggestion for the benefit
of the Navy Verein and the Military Yerein.
In 1894, at Caprivi's wish, Hammann became an
official in the political department of the Foreign Office.
Baron von Marschall was then head of the department,
but the secret regent was really Herr von Ilolstein, " the
man with the spots on his inner iris, who maintained
all sorts of subterranean connections " and who rode us
into the Morocco adventure. In spite of all the mis-
trust and political prejudices against him he was a man
of upright principles whose style combined logic with
the finest and clearest diction. His articles were sharp
and cutting ; even Hammann could not do as well. And
that was why Ilolstein did not wish to find a competitor
in Hammann ; grumbling and bearish he put the cabinet
question and was then appointed director of the political
department. Thus Hammann's press department came
under his jurisdiction. Holstein said afterwards that
Hammann had rebelled and after his departure it was
he (Hammann) who instigated the press mutiny against
him. " It was not that at all," said Hammann, " and
there was not the least bit of posthumous revenge about
107
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
it. The whole Holstein crisis, which lasted from the
time of King Edward VII's visit in June, 1904, to
April, 1906, was sometimes like a Shakespearean
comedy."
Hammann broke off his chronicles just at the point
where they might have become more interesting, in de-
fense of Caprivi: the acquisition of Heligoland, the
trade agreements, military reform, and resistance of the
anti-socialistic laws. This was during the time of Herr
von Hohenlohe's chancellorship, but he did not enter
into Billow's or Bethmann-Hollweg's policies although
he had had an opportunity to observe the work of these
men more closely perhaps than that of the others. It
may be that he was silent for reasons of discretion, in
order not to say anything detrimental or even personal
about those who are still living.
But, you will ask, has this man who mocked the in-
adequacy of the official press apparatus had any influ-
ence for the better upon it? USTot in the least. He
started an underground press organization and out of
the large number of Berlin journalists, he chose a few
to whom he retailed news. He smuggled a few official
things into their papers for the sake of their good will.
In time he became more and more unapproachable. The
leaders of those big papers who valued their independ-
ence naturally cut him and sought their information
elsewhere. When the war broke out one recognized all
108
OTTO HAMMANN
of a sudden how much irreparable damage had been
done by the depreciation of the power of the press. The
curtain was suddenly drawn back from in front of a
rubbish heap.
When the foolishness of the former situation was
recognized and a new relation was sought between the
government and the press, some believed, because it was
war and Germany was in a state of siege, that the
press should be commandeered like the army. The
most ridiculous censor regulations were held over the
newspapers' heads like a knout with iron barbs. Grad-
ually, during the course of the war, it became a little
better. A really confidential relationship arose — and
Herr Hammann left the office with the titles of acting
Privy Councillor and Excellence, to devote himself to
journalism once more. That is, he became neither cor-
respondent nor editor, but a member of the executive
committee of the Transoceanic Nachrichtengesellscliaft,
whose aim was to establish a news bureau independent
of Keuter.
Once only did I have an opportunity to speak with
him in his official capacity. This was in a snug corner
of the German Society's clubhouse. It was after an un-
expected suppression of the newspapers. He promised
to act as intermediary although I knew he, himself, was
responsible for the suppression.
ADOLPH HOFFMANN
It is a very busy day in the Prussian House, a great
day. The diplomat's and minister's loges are filled with
curious onlookers ; even the tribune is full. A garland
of ladies lends animation to the scene. Beneath in the
assembly room representatives are buzzing like bees.
Little groups form here and there; everywhere lively
discussions and gesticulations are heard. One minister
after another dribbles in : Breitenbach, Hergt, Schmidt,
Spahn. Orderlies run about with papers and docu-
ments. Herr Drews, Minister of the Interior, comes
and with him Dr. Friedberg, vice-president of the Min-
istry. The gentlemen by the portals of the Government
room step aside respectfully ; Count Hertling, president
of the cabinet, enters. Immediately Count Schwerin-
Lowitz, chairman of the House, swings the bell a few
times and announces the opening of the session in his
weak, irritable voice. Election reform stands on the
calendar of the day.
The battle of intellect begins. The debate waxes hot.
Often there are tense, dramatic moments. Everybody
fights like a lioness protecting her young; the Right,
110
ADOLPH HOFFMAKNT
the Left, the Center, the Government. The onlookers
do not conceal their feelings. Hisses and applause, cries
of approval or disapproval fill the intervals. The repre-
sentatives are crowding around the speaker's platform
in order not to lose a word; some in civilian clothes,
some in uniform, like Count Spec, have planted them-
selves directly behind the speaker whose words rebound
from this living wall like balls of light, like a fountain
of fireworks.
On the left stands a man who soon attracts general
attention by the peppery remarks he hurls like rockets
into the midst of the assembly, flinging his opinions like
hurdles in front of the rhetorical cavalry charge of the
reform opponent at the desk, compelling him to halt,
to answer, often exciting general amusement.
It is a man with a lion's mane of gleaming, white
hair. A Henri Quatre beard of the same color on a
glowing red face emphasizes his singularity. His gen-
eral pose is somewhat careless, like his clothes. In
spite of a somewhat belligerent air he leaves a comfort-
able impression upon one.
This is Adolph Hoffmann, representative of the Inde-
pendent Socialists. When he stands there with his back
contemptuously turned toward the speaker, he generally
has his hands in his pockets. Every few minutes a deep
bass gurgles up from the depths in pure Berlin jargon:
" Yah, y'look like it ! " and so on. Sometimes his blows
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
tell, and the speaker must prepare for defense. In the
meantime the little hell tinkles madly, and calls to
order are so frequent that Adolph Hoffmann's hook
would soon he full if he tried to record them all. He
has had venomous conflicts with Count Schwerin-
Lowitz's predecessors: Jordan von Krocher and Baron
von Erffa, because they were very easily angered.
Herr von Xrocher revenged himself once by saying
Adolph Hoffmann was never considered as a subject of
law giving, only as object. Once, before the war, after
the entrance of the first Social Democrats in this, until
now, pure atmosphere, when a policeman was sent for
to remove Representative Borchardt who refused to lis-
ten^ to calls to order, Adolph Hoffmann manfully took
his part.
This is Adolph Hoffman as he is and as he probably
will be to the end of his life — an infamous fellow in
the eyes of all lovers of order. And when he himself
mounts the speaker's platform there is a regular hail
storm; one strong expression after another like pea
shots. Usually the Right flee from the assembly room
to demonstrate their feelings. The Center follow, and
the fastidious Liberals do the goose-step after them.
But in the evenings, among themselves, they must have
to smirk over this bombardment of words, always the
same. The Free Conservative Woyna once said one
must not take him too seriously ; Mr. Hoffmann was the
112
ADOLPH HOFFMANN
original Berlin Philistine who liked to blow off to ease
his mind.
Adolph Hoffmann has just reached sixty. He was
born in Berlin on the sixty-first birthday of Wilhelm I,
the 22d of March, 1858, just as the new period
under the Prince Regent was beginning to dawn. He
grew to manhood amidst the most modest circumstances,
attended seven different people's schools or poor schools
in four different places. At fourteen he was sent out to
learn a trade; he was to have become an engraver but
had to give it up on account of his eyes. He then
took up gilding but did not stay long at this. He
was messenger boy in a bookstore, a cloth concern, and
a hardware shop, one after the other, in the mean-
time hiring out as a painter and gilder. In the early
90's the party called him to Halle as editor, and
later to Zeitz. From 1893 on he settled down as a
bookseller in Berlin and began to write. He threw
overboard the ten commandments which Moses brought
down from Mount Sinai, and set up ten of his
own in their place. He was an atheist of the purest
water; day and night he worked for his free religious
ideas. For years he delivered the same speeches ; once
when he had uttered an especially fiery speech against
the Bourgeoisie, capitalists, and class rule, he made a
deep impression upon a lady listener. She soon became
his wife, and, as she brought some little money with
113
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AXD TO-DAY
her, Hoffmann became financially independent. An-
other time he hurled a flaming pamphlet against the
whole reactionary mass, with the intimidating title:
The Social Democrats are Coming! — a warning to
women and girls of all classes.
In time he gained some little reputation as an author
and as he understood the business side, too, they soon
made a place for him in the party. He always be-
longed to the opposition and soon became a warm friend
of Stadthagen and Rosa Luxemburg, the undaunted,
fanatic dogmatist. She was his little Rosie. Once at
the International Socialistic Congress at Stuttgart, at
a garden party, it was said that he danced a measure
with the fair Rosa like a good many others of his party
comrades.
He was a member of the Reichstag from 1904 to
1906. Two years, and then it was over. But he
played first violin in his party, or, speaking more cor-
rectly, he beat the drum. He has ornamented the Prus-
sian House of Representatives ever since social demo-
cracy sneaked in; that is, since 1908. He was sent
from the sixth Berlin voting district, Moabit, by a small
majority. In the meantime, he was candidate more than
once for the Reichstag.
His parliamentary record of sins is not small. He
recognized no authority, and often his jokes exceeded
the limit. When occasion required he could be anti-
114
ADOLPH HOFFMAOT
Semitic. When Herr von Mirbach, the Kaiser's gentle-
man-in-waiting, went to citizens of Jewish persuasion
with his amusing begging in behalf of the Kaiser Wil-
helm Memorial church, he composed an ironical ditty
in the Landtag:
"Peacefully passes through my mind
Still and calm God's peace.
Up above sits Princess Wied,
Down below the Jews."
Mir and mich (mir — dative, mich — accusative
form of the pronoun me) he mixed occasionally in his
speeches. Some thought that it was intentional, others,
that it was lack of education. Once when a speaker
expressed the latter opinion in public, Hoffmann an-
swered : " That's the result of your poor public
schools." And the laugh was on his side.
The chapter becomes more serious when we think of
the policy which led to the disruption of the party. He
had thundered against participation in the election
for the Prussian Laudtag, but about ten years ago he
allowed them to put him on the list of candidates for
this same House. During the war he severely re-
proached the " Government Socialists " with their prac-
tical and positive labor policy; not a speech was made
but what he held up the Scheidemann clique to con-
tempt — his party comrades but yesterday. He stood
at the head of the Labor Union, that group of mal-
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LEADERS OE YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
contents who supported the party dogma, and among
the Independent Socialists he was the Wild Man who
daily swung sword and pistol against the old social
democracy. He fought for the intellectual and material
possession of the Vorwiirts, and when this paper
slipped from his hands, he tried in vain to found a new
radical paper. He could not get permission from the
Government for enough paper, but he was press corporal
of the Mitteilungs Blatt, issued once or twice a week.
And then, on the 9th of November, 1918, came the
revolution so passionately longed for. The people arose.
Adolph Hoffmann raced madly in a cab all through the
center of Berlin, making furious speeches on every cor-
ner. The horizon turned blood red. He gathered to-
gether twelve tried men and true, and one night when
he thought no one was there, they entered and took pos-
session of the Moss publishing house and proceeded to
issue the Berliner V olkszeitung as the organ of the In-
dependent Socialists, edition No. 1.
When the minister posts were passed around in the
new socialistic Prussia, he assured himself of the post
of Minister of Education. Together with Haenisch,
leader of the majority Socialists, he took over the office
on the basis of " fifty-fifty." His first official act was to
advance himself a year's salary.
And then began a harlequinade. The Deutsche
Tageszeitung smirked. WTien he had to sign a document
116
ADOLPH HOFFMANN
or when a servant brought him the acts of the executive
council he was wholly at a loss what to do. If he had
not provided himself beforehand with a confidential
secretary, the personal debacle would have been worse.
He disgraced himself on all sides until the angels wept.
But he had a passion for reform that was not to be
stilled. There was no end to reform proclamations.
His program looked like a kaleidoscope. With one
stroke of the pen he separated state and church and
calmly ordered prayers and religion to be left out of
the educational system. The soul of the Catholic
Center seethed. A new Kultur war was mapped out by
the Catholic church. The bordering Catholic states,
Upper Silesia and Rhineland-Westphalia, began to
make propaganda for breaking loose from Prussia.
Storm everywhere. In the midst of this general culture
jamboree, Adolph Hoffmann announced in a public
speech that, if the election for the National Assembly
did not show a socialistic majority, the socialists would
break up the Reichstag with force even if they had to
bring out the machine guns again.
Herr Hoffmann had developed from a democrat to
a man of force. It was high time that he laid down his
" work " after seven weeks, together with the other
" Independent " ministers. The former Royal Prus-
sian Kultur could not have borne the strain much
longer. The Geheimrate (privy councillors) had al-
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LEADEKS OF. YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
ready threatened to strike, and the Center party was
making alarming disturbances marching through the
streets and demanding his scalp. But when the embit-
tered ones forced their way into his house, TIerr Hoff-
mann was not to be found ; he had hidden himself and
thus saved his precious life.
jSTo matter how you may judge him, when you think
it all over he had the courage of his convictions. More
than once he was put behind the bars for libel, and that
is certainly no pleasure. But the Swedish curtains did
not frighten him nor change his opinions. Aclolph
Hoffmann remained the same old proletarian Vulcan
who is comfortable only when he can spit fire and
sulphur. He has lost his former influence since the
day when he and his " independent " colleagues with
him left the council of the people's representatives for
Prussia and Germany. The ex-minister of educational
and clerical affairs now has taken his place in the
Beichstag among the mockers, obstructionists and scan-
dal-makers.
XV
HELLMUT VON GERLACH
The Gerlaclis have played no small role in the history
of Prussia. They were all very conservative. Ilellmut
von Gerlach's grandfather was once president of police
under Friedrich III ; he was then an ordinary citizen,
hut was knighted and went to Cologne as president of
the Government in 1839. His son held the same office.
Hellmut gave promise of keeping up the family tradi-
tion. He studied at Jena, passed his first and second
state examinations, and became assistant judge in the
Landrat at Batzeburg in the district of Sachsenwald,
where the old man spent his last days grumbling and
warning. Gerlach, faithful to the Government — Bis-
marck, bitterly opposed to the new order of things, op-
posed to Wilhelm II, Caprivi, Botticher, and all the
rest, in boundless contempt for Stocker who wrote his
friends in a notorious letter, that it would be a good
service to the Kaiser to build a bonfire and throw old
Bismarck into it. Gerlach was an absolute monarchist ;
Bismarck was no doubt also a monarchist, but in his
passionate battle against the new regime he uninten-
tionally became democratic. He did not stop to think
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
that he broke the back of the Reichstag without lessen-
ing the power of the monarch a dot. This was Bismarck
and G-erlach in the early 90's when they came into
professional contact.
One thing Gerlach had in common with the human
Yulcan : the necessity of creating an impression on poli-
tics. This desire was so strong that llellmut began to
work on Stocker's paper, the Yolk. He felt himself
drawn to that group of Social Conservatives, or young
Conservatives, which looked up to the young Tory, Ran-
dolph Churchill, as their political pattern. Gerlach
believed he could reform and modernize the Conserva-
tive party socially and liberally. For this reason he
fought against the socialist and all other exceptional
laws. He published a vigorous article against the
Reichstag when they concluded not to increase the in-
come tax to four per cent on all incomes over 100,000
marks. On account of this article Count von der
Schulenburg, Duke von Trachenberg, and other high
personages, called him a socialist or even an anarchist.
He was forbidden to publish any further articles or
to appear in public assemblies. This was a distinction
that hardly any other government barrister ever ac-
quired. He soon became editor and gave up his offi-
cial career. All at once he was in the middle of the
Christian socialistic movement, writing and agitating
against the Jews as " capitalistic parasites." He began
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HELLMUT VON GERLACH
to work for the social ideas of Wagner and Schmoller
under the cloak of bellicose Christianity. The Con-
servative party admitted the justice of these demands
in order to win the masses, but the people did not feel
comfortable in this feudal society for any length of
time; they soon saw the purpose and got in a bad
humor. In 1897 they broke loose, Naumann, Gohre,
and Gerlach, and founded the National Socialistic party
on a platform of land reform, national socialism, and
anti-Semitic culture, a somewhat hazy program. There
was plenty of enthusiasm with but little practical suc-
cess. It remained a party of enthusiastic officers with-
out any troops. They could scarcely get enough under-
officers together to carry on their propaganda work.
Gerlach bought the Hessische Landeszeitung and con-
ducted this paper from 1898 to 1906. During the first
few years of his activity on this paper he continued
writing leading articles for the Welt am Montag.
Democratic thoughts crept into his national-social-
istic policy and he was soon the darling of the official
world. In a certain law process a lawyer compared the
Hessische Landeszeitung to a dirty towel on which
everybody wiped his hands.
In 1903 Gerlach was candidate for the Reichstag for
the first time. He won out with the help of the Center.
In the meantime the National Socialistic party went
to pieces on an excess of intellect A party cannot con-
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
sist entirely of speakers ; there must be a few listeners
as well. The Liberal organization joyfully received
most of them, Gerlach included. The rest went over
to the Social Democrats. In 1907, Gerlach was again
candidate but lost this time. He moved to Berlin and
took over the direction of the Berliner Zeitung in the
Ullsteinhouse. Under the greatest opposition he called
the democratic organization into being and struck out
strongly right and left. Finally he landed in the Welt
am Montag again and still distinguishes that paper with
his Monday articles.
This is Hellmut von Gerlach's career. He is a demo-
crat of the purest water, distilled democracy. But he
lacks one thing — the inner fire which immediately
impresses the reader or listener in all that he writes or
says. He is a rationalist through and through. But
the rationalizing of his daily life is not always correct
or even reasonable. He strives to learn much of every-
thing, loses his way and only finds it again laboriously
on the path of journalism. This is a sympathetic, a
kindly weakness, but nevertheless a weakness. His
articles are often not penetrating enough, they are too
superficial and confine themselves to mere statement
of facts. He registers presumptions, assertions, proofs,
builds up his thought system mathematically, therefore
lacking inner " warmth and dampness," to use an
expression of Xenophon's.
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HELLMUT VON GERLACH
When one hears him speak or sees him write, often
grinning sarcastically but always soberly consequential,
one is involuntarily reminded of Pan. Every Monday
morning early he suddenly pops out of the forest of
everyday duties, blows his little flute admoni shingly,
and points out the political errors of the past week.
And many buy his paper even if they are not at all
democratic, and read it with curiosity and gratitude
because of the liberal thoughts and continual cry for
peace contained therein.
He failed utterly as under-secretary of the Prussian
Ministry, to which he was appointed by the revolution-
ary cabinet. He was sent to Posen to report on the
doings of the Poles; was completely taken in by the
courtesy of the Pan-Polish National Democrats and re-
ported everything rosy. Soon afterwards the Poles be-
gan systematically to conquer the German Ostmark in
order to have a fait accompli for the peace conference.
XVI
KARL THEODOR HELFFERICH
Dr. Helfferich, once more, found a new sphere of
activity, this time far from the Center. He was the
murdered Count Mirbach's successor in Moscow. Many
official and nonofficial circles in Berlin heaved a sigh
of relief when he finally settled down for a time where
he could not disturb with his aspirations every change
of secretary or ambassador. Dr. Helfferich, personi-
fying perpetual motion, had the pleasant task of trans-
acting business with Bolsheviki and revolutionists be-
tween bomb fuses, so to speak. He, the most outspoken
friend of capitalism, must manage to get along with
the "deadly enemies of capitalism and bourgeois soci-
ety." Not only this, but he must also pave the way for
resuming economic relations with Russia.
Helfferich was a man who undertook much but who
had no perseverance. Everything must be won at first
assault. When he stood on top, a restless, fidgety
person, he did not stay there long; he already cast his
eye about for new fields to conquer.
He was born and grew to manhood in a house tra-
ditionally democratic. His father was a leader of the
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KARL THEODOR HELFEERICH
Progressive People's party in the Palatinate. More
than once the young Karl Theodor climbed upon the
Hambacker Hohe where once a thousand men and
women gathered in 1832, to demonstrate for freedom
and a united Germany. Siebenpfeiffer saw the day
coming "when Princes would exchange their feudal
ermine for the manly toga of German nationality;
when the German woman would no longer be the ser-
vant of the man but a free comrade of free citizens
nursing their sons and daughters with the milk of free-
dom ! " And then this gathering, full of lovely Pf alz
wine, sang : " Courage, courage, courage ! God will
not forsake us if we keep his word in faith. Passion-
ately let us love and passionately hate."
The next day they discussed whether a provisory
Government should be established for free Germany.
But this brave, and yet so pedantic, proposition was re-
jected. Even if this movement did come to nothing
but a wine frolic, their children and children's children
cherished the thought in their hearts, and if you ever
visit the Palatinate it will whisper to you from every
corner of the glorious days of the past. Even Karl
Theodor was fascinated by the magic of it. The song
of freedom filled his youthful soul. In an impetuous,
poetical frenzy, he wrote a drama : " It is joy to live ! n
Later when he was tottering on his Vice-Chancellor
throne, deserted by the Left and the Center, when he
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LEADERS OE YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
tried to support himself by turning to the Conservatives,
the papers made a sarcastic allusion to his poetical gifts.
This pained him so much that he notified the press
through Wolff's telegraph bureau to refrain from speak-
ing of this youthful error.
He attended the universities of Munich, Berlin and
Strassburg, studying political economy. After complet-
ing his studies he made a tour of foreign lands. At
twenty-three he took part in the coinage battle; natu-
rally he was for a gold standard. At twenty-seven he
entered the University of Berlin as lecturer. His career
began. A shrewd, versatile, practical man, scientifically
schooled, with energy and will and a full pocketbook, —
not too full, — with an eye to the needs of the moment ;
could fate hinder the progress of such a man ? A year
later he was lecturing on colonial policy in the seminary
for oriental languages; a year after that he found his
way to the Government. He entered the colonial de-
partment of the Foreign Office. In the course of one
year he was professor, Councillor of the Legation, and
acting Councillor of the Legation. He was the delegate
of the German Government at the Berlin transactions
of the American-Mexican coinage commission. He soon
acquired the reputation of being a very clever lawyer,
and as he had had enough of official life, he began to
work for private concerns. Financial circles had long
had their eye on him. He had shown himself especially
126
KARL THEODOR HELFFERICH
clever and adroit as a Government commissioner in
colonial transactions. At least this was the general im-
pression ; and then there was his book on money which
won for him the reputation of being a keen financial
man. In 1906 he entered the executive department of
the Anatole Railroad Company and after two years was
appointed director of the Deutsche Bank. He seemed
to want to stay there longer than in other positions and
waited for another day to come. And it came. He
wrote new books on Germany's national wealth and the
causes of the war. In January, 1915, he was asked by
Bethmann-IIollweg to take over the treasury in place
of Herr Kiihn, who was leaving on account of poor
health. At last a sphere of activity was opened to him
where he could develop his whole ability and where he
might accomplish great things. The press was favor-
able to him and in general everybody was glad that one
of the most important political posts should be occupied
by a man theoretically and practically trained for it.
Dr. Helfferich came, saw, and conquered, at first.
" I have taken over this office," he declared to the
Reichstag in his maiden speech, "with the obligation
of financing the war and keeping our financial position
on a firm basis."
He raised the funds. Under his leadership almost
thirty-two milliards were extorted from the people.
Herr Kiihn, his predecessor, had been able to raise only
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
four and one-half milliards for the first loan. This was
too little. The old bureaucratic method must he aban-
doned and a new propaganda system invented. Dr.
Helfferich was a master at advertising; he adopted
American methods to get the people to give up their
money willingly. This is about the largest legacy he
left behind him — bluff. On closer examination we
find that nothing else will hold water.
Each war loan was almost a personal victory and yet,
in the noise of triumph, one must not forget a man who
played a strong part in the success of these financial
schemes — Dr. Havenstein, president of the Reichs-
bank. When Helfferich faced the problem of a new
financial system he failed miserably. Five hundred
million marks were to be raised. Now was the time
to unfold his genius, to develop great reform ideas.
The time was favorable; but what did Helfferich do?
Like a miserable ragpicker he scratched a few small
taxes together and loaded them onto trade, industry
and traffic. He, the economist, the financial theorist,
the colonial politician!
The Reichstag was disappointed, grumbled, picked
his tax bouquet to pieces, and came into conflict with
him. He met the Social Democrats with the words:
" I forbid you to say such things ! " Naturally they
only laughed at him. He could not understand why
the Reichstag did not approve of his plan of taxing
128
KARL THEODOR HELFFERICH
industrial and traffic concerns, his carefully thought-
out scheme of covering the deficit. True, his arithmetic
Was incontestable ; everything balanced. But it had its
dark side. The theoretical economist had figured too
abstractly — had undervalued the power of party and
professional interests. This method of valuation of
people and things reminds one of Colquhoun, of whom
Heine relates in his English Fragments: "In order
to give his readers an idea of the unlimited resources of
the nation, he took an inventory of everything in the
country down to the rabbits." Heine wittily remarks :
" He seemed to regret that he could not reckon in the
rats and the mice."
When the Reichstag had corrected his tax plan, re-
placing the indirect tax by a direct income tax, and
when the Bundesrat had approved of this system,
Helfferich withdrew in bad humor as if he had been
personally injured. Why had he hastily declared to
the Reichstag during the tax transactions : " The Gov-
ernments are of the opinion that with the exception of
a tax on war profiteering, any further direct national
tax is impossible." Afterwards when the Government
deserted him he compromised. The tax compromise
was concluded without him, but he gave in gracefully
because the way was already open for a higher position.
Slowly lie had paved the way to it. His position as
Secretary of the Treasury did not satisfy him; he
129
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
longed for political laurels. In his first great Reichstag
speech on March 15, 1915, he declared with assurance:
" It is Germany's intention to let the enemy pay for
the material damage they have caused hy this wanton
~war." A year later on another March day, he expressed
the same thought but somewhat modified : " We may
hope for a financially favorable peace — indeed we
maintain this hope — but in spite of this an increase
of national funds is very necessary." Karl Theodor
had begun to learn a few things, especially about unre-
stricted submarine warfare. He knew how great the
danger from American sources was ; as a political econo-
mist he knew America's resources ; her energy, material,
men, and money. Although he was one of the most
energetic opponents of a submarine war, he allowed
himself to be won over against his better judgment like
Bethmann-TIollweg, his chief. At that time he was Sec-
retary of the Interior and Vice-Chancellor, a welcome
guest at General Headquarters. This loquacious man
who never lost his mental balance and always fell on his
feet, made an excellent impression on the Kaiser. He
soon basked in the sunlight of imperial favor, but he
could not get along with the Reichstag. They did not
-always want what he wanted. They ventured to contra-
dict when the great authority spoke, and spoil his con-
cept. What did they know of the things he commanded ?
As head of the Department of the Interior he worked
130
KARL THEODOR HELFFERICH
industriously to become acquainted with, the new
sphere, but with, a sort of mimicry, an ability to fit
into the old system which soon developed into a fanatical
bureaucracy. He carried this autocracy into the Reich-
stag and this was his misfortune. Although the food
department had been separated from the Department of
the Interior, the new office proved too much for Dr.
Helfferich. He met the problems and people with in-
creasing nervousness; his irritability brought him into
painful situations more than once.
In spite of an excess of work which, threatened to
swamp the office, he was at first an outspoken opponent
of a division of the department, but finally accepted it,
reserving the post of Vice-Chancellor for himself. He
did not retain this exposed position for more than
twenty-five days. The Reichstag got him out, although
he fought tooth and nail against it. Herr von Payer
took his place. Ajax fell by his own strength.
"When one looks back over his political legacy one
sees nothing but fragments. The patriotic service law
introduced by him was wholly changed by the Reichs-
tag. Only the idea remained. It was a mere accident
that the Reichstag let itself be intimidated by a threat
that the bill would fall through if a court of arbitration
and a labor commission were forced upon the railroads.
I can still see Dr. Helfferich sweating and moving rest-
lessly back and forth on his bench. What if the ma-
131
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
jority went against him ? Either the Government must
withdraw the draft which was the kernel of Hinden-
burg's policy, or he must resign on account of his too
hasty utterances. But the god Mercury was gracious.
By a majority of one single vote the demands of the
Left were rejected — and he was on top again. He
could rub his hands with satisfaction. In his exuber-
ance he committed the indiscretion of saying in the
semi-official Norddeutsclie Allgemeine Zeitung that
he could have carried out his service law without the
Reichstag's aid. Tableau. The press made a noise and
Herr HelfTerich retracted.
His greatest parliamentary defeat took place at the
interpellation of the Pan-German propaganda in the
army. Amid great uproar in the House he made the
remark that no one seemed to trust him any more.
No ! No ! was repeated so often, even by the Conserva-
tives, that he left the speaker's platform with flapping
coat-tails.
The only regulation he succeeded in putting through
was that in regard to rebuilding the fleet. In spite of
the Reichstag's lack of confidence Dr. Helfferich still
considered himself indispensable. He had outlived
Bethmann-Hollweg and Michaelis, why not Count
Hertling? This intellectual profiteer had long since
thrown his political principles overboard; democratic
from tradition, he developed the views of the Eather-
132
KAKL THEODOR HELFEERICH
land party and finally must have had to admit to him-
self that he had stood on the wrong side — the course
of events had changed and was running strong for the
Left.
Things were quiet for a few weeks after he had been
politely requested a few thousand times to leave. But
only for a few weeks. He dived up again serenely from
below. He refused a seat in a university as professor
of political economy. He stayed in Berlin — the
source of all things — and waited. After a short time
he accepted a post of honor from the Chancellor, pre-
paring for the transition period.
And then he sat in Moscow between Bolsheviki and
revolutionists (after attempting to obtain Kuhlmann's
place in the Foreign Office) sending the worst possible
news from this new, and yet so old, capital of Russia.
The ground became too hot under his feet. The Ger-
man diplomatic corps retired to Pleskau behind the
trenches and Dr. Helfferich brought his valuable carcass
back to Berlin a tempo.
The German Philistines, the Progressives, and Na-
tional Liberals could sleep peacefully once more —
they had their Helfferich back again. He loathed the
new order of things that followed the revolution. To
be put aside became unbearable to him, so, as a sort of
prelude to future reactional performances, he started
a furious press-campaign against Erzberger. In the
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LEADERS OF .YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
following sensational trial he was made the defendant
on charges of libel and defamation of character, pre-
ferred by Erzberger. The sensation caused in Germany
by the publication of the list of war criminals demanded
by the Entente overshadowed for only a moment the
Helfferich case. He set all Germany talking about
himself, and, oh, it did his heart a lot of good.
The great trial ended. As a result Erzberger re-
signed from office; Helfferich paid the legal costs!
Typical, in a way, of both men.
XVII
PHILIP SCHEIDEMANtf
A yellowish white goatee pasted on a triangle — this
is Philip Scheidemann's face — a broad, shiny path
leads across the top of his large skull, with tufts of hair
sticking out at the sides like the hedge along a country
road. Two watery blue eyes peep calmly out of their
tiny caverns. This head, which attracts attention at
the first glance, rests upon a somewhat undersized
body. Scheidemann has grown above the proletarian
class without having acquired the allurements of the
bourgeois.
He is a self-made man. Born at Cassel fifty-three
years ago, he entered the people's school and learned the
printer's trade like Henry George, the great American
land reformer. From typesetter he advanced to proof-
reader and then to foreman. Finally he became a jour-
nalist. At thirty years of age he was editor of the Mit-
teldeutsche Sonntags-Zeitung in Giessen; he remained
at this post for five years and then edited, one after an-
other, the social democrat papers in Kurnberg, Offen-
bach, and Cassel. He settled down for some time
and was elected to the Keichstag. In 1911 he became
135
LEADERS OF JESTERDAY A:N T D TO-DAY
a leader of the Social Democrat party, gave up his
mandate, and went to live in Berlin-Steglitz.
Once he was blood-red in his socialistic opinions, and
settled at the outermost edge of the left wing of his
party. He liked to speak on party days, but he was no
blusterer like Zubeil, Ledebour, and Stadthagen, who
went opposition at any price. With all his radicalism
he always left a way open for retreat when necessary,
and did not assume that hateful, personal tone when
speaking of party heretics ; he could also get along well
with Bebel, the One and Only.
