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WALTHER RATHENAU

WALTHER RATHENAU IN THE CAR IN WHICH HE WAS ASSASSINATED

Walther

HIS LIFE AND WORK

by Count Harry Kessler

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

NEW YORK

GERHART HAUPTMANN

IN MEMORY OF

OUR COMMON FRIENDSHIP FOR
WALTHER RATHENAU

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 3

I. FATHER AND SON 5

II. THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT 21

III. SOCIAL INTERLUDE 43

IV. THE REPUDIATION OF THE INTELLECT 55

V. FRIENDSHIPS 64

VI. THE REALM OF THE SOUL 74

VII. THE PATH TO THE ABYSS 117

VIII. IN DAYS TO COME 169

IX. ISOLATION 222

X. THE NEW FOREIGN POLICY: THE FIGHT FOR PEACE 268

XI. THERE IS NO DEATH "34!
APPENDIX 365
INDEX TO RATHENAU'S WORKS 371

INDEX 373

ILLUSTRATIONS

WALTHER RATHENAU IN THE CAR IN WHICH
HE WAS ASSASSINATED

WALTHER AND ERICH RATHENAU 1 8

WALTHER RATHENAU, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY EDVARD

MUNCH 52

EMIL RATHENAU 6O

THE CBREVIARIUM MYSTICUM* 7^

WALTHER RATHENAU BEFORE THE WAR IO4

ROOM IN THE SCHLOSS FREIENWALDE .138

WALTHER RATHENAU'S MOTHER 3°2

WALTHERRATHENAU

INTRODUCTION

No ESTIMATE of Walther Rathenau, the founder of Ger-
many's new foreign policy and of the post-war ration-
alization of German industry, can do him justice that is
not based on his singular personality. The profoundly Jewish,
and yet no less profoundly Prussian, mechanism of his mind
and instincts can always be discerned behind his political and
social ideas. Scientific proofs for his theories he utterly dis-
dained, appealing for their truth solely to the tightness of his
vision and the sureness of his instinct. He propounded them
not like a great man of science who proves his point step by
step, proceeding from proof to proof, from discovery to dis-
covery, from statistics to statistics, but like an artist who gives
you his vision in a flash, as the image of a personal revelation,
a thing complete in itself. Thus what in the case of a great
economist or practical statesman bears a merely outward rela-
tion to his work — the details of his life and character — be-
comes in the case of Walther Rathenau the very measure of
his worth as a teacher and prophet.

But a peculiar difficulty attaches to any presentation of
Rathenau's personality. Though he surrounded himself with
an atmosphere of impenetrable coolness, not many were able
to remain cool in his presence: people were violently attracted
or repelled by him — or both simultaneously. That was part of
his tragedy: the crystalline coolness for which he laboured re-
coiled on him in the shape of passionate adoration or passionate
hatred. And now that he is dead, this same atmosphere, though
it tends to thicken around him into a haze of misunderstand-
ings, yet has also certain advantages} the student who ap-

WALTHER RATHENAU

preaches him thus influenced sees him with a distinctness so
intensified by excitement or emotion that his figure takes on the
sharpness of a vision and grips him like a Golem. I have aimed
at eliminating the emotion and preserving only the clearness
of the vision. Whether I have succeeded, the reader must be
left to decide. But I may perhaps be allowed to set forth ten-
tatively at the outset an explanation why Walther Rathenau
had that peculiar effect on those who came within his orbit: he
was, and one could not help feeling it, a man who bore Fate
within him. One was conscious, when dealing with him, of
something in his spiritual Structure working mysteriously and
blindly after the manner of a physical organism, for which
every outward event in his life was merely a rung in a ladder
leading inexorably to an end which he darkly foresaw and both
welcomed and deeply dreaded. And Fate in this sense belongs
to one man in a million.

CHAPTER I
FATHER AND SON

WALTHER RATHENAU was born in a working-class dis-
trict of North Berlin, where his father, Emil Rath-
enau, a middle-class Jew of commanding technical
and commercial genius, then still obscure, had invested a small
capital of 75,000 thalers (about $55,000) in an iron foundry.
Emil Rathenau had served his apprenticeship first as an engi-
neer in Silesia, then as an official with Borsig's in Berlin and
finally as an unpaid clerk in England} and now he managed his
iron foundry in the Chausseestrasse himself, with a friend to
help him as his partner. It was a small affair, and the two
friends were rather short of capital, though Emil Rathenau's
parents were well-to-do, his father having retired from busi-
ness as a young man, soon after EmiPs birth in 1838, in order
to live at leisure on a comfortable income. *He was,5 says Emil
in a short autobiographical fragment, 'stern and conscientious,
and had made a manage de countenance with my mother, who
was clever, alert and ambitious, but whose foible was a hanker-
ing after elegance up to the very end of her long life.* In pur-
suit of this 'elegance,5 she set up as a Society leader in Berlin
in the forties, first in the square adjoining the pretty little
eighteenth-century palace of Monbijou in the city, which was
then still a fashionable residential quarter, and afterwards at
, 3, Victoriastrasse, in the West End near the Tiergarten, where
she lived until her death. This lady, nee Liebermann, whom,
her portraits represent with a somewhat negroid type of face,
was completely wrapped up in Society, and when she died, in
the middle nineties, left her children nothing, we are told, but