He played no small role in the Reichstag even before
the war. At one time there was a scandal. In a speech
in 1912, Schiedemann attacked the Hohenzollerns, men-
tioning broken promises and other similar things. Sud-
denly Bethmann-Hollweg arose in all his great length,
gave his comrades in the Bundesrat a meaning look, and
marched out with them at his heels. The Bundesrat
struck. It was no novelty; in May, 1881, the same
thing happened under Eugen Richter. In Scheide-
mann's case, the president, who had perhaps nodded a
bit during the speech, did not really know what had
happened for the moment. He waited until the steno-
gram was finished, then dutifully called for order, and
the gentlemen of the Government slowly found their
way back to their seats.
He was a stumbling block again in 1912, when
136
PHILIP SCHEIDEMANN
the new Reichstag was elected and the blue-black block
(Conservative and Center, the Catholic party) suf-
fered a defeat. This fact had to be recognized in the
new majority at the presidential election. The Social
Democrats were the strongest party at the election, but
they agreed with the Left to choose a president from the
second strongest party, the Center. Herr Spahn, presi-
dent of the Supreme Court and political light of the
Center, became president, Schiedemann, first vice-presi-
dent, and Herr Paasche, from the National Liberals,
second vice-president. Germany threatened to collapse
when she found out there was a real, red Social Demo-
crat in the presidency of the Reichstag. The papers be-
gan to rage and storm and Herr Spahn hastily resigned.
One couldn't really sit on the German people's seat of
honor hand in hand with a Social Democrat. A new
vote was cast. Herr Scheidemann was not reelected this
time, and Germany was saved. All the political mor-
alists went about with beaming faces. Herr Schiede-
mann, who had bought a brand new black coat for the
occasion, wore it only one day.
Things were different during the war. Scheidemann,
the Red, with diplomatic cleverness, turned over to the
right side, left off his gruff opposition, and approved
of the war credit and a positive labor policy. Indirectly
he had a strong effect upon Bethmann-Hollweg, and
from a distance vaccinated him with the teachings of
137
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AXD TO-DAY
democracy. Like Tkeodor Wolff, he immediately began,
to work for a compromise, a peace without annexation
or compensation; he was never tired of preaching this,
idea. Scheidemann-peace soon became a catchword.
But because he would not accept a peace at any price,
because he did not fight blindly against the Government,
and would not refuse the war credit, he soon came into-
conflict with the left wing of the House, with Haase,
Bernstein, Hoffmann, and company. After stormy
scenes in the Reichstag came an open breach; the
" Social Democratic League " broke loose, Haase re-
signed and Scheidemann took his place. From this
time on he had a heavy battle with the radicals in the
Solingen district.
In the Reichstag he was one of the most effective
speakers; he had a crisp manner of delivery with a
somewhat sharp undertone. Ready of wit, he had an
answer for every attack ; sarcasm and humor spiced his
conversation. Being elegant and smooth-tongued, he
was envied by many a minister for his gift of speech.
The Vorwarts often published his speeches.
He kept in touch with the socialists of foreign coun-
tries during the war and often went to Holland and
Sweden. Whenever he packed his trunks the Conserva-
tives, scenting trouble, began to grow uneasy.
He it was who first uttered the apt words, " pyramid
of skulls " and " fools who still believed in a military
138
PHILIP SCHEIDEMANN
"victory." It was due to his clever political tactics that
the Reichstag majority was formed which put an end
to the dismembered condition of the Reichstag from
which the Right profited so much. He entered the peo-
ple's Government as Secretary of State, together with
Groeber, Erzberger, Haussmann, and Friedberg, the
quintet headed by Prince Max von Baden. He it was
who proclaimed the new Social Republic from the bal-
cony of the Reichstag on the 9th of November. As a
decisive and strong man he played no small role in
Ebert's revolutionary cabinet ; together with the Secre-
tary for Foreign Affairs he was chosen leader of the
peace commissioners.
When on February 6, 1919, the revolutionary council
of people's representatives placed their portfolios in the
hands of the National Assembly, Schiedemann entered
the Cabinet formed by the three democratic parties, the
Democrats, the Catholic Centrists and the old Social
Democrats, as Prime Minister. But his new glory,
propped up largely by parliamentary rhetorics, could
not last long. When the unexpectedly severe terms of
the peace treaty became known, Schiedemann, after
some wavering, finally said " Never ! " and declared
that "the hand that signs this peace ought to rot."
The peremptory "Either — Or" of the Entente fin-
ished the Schiedemann Cabinet. There was nothing
for him to do but to resign. He went to Switzerland
139
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AM) TO-DAY
for some months. While still there, he was tendered
the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Rela-
tions which he accepted, and shortly after his return to
Germany his Cassel speech rang like a trumpet blast
throughout the country, warning the new German re-
public of the ever-present and steadily growing menace
of a counter-revolution by the militarist and reactionary
parties and elements, a prediction which events seem
to have justified. At the beginning of 1920 he was
elected First Mayor of the City of Cassel, where he
Was born.
From printer's boy to minister and Excellence —
one has heard of like cases in America.
xyin
HERMANN PAASCHE
Not omy serious political conversations are carried
on in the imposing vaulted lobby of the Reichstag ; nor
are mere economic questions the sole subject of dis-
cussion. !No, it is here that real business is done, or
better, prepared. In bluish cigar-smoke and comfortable
leather chairs, it is discussed just as it is everywhere
else in the masculine world. The atmosphere is much
too masculine since general secretaries and recorders
began to increase like the sands of the sea among par-
liamentarians ; since trusts, syndicates, associations, and
gigantic business firms are sending their representatives
to the Reichstag. Every tiny business concern seeks a
connection with the outer world through a representa-
tive. Lately I was asked if I knew some comrade, some
" representative of the people " who would take over
an easy position with a syndicate. For a reasonably
high salary he was to establish and cultivate "relations."
Others belong to one, two, three, or more boards, accord-
ing to their reputation and position in the party.
Of course there are strictly honorable men in the
Reichstag and Landtag, who are merchants or financial
141
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
men and members of boards, whom no one can reproach
for misusing or abusing their position. But there are
others for whom the border line is blurred, who half-
unconsciously make business of politics and politics of
business. One became an adept at this and that was
Hermann Paasche, vice-president of the Reichstag.
Here is a whole ball of yarn to untangle.
Papers and pamphlets have long made biting remarks
about Ilerr Paasche's commercial politics, but they did
not venture to publish a lot of details which would
serve to give us a life-size portrait of this business poli-
tician. I will try to make good the deficiency, but must
confess beforehand that I cannot exhaust the topic nor
expose all of Ilerr Paasche's doings because some of
them are not yet finished.
He is somewhat above the average height, slightly
stooped, and wears a filthy, black overcoat. When one
sees him carelessly shambling along, or hears him bub-
bling like a soda-water fountain for hours at a time,
when one looks into his twinkling, good-natured, little,
black-currant eyes bedded in his comfortable, round
face — one cannot believe what one hears of him behind
the scenes. This good-natured old uncle of sixty-eight,
who still looks as if he just came from the farm !
Hermann Paasche was an agrarian in his younger
years and still is on a large scale. He generally retired
to his beautiful estate, " Waldfrieden," by Hochzeit in
142
HERMAXX PAASCHE
jSTeumark, to rest from his political exertions. This was
Wilhelm Bmlin's election district, with whom Paasche
was on the best of terms. In Halle he studied political
economy; in 1ST 7 he went to Aix-la-Chapelle as lec-
turer, and then to Rostock as professor. Against the
will of the faculty he went to Marburg; Althoff, the
Allpowerful from the Ministry of Education, favored
him and half forced him upon the university. About
this time his parliamentary career began, but on account
of his leaving Mecklenburg in 1884, he had to give up
his Mecklenburg mandate. lie kept away from politics
for nine years. Then he was sent to the Diet from
Meiningen and represented Kreuznaeh-Simmern in the
Reichstag.
As professor he was not very highly treasured. I do
not know of one student who looked up to him as a
teacher — I know onlv of those who covered their ears
v
and shuddered when they thought of the cataract of
words that poured from his mouth. lie would give the
contents of whole books in fortv-five minutes, but I am
sure there was more quantity than quality. His literary
works consisted of insignificant publications on various
subjects. One seeks in vain for original ideas; they
are mere statements of facts and statistics. There are
a few travel sketches among them of trips to Xorth and
Central America, to Jamaica and Cuba. A few years
before the war he was also in East Africa. Writing
143
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
was not his field; his talents were bent in another
direction. He settled down on the periphery of busi-
ness life and soon attained the success denied him as a
scholar. He obtained a good position in the National
Liberal party. He had economic problems to deal
with as his special territory, and soon became an
authority on such things in the party. Government men
crowded about him and new relations and business con-
nections were formed. Industrial firms who largely
depend upon Government orders, or firms interested in
the outcome of a tax or tariff law, fought for his pro-
tection. Little by little he became:
President of the Board of Howaldt's Works.
Board member of the:
German Mineral Oil Industry, A. G.
German-Bohemian Coal and Pressed Coal Works,
A. G. in Dresden.
Brewery, Alcohol, and Yeast Works, formerly
G. Skinner, Smelter Works, C. Wilh. Kayser &
Co., A. G.
Rhineland Metal and Machine Factory.
Rositzer Sugar Refinery, A. G.
Telephone Factory, A. G., formerly J. Berliner.
Is that all? These are not all by any means, only
the largest firms are mentioned here. There are all
sorts of shady and shadier transactions, but I shall men-
tion only a few which best represent Herr Paasche, the
144
HEEMANK PAASCHE
great National Liberal patriot and representative of the
people.
Before the war when Americans were contemplating
drawing the German cigarette industry into the com-
bine, for some unknown reason he took the part of the
firms who had entered the American trust and fought
against the anti-trust League. Again we see him on
the side of the foreigners when a number of foreign
moving-picture concerns, Gaumont, Eclair, Cines, etc.,
sought to form a combine which would have ruined the
German picture industry. The day was saved by the Paris
firm, Pathe Freres, who refused to enter the combine.
During the war, of course, Dr. Paasche confined his
activities to German allies ; he played a leading role in
the Austrian-Hungarian economic league, edited the
Wirtschaftszeitung for the Central powers, had his
hand in the German-Austrian-Hungarian railway con-
cern, made frequent trips to Vienna, Budapest, and
Sofia, permitted himself to be decorated with orders
(except in Constantinople, where admittance was refused
him), and always spoke for the whole German nation.
How can a man accomplish all this — politics and
business and representation, day in, day out, for twelve
or fourteen hours a day every day ?
I shall attempt to explain the riddle. Do you hap-
pen to know Georg Kaiser's " Coral," a play given by
Eeinhardt last winter? It is the story of a man, a
145
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
multimillionaire (which Paasche has not yet become),
who is so much taken up with social and professional
duties that he divides his ego with his secretary who
carries on half of his burdens with all their responsi-
bilities and obligations. Herr Paasche's other ego was
not a private secretary, but contented himself with
being called Syndikus. Originally he was a clerk in the
Austrian-Hungarian consulate at Berlin, where he had
the political business problems to look after. As Herr
Paasche's other self, he had a stately income.
This gentleman looked after Herr Paasche's affairs
and prepared the way for other profitable relations or
for new Board memberships. For his trouble he re-
ceived cash or papers — for each separate enterprise.
When Herr Paasche entered a new Board he immedi-
ately complained of overwork and his other self took
over the representation as far as possible.
I must break off although there is much more to be
said. For instance, Herr Paasche was interested in a
publishing concern which speculated on the vanity of
its subscribers and advertisers — but we will be silent.
The president of the German House of Representatives
must keep up appearances.
He retired quickly when the new revolutionary Ger-
many stepped forward and announced through the press
that he would not accept a candidacy for the National
Assemblv.
XIX
HANS DELBRUCK
A conservative but not a Heydebrand type was Hans
Delbriick, a Kultur-conservative, combining all the ele-
ments of Prussia — that is, of liberal Prussia as she was
in the period between the battles of Jena and Leipzig;
a politician ever striving after the truth but unable to
rise above his nature, whose conservatism was like a
magnet ever pulling his thoughts back from their high-
est flights. He was a prisoner within himself. He
wavered between two generations; hesitated on the
bridge between the old and the new Prussia ; like Lot's
wife he could not resist glancing backward. He wanted
to cheer up those remaining behind and hold back those
who were pressing forward; his lively temperament
drew him on with those at the front, but critical reason
always pulled the check-rein in time.
This was the tiny, bearded, Professor Hans Delbriick,
just seventy years old, historian at the University of
Berlin. The name Delbriick often appears on the pages
of Prussian history during the last century. Most of
the Delbriicks were persons above the average — Ber-
thold, Eudolf, Clemens. Berthold, the father, who was
judge of the court of appeals in Greifswald, made little
impression upon the children because of his early death.
147
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
It was the mother who gave most to the children intel-
lectually. She was the daughter of the philosopher,
von Hennig, who once worked on the theory of colors
with Goethe and was later Hegel's most fluent apostle.
He enjoyed much mental stimulation within profes-
sorial circles in Greifswald, even as a student. The
scholars lived wholly in the atmosphere prepared by
Goethe and Hegel; there were but a few who allowed
the cool draft of stormy, young, literary Germany —
Heine, Borne, Gutzkow, Freytag — to reach this still
corner.
Delbriick wanted to become a teacher at first, but a
friend of his mother's, the historian Karl von ISToorden,
pointed out another way. Instead of taking his exami-
nations at Greifswald he went to Bonn and entered
Sybel's school. He worked his way through tediously
on contributions from two uncles, and then took up an
academic career. A thousand hindrances made the road
difficult. For five years he served the Crown Prince
Friedrich as tutor of the young Prince Waldemar. In
1881 he became lecturer at the University of Berlin. He
waited fifteen years for a post as professor. This was
in 1896 and Delbriick was forty-eight years of age. It
was bitter for a scholar who had long since made a repu-
tation through his publications.
During the war I went to Skierniwice where once
three Kaisers met in the gleaming white hunting lodge ;
148
HANS DELBRUCK
where Bismarck, with Giers and Kalnoky, laid down
Europe's program for a decade. I was guest of the dis-
trict leader, a conservative Reichstag representative.
The Count, Major of the Brown Hussars, was a splen-
did example of jovial Junker with his patriarchal im-
pudence. We were sitting with cigars and cognac when
he surprised me by taking a blue volume from the writ-
ing table, with the remark : " Look here, this has been
my reading-matter for years." It was the Preussisclies
Jalirbuch, started by Treitschke, now published by
Delbriick after forty years. To see a genuine Prussian
Junker diligently studying politics was a great sur-
prise. I believed Delbriick to be thrown out altogether
from these circles — Delbriick who had sat on the
benches of the Free Conservatives ! He still had credit
with the Right it seemed ! Although he had always been
opposed to discriminating laws against the Danes, the
Poles, and Alsatians, although it was he who unmasked
the shyness of the landed property owner in regard to
taxes, although he was a Bethmann-Hollweg man dur-
ing the war and a bitter opponent of the Alldeutschers
(Pan-German) there must have been something in this
little political professor to attract the stiffest Conserva-
tive. Probably this attraction was Prussian militarism.
What had he to do with militarism ? Surely he was
Lieutenant of the reserves during the war of 1870-71;
everybody was in arms at that time. It was nothing
149
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
extraordinary. But his special subject was the history
of war. It was here that he did something extraordi-
nary. He went back into antiquity and proved step
by step, from the Persian wars, the transmission of the
art of war and army formations. Here was much that
was not understood, much that was legendary, and
there was no one to show him the path out of this
wilderness. His fundamental work was the Gneisenau
biography. In this work he treats of strategy and
methods then employed to defeat the enemy. From
his History of the Art of War, Schlieffen got his idea
for the battle of Cannae.
His military articles in the Preussische Jalirbuclier
on different phases of the late war are most enjoyable.
From month to month the military events are analyzed
in clear language and dignified consequence. The
political street of knowledge was not so broad and
smooth for him. For example, when one reads his book
War and Politics, one stumbles upon many mistakes
and misses the sure hand that is necessary to guide one
out of the political chaos of the day.
Although he fought for equal suffrage he cannot
free himself of the old, Liberal-Conservative, Prussian
narrowness of the days following 1848. But I respect
him as teacher and politician, for his writings and his
personality. And I love Hans Delbriick's tempera-
ment and admire his courage.
XX
THEOBALD VON BETHMANTST-HOLLWEG
The publications from the Bavarian archives, on the
question of who is to blame for the war loosed von
Bethniann-IIollweg's tongue. He sought to justify his
policy and suggested an investigation by the Supreme
Court. It was a confession of his weakness. The events
of that time were too much for him.
Who and what was Herr von Bethmann-IIollweg ?
He had almost been forgotten in the confusion of politi-
cal events when suddenly his long, thin form rose up
again from oblivion.
We have to think hard to get back to the days
of Prussian national authority. When Bethmann-
Hollweg was placed at the head of the Government by
the Kaiser in 1909, he had to wade through a mountain
of political debris to reach the Chancellor's palace.
The authority of the Government, which had just sol-
emnly declared it would not accept the finance reform
without an inheritance tax, was badly undermined.
It had to bend under the Caudinian yoke of the
blue-black (Conservative and Catholic center) block.
Prince Billow's parliamentary working majority had
gone to pieces, the Center again set the pace and a
151
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
savage party battle began. A financial reform that
made deep wounds in their economical life was forced
upon the German people. Trade, industries, and busi-
ness concerns formed a league against the one-sided,
selfish, economical tendencies of the agrarian Conserva-
tives. Never was Germany in the throes of such an
inner convulsion as then.
Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg warned the representa-
tives to creative work in his first speech. No nation, he
said, could hold its breath forever while sensational
party quarrels were being hashed over. That would
kill the nerve of any nation; her faith in herself and
her position in the world would be ruined. A nation
like Germany who won her place in the world by sober
work, could keep it only by continuing to work. He was
convinced that there was a necessity for creation laid
upon every member of the nation, and that this necessity
would outlive the present state of confusion.
But his warning fell on deaf ears. The inner battle
went on until 1912, when the new Reichstag elec-
tion opened the valve. The whole Left was now so
strong that they formed the majority, if it were but a
small one. In those two and a half years of battle
Bethmann-Hollweg had tried to accomplish a number
of urgent tasks. He slowly approached the Center
which had declared him to be but a "temporary Chan-
cellor." The battle of the Vatican against the liberal
152
THEOBALD VON BETHMANN-HOLWEG
tendency creeping into the church, the oath laid Upon
numerous scientific men, which was an infringement
upon the rights of the state, created so much disturb-
ance among the people that the Government had to in-
terfere in some way. Bethmann-Hollweg approached
the task gingerly. The ghost of a Kultur war haunted
him but still he tried to come to a compromise with the
Vatican. He also took the first hesitating steps toward
a discussion of the Jesuit problem. His restraint in the
Ostmark question, his reluctance to use the expropria-
tion law, his attempt to reconcile the Polish nobility
after a decade of estrangement by the arrangement of
the Kaiser's visit to Posen, and the liberal constitution
he gave Alsace-Lorraine, strengthened his position with
the Center from day to day. This policy of compromise
brought him gradually into conflict with the Right ; his
attitude toward foreign affairs did not serve to better
this condition. One thing after another came to widen
the cleft between them : Alsace-Lorraine, the Prussian
franchise problem, the Zabern affairs, and the profiteers'
tax as a substitute for the inheritance tax. In spite of
it all, he took great pains to give the preference to this
circle in every way possible.
At last the Left began to mistrust him. The election
reform he contemplated introducing served to deepen
the chasm now formed between him and the Liberals.
The words he used in introducing the bill made an
153
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
understanding almost impossible. He said one's whole
life consisted of dependencies, dependencies erected by
God. But Bethmann did not give up trying to come
to an understanding with them, and indeed he suc-
ceeded shortly before the war in bringing the Left, and
even the Social Democrats, to his standard, although
when the second military bill was introduced they
rejected the army bill and profiteer tax. This made
a great impression on foreign countries.
In the meantime Bethman-Hollweg's foreign policy
was conducted with ever-increasing difficulties. When
he entered the Chancellor's office he was new to diplo-
macy. Instinctively he was led by the thought of
gradually loosening the meshes of the English-French-
Russian net cast around Germany. As in Bismarck's
case, the coalition nightmare caused him many a sleep-
less night. He began with Russia, with Sassanow. The
Potsdam interview and agreement in regard to Persia
and the Bagdad railroad seemed to create a better feeling.
The attempt to come to an understanding with England
also seemed promising in the beginning. But Haldane's
visit to Berlin led to a new dissonance; von Tirpitz was
the cause. New threads were spun, new prospects
opened up. The Crown Prince was discontented but
Bethmann-Hollweg went his own way. Then the storm
broke; war could no longer be avoided. The Kaiser's
generals dictated with the sword and tore up the treaty
154
THEOBALD VON BETHMANN-IIOLWEG
with Belgium. Bethmann-Hollweg protested — but
remained in office preaching to the Reichstag that the
wrong should be righted.
During the war he felt the approaching calamity
more and more clearly from day to day and warned
them to come to terms. In 1915 he declared himself
agreeable to a League of Nations, but the Alldeutschers
the Conservatives despised him as a weakling and
idealist. Then came the agitation for an unrestricted
submarine warfare. Pamphlets shot up like mushrooms
over night; a Pan-German secret court-martial was
held and the verdict was: "We've got to get rid
of that fellow ! " But Bethmann-Hollweg held out
against them. Tirpitz was removed from office and
yet — one day Helfferich left him in the lurch and got
up new statistics which made a submarine war appear
imperative. Bethmann-Hollweg was voted down at
the conference at Headquarters. The U-boat war was
proclaimed in the midst of America's endeavor to bring
about peace. But he remained in office although the
Alldeutschers were better pleased than before.
He won the«Social Democrats to his side in this war
for the existence of the nation — they gave up their
class standpoint, the Independent organizations placed
themselves at the service of the Government, and the
German people presented a united front to the foe.
But Bethmann did not know how to take advantage
155
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
of this situation. True, he had learned something
from this inner rejuvenation he was always talking
about. He became absorbed in the ideals of democracy,
but his thoughts never developed into deeds. The only
practical thing he did was, here and there, to clear the
way for proficiency; he did not hesitate to put even
organized Social Democrats in office if they could fill
the job. Otherwise he contented himself with repeal-
ing the laws in regard to foreign languages and youths,
also the Jesuit law. His Easter message and promise
of equal suffrage were the last attempts to soothe the
spirits of democracy. Schmoller once called him a
modern Fabius Cunctator. He was filled with the best
intentions, he saw the necessity of reorganizing Prus-
sia's antiquated system, but never found the way to
deeds. He overrated the opposition and fell at last
because his indecisive policy could go no further. He
was forsaken by the Center he had made love to for so
long; the National Liberals followed and he lost his
parliamentary support.
Curiously enough he could be decisive when it came
to getting rid of persons who might be dangerous to
him. This was the case in the change of ministers
which cost Baron von Rheinbaben his place, and in the
quarrel with Tirpitz. Personal relations were an im-
portant factor in his political calculus. JSTot once, but
many times, he sent confidential persons — principally
156
THEOBALD VON BETHMANN-HOLWEG
scientific men — to announce from the lecture platform
what he later intended to do. He also used the press
— and used it very cleverly.
There were many surprises concealed in this man
who had a purely bureaucratic career behind him. He
began as Landrat in Niederbarnim, became president
of Potsdam, and then Minister of the Interior, finally
Secretary of the Interior, successor to Count Posadow-
sky. Bethmann-Hollweg liked to emphasize the ethical
streak in his policy. People said he had a liking for
philosophy; in his idle hours he studied Kant and
Schopenhauer and the music of Brahms. One still
remembers the stir his words created when he once said :
" Our philosophy has slowly recognized Kant, that
great, mental aristocrat ! "
This was Bethmann's philosophy, but it was not suf-
ficient to have willed the best — in politics one must
have also accomplished the best. He began too late and
— fell. He had won over the Kaiser entirely for his
reform ideas; he had caused the resignation of oppos-
ing ministers, but when von Stein, Minister of War,
declared himself an opponent of equal suffrage, Luden-
dorfT declared that without von Stein he would not be
responsible for the command of the army.
The catchword became: Bethmann or LudendorfT?
And Bethmann fell when he thought himself the
securest.
XXI
MINNA CAUER
Among those publishers who are known by their
works are a few women. They are all militant natures
who take everything with deadly seriousness and who
have not yet acquired a rational polish. Men who
write for the day are mostly skeptics; they gradually
realize that their wares are not worth much more than
the paper they are written on. But women who have
once entered the public arena are to the last breath
mental Amazons who plunge into the battle anew each
day with a shout of victory on their lips. And they
are right — those who conquer life anew hour for hour,
those who enter into the thing with their whole souls,
who give their very existence for the principle. The
others follow, drawn by suggestion.
One can count on one's fingers the women in public
life who have anything worth saying, although two gen-
erations have participated in the feminist movement.
One of the best, Lady Braun, a female Yulcan, has gone
to rest after decades of activity. In the midst of her
most intensive work a remorseless God called her home.
A part of the way she wandered with Minna Cauer.
158
MIXXA CAUER
In. the 90's, when German intelligence was enthusiastic
over the socialist movement, she married the scholar,
von Gyzicki, and together they published Ethische
Kultur, at a time when idealists were listening to the
words of Moritz von Egidy : " Religion is no longer a
thing apart; our life itself is religion."
Minna Cauer is already in her seventy-eighth year.
A veteran ? She would laugh at you if you approached
her respectfully as if she were a walking arterio-
sclerosis. She is young mentally and physically; in-
tellectually as nimble as a weasel. Where the battle
rages wildest there you will find her. Her life has
been like a movie-film — ever changing and shimmer-
ing, much sorrow but also much success. She is always
driven forward by the ideals, freedom, social and
political equality for women.
Freedom! That reminds one of her first revolu-
tionary prank. She was seven years old when the
unrest of 1848 crept into quiet little Freyenstein in
Ostpriegnitz, where her father, Herr Schaller, was
pastor. At the head of a troop of boys and girls she
marched through the streets singing revolutionary
songs and waving flags. Of course father scolded, but
Minna kept on treading the path of freedom. For a
time she did as other girls did — entered a boarding
school and when she was twenty-one she bestowed her
hand upon a young doctor, August Latzel. This mar-
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
riage lasted four years, during which time she lost a
little son of two years and her husband, who came home
ill from the campaign against Denmark in 1864, to die
soon after — the fate of many a woman — a widow still
young and fresh, good for a lifetime, and yet discour-
aged and uprooted. She went to Paris as a governess,
saw all the great men at the height of their glory, Napo-
leon and Eugenie — all the intoxication of the second
Empire. Months later when the war cast her back upon
German shores, this seemed like a dream. The splen-
did, glittering, Napoleonic soap-bubble had burst.
Minna married again. She accepted a position in
Hamm as teacher in a girls' school, and married the
director of the Gymnasium, a widower with five chil-
dren, a historian of some little repute, Professor
Eduard Cauer. They went to Danzig and then to Ber-
lin. Kaiser Friedrich (then Crown Prince) and his
wife interested themselves in the young couple. Often
they exchanged opinions. After twelve years Minna
lost her second husband. Again her life must be wholly
rearranged. Hesitatingly she began to enter public
life. Erom long association with her husband she be-
came interested in history. After his death, in looking
over his diary she found this passage : " The history
of woman is not yet written; it must be written some-
time but it will require the devotion of a lifetime."
\Was fate pointing out the way ?
160
MOTNA CAUER
Frau Cauer wrote little historical sketches but this
was only a side line. The present took hold of her
and the past sank into oblivion. A few liberal men
who had founded a German Academic Verein now pro-
posed a woman's organization. After long persuasion
Minna Cauer took over the leadership in 1888. At the
first general meeting she announced that it was not to
be a club which was to be contented with mere existing ;
no, it should spread the women's movement far and
wide and prepare the soil for its reception. At the
same time she was mapping out her own career to which
she remained true the rest of her life. Together with
Lily von Gyzicki and Adele Gerhard, she sent the first
petition to the Reichstag asking for the right to or-
ganize women's political vereins. " Three women
citizens " mocked the Social Democrats. Only in 1908
was this wish fulfilled.
In the meantime she continued her work, devoting
herself to the interests of shop-girls; she founded an
Aid Society and took part in founding the League of
Women's Clubs. It is impossible to mention all of her
activities in this short sketch. For ten years she had
devoted herself almost exclusively to the battle for equal
suffrage, equal political rights.
Her thoughts have been published since 1895 in the
Fraueribewegung. Numberless are her articles, politi-
cal, social, and cultural. There is nothing dry or theo-
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
retical about them; they are living and scintillating,
they flash into the mind of the reader. She will hear
nothing of Society Welfare organizations. That is
play — work is the need of the hour, daily, hard, social
work. When the war broke out she was one of the
first to lend her aid to the Red Cross. Eor a year and
a half she did her duty in Berlin; saw behind the
scenes more than she wished to see ; observed with dis-
favor the chase after Orders and other marks of distinc-
tion. When they tried to catch her with one of these
" ribbons " she left and again devoted herself to political
things.
She draws a large line between herself and the
" charitable lady." Once she wrote: " There is a deep
cleft in the world of women to-day. An ocean of opin-
ions separates us from those who are rooted in aged con-
ventionalities. There are new problems to solve and
they are not easy ones. To be sure, it is more comfort-
able to cling to that which is old and adore it. Carlyle
speaks of the old clothes of history ; we do not feel our-
selves called upon either to wear them or to patch
them."
The battle for equal suffrage in Prussia gave new
impetus to her efforts. Now it was everything or noth-
ing. She appeared again and again on the platform,
spoke to thousands; forged the women's organizations
into a solid phalanx for the approaching battle, sent a
162
MINNA CATTER
deputation of women to ask the intentions of the mem-
bers of the Eeichstag. When the great election reform
was finally put through, there was nothing said about
the women. They were glad to get equal suffrage for
the men. But even this defeat did not discourage
Minna Cauer ; she went on speaking, writing, agitating,
with her heart's blood — this youthful woman of
seventy-seven. The revolution brought her the fruits
of victory. A woman's life was rounded out.
XXII
PAUL LENSCH
Forty-five years ago his parents baptized him with
the name of Paul. His mother insisted on it; all
mothers have a fine instinct, and besides, her own name
was Pauline. She foresaw what would become of the
wild, fidgety Paul and she was not mistaken.
Paul was born at Potsdam in the shadow of the great
Friedrich, three years after the Franco-Prussian War.
Wilhelm I and Friedrich III, Bismarck and Moltke,
heroes whose laurel wreaths were just beginning to fade,
glided past his cradle.
Prussian-German history was hammered into him at
the Havel gymnasium while drums were beating out-
side on the parade grounds where the soldiers were
being drilled. In this way he received a firm, concrete
basis to work on, so to speak. When this was over he
entered the university. In Berlin and Strassburg he
studied political economy. Hegel, Marx, and Lassalle,
Wagner, Schmoller, and Brentano fascinated him;
greedily he devoured the teachings of that great social-
istic church-father, Kautsky. Although he served in
the fourth regiment of the Guards for a year, there was
164
PAUL LENSCH
no stopping him on the way to socialism now. In 1900
he was promoted to Doctor of Political Science at
Strassburg; immediately afterwards he became editor
of the Freie Presse fur Ehass-Lothringen.
As an anthor he is hesitating, doctrinaire, but not
class-conscious. Trips abroad widened his horizon.
Finally he landed in Leipzig, where there seemed a
chance of making a living. Rosa Luxemburg had beck-
oned ; Rosa, the morning star of the party, editor of the
Leipziger Volkszeitung. Lensch did not let himself be
asked twice; as early as 1902 we saw him buzzing
around the editor's room. Here at the cradle of Ger-
man socialism he became more radical than ever. Franz
Mehring wrote the much admired historical articles for
the paper, although he was forbidden to enter the
locality — no one could get along with him, not even
Kautsky. Jaeckh took Rosa's place and published
those traditional sow-herd articles which were to dis-
tinguish the paper from that time on. Lensch was in
his element — when Mehring somewhat sarcastically
reproached him with being lazy he gradually began to
liven up his articles. Very soon there was no one more
radical, more savage, more insubordinate than he. The
poor bourgeois were mauled, beaten, struck dead with
ink; with haughty mien he planted his class-conscious,
revolutionary foot on the necks of the reactionary
masses. The proletariat was pictured with an aureole
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
around its head. He spoke in this fashion to hundreds
of public gatherings, and the resolutions he proposed
were dipped in the gore of the red Internationale.
But the poor weavers of Saxony and Thiiringen were
still some distance from him in spite of his swash-
buckling radicalism. For no matter how wildly he ges-
ticulated he could not deny the academic streak in his
veins. In spite of this the Saxon district Reichenbach-
Auerbach sent him to the Reichstag. He did not make
much of a stir there. When he made his first speech
some wag called from the reporters' bench: "At last
we have a rhyme for Mensch (people), Mr. Lensch."
He was not a big number on party days either; was
known only as Mrs. Rosa's cavalier, whose teachings he
raved over. With his slouch Panama hat perched cockily
on one side, his mustache curled up on the ends, gen-
erally wearing a gray suit — gray like his theory —
he was the cavalier of the party. He usually led a dog
on a strap and loved to quote from books — in these
respects he resembled a converted Billow. This radical
Biilow was an abomination to Frank, Landsberg, and
Bernstein; they ostentatiously avoided his society.
They didn't even speak in passing. In 1908 he became
editor of the Leipziger VoTkszeitung.
This was Paul Lensch before the war. In class-
consciousness he was not to be out-trumped even by
Liebknecht or his consorts. The mills of the gods grind
166
PAUL LEKSCII
slowly we all know — his hour came somewhat sud-
denly. The God of the middle class gathered up their
prodigal son, led him back to the paths of virtue and
respect for those who govern here as well as in heaven,
back to love of his country and the Fatherland party.
At first he flared up mightily when war broke out and
spluttered with the party against war credit. When
everyone else was in the first stages of war intoxication
he was steadfast and unflinching. But somewhere,
somehow, came the illumination. Youth and Potsdam
traditions knocked at his heart ; the scales fell from his
eyes. Quickly he changed his shirt — pulled off the
international one and donned the national. From this
hour on he was the Social Imperialist of the party who
was not even averse to annexation provided it were
baptized with a less embarrassing name.
Of course he could not stay on the Leipziger Volks-
zeitung any longer. Together with Heilmann he
founded a new mouthpiece, Die Glocke. Naturally he
tried to justify this change of heart. His new creed
was laid down in a book called Social Democracy: Ik
End and Us Prosperity, published by S. Hirzel in Leip-
zig. The reasoning procedure was certainly not easy
to follow, but a student of Hegel, who can play with
dialectics as with a billiard ball, can accomplish even
this.
Thus spoke Lensch : " The principle of the organiza-
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
tion, wliicli in the hands of public authorities means as
much as guardianship, police surveillance, and submis-
sion on the part of the subject, will then become the
dialectic opposite — will be the lever of self-government
and discipline as soon as it becomes a part of the masses
themselves." He closes this play of words with: "At
the head of the German revolution stands Bethmann-
Hollweg."
We others, who are not so schooled in dialectics, have
not yet been able to see it that way ; on the contrary we
have found public authority mightier than ever during
the war, and submission on the part of the subject has
already entered the blood of nurslings on account of
bread, milk, and meat cards.
Herr Lensch's mental pendulum has swung over to
the other side and he has had a good many credulous
followers. Miracles happen even to-day; if you be-
lieved they happened only in biblical times just take a
look at Dr. Solf's exclusive and distinguished Ger-
man Society of 191 4, and there you will find Herr
Lensch comfortably ensconced in a leather chair every
evening.
In one hour Saul became Paul.
zxni
ERNST GRAF ZU REVENTLOW
!Not all Pan-Germans are alike — of course not.
There are a thousand variations ranging from three
octaves in the bass to three in the treble, to express it
musically. The strongest note is struck by Count Ernst
zu Reventlow, who speaks daily to the public through
the medium of the Deutsche Tageszeitung. He is a
remarkable creature. There is not a human instinct he
does not touch upon — not a contradiction in which he
does not entangle himself. A smooth dialectic is all
that saves him.
This sophist once took unto himself a French woman
for a wife; for her sake he retired from the army.
The companion he won at such heavy price stands by
his side to-day. They went to Central America and
tried ranching but it was not a success. Disappointed,
they turned back to the Fatherland. That was almost
twenty years ago. Then he tried his hand at writing.
We first meet him in Uberall, an illustrated army and
navy paper. Then he became marine specialist for the
Berliner Tagehlatt, and some time afterwards he landed
on the Tagliche Rundschau, where his first anti-
169
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Semitic utterances appear. But lie was still a liberal-
minded man, although not attached to any particular
party program. He attacked Tirpitz, who stood at the
head of the navy bureau — even the Kaiser was not
immune. About 1907 a booklet appeared entitled, The
Kaiser and the Byzantine. His Majesty surrounded
himself only with flatterers, he wrote, and related a
merry episode. On a hunting trip to England, when
Wilhelm II bagged a large number of animals, a chubby-
cheeked English country gentleman sarcastically ex-
claimed: "Almost superhuman." He also criticized
Prince Heinrich in the Tdgliche Rundschau because
he drilled his sailors on horseback and performed other
comical feats unbecoming an Admiral of the Kavy.
Imagine a galloping mounted navy!
But no one rapped his fingers for his naughtiness,
and many giggled to themselves over this noble enfant
terrible. But one day his foot slipped — he criticized
the Potsdam cavalry — said they didn't do as much
as the ordinary infantry. This was too much. They
haled him before a court of honor. There was a pain-
ful process in which all the rest of his literary sins were
taken into account. The verdict was : Guilty ; the prose-
cution recommended depriving him of his title and uni-
form. This was disgrace and shame for an officer. But
the sentence was somewhat milder; he was allowed to
retain his title but was retired from service.
170
ERNST GRAF ZU REVENTLOW
This was his day of enlightenment; the purging of
the hero began. If you like we can name the very day
of his change of spirit — the 14th of March, 1908.
He saw the world and all things therein with new eyes.
He began to applaud Tirpitz whom he had formerly so
frequently attacked. Thereupon Tirpitz smilingly de-
clared that Reventlow was his favorite literary mariner.
One door after another was opened to him in the Navy
Department. Every hour they put interesting material
into his hands; he needed only to utter the wish. In
the meantime, through Dr. Rosicke's friendly interfer-
ence, he went over to the Deutsche Tageszeitung. He
liked this journalistic, demagogic platform much
better — it suited his nature. With all their Teutonic
propensities, they handled politics with kid gloves on
in the Zimmerstrasse. Here, on the Deutsche Tages-
zeitung, he could handle them with a dung fork if occa-
sion demanded, without insulting his readers' nostrils
with the stirred-up odor. At first he confined him-
self to marine politics, but his was a commanding na-
ture. He soon became irritating to the comfortable
Herr Oertel, the Christian standard bearer of the Land-
owners' League and editor-in-chief of the Deutsche
Tageszeitung. They jarred on each other's nerves. But
one day they carried Herr Oertal's remains out to God's
acre, and Reventlow's power was thenceforth undisputed.
Mornings and evenings he wrote a leading article ; navy
171
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
problems formed but one chapter. He wrote on home
and foreign politics, cultural questions, anti-Semitism,
in short, everything ; and he will keep on writing morn-
ing, noon, and night. The language of these rabbit-like
productions is fearful. There are sentences whose back-
bone is broken a half dozen times; there are miracles
of style compared with which the excrescences of the
baroque period are mere trifles; there is a confusion
of contradictions, scurrilous notions, and psychological
impossibilities. Thoughts revolve like arabesques
around a few old prejudices, idiosyncrasies, and ab-
stract conceptions; an eternal monotony, covered by a
scholarly dialectic which appears charming to some.
His book, Germany's Foreign Policy, 1888-191^, had
its good qualities in spite of its untrustworthiness.
The things he fought for were but a heap of false
conceptions. In his battle for the increase of the navy,
he occupied himself with the submarine question even
before the war. In 1908 he hurled reproaches at Tir-
pitz for not competing with England in the building of
submarines. " It is a shame," he wrote, " that Ger-
many has but one such boat." Afterwards, during the
war, when he had begun to protect Herr von Tirpitz, he
declared all at once : " It is a mistake to speak of
shirking submarine construction." His predictions
were no less contradictory than the use of the weapon
itself. In 1909, he did not value the submarine as a
172
ERNST, GRAF ZU REVENTLOW
weapon very highly. " The German torpedo boat," he
wrote, "can only penetrate the broad girdle of Eng-
land's system of defense if she is protected. For this
purpose our whole fleet is necessary under certain cir-
cumstances. The feasibility of such warfare rests upon
our fleet." It was just the other way about as we have
seen. The fleet stayed at home and the accomplishments
of the torpedo and U-boats exceeded the expectations of
the most fantastic-minded at first. But enough of the
marine question.
He blustered around still more dangerously in for-
eign politics where he broke many a window with his
rhetorical stones. He had no consideration whatever,
no feeling of responsibility, no psychological restraints.
After the storm broke over Europe he began to work
for the most extensive annexations: Belgium, espe-
cially the coast of Flanders, parts of France, Calais
and other coast towns, Courland, Lithuania; and mil-
liards of money and raw stuffs as indemnities were
absolutely necessary for Germany's existence. Who-
ever dared to differ with him — and there were a few
such reflective persons — was immediately denounced
as unpatriotic. He barked continually at Bethmann-
Hollweg's heels, like a yapping terrier. He fairly
rained suspicions and libels upon leading statesmen,
even went so far as to threaten them. " Petty, shilly-
shally, spineless," were some of his tenderest epithets
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
for the Chancellor during the discussion of the Ameri-
can question.
Herr Reventlow had never believed in an American
declaration of war; he had always written that Ger-
many should not let herself be bluffed by America.
When it came to war he laughed contemptuously at the
seriousness with which certain circles regarded the af-
fair. To hear him talk one would believe America had
no political influence whatever with the Entente, and
that she could not land three soldiers on the European
continent. This was entirely false, as Germany learned
to her sorrow. Things might have gone otherwise had
she not had America for an enemy. This saber-rattling
patriotism which was always awaiting the moment when
England would be crushed, created some disorder in the
Count's ethics.
He called the Zeppelin attacks on England a bene-
ficial compensation for the German answer to the Pope's
note. " We cannot imagine a more joyful accompani-
ment." Another time he sought to reconcile hate and
revenge with the teachings of Christianity.
This was Count Reventlow. In those sultry August
and September days the foreign press called the Ger-
mans barbarians and cited Nietzsche, Treitschke, and
Bernhardi as the intellectual instigators of the war. If
you mix all three together and sift out all that is clever
or intellectually fine, the remainder will be the stuff of
174
ERNST GRAF ZU REVENTLOW
which Count Reventlow is made. A bull-headed man
whom life had thrown around recklessly; a man of no
preconceived ideas, politically frivolous, an uncon-
strained and unrestrained being who appeals to instinct
more than reason — put such a man in a responsible
position and you may see for yourself whither it must
lead.
xxrv
GEORG MICHAELIS
I open my political diary at the date, March 7, 1917.
A little sensation in the Honse of Representatives. The
new Prussian Food Commissioner, a tiny dried-up
man, with a face like a parrot, introduced himself
to the Reichstag in a somewhat unusual manner. Venus
sprung from the sea foam, Michaelis from the dust of
legal documents. This little fellow dived up all of a
sudden from behind the speaker's desk, and began play-
ing Napoleon. Fearfully he swashed the air with the
sword of his spirit. " The office laid upon me is born
of the heavy troubles inflicted upon us." He then un-
rolled the problem of who is to blame, slashed right and
left, flayed the Junkers and agrarians for feeding their
live stock instead of delivering the grain to the magis-
trate. The eyes of the Conservatives opened wider and
wider. When he heard the grumbling and growling go-
ing on beneath him he played his last trump : " Who
is to gainsay me ! I would like to know who will suc-
ceed in hindering me if I do my duty in this point ! "
Oi, oi, they thought, this little man slashes right well
with his insufficient strength and weak voice. Comedy
178
GEORG MICHAELIS
or tragedy ? But lie continues : " I will take over no
office that is like a sword without sharpness, nor will
I keep a position which is apt to dull my own sword.
I will fight on with the help of Him who watches over
the German people." There was nothing lacking but,
" Here I am, Lord. I could not do otherwise, God help
me, Amen."
On the way home I spoke with several gentlemen of
the Left who had been impressed by the tiny man with
the Bible and the catechism on the end of his tongue.
" He's a fine little fellow, all the same," said one. " He
got the National Granary Department in working order,
put our bread supply on a firm footing, and he is not
afraid to tell the Conservatives what he thinks."
" Do you know more about him ? "
" A little. He comes from a large Silesian family.
His father was district judge. He is the third of seven
children. Georg himself has six. His oldest, a mere
lad, fell in the war. For a time Michaelis was director
of the school and church department of the Arnsberg
Government. Later he went to Breslau as Councillor
of the Presidium ; did all he could to relieve the misery
at the time of the flood along the Oder in 1903. Then
he entered the Ministry of Finance, became under-sec-
retary, and during the war worked at the head of the
grain department. He spent four years teaching in
Tokio at the school of German law and political
177
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
science. He is sixty years old, and that is about all I
know about him."
March 27, 1917. To-day I received a hasty invita-
tion to a conference with Dr. Georg Michaelis in the
Ministry of Finance. I went this afternoon. The
house on Kupfergraben could stand a little paint. It
is nothing but angular little office rooms. It has a
military atmosphere and needs nothing but a sentry-
box outside and a corporal within. A long corridor
leads to a small conference room where there is a long,
green table and an official corona. The Commissioner
arrived, everybody bowed. He seated himself, pulled
out a gold watch, opened it and laid it on the desk in
front of him. Then he began to speak dryly, slowly,
and in a business-like manner. Once he allowed his
confidence in Hindenburg and Ludendorff to peep
through. As we went down the street we agreed : " A
sort of upper Councillor who would like to play Caesar."
July 13, 1917. The Chancellor crisis is in full
swing. Bethmann-Hollweg is not to be held back since
the " Stein " (stone) has been removed from his path.
The highest military authorities, the leading Conserva-
tives, the most influential Junkers, could not shake the
Kaiser's faith in him. " Stein or me." " To be or not
to be," was now the war-cry, and Bethmann fell. Many
a name was mentioned as his successor ; just for a joke
I will tell you that Michaelis' name was also mentioned.
178
GEOEG MICHAELIS
We laughed about it in our wine-room, but a politician
said we should see.
July 14, 1917. It came like a bomb: Michaelis —
Chancellor ! No one was even asked. Not a soul knew
it beforehand. Like a thunderbolt it fell out of a clear
sky. A nice kettle of fish for Germany! Even the
Kaiser didn't know him. lie had been recommended
to the Empress as especially pious. And just think of
what he had accomplished! He had apportioned our
daily bread for three years ; why should he not be able
to treat the people well who had grown up on his bread ?
Someone from the Chancellery told me that when he tele-
phoned the news to his wife she merely said, " You're
crazy ! " Whether or not he echoed a pious Amen to
this I do not know. The press did not greet him so
badly. The Tagliche Rundschau proudly called him
" Our Chancellor," for they had recommended him.
Only the Left wing grumbled because he had been
foisted upon them in this manner.
July 18, 1917. He is a funny bird, this Michaelis.
He confesses he has not had any more political experi-
ence than the average politician. As head of the Chan-
celry he appoints a certain director of the Fat Depart-
ment, a Landrat von Graevenitz. Butter, oil, and wagon
grease spread themselves around in Bismarck's rooms.
July 19, 1917. Michaelis makes his great speech in
the Eeichstag after the parliamentary, ministerial, and
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LEADERS OF "YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
military conference in Herr Helfferich's garden is
ended. He wanted to acknowledge his desire for a
peace without annexation or compensation. Wanted to
— but all at once in the middle of his peroration he
added, half-audibly, this little sentence : " These aims
can be accomplished within the compass of the resolu-
tions — as I understand them."
July 20, 1917. We didn't see the little back door
that Michaelis — his eyes turned toward Heaven- —
suddenly opened. !Now with the printed speech before
us, and the words, " as I understand them," staring us
in the face, we began to scent trouble. In a trice he
had discredited the Government at home and abroad.
One does not get very far with such dishonorable
methods.
July 30, 1917. At last it is possible to see what
effect his Reichstag speech made on the outer world.
A catastrophe! They mistrust Germany altogether.
" German faith, German wine, German song." Herr
Michaelis gambled away our faith, as a Christian
teetotaler or better, as a friend of moderation, he de-
spises German wine, and as for song, he knows only
the choral book.
August 6, 1917. It is amusing to see how Herr
Michaelis enjoys his revenge. All the gentlemen who
were his superiors or who had made him uncomfortable
in one way or another were now, one after another
180
GEORG MICHAELIS
strangled with the silken string, "canned" in other
words. His chief but yesterday, Dr. Lentze, was the
first to go. Herr Batocki, president of the Food Com-
mission, was sent to Konigsberg, although he had hoped
to be sent only as far as Leipzigerplatz. It was not a
pleasant aspect.
August 20, 1917. To-day the chief of the Chancelry
plunged excitedly toward the gentlemen of the press
and begged them for God's sake not to mention what
had happened. It was a misunderstanding, a mistake — ■
we all knew the Michaelis melody. lie had gone back
on the aims of the commission and announced casually
that he had never approved of their purposes. This
time the Left tripped him up and he was summoned to
a painful examination; he stammered a few embar-
rassed words and had to apologize to the Reichstag.
They said he will only last until holiday time.
September 4, 1917. It wasn't a bad idea of
Michaelis' to call in the council of seven to discuss the
answer to the Pope's note. The Reichstag was polit-
ically satisfied.
September 6, 1917. Michaelis has performed the
most unbelievable trick. He spoke of a mutiny which
had been discovered and put down, accusing the Inde-
pendent Socialists of taking part in the complot. There
was tremendous excitement. The enemy could laugh and
triumph once more. Will he stay at his post any longer ?
181
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
October 10, 1917. He tried to make a goat of Herr
von Capelle, father of the childish attack on the Left.
But it didn't work this time. It was a test of strength,
he had to go.
October 11, 1917. The Reichstag sent a deputation
to convince him how very badly the nation did not
need him. He became hard of hearing.
October 12, 1917. He still considered himself indis-
pensable. At least he would have liked to retain the
leadership of the Prussian ministry. Count Hertling
refused — either everything or nothing.
[November 2, 1917. Michaelis submitted, thank God.
July 14, 1918. Herr Michaelis has been president in
Stettin for a long time. Every morning he says his
prayers and feels himself quite happy as the subordinate
of those he once elevated. The " last shall be first and
the first shall be last " — he has had a taste of both.
Like the fairy tale of Haroun-al Raschid, who put a
beggar on the throne for a day, this joke cost Germany
two years of war and hundreds of thousands of victims.
The oriental fairy tale was less expensive.
August 30, 1918. In his election speech Conrad
Haussmann spoke the right word : " I accuse the
former Imperial Chancellor, Michaelis, with not having
followed the policy laid down by Prince Max von
Baden — he sowed the seeds of mistrust against us,
and doubt as to our intentions."
XXV
GUSTAV STRESEMANN
As Ernst Basserman, head of the National Liberal
party, lay upon his sick bed watching the Reaper
slowly drawing nigh, three pretenders to his throne
were making ready to step into his boots: Friedberg,
Schiffer, and Stresemann. Each one felt himself a secret
crown prince. But Fate was cunning ; before there was
time for a rivalry to develop, she found a different
post for all three. Friedberg, former professor of politi-
cal science, was appointed to the vice-presidency of the
Ministry by Count Hertling ; Schiffer received an hon-
orable post in the treasury ; and Stresemann was chosen
by the party as chairman of the Reichstag faction —
Bassermann's old place. Bassermann was at heart a lib-
eral man, but hundreds of compromises with the con-
servatives and the dictation of big industrialists had
made him politically and bodily irritable. The national
idealistic professors, Gneist and Sybel, once set the
pace for the party; under Bassermann it passed
through the agrarian-capitalistic crisis. When one could
go no further toward the Right, — when, as Dernburg
said, one bumped against the wall, — he rooted out the
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
agrarian sore and turned his eyes toward the Left. The
capitalists whose money helped to keep the treasury full,
began to raise their voices in warning to their unfaith-
ful servant. Frictions arose. Under the leadership of
Mr. Fuhrmann, the old National Liberal national or-
ganization revived, and a noisy party battle ensued.
Young Liberals, old Liberals, and the Basserman
National Liberal guard swung their swords against one
another and the battle raged in the columns of the
press. Only the outbreak of war put an end to this
ruinous strife for awhile. But it broke out again when
the capitalists, at first secretly, then openly, manifested
their annexationist aims; when they fought against
every political change in Prussian Germany; when
they drew one paper after the other into their services,
especially the Berliner Neuesten Nachrichten and the
Deutscher Kurier; and lastly when their relations to
the Alldeutschen League grew warmer and warmer.
This was the blow that killed Bassermann. Gustav
Stresemann, who grew up in industrial circles either as
general secretary or syndikus, took over the leadership
of the party.
Did the big industrialists come off victors? Who-
ever judges so superficially does not know the psychol-
ogy of the National Liberal party. In the breast of
every National Liberalist live two, three, and some-
times four souls. Sometimes there is a transmigration
184
GUSTAV STRESEMAKN"
of these souls. At bottom everyone is national. Many
a compromise is covered by this uncertain and much
meaning word. Secondly, the National Liberal is lib-
eral. At least that is what the program says. But
there is many a hitch in the practice of this sentiment.
Richthofen, Riesser, Bohme, Junck, Schonaich-Caro-
lath are really liberal and not mere pretenders. But
Fuhrmann, Hirsch, and consorts — what have they to
do with liberalism ? If one travels in the provinces one
will find that the national and liberal men are the
teachers, district judges, and small industrialists. Be-
yond this border line begin economic interests which
seek to influence the party. Dr. Stresemann is the per-
fect type of factory representative, a general secretary,
of which the National Liberal party has more than
any other. But he is only a stepmother to really large
industries. He was born in Berlin forty years ago,
studied political science and history in Berlin and
Leipzig and began a technical career at the age of
twenty-three. He began as assistant in the German
Chocolate Manufacturers' Union. A year later he
helped to found the Saxon Manufacturers' Union and
became their recorder without giving up his other post.
Other corporations soon sought his services and his in-
come increased accordingly. As wholesale recorder he
possessed some little influence. In the intervals he
wrote on the most impossible subjects: shops, bottled
185
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
beer trade, landworkers' organization, and factory do-
ings. As a side issue he published the Sachsische Indus-
trie. Always working and striving, his strong consti-
tution made it possible for him to accomplish a full
day's work with ease. He spoke as he wrote, indef atig-
ably. Naturally he wished to enter the Reichstag.
In 1907 he was sent to the Reichstag from Annaberg.
Skilled in business, and with far-reaching personal re-
lations, he was soon respected in the faction, although
he did not speak all too frequently at first. But he
spoke often and willingly to public gatherings — liked
to speak on public occasions such as national holidays
and Bismarck celebrations. He spoke in a strong voice
with a slight, provincial accent ; people liked to listen to
him. He seemed to have acquired a National Liberal
spirit with his mother's milk.
And yet this was not the case. When quite a young
man he had been very socialistic. Seventeen years ago
he went to Frankfurt-am-Main as a delegate of Dres-
den's National Socialists. It was here that Friedrich
Naumann condemned the Richter and Bassermann
type of liberalism. " If you put all the National Lib-
eral representatives together from Paasche to Basser-
mann," Naumann said, "and try to find one constructive
economic idea among them, you will find nothing but
chaos." Among those who applauded enthusiastically
was Dr. Stresemann. When the Hamburg group dis-
186
GUSTAV STRESEHAOT"
cussed passing a resolution against alcoholism he told
them he was convinced laws would serve no purpose.
" If we put war against alcoholism on our program,"
he said, " then we shall have to proclaim a war for vege-
tarianism." The broad-shouldered man shuddered at
such a step — he liked his food.
Another moment from these party days where we
find Brentano, Sohm, Damaschke, and Weinhausen
together, Stresemann, who now wrote for the Tagliclie
Rundschau, brought a choleric accusation against this
paper : " The National Socialist party protest against
the hateful and unjust personal attacks against their
leaders, which the Tagliclie Rundscliau prints in her col-
umns. We expect a feeling of honor to prevent our com-
rades from having anything to do with such a paper."
That was seventeen years ago. Since then he had
forgotten and forgiven. The next step was Young Lib-
eralism. He lost in the next election in 1912, and also
the one after that. Then he gave up the Saxon-Thu-
ringia districts and went over to Hanover, the home of
National Liberalism, where he won. His place in the
Reichstag was still warm, and as Herr Bassermann
retired more and more on account of ill-health, he soon
became the second ornament on the list of speakers un-
til he finally became leader of the faction. His paper
was the Deutsche Stimmen, the leading National Lib-
eral weekly. He wrote the leading editorial, the polit-
187
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
ical review, which he handled delicately, signing his
articles with a triangle.
Dr. Stresemann is not original ; he is not prominent
in the sense of Richter, Bennigsen, Windhorst or Bebel,
but he is clever, skillful and active — virtues which the
party needed most at that time. Large ideas would
have probably been the end of the party, which was
not very steady. The battle for predominance went on.
Would he meet this dragon with a flaming sword?
Sometimes it seemed so. During the war he made ar-
rangements for political changes in the party, declared
equal suffrage to be absolutely necessary in Prussia, and
Was not against a parliamentary system.
On the other hand, he helped to bring about Beth-
mann-Hollweg's fall, smoothed the way for such a man
as Michaelis, and at every opportunity preached a peace
of might with annexations and compensation. In order
not to lose his connections with the Left entirely, he
took part in the conference of the majority, but only for
a short time. The continual cry of the annexationists
and the capitalists scared him, and the strike movement
in January, 1918, gave him the excuse for breaking off
his relations with the Social Democrats. He was glad
to be out of it, to be rid of all responsibility, and waited
for the miracle which would make the National Liberal
policy synonymous with a governmental policy. But
it happened otherwise. The great change came, Count
188
GUSTAV STRESEMANN
Hertling fell, Prince Max von Baden took his place,
and the parliamentary system came over night. The
leaders of the majority took over the Government. Un-
der Stresemann's leadership the party held sittings
almost every morning and afternoon in the days of Sep-
tember and October, 1918. Why? They were dis-
cussing the "situation." In reality they were waiting for
the Government and the majority to take pity on them
and invite them to take part in the program. Strese-
mann was baptized the " political tree frog " in those
days because he jumped whichever way the wind blew,
thereby happily losing his contact on all sides. The
majority parties were hard of hearing; democracy did
not wish to burden itself with such slippery fish as the
Stresemann outfit. Finally, TIerr von Payer, the Vice-
Chancellor, uttered the wish that the National Liberals
might be allowed to participate. " But," he said, " the
National Liberals must bend their necks under the yoke
of our program. The National Liberalists and Herr
Stresemann did so. They scraped and kotowed. In
one hour the savage annexationists became the most
convinced adherents of a peace without annexation, joy-
ful champions of the Reichstag peace resolutions of July
19, 1917, true friends of the League of Nations idea.
Thank God, Herr Stresemann had found his bearings
once more. The turning point must come soon.
Things went on in this fashion for about six weeks ;
189
LEADERS OF. YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
then came the revolution that washed them all over-
board. The National Liberal party went to pieces. The
newly-arisen German Democratic party threatened to
swallow them all. They politely rejected such com-
promised, political turncoats as Herr Stresemann
and company. Stresemann, full of injured vanity,
gathered up the last remnants of the National Liberal
party, plastered them together, and anointed the whole
of the new German People's party. He had someone
behind him again, if it were only capitalists and old
National Liberalists. Eor a change he stood first on
one foot and then on the other, in order not to lose his
connections.
XXVI
LOTHAR PERSrUS
" I do not understand the man ! Grown gray in the
service as sea captain, and now — pacifist ! "
" Yes, captain, but have you ever tried to understand
the psychology of this man ? Of course, those who have
nothing to do but command are not in the habit of pay-
ing much attention to psychology. That is why officers
and school directors are such poor psychologists."
" Is that so ! I dispute that seriously. We who have
to deal with people from every station in life get a deep
look into the souls of mankind every day. You see,
Persius is angered and embittered because he received
the blue envelope just before he should have become
Rear Admiral. That is my psychological analysis. No
need for subtleties where everything is as plain as the
nose on your face."
" You simplify the matter greatly, captain. You
command and I have but to obey. But as I am not your
subordinate I reserve the right to contradict you."
Let us calmly and coolly dissect this man.
He comes from an old and very respected family to
whom Prussian tradition is a sort of Kultur-con-
servatism, bourgeois, Potsdam atmosphere. A number
of our officers and officials have come from this family.
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
His grandfather was a royal architect and curator of
artistic monuments. The oldest of his four sons be-
came acting Privy Councillor with the title of Excel-
lence, and was president of the Supreme Court of
Berlin for twenty-six years. Eor a time he was member
of the Reichstag. Fundamentally a thoroughly con-
servative man but liberal in his manners. He did not
entrench himself behind documents as behind a Chinese
wall, and he had understanding for all that was human
and a weakness for art. The knowledge gained in a
court of law peeped through now and then. For in-
stance, it was he who permitted Gerhard Hauptmann's
Weavers to be performed although those up above
wrinkled their brows in disapproval.
This was Lothar Persius' father. Lothar inherited
similar traits from his mother. She was a von Zander,
daughter of a Geheimrat and niece of the Chancellor
von Zander. Wherever you look you see officers and
officials in her family. Is it any wonder that Lothar
looks the typical, clean-cut Prussian officer ? In spite
of his fifty-five years he is still sinewy and supple.
When he left the Friedrich-Wilhelm gymnasium in
Berlin, he felt a call to the navy. " You can become
a cavalry officer if you do not care to study any more,
but don't go to sea," pleaded his mother. In those days
honorable mothers and fathers had the idea that only
prodigal sons went to sea.
192
LOTHAR PERSIUS
But he got his way. lie came into the world at the
right moment, just as Germany stretched out her arms
to grasp a few colonies. As naval cadet, he sailed around
the world on the Elizabeth, and witnessed the founding
of the colonies in Africa, JSTew Guinea, and Polynesia.
As officer, he sailed his ship in the Mediterranean, to
North and South America, and witnessed the taking of
Manila during the Spanish war. At the beginning of
this century he was first officer and commander of the
cruisers Ilansa and Seeadler in East Asia for years.
Up to this time the course of his life ran smoothly
and pleasantly. Fate seemed only to show her sunny
side. When he had to do battle it was only on the field
of sports. How he could trim his sails ! How his yacht
flew over the water like a sea-gull, bringing him one
trophy after the other: silver and gold cups, writing
sets, and so on ! He was frequently with Prince Hein-
rich and His Majesty. The Kaiser once smiled pleas-
antly when Persius said : " Married officers are only
half-fighters. They are always thinking of wife and
children which makes them over-careful."
The first conflict came in East Asia. After a few
literary flights on the sport subjects, Persius began to
criticize with his pen. As an officer he wrote under a
pseudonym. The Ostasiatische Lloyd published several
of his severely critical articles on the military coloniza-
tion methods in Kiaochow. The author became known
193
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
and there was a stir up above. Once more he made
himself objectionable. His superior officers asked him
to make a report demanding more table money for offi-
cers stationed in foreign countries. Persius, however,
was of another opinion. " Table money is already more
than sufficient," he wrote, supporting this statement by
statistics from his own carefully kept accounts.
He was finally sent to Kiel as director of the ammuni-
tion depots in Dietrichsdorf by Kiel. His naval career
was nearing its end. In October, 1908, he was retired
and went to live in Berlin. An energetic man with
wholly unused powers, released from the narrow con-
fines of military life, he sought new goals and new aims
in life. His sphere of interest was not small ; yachting,
belles-lettres, music, art, naval technic, and politics.
The papers gladly opened their columns to this man who
had much specialized knowledge and a clever pen.
In the Jahrbiicher fur Armee und Marine he inves-
tigated Herr von Tirpitz's accomplishments in the way
of ship-building, and came to no favorable conclusion.
This happened during his stay in Kiel and soon had its
consequences. Now that he was free, and free also from
party prejudices, he began to write for the Tdgliche
Rundschau, the Berliner Neuesten Nachrichten, Deut-
sche Zeitung, and the red Tag.
In all his articles he continually pointed out Tir-
pitz's mistaken naval policy. Hermes, former editor-
194
LOTHAB PERSIUS
in-chief of the Kreuzzeitung, begged him to work for
his paper and help stem the disastrous tide of Tirpitz's
folly, until subscribers and supporters of Tirpitz's pol-
icy compelled him to seek another editor for the naval
column. For a time Persius wrote the naval review
for the red Tag. In 1912 the Berliner Tagehlatt offered
him the proper sounding board for his much respected
naval criticism.
Persius belonged to the Navy Verein for a few years
at the time when General Keim was storming against
Tirpitz. Keim was for larger guns, more U-boats, —
in short, a more modern equipment of the navy. After
the shock of Keim's resignation, when Admirals von
Koester and Weber took over the Verein, it soon became
manifest they were only tools of the National Naval
Department. The cooperation of a man like Persius
was no longer possible, and he slowly withdrew from
these circles.
It was not entirely differences of opinion in regard
to the fleet that forced him to resign; he began to see
the evil effects of the noisy naval propaganda. He who
knew England and the English so well, saw that this
agitation would sooner or later lead to war with that
country. So he became pacifist because he foresaw the
horrors that would be inflicted upon humanity if there
were not some steps taken toward a compromise. He
welcomed the English proposition for a " Naval Year "
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
and fought against the building of battleships instead
of submarines, hoping to avoid rivalry in this way.
In 1912 he wrote: U-boat an die Front! which at-
tracted attention in all circles. Almost everything he
prophesied here has come to pass. After that he be-
came more and more pacific. He was coworker on
the Friedenswarte, and published at the instigation of
Andrew Carnegie a book on the possibility of doing
away with armament rivalry. His numerous articles
in the Berliner Tageblatt enjoyed especial attention and
red lead-penciling in the censor room of the 1ST aval
Department.
" Good gracious, aren't you through with Persius*
biography yet ? "
"Almost, Captain. We are coming to the end. Are
you still convinced that Captain Persius took to the
pen merely because he was angry at being retired ? The
fact is he began to write while still an active officer.
And the war has proved that he was right in suggesting
the building of submarines, in contrast to Tirpitz, who
would hear nothing of those ' horrible U-boats ' at first.
Afterwards when he was forced to accept this policy,
lie posed as the U-boat hero. He who follows a
naval policy so unswervingly and consecutively as Per-
sius has done, is surely actuated by more than a personal
grudge."
196
LOTHAR PERSIUS
" But you owe me an answer to one question, and
that is: How is he to be politically defined? "
" That is not easy to say. He belongs among those
who feel aristocratic, but who think democratically, who
must think this way because their reason compels them
to. JSTo doubt this is the cause of inner conflicts, but
the mental aristocrat conquers because uncontrollable
and uncertain emotions are subordinate to the better
insight of reason."
" One thing more : foreign countries suck poison
from his articles."
" How so ? Merely because the English and French
press value his criticisms ? "
" Surely, that is why " —
" That is why one should not express one's opinion ?
There are other men in leading positions who think as
you do, Captain. It was representative Gothein who
said on the 15th of June of this year: 'As the repre-
sentative of the 1ST aval Department has already said,
Persius' articles must be scrutinized narrowly because
he is praised in England for his technical knowledge.
Eor this very reason his articles are extremely dan-
gerous.' "
" I think we shall have to break off. You cannot
shake my opinion of Captain Persius and besides that,
here we are in Potsdam and I have to get to my bar-
racks. Adieu . . ."
XXVII
FRIEDBICH VON PAYER
On the third floor of the Reichstag building they are
getting a room ready for a meeting of the Progressive
People's party; long rows of tables end against a table
standing parallel to the window. Prom this window
one can look down upon Konigsplatz. Large paintings
decorate the walls, pictures from German history.
Among them is Wilhelm the First's triumphal entry
of 1870 — the Kaiser on horseback, passing between
French flags lowered almost to the dust. We know that
this picture was meant for another room — for the
assembly room — but it caused so much displeasure
on the other side of the Yosges that it was relegated to
this room, where no one but members was allowed to
enter.
A little party meeting was to take place behind closed
doors. Here where so many secret things had been con-
fided to the representatives, where once Bethmann-
Hollweg announced an unrestricted submarine warfare,
Herr von Payer, a Wurttemberg Excellence, discussed
the political situation. He was the first war Chancellor.
A large manuscript was spread out in front of him;
198
FRIEDRICH VON PAYER
near him, wearing horn spectacles, sat a Ilerr Funck
from Frankfurt am Main, chairman of the Central com-
mittee. Sitting in a row were : Dr. Otto Weimer, once
Eugen Rickter's pupil, now first tenor of the party
(Wagner roles — Tannhiiuser, Siegfried, Tristan) ;
then Rector Julius Kopsch, bass buffo in progressive
concert ensemble, the man who always sought to disarm
the enemy in his own camp with honeyed pathos; Dr.
Friedrich ISTaumann, lyrical tenor, political moral
trumpeter from Sackingen; Dr. Pachnicke, ingenue,
with the shy and tender upward glance; Mr. Iloff, the
country maiden, with chubby, brown cheeks; Georg
Gothein, the fiery lover ; Bank Director Mommsen, the
elderly, village heroine ; Dr. Struve, the witty apercu ;
Dr. Miiller-Meiningen, the jack-in-the-box with " a gift
of gab " ; Professor Quidde, the pacifist circuit-rider,
and a lot more. One hundred and fifty men, represent-
atives and delegates from every nook and cranny of
the kingdom, — the journalists.
Herr von Payer did not carry the audience with him,
but his Swabian dialect lent a comfortable air to his
words. His head was slightly bent forward; in spite
of his seventy years the hair was all there. There was
not a single white thread in those black locks. A beard
rested upon his bosom, and out of two small caverns
gleamed two little, dark-brown eyes.
He had the confidence of the whole party; a long,
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
democratic past justified it. He worked side by side
with Rickert, Richter, Sonnemann, and all the rest who
are now lying in their graves — with Windhorst, Gril-
lenberger, Bebel, Singer, and the old Liehknecht,
'against Bismarck's law-making.
At twenty-six years of age he was candidate for the
Reichstag from Tubingen, where his father was beadle
of the university. He was not elected but went to Stutt-
gart and settled down as a lawyer. Later he was elected
to the Wiirttemberger landtag, became president, was
decorated by the King, knighted, and received the title
of Excellence. He was always the most popular person
in Swabia, was our Payer; and always the smooth and
clear-cut democrat.
His political accomplishments are not to be despised.
It was partly his work that the National Liberals and
independent organizations were united under the name
of the new Progressive People's party. He became
leader of this new faction in the Reichstag, and if Herr
Weimer had not lifted up his sonorous voice he would
have been the party mouthpiece.
Two or three times his friends shook their heads;
how could even such a dyed-in-the-wool democrat take
part in Billow's block swindle ? It was like mixing fire
and water. How was it possible in this joyless epoch
for liberalism — for Herr von Payer — ostentatiously to
approve of the foreign language paragraph, which bore
200
FRIEDRICH YON PAYER
all the earmarks of an exceptional law? Herr von
Payer made this sacrifice with a heavy heart in order to
keep the block together and to insure some progress for
the law.
Like Bethmann-Hollweg, who discarded his conserva-
tism more and more during the war as he gained a
deeper insight into its causes, so von Payer found a
Swiss guard in the Progressive People's party who
watched over his comings and goings. Herr von Payer
was half mockingly, half respectfully, called the Pillar
of TVilhelmstrasse. Together with Herr Spahn, he was
the party diplomat, the real pacifier when the waves
on the Left threatened to rise. And yet he was unable
to prevent Bethman-Hollweg's fall. Everybody de-
serted the Chancellor in his hour of need, although at
midnight before his resignation he succeeded in wring-
ing equal suffrage for Prussia from the Kaiser. The
National Liberals put the knife in his back, and the
Crown Prince, not the Kaiser, called on the party
leaders for their opinion in regard to Bethmann-Hollweg.
They said their say to a wholly political, irresponsible
personage — "Westarp, Stresemann, Spahn, Payer, and
David. The first two merely said he was a crawfish.
(A year later in 1918, Dr. Stresemann, the political
tree-frog, together with the whole National Liberal
faction, were marching with drum and trumpet under
the " crawfish.") Herr Spahn, his little legs trembling,
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READERS OF YESTERDAY" AND TO-DAY
isaid they did not like to lose the Chancellor, tlO, no,
they did not like to, and Herr David pulled a sour face
at the name and at the hehest of social democracy. Only
the valiant Swabian manfully supported the Chancellor.
His Royal Highness, however, had already made up
his mind, lit a cigarette and was royally calm. Had
not the gentlemen representatives themselves unani-
mously dropped this disgusting, three-quarter social
democrat pusher ? And did not the philosophy of might
teach : always kick a fellow when he is down ?
From this day German parliamentarism was a con-
firmed fact. The Left and the Center united, forming
an interfactional commission. Fifty years after the
foundation of the North German Bund, the Reichstag
gradually began to feel itself on equal terms with the
Bundesrat and the Government. Herr von Payer wasi
chairman of this commission which had no power ac-
cording to law, but which nevertheless represented a
mighty political force. Its first test of strength was
against Michaelis ; they were not inclined to work any
longer with this Imperial Chancellor. In spite of a
struggle he had to go. Count Hertling was the first to act
as a politician in a parliamentary governed state. He
assured himself of the confidence of the majority and
after a program was agreed upon he called von Payer
into the cabinet as Vice-Chancellor. Payer accepted
this position, moved into a modest little office in the
202
FRIEDRICH YON PAYER
Department of the Interior, and looked about for a
stenographer and a typewriting machine — a small be-
ginning. He waited for work and it soon came.
In the general strike of 1918 he played the role of
arbitrator, not without success; on the 25th of Febru-
ary he made his maiden speech as Yice-Chancellor, not
from the Government table but from the speaker's plat-
form, in order to make a show as parliament minister.
He came into conflict with the conservatives because he
supported equal suffrage and condemned their wild,
political agitation during the past strike. " Our ene-
mies have their choice of weapons," he resumed. " They
may use the arrows either of the Right or of the
Left wing against us." This had an explosive effect.
The conservatives went wild over the comparison. In
their excitement some sprung from their seats; Payer
remained calm while listening to such remarks as : " Is
this a party gathering ? " " So that's the great states-
man ! " " Unheard of ! " etc. The president tried to
call the house to order, but his wildly swinging bell
had no effect whatever. Herr von Payer had just made
a confession of democratic faith.
He repeated this when making his Stuttgart speech
in which he laid down the war aims of Germany. He
spoke openly and freely for a democratic peace, declared
himself ready to give up Belgium, to renounce all an-
nexations or compensations, and pointed out the neces-
203
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
sity of an international court, a league of nations, and
universal disarmament. Only in the Eastern problem
did he take an opposite stand. He wished to exclude
this question from the peace discussion altogether.
Again the conservatives and Alldeutschers boiled
over; there was a racket without equal in the press.
The Tdgliche Rundschau, foaming with rage, accused
him of taking Goethe's saying for a motto : "One always
denies and denies with justice that nobility can never
learn anything." Another Pan-German organ said
pointedly that the name Payer could mean nothing
but the French word "payer," therefore he must
have originally come from France and it was no
wonder.
Herr von Payer merely smiled with the same calm-
ness he displayed in rejecting the Chancellorship which
was offered him when Count Hertling retired. He only
wished to be a pioneer of the new epoch. Then came
the revolution and washed him away on its waves.
Finally the new election carried him into the National
Assembly, where, for a while, he played the part of a
leader of the Democratic faction.
XXVIII
KUNO GRAF VON" WESTAEP
On the 15th of May, 1879, Eugen Richter character-
ized Bismarck's political methods in a very few words.
The question of power, he said, was always the chief
problem of the Chancellor. " In foreign affairs it was
his clever handling of this question, of the relations of
power, that won him the most success. His great mis-
take was that he transferred this method of action to
home politics in an unjust manner . . . The
Chancellor brings the whole power of state to bear
against a mere party, thereby arousing the people. Later
he follows up this action as if it concerned a question of
power which can only be disposed of by a diplomatic
compromise." These words were spoken at a turning
point in young Germany's political life. For the first
time Bismarck began to doubt the success of a clashing
Kultur war. He needed the Center's support for his
new protective tariff and economic schemes. At least
a part of the Xational Liberals seemed about to desert
him. His whole volcanic hatred was now directed
against social democracy which he held responsible for
the attentat against his royal masters. A new era of
205
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
exceptional law-making began. After the Berlin Con-
gress lie lost favor with Russia and adopted a de-
fensive policy with Austria-Hungary. This and the
annexation of Alsace-Lorraine were the seeds of the
present world war. The theory of power, in spite of
Nietzsche's hoarse enthusiasm, did not seem entirely
unquestionable to the succeeding generations. If one
wishes to give this great struggle of nations an
ethical meaning it is the thought that through blood
and iron alone will this idea of power be forever done
away with, at least as far as international politics are
concerned.
Xuno Graf von Westarp does not subscribe to this
theory ; he is a disciple of the theory of might through
and through, — a fanatic opponent of social democracy.
This East Elbian Junker is an adept of Otto von Bis-
marck. In 1918 Westarp was playing a leading role
in parliament although he had only been a member for
ten years. After Herr von "Naumann's death, von Hey-
debrand became chief of the conservative faction, but
after transferring his main activity to the threatened
Prussian three-class Landtag, Westarp became the al-
most undisputed leader of this faction. Here he was the
big gun of the party, and every Sunday in the Kreuz-
zeitung he gave a carefully composed recapitulation of
conservative doings for the week. A small cross re-
sembling the iron one was his literary sign. He wrote
206
KUNO GRAF VON WESTARP
as he spoke: sharp, cutting, clear, and calm, without
developing any large or surprising ideas. He spoke
from a wholly one-sided, almost scholastic-conservative
point of view. There was no understanding or forgiv-
ing, no penetration into the psychology of the other
party; there was hut an unswerving adherence to
one's own, to the historical, and an absolute rejection
of all that did not fit into his scheme. He was a perfect
example of the unconrpromising ; one froze in this
political rigidity, in this iron consequence; one could
almost see him writing with folded arms (if you allow
me this hold comparison) just as he sat when Bethmann-
Hollweg was talking.
He was the exact opposite of Herr Heydebrand, who
played with things pleasantly and smoothly, often bub-
bling over with wit. Westarp was hard and cold, puri-
tanic; he stood there like a public moralist to whom
politics was something frozenly objective. In reality
they were subjective, unfathomable, concealing in
themselves thousandfold contrasts. All sorts of things
played a part: birth, social milieu, education, brain
capacity, emotional life, practical experience, etc.
Westarp liked to examine everybody politically; would
have liked to play the role of political confessor to the
Government. Because things have taken another
course, because Bethmann-Hollweg turned a cold
shoulder to the conservatives, because Count Hertling,
207
LEADERS OF JESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
although maintaining the outward form, was even fur-
ther from the conservative line and left them entirely
out of the new People's Government, Westarp's weekly
articles have taken on a somewhat crabbed and bitter
tone — something like that of a police commissioner too
early pensioned.
This is not a bad comparison as Westarp has had a
great deal to do with the police. His father was head
forester. He died when Kuno was but four years of
age. Westarp attended the Potsdam gymnasium, at-
tended three or four universities, studied law, and took
up the usual Government career. Fate kept him in the
Ostmark. He became assistant Landrat, the Landrat
in the idyllic district of Bomst. After a short period
elsewhere he was called to the Department of the In-
terior, where his upward climb soon began. In April,
1905, he was appointed police director of Schoneberg,
later becoming president of police, and in another five
years was justice of the Supreme Court. He still holds
this office and also that of lieutenant of the militia. He
is fifty-sis years old. The district where he was once
Landrat sent him to the Reichstag. He had to battle
against a Center man in 1908. The prospects were not
particularly favorable. He made a profession of anti-
Semitism and pulled through on the Jewish vote. In
1912 his position was more favorable for the Con-
servatives presented a united front to the Poles, and
208
KTJXO GRAF VOX WESTARP
"Westarp laid out his opponent flat. After that he gov-
erned rigidly within the boundaries of conservatism —
even deigning to spread a little propaganda now and
then among the masses.
Count Westarp is one of those who cannot forget —
he is like an uncanny, party, political-register, like a
walking bureau of acts in which the sins of the others
are carefully filed away. His articles are valuable
material for the conservative propaganda; he uncon-
sciously plays the role of political coach.
Indefatigably industrious, he is always Johnny-on-
the-spot in the Reichstag. He sits on his flap seat under
the Chancellor's place ever ready to spring up with a
protest on his lips. A secret Cromwell (just the other
way about) ready to stake his life for his king — ready
to lead a Puritan squadron to free his monarch from
the snares of anti-king Demos. This is the way it looks
in a romance. In reality he represents a small clique —
a Junker caste — who have lost almost all but the name.
Count Kuno is one of those whose task it is to cover
the retreat of the Junkers. He has found his place in
the new conservative firm, the German National Peo-
ple's party, even if he was not a candidate for a seat in
the Xational Assembly on account of being a "com-
promised personage/'
XXIX
HUGO HAASE
In the Reichstag Hugo Haase sat on the left by the
wall ; I still see him abruptly barking his remonstrances
in broad, somewhat ordinary, East Prussian dialect.
It sounded like a voice coming up from the deepest
depths, a rasping bass from a great hollow cask boom-
ing, " Crucify him ! " It was a great contrast to the
high falsetto of the step-softly's and compromisers in
the Parliament. When Haase gave the signal his com-
rades gave tongue in quick succession — Dittman,
Herzfeld, Stadthagen, Cohn, Wurm, down to Lieb-
knecht and Riihle, until the noise swelled to a roaring
chorus. This storm of applause or disapproval which
always broke forth on the dot, swelling from muttering
thunder to a raging tornado, was never carried out with
the same success by anyone else but the Haase group
which formed only about one twentieth of the whole
House. I remember distinctly how Dittmann's attack
against the prison disgrace succeeded by this clever
move — he even carried the Center and the National-
Liberals with him. But they were much worse among
themselves. When Haase and his people quarreled with
210
HUGO HAASE
the majority Social Democrats, it looked as if they
would spring at each other's throats every minute —
Haase, the wild revolutionist, leading the pack.
Is he really so revolutionary ? Appearances deceive.
Perhaps he is only a fanatic for truth, one who honestly
takes the consequences of his belief. lie is a small,
unpretending little man, shy and repressed, with a yel-
low, wrinkled face and thin, drooping mustache, small,
nervous gray eyes under tired, half-closed lids. His
bent back looks like a youth at hard labor.
God knows his youth was joyless enough. Do you
know the existence of a Jewish small trader in a little
town on the borders of East Germany ? Well-fed, com-
fortable citizens, feudal Junkers from the country as
guests, bored poker-playing, cavalry officers — that was
and still is the milieu. And the little parasitic Jew in
their midst, whose services are so often required. He
was born in 1863, near Albenstein before it had a rail-
way station or became the seat of a commanding general.
He attended the Gymnasium of Rastenburg and later
studied law at the University of Konigsberg.
It was a tedious road to climb but he trod the thorny
path alone. Could he take up a Government career?
Ridiculous ! After passing his examinations he became
a lawyer. He was clear, logical, and possessed a store
of hard-earned knowledge; above all, he was a man
who retained a sympathetic heart in spite of life's bit-
211
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
terness. lie lusted not after gold or social position,
but remained at the bottom helping the poor. He be-
came the proletariat's lawyer in Konigsberg and his
practice grew from day to day. Often he was not paid
and many a time he reached into his own pocket to help
a needy client. The confidence of the people soon sent
him to the Konigsberg city council; in 1897 to the
Reichstag, where he quickly won the liking of the party
patriarch, Bebel.
His radicalism made an impression. He knew how
to win his comrades on party days, for he was not like
Ledebour, who opposed for the mere sake of opposition.
He had higher things in view. There was always un-
derstanding for practical questions or tactics if they did
not affect his fundamental principles. Only against
revisionism he fought with fire and sword. This was
a disease which must be stamped out. He settled the
score with Kurt Eisner, the brilliant author of the
Vorwarts leading articles, and placed Hildebrand, the
social-imperial, colonial politician, before a court of
inquisition. In the meantime he had become chairman
of the party. Out of love for the ideals of socialism he
gave up a lucrative law practice and lived upon the
meager sum of 3600 marks, his salary as head of the
party. Singer, his predecessor, was of a genial, open
nature, a personified Bonhomie. Haase was industrious,
taciturn, unapproachable, with no particular friends.
212
HUGO IIAASE
Then came the war. The Socialistic Internationale
was to stand its first trial by fire. On the evening be-
fore the decision Haase chased his people out on the
streets to demonstrate for peace. I witnessed the bat-
talion of workers as they marched through the streets
of Leipzig. But the Marseillaise sounded flat and dull.
Too soon Haase had let his comrades on the other side
know that German social democracy would try to hin-
der the war. They had depended upon this and were
disappointed. The 4th of August saw German social
democracy, with Haase, almost to a man behind the
Government. Things went on this way for a while.
War credit was voted for, but, under the covers, oppo-
sition within the party was gradually beginning to stir.
At the beginning of April, 1915, a socialistic minority
sent a peace manifest to all foreign countries. An an-
nouncement from Hugo Haase, Eduard Bernstein, and
Karl Kautsky first appeared in the Leipziger Volks-
zeitung. It was necessary to put the party on another
basis on account of the intentions of certain influential
circles in regard to conquest. This had the effect of
a bomb. Haase, chairman of the whole party and of
the Eeichstag faction, had not informed anyone of
this intention. In a savage controversy they reproached
him with having betrayed the party. The whole ma-
chinery of the party was set in motion. Everybody
stormed, yelled, and finally forced him to resign.
213
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
The biggest rumpus was in March, 1916, when the
extra budget was brought in; Scheidemann spoke for
it in the name of the party. Haase, quite unexpectedly,
was against it. He and his friends thought it a matter
for the Government. There was an unheard-of scene.
The lines were drawn up for battle; mental machine
guns limbered for action. On the one side were Dr.
David, Keil, and Sachse from the majority; on the
other, Haase, Ruble and Henke. " Base coward,"
" Treachery," and there were even threats of violence.
Sachse said to Haase: "You coward, you didn't have
the nerve to face the faction. This is a treacherous
attack." Haase replied: " The Secretary of State has
the courage to doubt whether I am a just representative
of the people. One thing I want to say to you and that
is this : after twenty months of war, the best patriot is
he who works for an understanding, for an end to this
war."
This excited debate ended in a general rumpus on
the left side of the House. The president was wholly
helpless. He could swing the bell, scream, protest —
nothing helped. He had to dismiss the sitting.
Under Haase's leadership an organization was formed
which later associated itself with the Independent
Socialists. The party squabble went on. In public
meetings, in the press, and in the Reichstag, this self-
destruction continued.
214
HUGO HAASE
The threads of the revolutionary opposition can he
traced far back — from Liehknecht and Rosa Luxem-
burg to Haase, Colin, and Dittmann. Haase was soon
the confidential man of all those who were dimly striv-
ing after the truth — for some way out of this slaughter
of human beings, like Beerfelde, Hans Paasche, and the
sailors who wanted to start something in 1917. Dr.
Michaelis, the Chancellor, and Mr. von Capelle, Secre-
tary of the Navy, accused Haase of high treason in an
open session of the Reichstag. But he and Dittmann
defended themselves cleverly.
And then the revolution really came. Haase had a
thousand threads in his hands — this time they suc-
ceeded. The majority of the Social Democrats wanted
to form a cabinet including the Haase jDeople and the
Democrats, but the Independents objected. They re-
jected a party union. But they were ready to partici-
pate in a purely socialistic cabinet, so that was the way
it was arranged.
Two men were put in the same office, a majority
man and an Independent — Ebert and Haase at the
head of the whole. The one inclined to the right, the
other to the left. The Bolshevik-Sparticist group,
Liebknecht, Luxemburg, and consorts, daily sought to
pull them ever further toward the left.
But Haase remained cool in the midst of the con-
fusion that surrounded him. He would not hear of
215
LEADERS OE YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
dictation by the proletariat. He again reflected demo-
cratically and was conscious of his duties and responsi-
bilities as a member of the Government.
Militarism, which he had fought against all his life,
threatened to lift its head and become dictator in the
shape of the executive committee of the workmen and
soldiers' councils. Ledebour at the head of this com-
mittee attacked his party friends in his usual savage and
theatrical manner. Ilaase did not know which way to
turn. He did not wish to fall out with anyone and so
he came to no decision. Being a National Liberal he
dangled from left to right, hither and thither, hinder-
ing the activity of the Goverment by his negative stand.
He finally resigned together with Dittmann and Earth.
He did not stand the test by fire. Politics means
action ; he understood only how to criticize. The masses
passed over him to the order of the day.
Though he remained the leader of the radical
Social Democrats and represented that faction in the
National Assembly, the extreme left wing of the party,
the noisy battalions of workingmen did not support
him. These radical elements clamored for joining
hands with the Communists (the German Bolsheviki),
Haase held out for a compromise between dictatorship
of the proletariat and democratic parliamentarism, but
in vain. At the moment when the conflict raging within
the party reached its height, a workingman, Voss, made
216
HUGO IIAASE
an attempt upon his life. It lias been stated that it was
an act of personal revenge. Ilaase was struck by several
revolver snots and mortally wounded. Whatever may
have been the ultimate motive behind the deed, it had
opened for the party the road to Moscow.
XXX
WTLHELM VON WALDOW
Birds of a feather flock together. Dr. Georg
Michaelis, the dried-up, bureaucratic, lemon with the
sour, sanctimonious halo, fired Herr Tortilowitz von
Batocki-Friebe, and called Mr. von Waldow to the head
of the War Food Bureau during the dog-days of the
year 1917. He who wanted to play the strong man
so badly did not resemble Cassar in this respect. Caesar
loved to have " stout men " about him whose " bald
heads slept well o' nights." Herr von Batocki had both
a bald head and a thick waist, and we have no reason
for presuming that he suffered from insomnia. But in
spite of this he was sent to Konigsberg, to a quiet re-
treat in the upper presidium.. A bureaucrat bound in
parchment, a yellowed, living document took its place.
After the effervescing volubility and ink-slinging of
Herr Batocki came the calm and reserve of the over-
correct official, the dumb, warning exclamation point.
Meager and tall, cold and unapproachable we-must-
hold-out — in paragraphs !
The Conservative press rejoiced. At last the uncom-
fortable Herr Batocki, who always played politics from
218
WILHELM Y(M WALDOW
the consumer's point of view and not from the pro-
ducer's, was left out in the cold, but they forgot that
as an East Prussian landowner he was also a producer.
The Deutsche Tageszeitung wrote: " We would like to
warn against the opinion that it needs only an amalga-
mation of all our food measures in order to insure a
Letter provision for the whole people." The Agrarians
had already had enough of the centralization of the
food supply and they looked to the new man with hope
in their eyes, this man from Stettin, from blessed Pom-
mern. But the leaves of the forest on the Left rustled
disapprovingly: "What! Waldow? a man with his
political past ? One who felt comfortable only in a state
of exceptional law-making, who had earned his spurs
as an Ostmark fanatic? One who was used to going
forward without regard for others ? "
The Waldows are genuine Junkers and can trace
their ancestry to the thirteenth century. For years
they have served their country as officials and officers ;
two belonged to the Prussian Landtag, Bernhard and
Achatz. Xaturally they occupied the seats furthest
on the right. At the beginning of the century Wil-
helm was president of the Government in Konigsberg
and instituted a strict regime. Biilow stiffened
himself with a rigid Ostmark policy at that time ; his
hobby horse was the anti-Polish policy with which he
hoped to pluck a few laurels for himself. At the end
219
LEADEKS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
of February, 1903, Herr von Bitter resigned from his
post as president of the Posen Government because
Biilow had found him unsuitable for it ; too compliant.
Waldow was his successor. " Yon Cassius has a lean
and hungry look, he thinks too much; such men are
dangerous." But he was just the man for Billow. In
scarcely six months there was a change in the coloniza-
tion commission. Landrat Blomeyer from Meseritz
energetically took over the leadership of the colonization
work. The two understood one another excellently.
There was a political harmony of souls. Baron von
ITammerstein gave the parole in the Landtag in Janu-
ary, 1904. He said: "We are not dealing with
opponents who are our equals; we have but to com-
mand and they to obey." The Prussian Poles who
paid their taxes and served their military term like
every other citizen were handled like pariahs on their
own inherited land. This was also Waldow's recipe.
In this same year the Royal Academy and the Kaiser
Friedrich Museum were opened in Posen. An imperial
palace in Roman style was built at the entrance to the
city as a token of German despotism and power. This
was the cultural offensive ; the political followed imme-
diately. The so-called language decree opened the joy-
ful nationality battle. Thenceforth Polish children
were to receive church instruction in the German lan-
guage only. The Poles seethed. The clergy protested
220
WILIIELM VON WALDOW
to a man. But it did not help ; they went on governing
and commanding. A moral conquest must be made
under all circumstances. Prussia must be at the front
with her Germanizing. In 1907 more than fifty stu-
dents were dismissed from different Gymnasiums in
the province because their brothers and sisters refused
to answer in German during religious instructions in
the people's school. To the Pole, God is a Pole and the
Virgin Mary also, with the mild and gentle features of
the black Mother of God of the Jasna Gora in Czen-
stochau. Shall one speak to her in German ? When the
Archbishop of Gnesen, Posen, Dr. von Stablewski, died,
his chair remained empty for years because the Govern-
ment rejected all other candidates on the ground that
they were suspected of being pro-Polish. The last
trump was the expropriation law in 1908. A year later
the president invited a number of South German poli-
ticians and journalists to a trip through the Ostmark
in order proudly to show them the work of colonization
that had been done. Fresh, clean, little German villages
met the eye of the visitor everywhere, but the silent and
tenacious resistance of the Pole was not visible. They
did not see the construction of a cooperative trading
system going on which was to be an economic weapon
in the battle for land.
After the resignation of Prince Billow the current of
events changed slowly. True, Bethmann-Hollweg and
221
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
the new Minister of Agriculture, Herr von Schoelemer-
Leiser, a Catholic, declared that the expropriation law
was to be enforced, but we waited long for the first case.
In the meantime a new era of reconciliation was dawn-
ing. War clouds were beginning to darken the smil-
ing German heavens, and the first command was to set
your house in order. All strife and dissension, espe-
cially in the neighborhood of the borders, must be done
away with : in Posen, West-Prussia, in Alsace-Lorraine,
and in Schleswig, all the foreign-speaking parts. In
August, 1913, a number of Polish magnates were guests
of the Kaiser in the palace at Posen. On the way to
the palace many of them were abused by the people.
But the new turn of things went on. The times seemed
to have returned when, under Caprivi, Herr von Kos-
cielski-Admiralski was persona gratissima at the Court
and was allowed to kiss the hands of Their Majesties.
But perhaps they only seemed to have returned.
Wilhelm von Waldow's role was played and grumpily
he packed his satchel. Herr Blomeyer had already had
to give up his office at head of the colonization commis-
sion on account of differences of opinion in regard to
the expropriation law. Herr Waldow asked for another
sphere of action and got it shortly before the war in
the quiet province of Pommern. On account of his icy
reserve, he was soon nicknamed the " Frozen Towel "
by his official comrades.
222
WILHELM VON WALDOW
Two years later when everybody was shrieking for a
food dictator, he was thought of. But the Left kicked
up a row at the first mention of his name and Herr von
Batocki won the race. A year later Waldow put his
East Prussian colleague out of the running. This highly
conservative gentleman with the allurements of power,
now entered a queer milieu. He had a Social Democrat
as under-secretary. He swallowed this hitter pill. In
the council sat a few more Social Democrats, Christians
and Hirsch-Dunckers. He accepted this mixed society,
too. Finally the Food Bureau was given a Reichstag
committee. Even this he worried down. He became
State Secretary and at the same time was given the
office of Prussian State Food Commissioner, which Herr
Michaelis had held until now. This fullness of power
which was now laid in his hands was a cooling salve
for his ruffled spirits.
Then when he had taken over the office and the press
had ceased its ravings, it became remarkably still in his
corner of the world. He did not gossip; he worked.
Order after order appeared; whole squadrons of para-
graphs marched along, but — Batocki's old system re-
mained. The compulsory economic regulations were
not changed a bit. The Agrarians soon began to pull
long faces and to grumble. Herr von Oldenburg-Janu-
schau, the Don Quixote of the Landowners' League,
harnessed his steed more than once for the battle; Dr.
223
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Rosieke, the Ajax of the League, flourished his sword
for a brave attack against Batocki's legacy, screaming:
" Economics, Horatio, economics ! " and brought up a
bill in the Reichstag that was to make a breach in the
rationing management and give the agrarian possibili-
ties of greater profit. But Herr von Waldow remained
hard and immovable like the one-time Landgraf von
Thuringen. Now and again he budged a little and
granted a little higher price for milk, or for grain, in
order to keep up the joy of production. But he failed
utterly in the battle against forbidden trafficking in food
stuffs. This grew and grew into a mighty weed, al-
though Waldow left no means untried to put a stop to it.
He even compelled the Imperial mail service to give up
its sublime and lofty secrets. He took the bureau for
the prevention of usury to his heart ; it became his body-
guard against usurers and illegal traffickers in food.
But the public had grown fatalistic in the meantime.
Neither Batocki nor Waldow had stilled their hunger.
The one snatched at popularity, the other at para-
graphs. Both were conceptions, but conceptions do not
fill empty stomachs. The public's temper had gone to
the devil on the officially guaranteed but meager daily
rations. Herr von Waldow had never had a temper,
but nightmares and bad dreams had ceased, for they
only come from a full stomach. That at least was one
service to the public.
XXXI
RICHARD VOX KUHLMANN
The street was again still where there had been a
seething and a boiling for days and weeks. The Piazza
had obtained its victim. A dead man lay on the paving
stones, a man who, if he had seriously wanted to climb
could have climbed to the highest rung of German offi-
cialdom — who, as commissioner of the Kaiser and the
Bundesrat, could have conducted the affairs of the Ger-
man nation. But that was all over now, Richard von
Eoihlmann was officially dead, and so young, only forty-
five, and already laid on the shelf at an age when Bis-
marck had not yet begun to guide the course of Prussia's
ship of state.
Was it really all over ? As long as Germany had no
parliamentary system, as long as there was no continual
exchange of strength between ministers and parliamen-
tarians, just so long must our discarded statesmen van-
ish in the dark depths of some Sans Souci when the
winds of disfavor blow in their direction. Very seldom
did one ever enter the Reichstag or receive a mission
of any sort; Biilow, Posadowsky, and "Wermuth were
a few of those who reappeared for a fleeting moment on
225
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
the political surface. The others eked out the rest of
their existences on the scanty Royal Prussian pension,
either writing memoirs or devoting themselves to music,
like Bethmann-Hollweg. When Herr von Kuhlmann
closed the door of the Foreign Office behind him for the
last time, he pushed his chair into a quiet corner and
opened a bottle of expensive old wine.
" She caused me more trouble than all the foreign
powers or opposing parties at home. The battle against
her irritated me more than all the other frictions I had
to contend with. She possessed great influence over her
husband and sometimes this was not of the best. The
king took her part mostly from mere chivalry, even
when appearances were against her." So wrote Her-
mann Hoffmann, the confidential journalist of Fried-
richsruh. These were Bismark's words over the
Kaiserin Augusta. Herr von Kiihlmann, who was re-
proached with being a gallant, had not merely one or
two moral petticoats to contend with, but there were
other factors — real " imponderabilities " — which Bis-
marck understood how to master. For instance, he
knew in 1870 and 1871 quite well why he did not stir
from general headquarters and leave the field to His
Majesty and the Generals. It is charming to read of
it to-day. But let us come to the analysis of Kuhlmann
and his policy:
Kuhlmann was a globe-trotter comme il faut. He
226
RICHARD VON KUHLMAOT
was born in Constantinople. His father, director of
the Anatole railroads, was one of the last to be knighted.
He was a citizen of Bavaria and a Catholic. Like all
great diplomats, Richard studied law, passed his exam-
inations and devoted himself to foreign service. From
attache to the secretary of the Legation and councilor
of the Legation in Petersburg, Teheran, London, Tan-
giers, Washington, and the Hague, are the various stages
of his success. In London he was coworker with Baron
von Marschall and Lichnowsky in the effort to bring
about a German-English understanding.
During the war he obtained his first responsible post
as ambassador to the Hague ; here he plucked his laurel
wreath at a critical time and was appointed ambassa-
dor extraordinary to Turkey in place of Count Wolff-
Metternich. He was recalled by Michaelis in 1917, who
was a novice in foreign affairs. In quick diplomatic
sequence he rushed through the world, saw people and
nations, and in time learned to be superior to the situa-
tion. This was an advantage and a disadvantage at the
same time. An advantage in that he knew how to main-
tain his distance ; a disadvantage in that he undervalued
the real, the important. He had something of the man-
ner of a Grand Seigneur whether he wrote, spoke or
acted. Everything fell somewhat superciliously from
his lips. This was not foolish pride — only a certain
aristocratic nonchalance — the indifference of an offi-
227
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
cial who is rich and independent enough to throw the
whole mess overboard if they don't like his style. His
work did not mean so much to him that it could make
him miserable. He did not struggle with principles or
powers. ]STot at all — he played politics — in all seri-
ousness perhaps — like a game of chess, and played
with the men who stood behind them. He played and
lost finally. He did not stake his name, his children,
or his head as did Bismarck, who was acquainted with
the idea of dying on a scaffold. He played for the mere
charm of playing.
The will to power which lives in every statesman
springs from an uplifting, joyous self-assertion — the
desire for the best that life affords — mental and spirit-
ual moments that mingle with the intricate waters of
esthetic sensibility. Herr Kiihlmann could rummage
for hours in some antiquity shop, searching for old terra
cottas, bits of sculpture, or pictures, but when the hour
struck he was on deck surveying the situation and recog-
nizing it too, with keen political intuition. His poli-
tics were not as simple as 2X2 = 4. On the con-
trary there was an X quantity. This unknown quan-
tity was composed of two factors: when he took over
the Foreign Office he faced a number of settled facts,
one of which was that the German official peace declara-
tions enjoyed but little credit in foreign countries; the
other was, certain influential but not politically respon-
228
RICHARD YON EUHLMANN
sible circles hindered the development of his political
plans.
One must take these facts into consideration when
criticizing his accomplishments. He had the right in-
sight for the fundamental part of a thing, and with fine
political instinct could foresee the development of con-
ditions, lie soon realized that compromise alone could
rescue Germany and all Europe from a catastrophe;
he also saw that England alone held the key to the
situation. When he tried to grasp it — when instead
of that silly Song of Hate he recommended a confiden-
tial sounding of the possibilities of peace, there was a
regular storm of disapproval from those who wished to
continue the war until a decisive victory was won, cost
what it may.
And Herr Kiihlmann, who might have died a glorious
death defending his principles, acted like a schoolboy
caught stealing jam. He began to explain — he didn't
mean it that way, but so and so. There was a stammer-
ing and a kotowing before Count Westarp after the
Chancellor had handed the Secretary of State his walk-
ing papers. This was how he died — a faithful servant
of the powers whose nerves were stronger than his own.
At the conclusion of peace with Russia in Brest-
Litowsk did he follow the dictation of others? What
a great political work might have been accomplished —
the first steps toward a universal and honorable com-
229
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
promise. This great opportunity was disregarded for
the sake of a bit of land, and the problem was solved
instead with tedious conflicts and half truths such as
giving the right of self-government if they would sub-
mit to annexation, etc. The Brest-Litowsk peace was
a botch, a hindrance to future understanding, a retreat
before the fist of General Hoffmann. The Bucharest
peace was more conclusive and consequent — the details
of the treaty with Roumania were cleverly thought out ;
Kuhlmann was not blinded by hate or revenge but went
to work soberly and unprejudiced like a business man.
On August 22, 1917, in his speech to the Reichstag
as representative of the German people for the first
time, he proclaimed Might and Right as the foundations
of German politics.
His policy rested only upon the one pillar — Might
— in Brest as well as in Bucharest; when he showed
an inclination to base his policy upon Right, they chased
him out. Called to General Headquarters for explana-
tion, he ran against a prejudice, a mood that was like
coming out of the hot sun into an ice cellar,
Thereupon he sat himself down and wrote out his
resignation. The fourth Secretary of State since the
war began now entered upon his duties: Jagow, Zim-
mermann, Kuhlmann, and now Admiral von Hintze.
XXXII
PAUL FUHRMANN
After the collapse of Billow's block, when Center and
Conservatives paired off, the National Liberal party,
the middle piece of the block, swayed toward the Left.
War to the knife was declared against the Landowner's
League, three representatives whose leanings toward the
right were well known, were thrown out of the party.
In this way Count Oriola and Baron Heyl zu Ilerrn-
sheim, the leather king of Worms, were thrown into the
arms of the Progressives. Liberals on both sides
founded the Hansa Bund for trade, professions, and
industry ; laid a trap, not unsuccessfully, for the fragile
Middle, and formed a league for the approaching elec-
tions. Social democracy was the silent partner whom
the National Liberals had to call on in their battle
against the Center, although one really could not speak
to them on the street. That was in 1912 in Saar-
briicken; and now Philipp Scheidemann was chosen
vice-president of the new Beichstag with the assistance
of the National Liberal party. In Bhineland-West-
phalia, where the National Liberal captains of industry
(the very antipodes of social democracy) have their
231
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
seat, they wrinkled their brows and went wild when Herr
Scheidemann, who had gotten onto the president's seat
with the crutches of the National Liberal party, refused
to do his courtly duties, namely, to be presented to the
Kaiser. That was an impudence; republican anti-mon-
archism, etc. The German kingdom threatened to go
to pieces. At the second ballot the National Liberals
meekly placed their votes in the right place and Scheide-
mann was out of it. Privy Councillor Dove sat in his
place and filled the vacancy in the presidential chair
with stoical calm. Two Progressives and one National
Liberal now sat there. Three representatives from two
parties which, taken both together, did not come up to
the numbers of the Social Democrats.
The capitalists of the National Liberals kept on in-
triguing and trying to get the Hansa Bund on their
own particular track. President Riesser gave in at
first, but later kicked up a row and the industrial cap-
tains gave notice, Dr. Rotger at their head. They were
out. This was the first wedge in the Liberal alliance.
The second was directed against the National Liberal
party itself.
Who was at the bottom of this politically unclean
business, seeking to undermine the party and laying
his explosives everywhere? Surely someone who be-
longed to the right wing of the party and whose interest
it was to make that wing the authoritative one. Far
232
PAUL FITHRMANN
from it ! It was one from the Left side who bit on the
capitalists' bait: Herr Paul Fuhrmann, member of the
Landtag from the sixth Arnsberger voting district, gen-
eral secretary of the National Liberal party, and ac-
quainted with all the secrets of the Berlin central bureau
where he worked. The captains of industry persuaded
him, the confidential man of the whole National Liberal
organization, to betray the party in order to form an
organization of their own, and Herr Fuhrmann, who
could have bought a baronial estate with the money of
his former wife, accepted the offer !
After this step, Dr. Weber, a prominent member of
the business committee of the party, wrote on the 28th
of June, 1912:
" I can think of no greater felony than that a man
like you, who has really been kept in office by the sup-
port of Bassermann and myself, should now betray us
in this manner, not merely in order to ruin the position
of Herr Bassermann but to disrupt the whole party
which I have tried so hard to keep together.
" Immediately after my arrival in Berlin I asked
repeatedly at your office if you were not to be seen.
Herr Breithaupt (the other general secretary) has done
the same but always in vain. Thereupon I questioned
the staff and discovered the following facts :
" 1. Contrary to your usual habit of appearing at
eleven or twelve o'clock at the bureau, since taking up
233
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
the work of the new organization yon have appeared
for days and weeks as early as nine o'clock every morn-
ing in order to finish work for the other league. "Was
it not a matter of course that you should give up your
work in the central bureau as soon as you had accepted
a rival undertaking?
"2. Eor days you have been studying the secret
book which is really only for the use of the business
committee. Until you accepted the new position you
never opened this book. Since then you have questioned
the staff repeatedly in the attempt to obtain exact infor-
mation in regard to the number of party friends and
contributions.
" 3. You have occupied the ladies in the office with
writing out addresses which were to serve in winning
members for your new party.
" 4. You tried to persuade the ladies to furnish you
with still more addresses until Sunday morning when
Herr Kalthoff returned and put an end to the further
work of the ladies.
" 5. You asked for and received the organization's
handbook in order to increase your address material for
the new organization.
"I have confirmed these facts and after doing so I
do not hesitate to utter my opinion to the business
committee. I maintain that your actions are shameful,
that it was shocking for you to remain in our bureau
234
PAUL FUHKMANN
after being employed by the other. I have protested
against this and am ready to take the consequences of
my actions."
Was this sufficient ? Not for Herr Fuhrmann. He
continued to meet Mr. Weber as if nothing had hap-
pened. Herr Bassermann called his conduct the " most
indecent he had ever seen in his life." Herr Fuhrmann
remained a member of the party and representative of
the people in the Prussian Landtag. He bought off
Breithaup's son, who deserted from the army, for eight
hundred marks. He did this for intimate reasons, in
memory of the father and the founding of the old-
national liberal organization. He should really destroy
the intimacies of his political doings before they fall
into other hands, for they are very embarrassing.
Old Herr Breithaup's mouth is closed forever; his
tongue is silenced out there under the grass. But
there is much more that could be said — personal
things. But we have to do with the politician not with
the private citizen.
Herr Puhrmann's actions cannot be excused on the
plea of youth. He has long since passed the age of
foolishness. After leaving the Stolper Gymnasium he
attended the Berlin University for several semesters,
studying history and the history of art.
When the war broke out he transformed himself, like
a good many German industries. Now he joined that
235
LEADEKS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
band of nameless editors in order to fight against the
National Liberal party for old-nationalism, i. e., for
the captains of industry. The Berliner Neuesten Nach-
ricliten, which for a long time was not able either
to live or to die, and then for a time combined with
the Deutsche Zeitung, offered him a platform for his
activities after it had been financially renovated. The
party got rid of the Neuesten Nachrichten more than
once, but they could not get rid of Herr Fuhrmann ; he
stuck like a cocklebur and went on stirring up a row
against the party. When the six economic leagues
published a memorial in 1915, advocating extensive
annexations, it was Fuhrmann who opened his mouth
the widest and wrote and carped against Bethmann-
Hollweg, who kept his head clear. When the Father-
land party was called into existence he was one of the
first to join the ranks as a propagandist. And so power-
ful was his speech in a Berlin propaganda meeting that
the audience resented the fact that some war invalids
present, dared to remonstrate, and beat them up. Herr
Fuhrmann, who let himself be advertised by the bureau
of the Langtag, Herr Fuhrmann, the prototype of a
home warrior, stood on the platform and beamed at this
scene. It was the triumph of his life.
In the Landtag he was the soul of the right wing
of the National Liberal party. He and Herr
Hirsch, the Essen general secretary, both had a
236
PAUL FUHBMAM
finger in the pie. If the faction showed symptoms of
leaning toward the left, quickly he let loose the
National Liberal industrials' mutiny against the liberal
element. Almost always he succeeded, but fortunately,
not at the franchise reform. After everything had been
tried in vain to convert them all to the franchise reform,
the party finally separated and worked independently:
the right and the left. And Herr Fuhrmann, who had
once in Stendal called the three-class system the most
shameful he could think of, now worked in the front
line to help forge the franchise compromise with the
Conservatives. Again he betrayed the party and with
it one of it's most prominent members, Dr. Friedberg,
vice-president of the Prussian State Ministry and
champion of equal suffrage, and when the great pow-
wow came, all were suddenly converted.
This is the way Herr Fuhrmann looks. Herr Fuhr-
mann, who likes to play the great moralist, whose
speeches drip with German spirit, with German char-
acter, and German will to power.
XXXIII
GEORG GRAF VON HERTLING
Count Hertling was called to the head of the Govern-
ment in his seventy-fifth year, an age when the average
official has retired to enjoy his pension in peace and
quiet. " If I have decided to accept the difficult and
responsible position of Imperial Chancellor in these
stormy times," he said with a slight tone of resignation,
" if I overlook the objection to my age, it is only in the
conviction that it is my duty to sacrifice myself for my
fatherland." Only he who is above ambition, who
realizes that we are not in this world to live for our-
selves but to live for others, can speak in this manner.
Once before in 1917, when Bethmann-Hollweg was
forced out of office, Count Hertling was called upon to
take his place, but he refused on account of his age and
the fact that there were others eagerly waiting for the
post. But the experiment with someone from the
" bullrun of bureaucracy," to quote Bismarck, was not
a success ; the entre act with Michaelis somewhat tragi-
comically came to a surprisingly quick end. This time
Count Hertling felt obliged to accept. It was a great
sacrifice for a man of his age to make, physically as
well as psychologically.
238
GEORG GEAF VON IIERTLING
He was fragile and so shortsighted that he had to
be accompanied when he went out. One forgot his
bodily weaknesses when one heard him speaking, flu-
ently and brilliantly, in the Reichstag. Life, energy,
and will, flared up in this insignificant-looking little
man, and his eyes began to sparkle behind the thick
spectacles. A tinge of red flushed the small, white-
boarded, pointed face that looked so much like that of
a mouse. I once asked a well-known foreign diplomat
what impression Count Hertling made upon him. lie
answered, smiling: "A charming old man."
"And what did you get out of him ? " I continued.
" He told me a lot, but he always got around the
things I really wanted to know."
He is not one you can entice on thin ice — not one who
heedlessly announces his determinations. If you observe
him at a sitting in the Bundesrat you will probably
think he is too tired to follow the proceedings. Silently
he sits there seemingly sunk in thought. But whenever
the thread of discourse threatens to go astray he quickly
interferes ; in clear, pointed words he brings the theme
back to the point.
He is thoroughly conservative but conditions have
driven him to opposition. Even when he had reached
the highest rung of the ladder he abandoned the views
of yesterday and to-day, and not without hesitation hei
ushered in a part of new German politics.
239
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
If I am to paint a spiritual portrait of him I must
not loosely string a few: superficial, political events
together, but must begin at the beginning of his mental
and spiritual development, with philosophy, which
saturates his whole political doings.
He began to teach in the university at Bonn in 1867,
but got no further than lecturer. Thirteen years later
he became professor, but only under-prof essor, although
he had written a number of significant works on phi-
losophy. But in this period of Kultur war he was a
suspect — he held fast to the teachings of the Vatican
and was faithful to the church in her battle with the
state. Later, as professor of philosophy in Munich,
he was less a pioneer of new systems than a historian,
a critic of the old. His dogmatic, theological narrow-
ness forbade it. Catholic Christianity places a super-
mundane, personal God at the beginning of everything.
The world is an act of his creative all-power, and the
predestination of mankind lies in the Beyond. This
transcendental problem is already settled and philoso-
phy has nothing to do but formulate it, as Hertling
once said in an article on the church-father, Augus-
tine. He settled this affair with Plato and the Nec-
platonists, and occupied himself with Aristotle.
If you wish to understand Hertling as a politician
you must not overlook this Catholic-scholastic education
which tends toward a smooth and supple dialectic.
240
GEORG GRAF VON HERTLING
While still a lecturer at Bonn in 1875, he was a
successful candidate for the Reichstag and fought with
Windhorst and Reichensperger against the Iron Chan-
cellor, who was trying to break the backbone of the
Center and the Vatican. A year later he helped to
found the Gurres society in Coblenz for the study of
science, including political and national, in Catholic
Germany. With fine feeling for the needs of the people,
he paid especial attention to social politics. This was
his specialty at that time. More than once Bismarck
invited him to a conference on social matters. In 1883
he bared his heart to him on the question of the unhappy
Kultur war. Clever and tactful Ilertling met him half
way, assuring him that even the Center representatives
longed for the harmony of a church and political peace.
Gradually Center and Chancellor were again at sword's
points over the new tariff and economic politics. This
noisy clash ceased at times, but behind the political
scenes the Catholic church did not budge an inch. In
the acts of the Gorres society one can read the follow-
ing : " The state is naturally subordinate to the tem-
porary and beneficial organization of the church."
Notwithstanding this the Center continued to be on
friendly terms with free-thinkers and Social Democrats
— the most pronounced representatives of tolerance —
with Richter and Grillenberger — in order to fight
Bismarck's exceptional law-making.
241
LEADERS OE YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
After Lieber's death Hertling became chief of the
Center faction, party diplomat, and let the Government
buy his approval for the military and naval proposi-
tions. This cool business policy which even Billow had
not ventured on in the beginning, brought the Center
the gradual rescindment of the Jesuit laws, but it later
led to a rupture between them and the Government, in
1906. This did not last long — the conservative-liberal
block went to pieces on the finance reform bill.
Stronger than ever the Center party emerged from its
temporary isolation. Just at the right moment they
could throw their political weight in the scales when
Pope Pius X issued his challenge to all modern move-
ments which threatened to interfere with the revenues
of the state. Hertling' s role as intermediary was not
small. In 1912, when Podewil's ministry in Bavaria
went to pieces in a conflict with the Center, Hert-
ling was trusted with the formation of a new cabi-
net. The Bavarian Center majority became an official
government's party over night. Thus the first parlia-
mentary regime entered the German federal states
although none of the participators liked to admit it.
Hertling now occupied a responsible position; he
automatically became chairman of the Bundesrat com-
mission for foreign affairs, and obtained a deep insight
into international politics. Bavaria's national influence
grew tremendously; it had never been so strong in the
242
GEORG GRAF VON HERTLESTG
past as in the five years ending 1917. Bethmann-,
Hollweg depended upon his support and it was but
natural he should be thought of when the Chancellor
resigned.
He did not let the Kaiser appoint him to the chancel-
lorship directly, but got in touch with the majority
parties — the Center, Independents, and Social Demo-
crats. He agreed upon a positive working program and
called leading parliamentarians into the Government
from these parties who had once formed an opposing
majority in the Reichstag. This was the first step
toward a parliamentary system. This was his perma-
nent service to the nation. He remained true to the
program agreed upon. In the midst of the hottest
battle for equal suffrage in Prussia he declared he
would stand or fall with this question. But faithful-
ness did not win out. Political life began to slump —
the suffrage reform did not budge from the spot, mili-
tary rulers became more and more impudent, the major-
ity began to grumble, the Social Democrats announced
their mistrust, the progressives withdrew their support,
and at last the Center dropped him. The Chancellor
went to Headquarters and came back a dead man. The
Kaiser accepted his resignation. The way was clear
for popular Government; the historical document was
signed by Count Hertling himself. He made a brilliant
retreat,
243
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
He handled foreign politics as he had once handled
philosophy: fatalistically; he bent to the powers that
were stronger than he. Originally he attempted to take
the German answer to the Pope's note as a basis for his
war and peace policy. This answer was a relinquish-
ment of thoughts of annexation or compensation. How-
ever, he slowly adapted himself, under all sorts of rhe-
torical reservations, to the new military atmosphere
which daily and hourly surrounded him. He forgot the
question of St. Augustine, whom he had formerly
praised, forgot the remark of the church-father in his
" God's Nation," a treatise on the Roman Empire ; if
it were really great or praiseworthy to sow war without
end, to subjugate independent peoples, and out of this
wreckage of destroyed freedom and independence, to
erect a mighty monument to ambition? Step by step
he retreated before those who believed Germany's future
to be insured only by annexations. It cost him much
trouble to cover this retreat with ambiguous phrases.
In the shape of a German-Russian peace treaty he left a
legacy for the German people whose far-reaching
political significance will only be realized later.
He did not fail to make attempts to come to a peace-
ful understanding with the Western powers but he
succeeded no better than his predecessors. He waited
for things to approach him in order to reduce possibili-
ties of friction to the lowest point. He remained quiet
244
GEORG GRAF VON HERTLING
and became more and more the executor of other peo-
ple's wills. If he accomplished anything at all by
opposing the military authorities, seen in the light of
day, it was but a meager compromise. The sliest fox
would rather have a bird in hand than two in the bush.
And so he sat behind the large mirrors in the aristo-
cratic, baroque, dreamy, old Chancellor palace gazing
at the round bed of rhododendrons, roses, and pansies,
and waited for the long-desired guest who must come
sometime — for peace.
But Count Hertling waited in vain. He died in
Munich before the guest arrived.
xxxtv
ROBERT FRIEDBERG
One who has sold his soul to politics is Robert
Friedberg, a professor, national economist, parliamen-
tarian by profession, and for a year minister without
portfolio. lie stands in the frame of National Liber-
alism, a changing framework ? No, a one-sided exclusive
picture that sits fast in its frame.
Dr. Friedberg, who studied in Leipzig and lectured
in Halle on political science, did not make much of a
record scientifically. That was not his territory. lie
wrote one or two books on exchange dues and public
finances. But he had been politically active for many
years. In 1886, at the age of thirty-five, he entered the
House of Representatives and never came out of it.
Halle sent him first and then Remscheid-Lennep. Only
once, and that temporarily, did he enter the Reichstag.
It was the year when Prince nohenlohe's tired hands
held the reins of state.
He has a stately appearance, is wholly professor, has
a small, square-cut, grayish beard, wears spectacles on
a rather thick nose, has a thick head of hair, reddish
cheeks, and a slender body on elastic legs. He is almost
246
ROBERT ERIEDBERG
always clothed in a frock coat and yet there is no trace
of formality about him. lie is always friendly, always
courteous — even gives his hand to Adolph Hoffmann
in greeting, his antipode from the extreme Left. He is
always on deck when the political oar is to be shoved
onto the right track. It is a pleasure to hear him speak ;
without a trace of pathos, always objective, his words
are like a string of pearls. He is ready of wit and not
to be discomposed.
He is a piece of good National Liberal tradition. His
interests are concentrated exclusively on Prussia. Ho
has always been a master at this. The party division
was a good one: Bassermann controlled the kingdom,
Eriedberg the state of Prussia. One did not get in the
other's range. Before he took up a parliamentary
career he had already done service for the party. On
party days he was the mediator and knew how to win
people with his friendly manner. Even to-day he is
above everything else a tactician. In the Landtag, when
the budget estimates were discussed, his speeches were
always the piece de resistance. He fairly swelled in
finance and tax questions, carefully touching upon the
railroad compensation funds which had so often helped
the budget on its legs, and disapproving of the addi-
tional income-tax provision, and the policy of the minis-
ter of finance.
He did not try to conceal the fact that he was a
247
LEADERS OE YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
professional politician, since he laid his professorship
on the shelf. In his great speech against the Upper
House in March, 1917, the day of the Russian revolu-
tion, when he recommended a reform of the First
Chamber, he also ironically referred to a reproach
against professional parliamentarism which had been
dropped by the Conservatives : " The remarks about
professional parliamentarians have a comical as well as
a serious side," he said. " What advantages has a par-
liamentarian in Germany ? I know of but one and that
is the consciousness of having fulfilled his duties to the
best of his ability. When a man, financially indepen-
dent, takes upon himself the burdens of Parliament as
his life's task, when he tries to keep up the traditions
of the House and relieve his overburdened colleagues
who have other professions, that effort deserves some-
thing better than a mere mockery of professional par-
liamentarism." And then as a counter blow he said
that the statements made by the House were not com-
patible with the constitution. Under a roar of applause
from the left of the House he concluded his speech
with the remark : " When one takes the widest con-
ception possible of the Government, including the law-
making department, then one may say that all people
have the Government and the Parliament they deserve.
But the Prussian people really have not deserved an
Upper Chamber of this sort."
248
ROBERT FRIEDBERG
In the meantime Dr. Friedberg has become minister,
vice-president of the Prussian ministry, the first par-
liamentary minister in Prussian Germany to retain his
representative mandate and the first to leave the Gov-
ernment table and give his vote with his party comrades.
He was really a reform-minister, the franchise hero.
But all his versatility and business knowledge were not
enough to budge the Eight ; they were obdurate and the
right wing of the ISTational Liberals, the Fuhrmann and
Hirsch consorts, gave up their friendship for him at
the command of the capitalists. In tho battle for equal
suffrage he passed from one defeat to another. The
Landtag alone rejected the equality principle twice in
the commission and four times in the plenum. But
Herr Friedberg still hoped, although, naturally, the
Upper Chamber refused to follow. Was he waiting for
a miracle? Why did he not dissolve the House and
write out a new election asked the Left. But the
miracle came — when it was too late. Friedberg's
optimism was justified.
The military situation changed all at once to Ger-
many's disadvantage. Bulgaria surrendered, we asked
for a truce, and the Conservatives gave in. All resist-
ance against the franchise bill was given up. The Up-
per Chamber and the Landtag swallowed it as best they
might. On the other hand, Dr. Friedberg and the Left
249
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
with him, crawled under the caudinian yoke of the Cen-
ter's denominational " assurance."
He should not have been a National Liberal. In
1892 the party smothered Baron von Zedlitz's Prussian
Eolks school law. Fourteen years later, under Fried-
berg, they participated in the confessionalizing of the
Folks school which, according to the will of the Center,
were now to have a constitutional guarantee. In the
franchise question he went another way. Originally
he was opposed to the thought of equal suffrage and
was enthusiastic for a plural system according to age,
education, and property. Then he condensed the direct
and secret vote and finally, under the pressure of war
conditions, he was converted to equal suffrage. For-
merly the opponent of a parliamentary system, he now
became a parliamentarian indeed. The right wing of
the party could not forget this. What did all his ser-
vices count for now ; they despised him as a deserter.
To be sure he was always rather a suspect. In the
quarrel of the old-National Liberals with the rest of
the party he stuck to the Central organization but had
a smile of forgiveness for the young Liberals. He
understood how to rise above petty differences; after
the death of Bassermann he became chairman of the
Central committee and in time he was the party trade-
mark. It was due to his agitation that the model press
bureau was founded, that yearly spread millions of
250
ROBERT FRIEDBERG
National Liberal papers among the voting masses. He
played party politics like a piano, in sharps and in flats,
runs and trills; just as quickly with the right in the
bass as with the left in the treble, but he was long in
finding the one melody which meant the realization of
equal suffrage in Prussia.
In the fall of 1918, he appeared in Prince Max's
war cabinet as the confidential man of the National
Liberals. Then he disappeared in the deluge like all
the rest of his colleagues, when the revolutionary waves
broke over Germany. But he emerged again as a demo-
cratic candidate at the election for the National
Assembly after the National Liberal party had gone to
pieces, was elected, and became the leader of the party.
XXXV
HANS GEORG VON BEERFELDE
One day in the summer of 1917, my telephone rang
at an unusual hour.
" Dombrowski speaking/' I answered.
" Beerfelde," replied a deep voice, " Captain von
Beerfelde."
I had never heard the name before.
" Could I see you in regard to a pressing matter ?
It is very important."
" Certainly, but what is it about ? "
" Something must be done. Anything. It is high
time."
" Yes, but what am I to understand by that ? "
" The whole political situation, the absolute necessity
of an immediate peace ; the consequences of the Russian
revolution — We must speak of these things and
decide upon some sort of action."
" May I ask who is at the back of all this ? "
" I am. The Chancellor is informed of the state of
affairs; we must make it clear to the military authori-
ties. A number of other gentlemen have already
promised to come to the Cafe Rheingold to discuss
252
HANS GEORG VON" BEERFELDE
the situation : Privy Councillor X, Director Y, Editor
Z, etc."
" All right, Ell come."
Punctually I arrived at the Rheingold on the after-
noon of the same day. When I entered the cozy little
front room an officer and a very well-known scholar were
already seated in the leather chairs and were in the
midst of a lively conversation. The officer jumped up
hastily and impulsively offered his hand.
" Beerfelde is my name."
" I am Dombrowski."
He was a dapper, erect, somewhat undersized officer,
with the Iron Cross, first class, under his left breast,
an intelligent face, brown and weather-beaten, a short
mustache, thick, copper-colored hair, trimmed like a
hedge, as if the barber had imagined himself to be a
Le Notre, the celebrated gardener of the baroque
period; heavy browns and — such eyes! Could they
bore through one at a glance? They were the eyes of a
man accustomed to command, a man used to action —
or were they only the eyes of a man carried away by an
idea?
A curious mixture, aristocratic, energetic, dauntless.
Soon there were ten or twelve of us, twelve men whose
names were all well-known in Berlin intellectual circles.
The Geheimrat called the meeting to order at the
request of Captain von Beerfelde. He excused the
253
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
absence of two professors, and gave a short outline of
the political situation. It was about the time of the
secret sittings of the Reichstag committees, during the
weeks when the battle against Bethmann-Hollweg raged
its worst and the peace resolution was nearing its
fulfillment.
One groped in political darkness and the Geheimrat
declared another winter of war must be prevented by
all means.
" Something must be done," the Captain completed,
requesting those present to make some suggestions.
An embarrassing pause ensued. They looked at one
another almost beseechingly.
Gradually a discussion arose but it crept along
tediously. One suggested informing Hindenburg and
Ludendorff of the exact state of affairs at home. Of
course the Kaiser should know, too. They thought
Bethmann-Hollweg was already informed. Herr von
Harnack and the Captain had spoken with him the day
before.
The others objected to this procedure. How could
one approach Hindenburg, and moreover what was one
to say positively if one did get an audience ? Another
pause.
The whole discussion seemed at an end.
One skeptic doubted the whole story.
At this moment the Captain sprung up, seized His
254
HANS GEORG YON BEERFELDE
portfolio and notebook, pounded the table "with, his
fist, and cried out : " I see the gentlemen will only talk.
I am going to act. If I have to stake my head for it I
Good-day, gentlemen ! " And he marched out with
heavy tread. For a time we stared at one another in
painful silence. Finally our gaze concentrated on the
scholar.
He was embarrassed. " I perceive," he began at last,
" that you wish some sort of explanation from me. But
I cannot give you one. The Captain visited me yester-
day, urged my attendance at this meeting in the light
of a moral duty, and mentioned the names of other
gentlemen who would be present. I did not think I
could very well refuse under the circumstances. He is,
after all, a man of position: soldier, Iron Cross, first
class officer of the Staff, noble . . . Well, I came
without knowing what he really wanted of me."
A second repeated the same story : sudden visit, Iron
Cross, noble, officer of the Staff, etc.
The third, the fourth, and all the rest.
Everybody laughed but nevertheless felt somewhat
ashamed.
"Weeks passed by; the Captain's name slipped from
mv mind. Suddenly I received a visit from him. In
a few words he recalled the meeting at the Rheingold
and asked if I, too, had shaken my head over him.
" No," I replied.
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
??
"Why not?
" You were the only one who really wanted to act ;
the others did not know what to say. I was impressed
by the tragedy of the moment although I did not know
what you really wanted of me."
" I trust you. I have new evidence that something
must be done. Do you know the Prince Lichnowsky
pamphlet ? "
" I have heard of it."
" Would you like to have one ? "
" Yes. Where did you get it, Captain ? "
il Someone loaned it to me. I said to myself : This
must be made public so that everyone will have a chance
to know the truth."
" Yes, but all that is very serious . . ."
" I have twelve copies. Here is one."
Once again I saw Herr von Beerfelde but only for a
moment. A few weeks later I was called before the
court and requested to give up the Lichnowsky booklet.
I had to sign an affidavit that I had not spread any
copies of this book nor had any printed. All the others
who possessed a copy were haled into court and they
thought they had all the copies at last but — the last
man summoned confessed that he had ordered and dis-
tributed about five hundred copies. They had gone the
way of all other disclosures.
In the meantime Beerfelde came into conflict with
256
HANS GEORG VON BEEKFELDE
his superiors, wlio were supposed to have forbidden him
to have anything to do with politics. He was court-
martialed, but because there was no such order to be
found, they had to let him go. While he was in prison
awaiting trial, he brooded more than ever. From out
his world of thought came the incessant cry: "You
must act ! Do something ! " He wrote to Ludendorff
and Ilindenburg : " Germany's fate during and after
the war depends largely upon whether we truthfully
represent a truthful cause. Although we win the battle
we are preparing the way for our own downfall in any
other case; we would never fulfill our mission in the
world. With truth alone can we conquer the enemies
at home and abroad." A grown-up child — an enthu-
siast who sees life only from the perspective of a cloud-
dweller ? Perhaps. But at the same time this mystic
dreamer is a man who must and will act.
His goal is not clear; it is blurred and misty. In
this respect he differs from Thomas Stockmann, whom
the " compact majority " called an enemy of the people.
He knew exactly how to convert truth to deeds.
But Beerfelde danced around like a will-o'-the-wisp.
He did not know exactly what he should do, and finally
stood on the periphery of Independent Social Democ-
racy. He began to form connections that brought him
under suspicion of having had something to do with!
the Berlin strike movement at the end of January,
257
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
1918. Compromising letters, circulars and papers
were found and confiscated. In short, he was charged
with having transgressed paragraph 89 of the criminal
code. Treason . . .
Is the world foolish, or is he who was led by the
purest humanitarian motives, only to be helplessly
entangled in life's net? Do we damn Michael Kohl-
haas, who was similarly tortured by the necessity for
action — - who, seeking justice, went to extremes and at
last tripped over himself?
To the judge, the sentence. And it is the duty of the
private citizen not to interfere with the proceedings of
the law.
This article was written at the beginning of April,
1918, but the Commandant forbade its publication. It
would have been too awful if the world discovered that
an officer no longer believed in the imperialistic-
militaristic ideals.
]S T ow that the revolutionary wave has cast Captain
von Beerfelde, a. D (ausser Dienst — out of service) to
the top, making him for a few days one of the most
important men of Germany, I again fetch out my manu-
script together with a whole mountain of Beerfelde
material — articles and letters to the Kaiser, to the
Crown Prince, to Hindenburg, etc.
When the Captain returned from the field, over-
irritated and excited, his eyes fell upon the yet unknown
258
HANS GEOEG VON BEERFELDE
Lichnowsky memorial. He had seen the unveiled image
of truth and it scorched his soul. In his despair — in
the hope that all they had said was not true, — the
Lichnowskys, Dr. Muehlon, Fernau, and the others — ■
he wrote to the Kaiser on Easter Sunday, 1918: " In
the name of a betrayed people I demand that every
document and agreement made between us and Austria-
Hungary before the war and which do not appear in
our white book, now be made public. I demand . . ."
More shocking than all these attempts to clear the
situation was his legal complaint made on the 11th of
September while awaiting trial in the Berlin military
prison. Out of a martyred soul welled forth this cry:
" Those who know me, all my former superior officers
and comrades, can testify that I have always stood for
a clear and clean situation, that I have hated every
lazy compromise no matter what advantages it might
bring me.
" I want nothing more than that truth and justice, the
greatest of all powers, should build an open road for our
army and our people toward a blessed and noble future.
According to the Bible: 'Justice lifteth up a people
but the sins of injustice casteth them down ! ' Why
are not such words heeded ? Have we the right to call
ourselves a Christian folk, a Christian State ? I know
that everyone of my subordinates in the field would
subscribe to these words. There will be great surprises
259
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
in store for those who do not follow a policy of truth
when the army returns from the field. The best ele-
ments of this army are filled with a ruthless desire for
truth. For truth alone do German men shed their
blood. Everything else will be ruthlessly cast aside.
You here at home should take heed. When I left my
battalion I promised my men if I were no longer needed
at the front I would do my best to provide 'good
quarters' at home. And I intend to keep this promise
to the best of my ability.
" Lichnowsky uttered his convictions before the new
faction in the Landtag, but they called him an ex-
citable fool and a dupe. The majority rejected his
illuminating ideas, and no memorial, no argument,
could induce them to change their minds. Where
is the person who can listen to the warning voice
of Cassandra unshaken, or without asking: Can this
be true ? But it really seems as if no one will listen.
Then they must be made to feel and it will be terrible.
I am almost mad with despair in the vain endeavor to
spread the truth. ISTow I stand before the court. Will
they listen to me there ? I trust they will ; that is why
I do not defend myself in the usual manner. I shall
accuse and lay my soul bare before them. One thing
only I ask: Examine, investigate, prove, and do not
rest until the truth is found! I have an enormous
amount of material to place at your disposal. Whoever
260
HANS GEOBG YON BEERFELDE
will take the trouble to examine it will be able to see
clearly. It was just the same with me. I was firmly
convinced of the justice of our cause; I can furnish
hundreds of proofs of my enthusiasm in the beginning
— until instinctively I felt there was something wrong
at home. And then came the bitter illumination. I
was nigh unto despair. Since I saw what I have seen
there is but one road for me — bear witness for the
truth, if I must die for it in order that our unsus-
pecting people may not be ruined.
" I do not write this for effect — it is the cold, sober,
and holy truth and unchangeable resolve."
The court was not able to bring in a verdict — revo-
lution rattled on the doors of the prison house where
he sat and presented him his freedom. In a trice he
was at the top. On the 9 th of November he took charge
of the almighty executive committee of the Workmen
and Soldiers' Councils. Now he was to stand his test.
But in three days he was dismissed. He had shown
himself too stormy for the systematic work of
organization.
He was swallowed up again in the nothingness of
everyday. Unawares he stepped into the waves — will
they ever cast him up again ? In the meanwhile he is
stranded at a sanatorium.
XXXVI
PAUL VON" HINTZE
One day I received an invitation from His Excellency
the Secretary of the Foreign Office, Ilerr von Hintze,
Wilhelmstrasse 76, first floor. The rooms were well
known to me. In the modest vestibule lie the two
sphinxes on their stone postaments eying every intruder
good-humoredly. The conference room on the first floor
makes a simple, virtuous impression. No silken wall
paper, no soft carpets, no heavy damask curtains before
the windows. A green-covered, horseshoe-shaped table
occupies almost the whole of the small room. On the
left wall is a life-size portrait of Wilhelm II in his
thirtieth year; on the right, Kaiser Friedrich. Near
it the well-known marine tables from His Majesty,
dating from the time of the navy enthusiasm. In a
window niche, a huge globe. With the exception of a
bookcase that is all the furniture in the room.
A few legation councillors, active and inactive clerks,
an under-Secretary of State, and lastly the Secretary
himself. Subject of discussion was politics, naturally
confidential.
Herr von Hintze opened the meeting with a long
resume of the situation. A fresh, energetic man,
262
PAUL VON IIIXTZE
ratlier short, very active and full of inner unrest like
a distant, rumbling, volcano. Externally calm, with a
trace of superiority. Speaks genially and yet a bit
condescendingly. Likes to have bis listeners believe
that he regards everything sub specie aeterni. He knows
people and knows that they like to be deceived ; knows
people from all over the world, for he has been thrown
from pillar to post most of his life.
The two large, brown eyes wander regularly from
left to right and from right to left during his conversa-
tion; he likes to have the whole of his little audience
under control. And he wants to make an impression,
not merely with the subject itself but also with his
treatment of it. He speaks in choice phrases without
pauses, periods or exclamation points — smooth and
rounded like a book. Not a single clause is wasted;
one sentence follows another in well-ordered array. He
blows every little grain of stylistic unevenness from the
filigree of his conversation, making every moment
some remark, some insinuation, some twist, designed to
illustrate his literary knowledge, which is not exactly
modern.
He is no self-sufficient aristocrat ; he is a man of strict
self-discipline, who has labored to acquire what he
possesses. He makes nothing of family connections, or
material possessions — and has boldly remained &
bachelor to the present day.
263
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Eate did not favor him externally. When he was
still in the navy, people said he looked like the Kaiser's
state coachman. And now he's driving the Imperial
German National coach. But those who made fun of
him secretly respected him all the same. They called
him the crazy, clever, industrious, and ambitious
Hintze. He was soon an all round man, indefatigahly
active, and absolutely inconsiderate when it came to
reaching a goal he had set for himself as the right one.
Of course a goal always lies in a direct line with one's
own advantages. He showed backbone as a naval officer
without dispensing entirely with diplomatic cunning.
On the contrary he was especially good at this. As first
officer on board the Kaiser Wilhelm II, he thought
he had discovered a sort of indolence among the younger
set. He went after them with pitch and sulphur, natu-
rally making a good many enemies, but he did not let
that influence him any. He had no prejudices, was too
much a man of the world for this. When one of his
comrades had to leave the service on account of a mesal-
liance, the others, according to narrow-minded custom,
concluded not to send a wedding present. Hintze, as
crew senior, protested against such antiquated opinions,
and the present was sent.
In 1882 he entered the navy as cadet. At the
examination he won first place, which he continued to
keep. Admiral von Truppel, later governor of Kiao-
264
PAUL VOX IIIXTZE
chow and a very strict disciplinarian, was his officer.
It was not easy for Ilintze and he was at one time
ready to leave the service. But his energy overcame all
hindrances. For three years he gondoliered round the
world on hoard the cruiser frigate Prinz Adelbert.
When he returned in 1885, he was sub-lieutenant. The
way to fame was open. But the way was long and fame
let him wait for a considerable length of time. Several
commands of no particular importance followed. It
seemed as if they had not recognized Hintze's talents.
He had to drill recruits, attend torpedo practice, and a
lot more of the same sort. Naturally this did not con-
tent him. He entered the Naval Academy and re-
mained there from 1894 to 1896. The navy hubbub
was just beginning. While his comrades were enjoying
themselves, Hintze worked like a horse learning one
language after another and gathering all sorts of infor-
mation. He dressed well and did not despise
amusements, but he was always within bounds, never in
high spirits.
In 1896 he arrived at the first stage of his ambition;
on the 8th of xlpril he was made Lieutenant-Captain of
the naval staff. His upward climb proceeded rapidly.
Two years later he was Flag-Lieutenant of the East
Asiatic cruiser squadron. His chief was Vice-Admiral
von Diederichs. For the first time, if only for a
moment, Hintze's name went the rounds of the world.
265
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
It was during the Dewey affair at Manila, in the sum-
mer of 1898, when Admiral von Diederichs anchored in
Manila Bay. The Admiral sent Hintze to Dewey to
remonstrate against the threatened searching of two
German war vessels. " Young man, do you tell me that
means war ? " exclaimed Dewey. In spite of his thirty-
six years Hintze looked very young at that time, with
his smooth-shaven face. As everyone knows there was
nothing to the conflict but a noisy press campaign.
Prince Heinrich took von Diederich's place as com-
mander of the cruiser squadron and Hintze became his
staff officer. He left the Kaiser Wilhelm and went
on board the Deutschland. The commander was
Captain Miiller (later chief of the navy cabinet) who
enjoyed a reputation similar to Hintze's in naval circles.
Two gentlemen of eminent cunning thus met on board
ship. They were not congenial, partly on account of
the Prince. But they did the cleverest thing under the
circumstances, concluded peace, swore eternal friend-
ship for better or for worse. This compact has been
cherished and has been the better for both parties con-
cerned.
In 1901 Hintze came home, was promoted to corvet
Captain and come on board the Kaiser 'Wilhelm II
as commander. For many years he had not been in
active service and gradually became unused to it ■ — he
worked only with his pen. It seemed as if fate had
266
PAUL VON HINTZE
overtaken him. He did not understand how to handle
people, and many a misunderstanding arose from
this fact. Fortune did not desert him, however. Once
more, in 1902, he sat on an office chair — this time in
the Admiralty. " I'd like to go to London as naval
attache," he sighed. He had a particular liking for
everything English, but his wish was not fulfilled. A
year later he was sent to St. Petersburg as marine at-
tache. Here he laid the foundation of his diplomatic
career at the side of the dignified, old Count von Pour-
tales. He soon became persona grata at the Czar's court,
and always had the ear of His Majesty. During the revo-
lution of 1905, when the waves threatened to break over
the palace, he ordered a German torpedo boat to Kron-
stadt and placed it at the service of the Czar in case he
should have to flee. His influence continued to increase.
He soon became ISTicholas II's most faithful adviser.
When the revolution seemed to come to no end he ad-
vised the Czar to cease trying to appease the masses and
take the most rigorous measures against them instead.
Hintze's advice was followed and proved good. So
much personal influence naturally created enemies
among German attaches of the Embassy as well as
among the Russians. But enmities and scandals could
not shake his position. In 1905 he was frigate Captain ;
1906, aide-de-camp to the Kaiser; 1907, Captain; 1908
he was knighted, and in 1909 his title ran as follows:
267
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Military Plenipotentiary at the Imperial Russian Court,
attached to the Person of His Majesty, the Czar of
all the Russias, and appointed to his Headquarters.
One could not get much higher. Peter, as his comrades
called him, seemed to have accomplished all there was
to accomplish.
Suddenly there was a hitch. Hintze was deposed.
The navy lists of 1911 record laconically: Captain
Hintze's resignation was accepted in view of his trans-
ference to foreign service.
What had happened? A careless remark ahout
" Hessen " had reached ears not meant to hear it. This
was Hintze's downfall. The pack were only waiting
for it.
When he awoke from the shock he saw that he had
tumbled down the stairs. The title of Rear Admiral
and the handsome pension that went with it ought to
have satisfied Hintze, but the Foreign Office only be-
came a new spring-board for him. He had all sorts of
opponents here. They hated the man who was encroach-
ing on their preserves so they packed him off to Mexico,
which had so far cost every ambassador his neck. But
the Foreign Office had deceived itself; Hintze made pos-
sible the impossible, got on a friendly basis with the
whole world, easily won everybody's sympathy, and ex-
cited great attention by driving his automobile into the
midst of a mass of rioters and rescuing a few hard-
268
PAUL VON HINTZE
pressed Germans. In short, his star of fortune radiated
in new splendor. Once more he basked in the sun of
the Kaiser's favor. " That's my man ! " exclaimed the
monarch.
Then came the war. Hintze went to China. Dis-
guised as a stoker he once more crossed the ocean and
escaped the persecution of the enemy. " That was finely
managed," smiled the Kaiser when Hintze told him of
it. " If you do that again I'll make you ambassador
to Pekin." After China broke off diplomatic relations
he returned home once more. At a critical period he
was sent to Christiania as ambassador. He managed
very cleverly here also; although unfriendly, Norway
remained neutral.
When Mr. Zimmerman had to leave Wilhelmstrasse,
Hintze was named as his successor. But he was sus-
pected of being too Pan-German and the Left rejected
him. Kiihlmann came out winner. After a short stay
as Secretary of Foreign Affairs he, too, had to go and
Hintze then took his place. He burned most of the
Pan-German bridges behind him and made his bow to
the Reichstag majority. This splendor did not last long.
A few times he spoke publicly: once to the Khedive of
Egypt, once to the Irish, and to the Vienna press, whom
he assured that there was no suppression of public opin-
ion. He had a friendly word for everyone. It was a
heavy defeat for him when Count Burian came out
269
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
with his offer of peace. Hintze believed he had per-
suaded the Count from taking this step. He went at
last because times were too speedy for his diplomatic
methods. He could not imagine a Reichstag plenum.
After that he played the role of representative of the
Foreign Office in the General Headquarters until the
crash came.
XXXVII
ROSA LUXEMBURG
The seeds Rosa Luxemburg sowed during her life-
time have begun to sprout. In Berlin on the 10th of
January, 1919, machine guns rattled, hand-grenades ex-
ploded, and the streets vomited armed proletariat from
every corner. These were the days of demonstrations:
endless processions with blood-red flags swarmed Unter
den Linden, causing the majority socialists and the
bourgeois to make counter demonstrations. A gentle-
man remarked to me in the Chancellor's palace : " Who
knows if we will ever see each other alive again ? " The
days of preparation, of surprises, of dull forebodings,
of wild shooting, the days of rioting are over. It has
settled down to deadly seriousness. Berlin has become
a battle ground, the scene of civil war. The anarchist-
communist revolution which aims to weed out capital-
ism, root and branch, has followed on the heels of the
political revolution which sent all the crowned heads of
Germany into retirement, and the social revolution of
the workers who wished to insure themselves a part of
the fruitif of the big wage movement. Hegel's philo-
sophical teachings of the pendulum-like movements of
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
development seem to be confirmed. The thesis, Monar-
chists absolutism, threatens to be solved by the anti-
thesis, proletariat dictation.
Rosa Luxemburg triumphs. This is her work. For
many years she conspired and revolutionized. She
did not come from Russian Poland for nothing — not
to have learned something of the art of undermining in
the political school. About twenty-five years ago she
emigrated to Germany after having founded a revolu-
tionary labor party in Poland. Here in Germany she
found a new and promising field. But as a foreigner,
as a Russian Jewess, she would probably have been
quickly deported in Billow's time if she had not found
some quick means of becoming a citizen. She soon
found this way in a marriage with a Mr. Liibeck, of
whom no one has ever heard since. As Mrs. Rosalie
Liibeck she became a Prussian citizen without further
parley. She could no longer be deported as a " trouble-
some foreigner."
But Rosa had sharp thorns ; the party felt them more
than once. She was clever as was no other Socialist.
Was she a woman who had only the feminist movement
at heart ? Not a bit of it. She was a man who had no
time for petty questions, sentimentality, or the like.
She went in for the whole thing, always in the front
row. She did not clear her path with a dainty parasol
after diving up out of the Ghetto — she smashed her
272
KOSA LUXEMBURG
way through with a bludgeon. The whole party, even
at the time when Bebel and Singer had command, had
no small respect for this resolute person. She was
a person who commanded respect. And how she could
talk ! Her words fell like shrapnel on the enemy. She
was materialized radicalism working with every rhetori-
cal means at hand. I still remember how she shone
resplendent at every party day — how she ironically
answered the softer Scheidemann on a day at Jena:
" Du gleichst dem Geist den Du begreifst, niclit mir."
(You resemble the spirit you attack, not me.) Every-
body shook with laughter. Here the stately, blonde
Philip Scheidemann, there the little, undersized, black
Bosa with the limping gait.
There was no end to the hubbub she made. She
stayed nowhere for any length of time, for she was
always raging, always speaking in superlatives, with-
out being able to suggest a better socialistic solution.
She stayed but a few years on the Leipziger Zeltung,
this high school of proletarianism, and for some time
she was Karl Kautsky's coworker on the Neue Zeit.
Here she scattered her ideas on the tender meadows
of science, and during all the years of her development
she remained in close touch with Russian Nihilists and
Social Revolutionists. Once she was caught by the Rus-
sian police and shipped back to Germany, but that did
not break off her connections.
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LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Some tilings she had in common with Louise Michel,
the great anarchist of the Paris Commune: wild, in-
flammatory agitation, suggestive fanaticism, and the
effect on the masses when she talked to them with her
whole soul. When the war broke out she saw the time
had come for the solution of her life's work. With
Liehknecht, Mehring, and Klara Zetkin, she formed a
conspiracy quartet in August or September of 1914.
About this time she published her first war pamphlet:
The "World Vomits Blood!
She kept sliding ever farther toward the Left. The
greater the war intoxication the more her revolutionary
spirit waxed. Gradually this quartet grew to a league
in the spring of 1916, which adopted the name of Spar-
tacus. This was at the time when the Social Demo-
cratic party split up in dreadful convulsions. She. dis-
tributed secret circulars and open letters to the labor
unions until a certain authority had her arrested and
brought to the Breslau prison. Shortly before the 9th
of November she and Karl Liehknecht were set at lib-
erty at the order of Scheidemann.
She was loose again. All the resentment she had
stored up spiritually and mentally during her years of
imprisonment now exploded. In the first November
revolution she stood in the front row on the ramparts.
But on the second day she saw that this was not Tier
revolution. She was still in communication witH the
274
ROSA LUXEMBURG
Independents, at least with Ledebour, Adolph Hoff-
mann, Eichhorn, Daumig, and Richard Miiller, but her
heart drew her to Liebknecht, to the people on the ex-
treme left who would hear of no concessions, who wanted
to extirpate the bourgeoisie and capitalism, and hand
in hand with the Russian Bolshevists spread the world
revolution. Ebert's and Haase's revolution seemed but
a harmless, capitalist-friendly revolution in dressing
gown and slippers, so she went forth and together with
Liebknecht founded the Bote F aline (red flag),
which whipped up the people day after day with its
bloodthirsty fanaticism. She rejected everything: the
Erfurt Social Democratic program, parliamentarism,
the mining propositions, democracy, everything upon
which the Marx socialism was based, and announced at
the Berlin conference that the Spartacists were sep-
arated from the Independents at last. They could now
join the Communists and overthrow the Ebert-Scheide-
mann Government. "We must be prepared for a
period of conflict," she said. "We must undermine
the Government by a revolution of the masses."
And that is how it happened that for a week civil
war raged in Berlin. The Government recruited more
and more troops; narrower and narrower became the
circle around the Spartacists. One fort after another
fell. Ledebour was arrested. Liebknecht ran into the
soldier's net and his faithful Rosa was arrested, too.
275
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
When she left the exclusive Hotel Eden by the zoological
gardens, the mob fell upon her in fury with canes and
parasols.
She was brutally murdered by the officers who had
her in charge, not by the mob. She was struck in the
head with the butt end of a gun and afterwards thrown
into an automobile and shot. The body was then
wrapped with barbed wire and thrown into a canal,
where it was not found for weeks. Of the four officers
concerned only one was condemned to a year or so of
imprisonment, not for the murder of Liebknecht or
Rosa Luxemburg, but for some military misdemeanor.
He was allowed to escape to Holland on a falsified pass.
The trial proceedings may be read in most Berlin papers
of that time.
xxxviii
MAXIMILIAN VON BADEN
This analysis is not easy. In our psychological sem-
inary we have already undertaken a number of psychic
dissect ions, not without success. This case is neither
pathologically nor in any other sense abnormal; it is
thoroughly commonplace in all its details. Only as a
complexity is it dirileult to disentangle.
The Prince is in his fifty-second year and has almost
thirty years of military service behind him. lie was
promoted from Lieutenant of the Garde-Kiirassier regi-
ment to Lieutenant-General and General of the cavalry.
In the first few weeks of the war he was with the four-
teenth army corps sent to the defense of Alsace, but
u his other duties made it impossible for him to retain
this posl for any length of time," as his official release
reads. So he had only a tiny taste of war and has been
but a passive observer. As a militarist he was not
prominent ; he was one of Nature's chosen ones whose
progress could not be stopped by a blue envelope. It
was preordained that he should end as General of the
cavalry and Excellence. Comradeship and sport fascin-
ated him more than military drill or the routine of bar-
1277
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
rack life. This was his field; moreover he was not
ascetic, he knew how to live like a gentleman. There
Was nothing to distinguish him from the average either
as Prince, officer, or sportsman. Live and let live- —
shimmering superficiality.
Before the Prince took up a military career he studied
law and political science at Freiburg and Heidelberg
and took his degree at the University of Leipzig. As
officer he read what everybody else read and dipped a
little into philosophy, especially Plato and Kant. Plato
teaches that it is not the transient and changing life of
the senses that is good, but the striving after truth, after
an ideal existence. We must refine the soul, free it
from everything material in order to become God-like.
Applied to the State, this means sacrificing the indi-
vidual for the benefit of the whole.
To turn from Plato to Christianity: the Prince is
religious, Protestant, but not dogmatic. There is some-
thing of the genuine pietist in him, something of
Spener, Anton, Francke, of Christian mysticism, which
seeks to feel, not reason, — which strives for life, not for
the purely contemplative.
From the very beginning of the war the Prince took
over the care of German prisoners abroad; this was
probably the outlet for the craving to help and give
advice where everybody was fighting and suffering. He
went to work energetically, made frequent trips to
278
MAXIMILIAN VOX BADEN
Stockholm and Switzerland, and really accomplished
the relief of prisoners in Russia and the removal of
interned Germans from France to Switzerland. When-
ever exchanged German prisoners crossed the border at
Lake Constance, he was there to welcome them home.
This was applied Christianity. Kant, too, taught the
same thing in his little booklet: Religion Within the
Borders of Reason. Religion to him meant recognizing
one's duties as commandments from God.
The Prince made an ethical-political-religious con-
fession on the 14th of December, 1917, when he became
president of the Baden House of Representatives. He
examined into the moral foundations of the war with
strong, manly words. Although he contested the right
of the president of the United States to set himself up
as the judge of the world and make war in the name of
humanity, he admitted : " We must not deceive our-
selves, the American people really believe that the war
must continue in order to make the world safe for all
the great ideals. It is a tragical fact of this world war
that Europe is historically, psychologically, and polit-
ically an undiscovered land for the broad masses in
America."
After he had designated the democratic parole in the
mouths of the Western powers as a "monstrous lie,"
he raked the Germans over the coals and preached a
return from the brutalities of war : " Even in war love
279
LEADERS OE YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
for the enemy is the symbol of those who are most faith-
ful to Germany," and " If the world is to become recon-
ciled to the greatness of our power, it must feel that
there is a world conscience behind it."
This speech created a great stir at home and abroad.
The Kaiser telegraphed the orator calling his speech a
deed. Prince Alexander von Hohenlohe, his cousin,
the pacifist, wrote him an enthusiastic letter from
Switzerland. Max was surprised; the loud applause
from the Socialist press was painful to him. " The
Frankfurter Zeitung should let me alone, and the pacif-
ists too. I am not an ideologist." In the first excite-
ment over the, to him, unpleasant echo, he sat down and
wrote a long letter to Prince Alexander:
" In their suggested insanity these newspapers can-
not take a word of reason, of serious, practical Chris-
tianity for what it is worth. They must first drag it
through the mud of their own distortive foolishness in
order to fit it to their lower instincts and opinions."
The courtier speaks from the letter, the blue-blood who
will have his Christianity for himself, who feels him-
self compromised and embarrassed by the applause from
the other bank of the river, and shakes it off with a
shudder. In order that the others may not imagine he
belongs to them — to the democrats in slouch hats and
dirty fingernails — he adds : " Naturally I wish the
greatest possible exploitation of our success and in con-
280
MAXIMILIAN VOX BADEN
trast to the peace resolutions, which are the child of
fear and Berlin dog-days, I wish as much compensation
possible so that we may not be too poor after the war."
This letter, written in a bad humor by one who was
ashamed of the confessions of his own soul, was written
confidentially and for a long time the public knew
nothing of it.
The Prince, who had been the subject of conversa-
tion for a few weeks, again passed into the background
of silence. He lived with his thoughts and often
listened to the words of Dr. Johannes Miiller, who had
great influence over him: Johannes Miiller, the ma*
who knitted up the raveled sleeve of care, who traveled
about in winter giving lectures and in summer, in
Emmau by Patenkirchen, conducted a soul-sanatorium.
Here come soul-tired, seeking people who live during
the day as in any other pension; at night they are
spiritually refreshed by Dr. Miiller. He is no dog-
matic, mechanical, theologian ; he wrestles with his God.
"When he lectures or writes for his scattered parish he
lets a plumb line down into the soul, deeper and deeper,
listening and feeling what is stored away down there
untouched by the material. He spins his listeners into
a web of finest thought sensations, and only he who is
equipped cap-a-pie with critical reason can withstand
the murmuring melodies of his ethics which often be-
come blurred, muddled, and foolish when brought down
281
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
from the spiritual heights onto the flatlands of practical
life. But no one goes away empty-handed. He has
something to say to each. Even the Prince has more
than once gone away with rich food for thought.
On August 22, 1918, in a general meeting held by
both Houses of the Baden Landtag to celebrate the cen-
tennial of their constitution, Prince Max made a speech.
This time somewhat formal, but the ethical seeped
through even here. " The danger of a moral-national
illness threatens us," he said, " but it can be exorcised
if our spiritual leaders remain conscious of their duties
as the guards and healers of the people's souls." He
then acknowledged his faith in a League of Nations.
We have still to examine the milieu in which he grew
to manhood. Much was anticipated. His father was
Prince Willi elm of Baden, the eldest of the two
brothers of the Grand Duke, Friedrich I. His mother,
Princess Marie, can trace her ancestry to Napoleon's
time. She was a Duchess of Leuchtenberg and a grand-
daughter of Eugen Beauharnais, who was Napoleon I's
stepson and vice-regent of Italy. Prince Max is mar-
ried to Princess Marie of Cumberland, the oldest
sister of Duke Ernst August of Braunschweig. His
connections on both sides are splendid. He played no
small part in the reconciliation of the Hohenzollerns
and the Guelphs. From his international connections
,and also from his friendship with the Social Democrat,
282
MAXIMILIAN" VOX BADEX
Ludwig Frank, we get a new glimpse of his humani-
tarian cosmopolitanism which rises above mere national-
ism to the plane of common humanity.
In October when Count Hertling resolved to resign
from the chancellorship in order to make room for the
new regime, Herr von Berg, chief of the imperial cabi-
net, suggested Prince Max as his successor. Fehren-
bach, president of the Keichstag, and von Payer, Vice-
Chancellor, had refused the position. The Prince
came, saw, and conquered. His good reputation pre-
ceded him. People said he had warned them at Head-
quarters against a spring offensive, but they had not
listened to him. The Prince got into touch with the
party leaders and soon agreed with them ; the way was
cleared over night for a parliamentary system. Pro-
gressives, Center, and Social Democrats were called
into the cabinet. The conservatives were also invited.
At the request of the army leaders his first act was to
send a message to Wilson asking for truce and peace
transactions. His clear, open speech in the Reichstag,
in which he plainly announced the beginning of a new
period, pleased everybody immensely. Only the con-
servatives were horrified at this princely leader of the
people's Government.
And then — through some indiscretion of the Paris
press, that unfortunate letter to Prince von Hohenlohe
was made public. There was a hasty vote. The Prince
283
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
declared his loyalty. The parties discussed the matter
and concluded to overlook the purely human impulse.
Even the Social Democrats forgave him; there were
larger things at stake — for instance, peace. In this
way under her Princely Chancellor, Germany was thor-
oughly democratized. Militarism was rooted out, stock
and branch, and the imperial power was vested in the
Civil Government. These reforms went through in
quick time, but it was all over in less than six weeks.
Even the Prince had to step aside for the revolution.
Was he a great politician? Hardly, but at least he
was not of the old Bismarck school. The time for
diplomatic tricks, for countermoves, was over. Ger-
many marched headlong into the world catastrophe
from this sort of politics. The Prince wanted to see
what candid honesty would do, trusting in the conscience
of the world.
But before his plea for truce was answered he had to
make way for the Socialist, Ebert.
XXXIX
KURT EISNER
When the Royal orchestra, under Weingartner's
leadership, gave its symphony concerts, a little man
gladly climbed four long nights of stairs to the gallery,
where there was standing room only, to listen to the
sweet strains of music. This was Kurt Eisner, mod-
est, unpretentious, silent — introspective journalist and
politician. A Social Democrat at a time when it was
not fashionable to speak of such things. A votary, bi^.t
not one to hold beery speeches with pathetic gestures
in a smoky beer hall. His fine feeling prevented this ;
he was no people's politician. He wrote splendidly,
intelligently, and sarcastically, and yet not for the
nameless masses. At the end of the old century, when
he accepted Wilhelm Liebknecht's call to the Vorwarts,
he was the one editor in Berlin who dazzled most with-
out being himself a dazzler.
He came from a simple Berlin home and began as
a Democrat. He studied philosophy and Germanism
for eight semesters and then looked about for some way
to earn his bread. His first books, Psychopathia Spir-
itualis and Friedrich Nietzsche, brought him neither
285
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
fame nor money. At the age of twenty-five he began to
write for the press — for the Frankfurter Zeitung —
and then for the Landeszeitung in Marburg. Here the
Jew came into conflict with anti-Semitism. In the
stormy election days of that time one of his circulars
attracted especial attention. "How is it, you farmers
of Hessen," he wrote, " how is it that you do not know
that your candidate, Bockel, has sixteen illegitimate
children ? Is it to such a person that you want to give
your vote ? " But Kurt Eisner did not know these lusty
farmers. Never did Bockel receive so many votes as
then; the sixteen illegitimate children had suddenly
endeared him to the people.
From Marburg Eisner's writings found their way
into the rest of the world roundabout. His article:
" A Political ISTew Year's Reception," got him a month
in jail. The court considered it an insult to His
Majesty. In August, 1898, when he had served his
time, the Vorwarts received him into the fold again.
He threw his whole soul into political life ; his severity
knew no bounds. With splendid bravery he led the
battle against the new high tariffs. I still remember
his biting article entitled, " Tax-crazy," and the night
he devoted to the Reichstag when the Left wing tried
to obstruct the passage of the bill by long speeches.
Antrick (Social Democrat) alone spoke eight hours.
The afternoon passed by, it became evening, night, mid-
286
KURT EISNER
night, and still he spoke on. It was Saturday ; the long-
coated Center people wanted to go home in order not to
leave their flocks without a shepherd over Sunday. They
stood around stamping their feet and swinging their
hand bags in impatience. They could not leave until
the fateful vote was taken. " Ileute geld Herrendienst
vor Gotlesdienst " (Representative service comes before
church service to-day. Literally: Lord's service comes
before God's service), wrote Eisner dryly. The ob-
struction was finally broken; the Junkers, factory
barons, Conservatives, Center, and National Liberals
won out. And I remember how he turned the Conserv-
ative socialist-eaters' own words against them : " Noth-
ing is holy to such beings, not even the majesty of the
people."
His ideas were inexhaustible; he was never embar-
rassed for words. He listened to everything without
insolence, and then coolly and clearly gave back his re-
flections. An introspective man he was, sufficient unto
himself, a Sybarite in a cold, carpetless room, a radical
who did not intoxicate himself with words, but a man
of careful thought who gave from his inmost soul. He
was shy, hesitating, and modest as a young maiden who
blushes at a word. Moreover, he was not really radical
at that time ; he was a revisionist like Eduard Bernstein,
whom he resembled in many other ways. At the Dres-
den party days in 1903, when the dirty party clothes
287
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
were being thoroughly washed — when one bad odor
after another polluted the atmosphere — when Rebel,
with fire and sword, sought to stamp out revisionism —
the verdict against the Vorwarts was also brought in.
The " noble six " were kicked out. Kurt Eisner stuck
to the reviled ones and so the whole editorial staff flew.
With a shout of triumph Daumig and company, Stadt-
hagen and Adolph Hoffman took over the Vorwarts
and steered her course bravely onto the stormy high seas
of radicalism. Kurt Eisner was again out in the cold ;
would he have to begin all over again ? Once when his
pocket book was always empty he had been happy when
some Philistine paper accepted his articles, or when he
could get a bit of hack-work to do such as a congress
report. "Were these hand-to-mouth days to begin all
over again? The articles he had already published
brought him in no money at all. These were " The
Junker Revolt"; "Wilhelm Liebknecht"; "Spirit of
the Day"; "The Future State of To-day", and " Ko-
nigsberg, the Czar's Secret Compact". For a few years
he lived precariously. Finally, in 1907, the socialistic
Frankische Tagespost in Nurnberg engaged him as
editor-in-chief. He became a naturalized Bavarian in
order to be able to accomplish more politically. Again
his publications made him known far beyond the out-
skirts of the old Diirer city. "Not as representative or
party delegate, which he never was at any time during
288
KURT EISKER
his life. lie spoke very badly at this time — was any-
thing but a public speaker, so that the party could use
him only as a reporter.
But those precarious years following his dismissal
from the Yorwarts had one advantage — during this
time he made a study of foreign politics. The first
fruits of these studies was his booklet on Morocco, The
Sultan of the World War, which announced the ap-
proaching catastrophe.
Niirnberg held him fast for three years, then he
moved to Munich where he published the Arbeiter
Feuilleton, which was used by almost the whole demo-'
cratic press, and became coworker on the Munchener
Post. On many a discussion evening he sought to en-
lighten the working masses. In this way he gradually
learned to talk.
And then the war broke out. As correspondent of
the Chemnitzer Yolkssthnme — Noske's paper — he
brought out the first announcements in regard to the
now unavoidable catastrophe — the result of Russian
war policy, as he then believed. The revisionist gradu-
ally became a radical — like Bernstein. Everything he
wrote was confiscated by the censor, so he soon confined
himself to dramatic criticism. He saw the misfortune
approaching ever nearer and nearer, and attempted to
stave it off, to hold it back. The workers should arise
and put an end to this wholesale butchery : " every
289
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
wheel stands still, if only your strong arm wills." He
had long ago joined the Independents. In February,
1918, the time seemed ripe. He helped to fan the
flames of the general strike movement in Munich. To-
gether with Frau Eugen Lersch, he was arrested on the
night of February 1st and put in prison, where he re-
mained for eight and one-half months. Shut off from
the world without the possibility of helping to hasten
the coming revolution, he wrote and wrote, and finally
concluded a new series, The Dreams of a Prophet.
On a September day the doors of his prison opened.
The party had put him up for the Reichstag in place of
Georg von Yollmar, who wished to retire from political
life. A few weeks afterwards the revolutionary waves
from Kiel began to ripple. Eisner's great moment had
come.
Enormous gatherings and huge demonstration par-
ades everywhere, Munich included. Berlin was quiet;
they did not yet hear the roar of the tidal wave. It had
just begun to whisper. But the waves were already
roaring in Munich. On the sixth of November they
broke loose. But we will let Eisner himself speak:
" Two days before the revolution, when the masses
gathered on the Theresien meadow, when this thousand-
headed throng began to call for deeds and to threaten
to march that very night into Munich to begin the revo-
lution, I cried out to them : 1 1 will wager my head that
290
KURT EISNER
in forty-eight hours all Munich will arise.' This prom-
ise was kept almost to the minute. If I had said that
same morning that the reign of the Wittelsbachs, who
had ruled for eight hundred years, would be over within
a few hours — that a Bavarian Republic would be pro-
claimed — they would have locked me in an insane
asylum."
Instead of the insane asylum he marched into the
ministerial palace at the head of laborers, soldiers, and
scholars — overthrew the old powers, the court and all
its parasites, bureaucracy, and the whole crumbling,
degenerated system. He then constituted the councils
of Workmen, Soldiers, and Farmers, took over the man-
agement, and during the night of the 8th of November
issued the first proclamation: "Bavaria's socialistic
civil war is ended. The working masses will be united
on the basis of our revolutionary program. Long live
the Bavarian Republic! Long live peace! Long live
the work of all Workers ! " Other proclamations fol-
lowed, speeches, revolutionary poems, political utter-
ances — all esthetic enjoyments.
Kurt Eisner, whose life was spent in toil and trouble,
grew old before his time. A gray, shaggy beard framed
his face. Deep furrows lined his restless brow. His
large, noble forehead seemed larger because of an almost
bald head. Behind, the hair fell on his shabby coat like
that of a patriarch. His shoulders are bent. A heavy
291
LEADERS OF YESTEKDAY AND TO-DAY
nickel-framed pince-nez rested on a broad nose. His
eyes had red, tired lids, but his mind was fresh and
active. Kurt Eisner, Bavarian minister-president, was
suddenly spoken of the world over.
The old democracy, the old partiamentary system was
broken, he said. New forms must be created and he
would create them. The Workers, Soldiers, and Farm-
ers' Councils would be the fundamental principle. He
seemed to wish to return to a medieval system based
on professions, but hesitated and kept his promise to
stand for a National Assembly. The press he knew so
well made him uncomfortable — he reflected upon some
means to extract the poison from its fangs but was dis-
mayed at the idea of repressing public opinion. He
would have liked to banish all those guilty of the war, to
proscribe those who worked for it afterwards — Scheide-
mann, David, Solf, and Erzberger. Rather should
Bavaria conclude a separate peace than sit at the table
with such compromised politicians. When Berlin did
not react to this he sent an ultimatum threatening to
break off all relations with the Foreign Office. Berlin
laughed, called him a charlatan, a fool, a carnival joke
come to life ; he could write beautifully but it was im-
possible for him to think or act politically.
Was Berlin right I wonder ? Eisner saw in Germany
the only guilty party in the war; he probed in the
wounds of his nation.
292
KURT EISNER
The despotic politicians on the other side of the
Rhine laughed at him as an ideologist, intoxicated by
beautiful, sweeping, painful gestures.
Eisner's attitude caused considerable excitement in
Munich and created an atmosphere charged with elec-
tricity. x\n explosion might follow at any moment.
When Eisner, under the pressure of the Bourgeois ele-
ment and the Majority Social Democrats, finally de-
cided to call together the Bavarian Constituent Assem-
bly, the Communists had determined to make its open-
ing session the signal for giving battle. Just then a
strange thing happened. The Reactionaries took a hand
in the action. On February 21, 1919, Eisner, while on
his way to the session of the Parliament, was shot down
by a young, rattle-brained Nationalist, Count Arco-
Valley, and only half an hour later the Communists
forced their way into the Diet and at the very moment
when a eulogy in honor of the assassinated Eisner was
to be pronounced began to fire on the ministers. The
Social Democratic minister Auer was severely wounded
by a revolver shot, an officer and a delegate were killed.
The Bavarian Soviet Republic was now proclaimed and
the dark days of Munich's Red Terror were ushered in.
XL
WILHELM KARL DITTMANN
Whenever I see Dittmann I am reminded of Hjalmar
Ekdal in Ibsen's Wild Duck. He is an imposing, im-
pressive man — tall, slender, with a beautiful mane of
light brown hair, a pointed beard, and a jaunty mus-
tache above it. Two keen eyes that one does not soon
forget. But there is something about him that makes
him a bit ridiculous — a discrepancy somewhere be-
tween will and ability, between what he really is and
what he seems to be. Like the difference between an
artist and his photograph, between a scholar and the
druggist clerk with his " highf alutin' " plans while
mixing pills and salve.
Hjalmar had a liking for grand sounding words which
always contradicted his actions. Gregers Werle com-
pares the Ekdals to the picture of a wild duck : " Div-
ing under, she bit into the seaweed and became so en-
tangled that she could not come up again unless some
dog could bring her up, even against her will."
Dittmann bit into radicalism so firmly that he could
not come up again although he longed to be on top.
He, too, awaited a Gregers Werle to pull him out. He
294
WILHELM KARL DITTMAN
was drawn into the revolutionary cabinet as a lusty
Independent ; daily placed before new and practical de-
cisions, lie bad to act, to sbow bis colors. All at once
be saw that nothing was ever accomplished by mere
criticism or pathos — that one did not get very far
with Ledebour passion, which was ready to demolish
everything at once, but that actions also meant responsi-
bility. In these few weeks of governing he began to
slide more and more toward the Eight and began to
approach Ebert, Scheidemann, and Landsberg, the once
reviled Social Democrats.
At the congress of councils, when Ledebour's poison-
ous arrows prickled, he made a confession of faith in
common socialism which unites both sides in spite of
momentary problems or tactics. He admonished his
comrades to unite for the National Assembly election,
to present a united front to the enemy, capitalism, and
insure the safety of the fruits of the revolution. He
saw his Gregers Werle in the masses, who would act in
this manner whether the leader will or no. The leader
must be the tool of the masses. The radicals, all the
big and little Ledebours, trembled with disgust and rage
at this recalcitrant who had suddenly deserted his colors.
In the last act Hjalmar Ekdal, with a pathetic ges-
ture, is about to leave his wife, Gina, from whose past
Gregers Werle lifted the veil. He packs his things,
gathers up all the odds and ends, and is already pulling
295
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
on his overcoat when Gina all of a sudden places bread,
butter, meat and beer on the table. Hjalmar sees it,
sniffs a few times and decides to remain — at least for
a moment. He stays for good.
Dittmann was one of the most savage in the battle
against the backsliding majority Socialists — he began
to rampage with hands and feet if he only smelled them
from a distance. Then they placed a dish of meat be-
fore him in the shape of a seat in the cabinet, and he,
too, decided to remain — for a time. His place in the
Government grew cosier and for a few weeks he left the
radicalism to his companions outside.
From the very beginning he had served Social Demo-
cracy. He was born at Eutin, 1874, on a dull Novem-
ber day. There he attended the people's school and for
four years learned the joiner's trade. He had a firm
fist, went at a job energetically, and soon made the chips
fly. The Philistines got goose-flesh when he began to
stir up the proletariat against capitalism. At the age
of twenty-one he became member of the party and the
Trade Union, and wandered through almost the whole
of Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg, province Branden-
burg, and finally settled in Berlin. Here he worshiped
the Great Ones from afar and was initiated into the
higher mysteries of socialism. In 1899 he was sent to
Bremenshaven as editor of the Norddeutsche Volks-
stimme. The way to fame and success lay straight be-
296
WILHELM KAEL DITTMAN
fore him. Three years later he was sent in the same
capacity to Solingen and was called from there to Frank-
furt am Main as party secretary. He was the first
Social Democrat to enter the city council. The gods
regarded him with favor, i. e., the party gods. For he
spoke with a beautiful, sonorous voice, made an impres-
sion on the lovely bevy of lady cashiers, and when he
unleashed his anger against the capitalistic world —
when he pretended to have the key to the realization of
Marx's dogma (Hjalmar's secret discovery) then his
listeners would jump from their seats and applaud until
the walls trembled. With fluttering necktie and waving
mane he could bow gratefully while the young ladies of
the party, their modest bosoms decorated with red rib-
bons, whispered in each others* ears : " Isn't he just
grand ! Just like the moving picture hero ! "
In 1909 he was again editor in Solingen. He had to
do penance for many an impulsive word written and
spoken. As party delegate he was sent to Bremen,
Leipzig, Magdeburg, and Jena, and also took part in the
International Socialistic Congress at Stuttgart and at
Copenhagen. It was rather late when he entered the
Reichstag in 1912. Here he settled down at the ex-
treme left wing and was not to be joked with. In spite
of this, he approved of the war credit and participated
in the policy of August, 1914, until he was at last initi-
ated to a higher knowledge and, together with Ledebour
297
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
and Haase, separated himself from trie Scheidemann
people — his bosom friends of yesterday. They opened
up a firm of their own — the Labor party, from which
sprung the Independent Social Democrats. He reached
the height of his parliamentary accomplishments during
the jDrison debate when he carried almost the whole
House with him with his well-tempered pathos. Be-
hind the scenes he was not backward in preparing the
way for the revolution. He was also mixed up in the
mutiny of 1917, but came off with a black eye. The
next time he was not so fortunate — during the Janu-
ary strike in Berlin, when he was really trying to pour
oil on the troubled waves, he was arrested while making
a speech to the demonstrating masses, and put behind
the bars.
The 9th of November brought him freedom as it did
many others. After that he sat in high council with
the people's representatives and helped to decide Ger-
many's fate. But only for a month and a half. After
the bloody Christmas day before the palace he resigned
from the cabinet, together with his " Independent "
comrades, because the people on the street demanded it
and because one cannot govern long with two souls in
one's breast.
XLI
ADOLPH GROEBER
A "Wurttemberg Democrat of the old stock, for when
he speaks he does not conceal his thoughts, he fires
away like a booming cannon. A long, grizzled white
beard and bushy mane of hair frame his ruddy counte-
nance. A pair of spectacles that sit astride the middle
of his nose, and a slightly bent figure lend Adolph
Groeber a sort of comfortable atmosphere; Santa Claus
of the Center, St. Nicholas with his sack full of polit-
ical toys. His father used to be a manufacturer of toys
somewhere down in Riedlingen. He, the son, has trans-
formed the same material into intellect and now plays
with politics. Tin soldier or politician — both are
shoved around by the rough hands of fate and placed
upright again when they tumble down.
Groeber got to know the alternating political game
better than most. He entered the Reichstag in 1887,
when Bismarck drove the anti-militarists, Windhorst,
Richter, and Grillenberger, into a combine, when he
dissolved Parliament and forged the cartel of Conserva-
tives and National Liberals. In these turbulent times,
when other Center men were beaten, he came off victor
299
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
and was elected. Two years later lie was sent to the
iWtirttemberg Landtag. As a faithful Eckart of Catho-
lic democracy, he took an active part in all the quickly
changing political phases of that time. He spread his
wide coat protectively over the Poles and the labor rep-
resentatives whenever the feudal wing of the Conserva-
tives — the Junkers and Agrarians — lifted up their
heads too impudently. He was a zealous partisan of
social politics, and regarded the Catholic Church and
her political gate-keepers, the Center party in Germany,
as something above the State — as international. The
teachings of the Holy One were meant for all the world,
for the Latin, as well as the Germanic and the Slav peo-
ples. Even the negroes were not excluded. They were
all human beings to him — human beings who thirsted
after the salvation of their souls. God loved them all
equally well — Jesus and Mother Mary, too. Only the
saints seemed to be somewhat partial. . For instance,
Cyrill and Methodius had their preference for the Poles,
Czechs and Bulgarians ; Adelbertus for the Lithuanians,
and St. Joseph . . . Oh, well, you know all the
little weaknesses.
I still remember about ten years ago how friend Mat-
thias Erzberger spoke in the Reichstag on the immor-
tality of the negro's soul. Carried away by his own
pathos, he almost lost himself in the Elysian regions of
the black man's paradise. It was a long-winded affair
300
ADOLPII GROEBER
and the tired heads of the assembly soon began to nod
so devoutly one might think sleep was about to overtake
them. At this juncture, when one could almost hear the
seconds ticking past, someone on the tribune laughed
aloud. Disturbed in his religious thoughts, Groeber
flung a curse at the journalists' bench: " These jour-
nalists, these swine ! " That was a poke in a wasp's nest.
The journalists were indignant and struck. They went
to the president of the House and negotiations began.
The president wouldn't apologize and Groeber wouldn't.
There was a session going on, but the world never knew
anything of it. Even the Beichsanzeiger struck with
the following comment : " On account of certain pro-
ceedings in the Reichstag session of March 19, 1908,
the press representatives have laid down their work for
an indefinite period. Therefore, this account contains
only the resolutions brought up at the session and the
declaration of the Bundesrat table." The strike was
sanctioned by the Government. Prince Biilow, who was
to make his great speech, kept putting if off and finally
contrived to bring about a compromise. Mr. Groeber
apologized and the meeting went on.
Groeber's position in the party was not affected in
the least by this little episode. He continued to oppose
the Conservatives and his power kept on the increase.
He was the third after Her fling and Spahn. When
Hertling was called to the Bavarian cabinet, Spahn
301
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
became Minister of Justice, and Fehrenbach president
of the Reichstag, then Groeber became first. He and
Erzberger set the pace for the party — Groeber, the
elder, holding the check-rein, Erzberger, the younger,
ever pushing forward. Groeber with his belief in polit-
ical authority, Erzberger without respect for tradition ;
Groeber, champion of a League of Nations from a
Catholic viewpoint, and of universal disarmament,
Erzberger his tractable pupil. Groeber was the party
specialist on all international questions.
No wonder he had gone through the usual juristic
routine — from barrister in Rottweil to director of the
provincial court in Heilbronn. With years came also
the burdens of political offices. He entered the execu-
tive committee of the Center party, this Folks Verein
for Catholic Germany, and presided frequently on great
days. At last he was leader of the Center faction in
the Reichstag and, after von Payer, leader of the inter-
factional committee of the Reichstag majority parties.
After having neither supported nor helped to overthrow
the Chancellor, Count Hertling, he became Secretary
of State without a portfolio, in the new parliamen-
tary Government. With von Payer and Scheidemann
he formed the trifolium about the new Prince Chan-
cellor. They who had been sitting in the critics' par-
quet were now active players on the political stage.
And people had already numbered him among the
302
ADOLPH GROEBER
<k has-beens " ! It was not so long ago that he was seri-
ously ill and sent for the priest to administer the last
sacrament before his expected departure for another
world. He is already sixty-five years old and his bur-
dens have grown heavier with the years.
"When he passes through the corridors of the Reichs-
tag he is generally encased in two or three black coats
buttoned up to the neck. In Berlin he lives in a modest
Christian hospice, and every morning he takes his little
airing in the Tiergarten. In winter when the snow
covers the earth and he goes stamping through the drifts,
the children stand still and ask if that really is Santa
Claus. . . .
SLII
EMU. EICIIIIORN
I knew tlicm all — the Berries, Stubenrauch, Jagow,
and Opj)en — who held the rascals of Berlin in check
during the last ten or twelve years with an army of blue-
coats. They were not mere police presidents, like their
colleagues in more prominent cities — they were more,
they were Governors to a greater or less degree accord-
ing to their standing, and the strongest supports of the
old secular system that was centralized in Berlin.
Direct telephone connections with the palace, with all
Imperial official buildings and the Ministry excluded
all chance of surprise. A little pressure on a button,
a flash of light in the telephone central, and the thou-
sand-windowed fortress on Alcxandcrplatz immediately
vomited forth an army on foot, on horse, and in civil inn,
ready to dash in wherever there promised to be trouble.
In this Alexander castle the president was enthroned,
inrooms 102-03. The presidents are all immortalized by
portraits on the walls of the reception room, like pastors
who have left their flocks for more blissful regions.
Nineteen portraits already hang here. The first, a
lithograph of President Gruner, who heads the list in
1809, is badly faded. Ilerr von Oppen, who had to flee
before the masses as they poured into these sacred rooms.
304
EMIL EICIIIIOKN
during the November revolution, did not have time to
dedicate his portrait to the ancestral hall. Ilerr Eich-
horn, the great revolutionary president, had still less
time, and, if I know the gentleman well, it will probably
not be missed. His name will live in documents, but
he will not be placed on show.
When I first saw him in all his new dignity, it was
at a conference where he was busy expounding new
ideas. A haggard, slender man, already past fifty, yel-
lowish complexion, prominent check-bones, long, greasy
hair carefully brushed back from his forehead, a
skimpy, bluish-green mustache on the ends. Heavens!
ho looked harmless enough, simple, modest, and pru-
dent, a regular Philistine.
As he unrolled his program, how good it sounded —
so full of insight, charity, and fairness! Surely things
will be different now! "But you must give me time.
1 1 can't bo done all at once. The policemen shall hence-
forth be called Safety men. The weapons which have
caused so much bad blood among the public shall be
taken away from them. And then prostitution shall be
regulated in a different manner; the criminal police
system shall be reorganized. And then of course you
want to know what my political convictions are. I am
a political oillcer. I am socialistic, on the left side —
Independent The interests of the people are the most
important thing to me. My greatest desire is that the
305
LEADEKS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
people of Berlin shall have confidence in me. Oh,
yes — they talk of the Bolshevists over there in Russia
with so much disgust. Of course I am no Bolshevist,
but the people should not let themselves be so easily
fooled. The Bolshevists are not as black as they are
painted. Most reports are exaggerated. And the
papers — yes — I say it merely to show that even if
one is not a Bolshevist one must be fair to one's oj)po-
nent. And, as I said before, the police are to be dis-
armed. Then the public will have confidence in me."
Heavens, I thought, Social Democracy did not pitch
out a mental giant, exactly, for the head of their police
system. I quite comprehend that the majority Socialist,
Eugen Ernst, would have been preferable. But Eich-
horn had the strongest elbows and pushed his way to
the front an hour earlier. In order to keep on good
terms with the Independents in the Government they
made the best of the situation. The chief of the chan-
cellery, a dignified gentlemen who has already served
six or seven masters, told me half-conficlentially that
Mr. Eichhorn was always very pleasant and obliging,
but . . .
But what? Well, one must not know his political
past. He was a genuine, easy-going Saxon, born in
Rohrsdorf by Chemnitz, Germany's political storm
pot. Once Johannes Most, the savage anarchist and
communist, triumphed there. About thirty years ago
306
EMIL EICHHOKN
he wrote: "Give us a thousand wheelwrights and in
three months the revolution will be there: poison and
daggers, dynamite and nitroglycerin, revolvers and
torches, shall lay waste the world . . ."
Eichhorn had nothing in common with Most's hot-
blooded temperament ; he was brought up on slops and
butter bread. He attended the public school and later
private technical institutes, but he did not have to hide
his light under a bushel — its flame was scarcely visible
as it was. Finally he became — Oh, ye Gods and nine
Muses — a glacier. When he entered the Labor Union
movement he broke a good many party windows. In
spite of his easy-going Saxon disposition, it was very
soon discovered that he was radical — super-radical.
Nevertheless he woke up one day as chairman of the
Glaziers' organization, a new organizer was discovered.
But he longed for intellectual fields ; the glass-cutter
had served its purpose. Glue pot and scissors — these
were his ideals henceforth. He became editor in Dres-
den ; now he could shine — you ought to have seen him.
This was the way to handle the scissors and dip the
brush in the glue pot ! This was the way to show the
bourgeois what was what. But before he could finish
this war on paper he was called to Karlsruhe as secre-
tary of the Workers' party. Here he was mild as butter
because the South Germans, and especially the Baden
people, were not fond of radicalism.
307
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
He climbed high and higher, became editor again
in Mannheim, city councillor of the same place, and
member of the Baden Landtag. The district of Pforz-
heim-Durlach sent him to the Reichstag. Now he could
show these crazy Philistines a thing or two! But he
didn't — he enjoyed himself with slops and butter
bread again. Only when he came back from Berlin
was he radical once more. Gradually the Badener party
got wise to the fact that he was only a blustering noodle-
pate, and he was not put up as candidate in 1912. They
had had enough of him.
Now he angrily burned all bridges behind him; he
left ungrateful Baden and settled in Berlin, where he
found a small position in the Social Democrat press
bureau. He was Johnny-on-the-spot at the party split-
up. New stars beckoned, new successes. He stirred
up one mess after another, became a welcome guest of
Liebknecht, Riihle, Dittmann, and Ledebour, and kept
himself fresh in their minds in case of a decisive
change in the party. And right-o — he was appointed
chief of the U. S. P. D.'s press bureau. When Herr
Joffe, with his Bolshevik staff, took possession of the
Russian embassy, Eichhorn and his wife joined the
Rosta — that notorious Bolsheviki espionage factory —
for the sum of one thousand five hundred marks
monthly. Now he had revolutionary ground under his
feet and could prepare for that which was to come.
308
EMIL EICHHORN
At last he stood there as police president of Berlin
with, oh, such noble intentions. While the police were
being disarmed in order to " win the confidence of the
public," he was secretly arming the radical Berlin
laborers and gradually turning the police headquarters
into an arsenal and a fortress. His Spartacist doings
became more and more open and one could count the
days on one's fingers until the Red Guard was to be
let loose on Berlin. The socialistic Government hesi-
tated, and when they finally removed him from office
it was the signal for the counter-revolution from the
Left. Eight days Berlin was a battlefield — a strug-
gle between Spartacists and the Government. One bar-
ricade after another was taken by the Government
troops, and at last the police presidium surrendered.
In the meantime Eichhorn occupied another fortress,
the Botzow brewery ; when this was threatened he fled.
Eichhorn is a very questionable figure. He was not
a person to fight openly and honestly for his principles.
2\Ioney — much money stuck to his fingers. He sent
many a one to his death who believed he was fighting
for political faith. He let loose the scum of Berlin
against peaceful citizens ; in grotesque inversion he did
his best to make Berlin unsafe.
This intellectually insignificant man in the mask of
a Philistine is really comical. He can boast of having
turned everything topsy-turvy for a few weeks.
309
XLIII
KAEL LIEBKNECHT
Did you see him in that big, automobile truck
speaking to the crowd pressing around? Did you see
the machine guns on both sides of him? Did you
see the gloomy eavesdroppers in the midst of the mass,
their hands on the handle of the revolver in their pocket,
ready to shed their blood and the blood of others for
their hero up there on the wagon? Do you feel the
uncanny, suggestive power that Liebknecht pours over
the solid mass of people when he speaks? His pro-
truding eyes roll wildly as if to bore the brains of his
audience. His hands are constantly in motion; now
he tears open his jacket, strikes his chest dramatically
and shrieks : " Brothers, comrades, shoot me dead if
what I say is not true ! ' The next moment he runs
his fingers through his hair, thrusts out his head and
hurls these words at his listeners : " To the lamp-post
with Ebert and Scheidemann, the bloodhounds ! "
The people become excited — red flags are unfurled,
and quickly a line is formed to parade through the
center of Berlin.
It is the same old story ever since the revolution has
begun to feel at home. The Bote F aline prints these
310
KARL LIEBKNECHT
Liebknecht and Luxemburg tirades every day. The
Berliner used to feel the cold chills running up and
down his back when he read them, but he has gradually
grown used to them and no longer takes these " counter
revolutions " tragically.
Is this slender, little man of forty-seven years merely
a demon-ridden fanatic? Or has the border between
intellect and madness already been crossed ?
Let us look back over his life, perhaps we shall find
the key there. Wilhelm, his father, was a revolutionist
of '48, and took part in the Baden uprising which was
suppressed by Prussian troops. The old man's socialis-
tic principles cost him something ; nowhere did he find
peace or rest for long. Now he was expelled from this
place and now from that. More than once he was im-
prisoned. One year after Karl's birth he and August
Bebel were sentenced to two years in the fortress at
Hubertusburg for treason. Between periods of exile
and imprisonment he wrote for the newspapers, for the
Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, the Volksstaat, and
finally for the Vorwarts. Besides these he wrote a
great many socialistic booklets and pamphlets, mostly
propagandist^. Bismarck persecuted him with all the
energy of his strong personality. At the beginning of
the Franco-Prussian war, when the Reichstag brought
in the bill for war-credit, Liebknecht and Bebel with-
held their votes.
311
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AXD TO-DAY
The boy Karl never stood very well with his father,
who was idolized by the proletariat more than any other
party veteran. There was very little in common be-
tween them except fanatic conviction and an excessive
imagination. The father's imagination, however, did
not extend so much to politics — he was always prac-
tical. But it was different with Karl. He was very
stubborn and not to be influenced by his father. In
Leipzig, where he was bom, he enjoyed the usual mid-
dle class upbringing, attending the grammar school, the
ISTicolai gymnasium, and then went into " exile " with
his father when he was expelled from Leipzig by the
socialistic laws. They settled for the time being in the
suburb, Borsdorf. Karl took his examinations in Ber-
lin and entered the university there. Even as a student
he carried on a reckless social agitation, always be-
longed to the most radical set, and was a welcome guest
at the laborers' assemblies in the north and east of
Berlin. Only one thing he lacked, and that was the
gift of speech. He spoke very indistinctly, lisped, and
had a high, falsetto voice which changed so frequently
that his hearers almost smiled with pity. But his iron
energy overcame even this. Like Demosthenes, he did
not give up until his speech was distinct and clear,
although he never acquired the sonorous resonance he
would have liked to possess. He longed to speak, and
if he displeased the people, he would pour so much
312
KAKL liebkstecht
passion into his words that they would be compelled to
listen to him. And that is what he did.
In Wiirzburg, where the world at the foot of the
proud Marienburg begins to be fascinatingly beautiful,
he received his Doctor Juris et Berum Politicarum.
Restless and unmannerly, he passed three or four bar-
rister years in Augsburg, Paderborn, and Hamm, always
in strict Catholic neighborhoods. Curiously enough,
he once related before a public meeting that he was
directly descended from Martin Luther on his father's
side. After passing the examination for assistant judge
he became a lawyer and settled down in Berlin like his
brother. His practice increased rapidly, for he was
after all the son of a famous father. The proletariat
swarmed to him — he gradually became the outcasts'
defender. His following in the socialistic forum also
increased. Through his reckless radicalism, which
knew no bounds even then, he whipped up the masses.
He often got a dressing down from old Bebel, who soon
broke off all personal relations with him, although he
had once been an intimate friend of the father's.
In 1902 Liebknecht obtained his first post of honor;
he became city councillor and a member of the Charity
Board. Six years, together with a few others, he en-
tered the Prussian House, which up to now had been
socialistically pure. Here he fought many a round
with the dignified, long-bearded, Count Schwerin-
313
LEADEKS OF YESTEEDAY AND TO-DAY
Lowitz. Like a naughty boy, he strained at the regu-
lations, sought to upset the petrified traditions of the
House, and tried to load a small class-campaign on his
own account.
His special hobby was anti-militaristic propaganda,
which he carried even into the barracks. His little
hook, Militarism and anll-MUUarisin, loft no doubt as
to his opinions. The court interfered, and his forensic
dialectic had no effect on the red-robed judges at Leip-
zig; he was sentenced to one and a half years at the
foil ress — after all one could not forbid him his fanatic
idealism. He was sent to the fortress at Glatz, and
here ho had time to think over his life and make plans
for the future. Between these gloomy and joyless four
w T alls, in the midst of soldiers eternally coming and
going, his beliefs became the more firmly fixed. Hate
and repulsion for the middle classes, capitalistic and
militaristic society, ate deeper and deeper into his soul.
More and more compelling became the inner command
to break up this bourgeois verein by a, revolution of the
proletariat. After this test, after the days and nights
of brooding, which only strengthened his ideals, he
again issued forth into the midst of human society.
New impulses drove him to new actions. In 1910 he
went to America, as his father had done before him,
in order to escape the suffocating, political atmosphere
of Germany. Over there, across the great pond, he was
314
KARL LIEBKNECHT
likely to become enlightened. He would see capitalism
in all its power and monstrous concentration, and see
that (he German laborer is really far better off than
his brother in America.
lie published an article to this effect, but his obser-
vations did not affect his principles. Soon after his
return he again mixed in the whirlpool of radicalism.
In 1912 he was sent to tlio Reichstag from Potsdam-
Osthavelland, tho Kaiser's district, where he had served
in the Garde-Pioneer Battalion. Ilere he started in
with a will. Once when he was planning an attack, ho
sent a message to the journalists' tribune asking them
to speak as well as possible of him. There was a strong
strain of vanity in him. The speech was against Krupp
and the ammunition factories, against some dark
bribery stories, and against the international combina-
tion of the Krupp, Ehrhard, Creusot, Armstrong, and
all the other ammunition capitalists. Great was tho
attention his revelations attracted at home and abroad.
For days Liebknecht was the center of discussion.
Conceit began to fan his soul ; he began to strive toward
an unattainable goal. When the Russian Czar was
about to come to Germany to visit his grand ducal
brother-in-law, Liebknecht screamed to a Magdeburg
gathering: "Germany should show this bloody Czar
the door!" A new rumpus! The diplomats calmed
the Russians and Liebknecht was held for trial.
315
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
And then came the war. When it started Liebknecht
did not leave the assembly room as did Representative
Kunert, when the first milliard credit was being voted
for. Bethmann-Hollweg announced in a loud voice that
social democracy supported the Government in this
" war of defense." But Liebknecht soon broke over
the hurdle. He blustered and burrowed, got behind
the " local ists " those anarchistic-socialistic laborers on
the periphery of the Trade Unions, and got into touch
with Rosa Luxemburg and all sorts of Russian revo-
lutionary elements. Radek, under the pseudonym of
Parabellum, published his incendiary articles in the
Berner Tagwacht against the militaristic, traitorous,
German social democracy. Bebel at once discovered
that Radek was a rogue and kicked him out of the party.
Liebknecht started a secret propaganda which kept the
organization busy altering their position. Once in the
Reichstag he rushed onto the podium wildly protest-
ing against the " wholesale murder " and " war-loan
swindle." An uproar was the result. Dr. Miiller-
Meiningen sprang up in greatest excitement — it almost
came to blows when some one pulled him back from the
platform. The president, decrepit, old, Herr Kaempf,
rushed around in despair ringing his bell, which of
course no one heard. He afterwards begged the press
not to report the scandalous affair, so it was passed over
in silence and the public heard nothing of it.
316
KAKL LIEBKNECHT
The Spartacus letters appeared about the end of
1915. Gray, typewritten, on diverse topics — length
according to desire. Flaming protests against the war,
against the princes, against imperialistic social democ-
racy, and inciting the proletariat to revolution. More
than once one of these letters fell into my hands. Where
they came from I do not know. They were signed —
Spartacus. One laid them aside with a smile.
In the spring of 1915 the sheriff got hold of Lieb-
knecht. As a representative he was immune, therefore
he had to be taken in the act. One evening he dis-
tributed inflammatory circulars on Potsdamerplatz,
crying out at the same time : " Down with the Gov-
ernment ! " He was arrested, searched, etc. The court
besought the Reichstag to allow them to institute crim-
inal proceedings against him. And the Reichstag did
so, although it was but a political offense he was charged
with. Herr von Payer, speaker of the parties, explained
their decision thus : " The fact that it does not concern
the right of one single representative but that it con-
cerns the right of the Reichstag, makes it necessary
to investigate in such a case, whether the House and
the general public have such a great interest in the
cooperation of, the member concerned that it may in-
terfere with justice." The House disregarded all good
traditions and acted politically very unwisely. For
now the martyr's crown was placed on Liebioiecht'a
317
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
head. He was sentenced to two years, six months, peni-
tentiary; was not disenfranchised, however, because
the court expressed the opinion that he was not actuated
by dishonorable motives but that political fanaticism
had been the mainspring of his actions. Inveighing
against the reactionary or Alldeutsch press or the
National Military Court was punishable with almost
double the sentence and disenfranchisement.
Liebknecht entered the prison house : a new test. But
still he remained unenlightened; things had already
gone too far. Hate ate deeper and deeper; fanatic
idealism became idiosyncrasy. His nerves went to
pieces in the many, many hours of suffocating loneli-
ness. Martyred and brooding, but one thing danced
before his eyes : Down with the system ! Give it the
death-blow if the whole world goes down with it !
Prince Max's cabinet, with Secretary Scheidemann,
presented him with freedom. Would he restrain him-
self now, give his nerves the rest they need? No, he
sprang into the midst of political life once more. A
new propaganda began and in a few days the revolu-
tion was there.
Liebknecht triumphed; this was his revolution —
this was why he fought and suffered. On the first revo-
lution night he slept in the bed of Wilhelm II. His
thirst for revenge was slaked. Now he could help to
build up the new Freedom. But when the cabinet was
318
KARL LIEBKNECHT
formed and he was invited to take part in it, he re-
fused, went over to the left and organized the Spartacus
spectacle — German Bolshevism. And what he planned
was terror, what he saw was rage, what he spoke was
chastisement, and what he screamed was blood.
A mixture of idealism, fanaticism, vanity, and psy-
chosis. One would like to send for a nerve specialist.
In civil life he is, or was at least, an extraordinarily
pleasant man who blushed like a schoolboy when spoken
to. This day he fled like a limited animal from one
place to another. He never remained more than one or
two days in the same hotel; an auto was ever ready
at hand. Were the sheriffs really after him? When
he staged the second revolution, when he, Ledebour,
and Scholze established a Spartacist secondary Govern-
ment and conjured up a week of blood for Berlin,
2sToske, his one-time party comrade, brought up artillery
and infantry against them, and it became a struggle for
life or death.
The uprising was put down. Liebknecht was con-
quered and surprised in secret conference with Rosa
Luxemburg. They were arrested and taken to prison.
The auto broke clown and Liebknecht tried to escape.
At least this is the story his military guards told.
Three shots, and his body lay stretched on the ground.
But his fame will live after him — the fame of a
herostratus.
XLIY
WALTER ADRIAN SCHUCKING
Before the war, when one spoke of pacifism to
otherwise well-educated people, they would regard one
pityingly from the side and shrug their shoulders:
" Another one who believes in a world peace. And he
wants to be a practical politician, wants to be taken
seriously ! ' That was the general view : exaggerated
utopianism. This contemptuous rejection of a mag-
nificent and practical political idea springs in ninety-
nine cases out of a hundred from ignorance of what
modern pacifism really means. One conjures up a
blurred picture of a communistic paradise of universal
peace, without any idea of how much practical work
has really been done to create a political and interna-
tional peace organization.
Whoever knows a little of history ought to know that
this thought has been seeking expression for over two
thousand years. At first it was the shimmering Fata
Morgana of a universal kingdom which haunted the
brains of men even as late as Napoleon III. Imperial
Rome, in a frenzy of expansion, almost created a world
empire. In the Middle Ages the Catholic Church rep-
320
WALTER ADRIAN" SCHUCKING
resented this idea — the Kaisers were but executive
officials of this Christian central organization. The
Reformation dissolved the unity of the medieval world.
The cabinet and coalition wars began; politicians and
scholars agitated for a federation of States in order to
bring about a permanent peace. From Campanella,
Ernst II, the Landgraf von Hessen-Rheinfels, Sully,
down to Saint Pierre and to Kant, who, in contrast to
the monarchists, called upon the people themselves to
form a federation of constitutional states.
The Napoleonic wars brought a wave of nationalism
over Europe which still surges against the cliffs of a
future peace. Only a few held fast to the great humani-
tarian thoughts of our forefathers of the eighteenth cen-
tury during this nationalistic intoxication which took
hold of almost the whole of German intelligence before
the war. Most were ashamed to cherish just or noble
thoughts in regard to internationalism, and where the
borders ended they closed the Bible, the catechism,
and the choral book, too. The mockery and contempt of
society, where the tone was given by officers and assist-
ant judges, was harder to bear than their own bad con-
science when they acted against the dictates of their
better feelings.
Whoever openly confessed being a pacifist was imme-
diately branded a dreamer, an enthusiast, and an enemy
of the nation in the eyes of all correct people, the Tag-
321
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
liche Rundschau and the Deutsche Tageszeitung, — lie
had no feeling for nationality, he must surely be a Jew.
It was best not to associate with such people. Only a
few firm characters were not to be challenged and made
no concessions.
One such was Walter Schiicking who knew what it
was to swim against the current for fifteen years. He
represented a part of the history of sufferings which
pacifism underwent in Germany for many years, until
through a horrible deluge of blood it came forth
victorious.
The Schuckings were all idealists, men who were true
to themselves, who drove straight for the goal. They
were men of ideas, of imagination, and yet they were
practical thinkers and writers, too — Lewin Schiicking,
author and friend of Ereiligraph and Frau Droste-
Hiilshoff, was Walter's grandfather, Luise von Gall, the
novelist, his grandmother. He inherited his critical
reasoning powers from his father, Lothar Schiicking,
director of a provincial court. And from his mother's
side a bit of the oppositional democratic spirit of the
old progressive party. At home they said he was the
image of his grandfather, Heinrich Beitzke. Grand-
father was a sturdy Progressive representative in the
sixties, and the only man who had the courage to oppose
single-handed the Bismarck-Roonsche military organi-
zation. He battled continually for the old Landwehr
322
WALTER ADRIAN S CHUCKING
system, and was a sworn enemy of the militarizing of
Prussia. In his history of the German war of inde-
pendence, 1813-1815, he pays the highest tribute to
the Prussian Landwehr.
Walter Schiicking was born in Minister, 1875. A
tall, slender, thoughtful man, a hard-headed, uncom-
promising Westphalian to whom conviction was every-
thing. In personal relations one of the softest, most
obliging of men, at times like a dreamy professor of
the old type.
He attended the Pauliner gymnasium at Miinster.
His idealism and upright character showed itself early.
While still a youth he refused to copy or sneak. The
others regarded him somewhat askance for this. At
the universities of Bonn, Munich, Berlin, and Gottingen
he studied history, political and national science. As
a student in the nineties he showed himself a modern
idealist and was against the student's corps. There was
an heirloom in the family, a copy of Hugo Grotius' De
Jure Belli ac Pads, which no one studied as diligently
as Walter. Tor two hundred years it had been the cus-
tom for each member of the family to write his name
on the title page of this book.
As the pupil of von Bar, professor of international
law, he habilitated himself in Gottingen. His memorial
on the " Seacoast and International Rights " won a
prize. At the age of twenty-seven, after two years at
323
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Breslau, lie was called to Marburg as professor of na-
tional and international law. Althoff, the all-powerful
minister of education, valued him highly. It seemed
as if a quick rise was in store for Walter Schiicking,
but such was not the case.
He became democratic, national-socialistic, and in-
dependent. This was more than the Royal Prussian
Ministerial Director could stand. Althoff told him one
day that of course he could lecture on whatever he
pleased, but whether the State would make use of him
as a teacher was a different thing. This was the first
box on the ear. He was done for in Marburg. When
he became chairman of the Liberal Yerein of Marburg,
the other professors' wives made his wife calls of con-
dolence and explained that it would probably be diffi-
cult for her to remain a member of their circle any
longer. That was the way it looked a few years ago in
the professors' republic. We needed a new writer of
burlesques.
But it was no joke for Walter Schiicking; his path
of thorns was just beginning. He sank further and
further in disfavor. When he publicly declared the
Polish expropriation laws to be a national disgrace, he
received a rebuke from the Minister of Education and
for this reason was expelled from the legal examining
committee.
For many years his pupils had the greatest difficulty
324
WALTER ADRIAN SCHUCKING
in getting ahead; Schiicking was looked down upon
everywhere. It was a fight in the dark, but he held out.
How glad they would have been to be rid of him ! While
his scientific works were everywhere else recognized,
the Marburg faculty considered him nothing but a
" spoiler of our youth." Naturally under these circum-
stances his election for the Rectorship was not to be
thought of. There was Professor Enneccerus, a miser-
able, old national chief, a ruffian who sought to hold
Schiicking under with brutal words. Schiicking was a
man of fine sensibilities and no doubt suffered under
this treatment, but he overcame it all. Only his fea-
tures acquired a trace of bitterness as time wore on.
His worst enemies were the curators of the Marburg
University. They were angry because this intellectu-
ally and politically infected man had the largest attend-
ance of students. They instituted a disciplinary inves-
tigation against him on the ground of things they had
heard over their beer mugs concerning his lectures. In
the summer of 1911 one of these curators told him they
would give him the desired one semester vacation for
scientific research purposes if he would first go to the
Minister of Education and tell him he had changed his
political views.
And this when the war broke out! Schiicking was
one of the first to be put on the black list. The Eleventh
Army Corps gave the order that he was not to publish
325
LEADEBS OE STESTEEDAI AND TO-DAY
any more of his international ideas or to express them
even theoretically) and that aU correspondence with for
eign scholars was to cease. He oould neither travel
abroad nor anywhere near the German frontiers, — and
this was ;i man of international reputationl
His connections were many and wide: Lammasch,
Streit, Constant d'Estournelles, Sir Thomas Barclay,
and James Brown Scott were but a few. In the mean
time he had been appointed member of the Institut
da Droit [international. His works, The Use of Mines
in Sen Warfare, The Organization of the World, The
Work Done at the Hague, 'The "Hague League of Na-
tions, aro rich with ideas and practical suggestions in
regard to the most important problems of pacifism and
internationalism. But it was war and every word in
regard to an understanding was hated by the military
authorities. Pacifism was looked upon as unlawful
rivalry of tho war business and was forbidden on Unit
ground; it was almost wiped out. The under-officer
commands, and the undesired thought has but to com-
mit suicide.
His letters were opened ; telegrams from abroad were
held back for months. ITo was lucky to escape im-
prisonment. In the spring of 1015, with the aid of tho
Foreign Office, ho was allowed to attend a conference
at Tho Hague. When ho returned he brought the
Dutch Under-Secretary of State Dressclhuis' offer to act
326
WALTER ADRIAN SCHUCKING
mediary. l>ut he received the brusque
Ler to telegraph Dresselhuis that he should stay at
ducking's idea of organising international rela-
tions on a pacific basis was fought for years by the v<
people who now defend his ideas the loudest. Now that
the war was ended and even the greatest militarists were
shrieking for a reconciliation, Selriicking's time had
I :ae. lie had passed the last station of suffering. His
day had dawned. The Democrats elected him to the
N ational Assembly. As the second speaker of the party
he made a great speech with a compact conception of the
whole which made a deep impression on the House.
The C oservatives protested and the chauvinists harked.
The Government appointed him head of the com-
mittee for investigation of the treatment of war pris-
oners in Germany, and sent him to Versailles as peace
delegate. As a logical pacifist he rejected the peace
conditions dictated by the Entente.
The last shall he first, says the Bible, The shadows
have departed from Sehucking"s path and he can strive
openly toward his goal. That which lies behind was
only a tormenting dream — the old, reactionary, petty,
tradition-bound Prussia in the shape of a small uni-
versity town.
Now he can breathe freely in the pure morning air
and exercise mind and body at will.
327
XLY
GUSTAV NOSKE
Open your Roman history books. There you will
find historical pictures which bear great resemblance to
the unrest of the present Germany, still trembling from
revolution and war. There are the same gloomy fac-
tors: the proletariat returning from long years of war,
of butchery and murder, to reach out after the golden
thrones of those who remained at home.
Marius, the farmer's son, had put down the African
uprising, had freed Italy from the forbidding Cimbri
and Teutons, and now returns home to Rome. His
unoccupied army began to cry out for land, for prop-
erty, for work. But the Conservatives, the nobles as
well as the most radical, the idlers and scum of the
Roman streets, protested against favoring the veterans,
both from selfish motives. Both had to relinquish some-
thing: the nobles would have had to give up land, and
the mob their political pampering and state support.
Marius called his veterans into the city and politics
were made with the club. Terror swept over Rome.
The property owners began to cringe; even Marius
seemed to shudder before the spirits he had conjured
up. As a soldier and commander of the army, order
328
GUSTAV NOSKE
and discipline were everything to him. In this hour
of hesitation the nobles approached him with hypo-
critical words, and when the next deed of violence en-
dangered the Fatherland, as the Senate declared, he
offered to put down the rising. His companions of yes-
terday were driven to the Capitol and before Marius
could prevent it, they were stoned to death by the en-
raged noble youths with the tiles from their prison roof.
Marius was done for completely. All the great reforms
were ended before one step had been taken toward their
realization.
Is Gustav Noske a Marius ? I do not know. He has
won no battles and planned no campaigns. But like
Marius he has come up from the bottom, and his mas-
sive, rough strength lies in his energy. He is a tall,
almost boorish fellow, and has spent twelve years as a
snarling under-officer. He is a wood-chopper by profes-
sion, and a dissenter. His almost square head is
covered with a stiff brush of dark brown hair which
grows low over his forehead. A tremendous mustache
shades his mouth. Gold-rimmed spectacles soften the
rough features. Whenever he speaks in Parliament
there is generally a surprise. He speaks roughly and
clumsily but to the point ; it is like a huge ax chopping
down a tree, an intellectual wood-chopper. A man of
will through and through, concentrated decision, cold-
blooded strength and power, it is an unalloyed, esthetic
329
LEADEES OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
joy to hear him dividing his rough-hewn chips between
the Right and Left. If someone contradicts he is not
disturbed, but goes quietly on with his square-built
speech, neatly throwing in the answer.
Is the politician Noske fashioned in the same mould ?
Hardly. He is Prussian, born in the Mark — a pro-
letarian who hungered his way to sturdy manhood, a
fir tree which cannot quite become a pine in spite of its
height, for the ground on which it grew was only the
sandy soil of the Mark. He was a Social Democrat, an
opposer, but he saw another and higher sort of human
being in those who were not of the proletariat. He was
not an equality enthusiast, nor a social fanatic who be-
lieved in August Bebel's thousand-year kingdom. He
was a corporal of Social Democracy who reckoned with
the realities of political life.
His career is quickly told. His father still sat at the
weaving frame while Gustav went to the people's school
and later to grammar school. Thereupon he became a
wood-chopper and wandered to Halle, to Frankfurt am
Main, and then to Liegnitz. Toward the end of the
eighties, while Bismarck's socialistic laws were still in
force, he entered the labor movement. In 1896 he be-
came editor of the Social Democrat paper in his native
city, Brandenburg. Two years later he was engaged in
the same capacity at Konigsberg in Prussia, and five
years later he was editor-in-chief of the Volksstimme
330
GUSTAV NOSKE
in Chemnitz. Since the beginning of the century he
has been city councillor in East Prussia as well as in
Saxony. He entered the Eeichstag in 1906, during the
colonial rumpus when Biilow broke with the Center and
dissolved the session.
In the Eeichstag he held fast to the right wing of the
party and was soon the army and navy specialist. His
book on Colonial Policy and Social Democracy appeared
later, in 1914. lie seemed to be the right person for the
army budget, was sent to the commission, and finally
became assistant reporter. This was no small affair.
He was petted and pampered by the military. The
most secret things were whispered in his ear. He saw
the storm clouds gathering over Germany; secret sit-
tings began to increase. Noske participated in every-
thing year in and year out, even Tirpitz's naval policy,
in his blind love for the navy. 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917,
1918. Noske's faith is not to be shaken. He believes
in German militarism without approving of an all too
conspicuous development.
In October, 1918, things began to stir on the water
front. It had been expected earlier in the month but
only broke on the twenty-eighth. Officers had called for
men for a last stand against England. This was the
match in the powder barrel. Three times they pre-
vented the vessels from putting out to sea. The crews
mutinied. Officers were dismissed. A battle of every-
331
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
body against everybody else threatened to break out in
the harbor. Finally the third squadron steamed toward
Kiel. The chief hoped to ward off the worst by this
maneuver. Many got a furlough on land. " They
could wear off their spirits in pleasures." A mob col-
lected in the streets and marched to the Union house.
There was a meeting, political debates, but no one
thought of a revolution. The day passed quietly — it
was the first of November. On Saturday the sailors
found the Union house closed. The few had grown to
six hundred. Excitement prevailed. Eire begins to
gleam under the ashes. Sunday comes. Two hundred
condemned sailors from the Markgraf are to be brought
on land and taken to prison. When they were to be set
on land one of the guards refused to do his duty. All
but a very few declared themselves on his side, but the
delinquents were unloaded somehow. In the meantime
the Union was set in motion. They were mostly Inde-
pendent Social Democrats. Circulars were distributed ;
the stone began to roll. In the evening ten thousand
marched to the prison and freed the condemned sailors.
There was a conflict with the soldiers. Eight dead re-
mained on the pavement. The Governor of Kiel and
leaders of the Social Democratic party begged the Gov-
ernment in Berlin to send a cabinet member. The Ber-
lin press was not allowed to report what took place.
" Harmless street fight. A few dead. Of no importance."
332
GUSTAV NOSKE
The air was growing sultry. Revolution began to
show its head. The Governor negotiated with a depu-
tation of sailors. On both sides courtesy and obliging-
ness. In the meantime Noske and Secretary Hauss-
mann arrived at Kiel. Noske was wholly unknown
there, but he soon got into touch with the people. His
one idea was to create order as soon as possible and
allay the excitement. Tie had no idea what was under
way and what would spread like wildfire over the whole
nation. Regular negotiations began; anxious hours
passed. On the 6th of November Noske advised the
sailors to be reasonable. The day after the whole scene
had changed. Revolution took the country by storm.
Only Berlin was quiet. Noske was made Governor of
Kiel. Within a few hours he issued his first mandate:
" The food is to be uniform. . . . Sailors are no
longer to be addressed in the third person."
On the 9th of November, as Ebert took the portfolio
from the hands of Prince Max, Noske already felt him-
self an official revolutionist. It was up to him to create
order in Berlin.
Weeks passed by; the Independents in the cabinet
began to murmur. Haase, Dittmann, and Barth re-
signed. The first unrest flared up in Berlin. The
People's marine division rebelled. The Christmas bat-
tle for the possession of the palace began. The majority
Socialists took the places of the departing Independents.
333
LEADERS OF YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
Noske was one of these. He was looked upon as a
strong man. Ledebour, Liebknecht, Eichhorn, and
Scholz were secretly preparing a Spartacist insurrection.
The second revolution began. But Noske was not yet
ready. Hours and days of tension followed. The ma-
jority Social Democrat organization patrolled the
streets for days in order to protect the Ebert-Scheide-
mann Government.
Finally Noske was ready. Hoffmann, the General
of Brest-Litowsk fame, was his silent Chief of the Staff
for the retaking of Berlin. The city was surrounded;
Government troops marched in from all sides. The
buildings occupied by the Spartacists were recaptured.
Hand grenades and machine guns were at work —
Berlin was a bloody battle field.
Noske triumphed, the victory was his. A Hinden-
burg of the proletariat? Or a Ludendorff of the
" upper " circles ?
At the National Assembly it was a matter of course
that Noske was to be the new Minister of War. His
was the task of building up a new army. Compulsory
service was not yet done away with by law. But in
reality it was a thing of the past. Two new army and
navy bills were put through in double-quick time. The
wild volunteer system with all its usual methods of
advertisement was instituted in its place. A modest
territorial army was recruited: one hundred and fifty
334
GUSTAV KOSKE
marks with five marks extra a day, free board and uni-
form. Military service soon became a lucrative business.
The third revolution was approaching. Everywhere
strikes were blazing up, the Communists at the front,
the Independents not far behind in order not to lose
their contact with the radical masses. " What has the
Government done to fulfill the promises of the Social
Eevolution ? " they asked. " Nothing ! !No socializing !
!N"o councils ! " The storm broke. A new Noske cam-
paign began. The seething Ruhr Eevier was again
taken. Halle was cleaned out and in Berlin savage
street fighting raged for days. Murder and death were
the watchwords. Barricades were stormed, houses de-
molished. Human beings fell like flies. The Furies
of War grew hysterical. The mob began to plunder.
Vagabonds and ruffians violated the lives and property
of others. Noske drove in with a heavy fist. He led
a second battle of Tannenberg. No quarter. Wreathe
the laurel about his brow, ye citizens, ye who sat
trembling behind your stoves.
If it were only not for the epilogue : with militaristic
snap and go the Government troops court-martialed and
shot on the slightest provocation; there were painful
incidents without substantial justification. Noske had
put Berlin under martial law and threatened death to
everyone caught with a weapon in his hands. If it had
only stopped at this ! But inferior officers and leaders
335
LEADERS OF. YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
immediately took things into their own hands, and many
an innocent victim was the resnlt.
There were sharp conflicts between Noske and Haase
at the National Assembly on this account. These were
not mere wordy duels with pistol and sword ; they were
a battle of hand grenades. " Liars and assassinators ! "
shouted the extreme left. " There are plain everyday
dogs, and there are swine, bloodhounds, and Noske
dogs," proclaimed the circulars. And ISToske screamed
in savage excitement from the Parliament tribune : " I
enter a complaint against all incendiaries, and that is
what Herr Haase and all his friends are. The blood
that has been spilled be on your own heads ! "
In answer to Haase's accusation that he had over-
stepped his rights, Noske said : " In such dangerous
situations it is not paragraphs that count, but results ! '
This was the proclamation of war, "Might before
Right." This was the speech of a condottiere: thesis
and antithesis. Remember Marius!
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