WALTHER RATHENAU

a chest full of forgotten and mostly unpaid milliner's bills.
She and her husband being fully engaged in attending to
pleasure, and 'their life in Society not leaving them time/ so
Emil states, 'f or the education of myself and my two broth-
ers,' they entrusted their children "entirely to day schools and
private tutors, with the result that Emil and his brothers got
out of hand, and were finally expelled from school for letting
off fireworks in their classroom. Life in Frau Rathenau's circle
was gay ('elegant,' as her son Emil puts it), but with a gaiety
finely tempered by the highbrow and precious tone of the early
fifties in Berlin, when Jewish society, though divided by a sort
of mystic chasm from the inaccessible heights of the Court, was
yet glorified by genius in the shape of romantic celebrities, such
as Ferdinand Lassalle, the great Socialist agitator, and his
'tragic comedian' of a bride, Helene von Donniges, or Goethe's
ward, Bettina von Arnim, and her young friend Franz Liszt,
moving like fiery meteors in a frigid world of horsehair fur-
niture, Cashmere shawls, and plaster casts after the antique.
Iciness and romanticism were the two main notes of this old
middle-class Berlin into which Walther Rathenau's grand-
mother pushed her way as a leader of Society. Walther him-
self says of his ancestors: 'My four great-grandfathers were
all distinguished. Two were rich} one as a banker to a small
prince, the other as a Prussian industrialist. Two were poor.
Both my grandfathers lost their fortunes, one by the Hamburg
fire [in 1842], the other by the outbreak of the war of 1870.'
One of the two, Liebermann, who was also the grandfather of
the painter Max Liebermann, was remarkably conceited. Hav-
ing, under cover of Napoleon's Continental System, intro-
duced into Prussia calico-printing by machinery, which had
hitherto been an English monopoly, and being asked by King
Frederick William III., to whom he had been presented, which
Liebermann he was, he replied, 'the Liebermann who drove
the English from the Continent.'

FATHER AND SON

Even a small child, such as Walther then was, must have
felt the difference between his almost working-class home in
the Chausseestrasse and the gay and refined world in which his
'elegant' grandmother moved in the West End. As Emil,
Walther 's father, says in his autobiography: 'The factory in
the Chausseestrasse was very small and employed at the most
from forty to fifty men in the construction of steam engines
and plant for gas and water works. In addition to this, it made
all the apparatus required for the Royal theatres. When I took
it over, the most important work in hand was the setting up of
the ship for Meyerbeer's opera Die Afrikanerin, which was
to be performed at the Royal Opera House. . . . There was
a charming dwelling-house, with a front garden and a par-
ticularly smart f agade, once the ornament of the "Bellavista"
pleasure gardens. Behind this lay the factory, in what had been
the ballroom, which was attached to the dwelling-house by
a side wing. Such steam boilers as were allowed at that time in
inhabited buildings, and a correspondingly medium-sized steam
engine, drove by means of shaftings machinery of the simple
sort produced by the factories of Chemnitz and Berlin.5 In the
rooms that lay over these shaftings Walther Rathenau was born
on September 29, 1867, an(i 'm them he spent his childhood and
early youth. Of these first surroundings he says in his Apology:
'For more than a hundred years my paternal ancestors have
lived in Berlin, and the [liberal revolutionary] traditions of
the 1848 period, as described by my father in his brief notes on
the subject, were still active in the home of my childhood. The
house, however, was not situated in what was then the quiet
West End of Berlin, called the Privy Councillors' quarter, but
in the Chausseestrasse, which was in the working-class North
of the city. And behind the house, alongside the cemetery, lay
the work-shop, surrounded by old trees — the little fitting-up
room, the foundry, and the groaning brazier's forge. Those
were the engineering works of my father and his friend} and

WALTHER RATHENAU

the masters and men of that famous race of old Berlin engi-
neers were kind to the little Jewish boy who toddled about
among them, and many a tool and piece of machinery they used
to explain to him.'

These reminiscences give a clear and striking outline of the
two scenes in which Walther Rathenau passed his childhood.
In the house of his grandparents on the Tiergarten (corre-
sponding to Park Lane in London) he witnessed the afterglow
of the old aristocratic and romantic Germany, the Germany of
Goethe and Humboldt, in which classical culture and good
breeding stood for everything; in his father's in the Chaus-
seestrasse, on the other hand, he grew up amidst the first be-
ginnings of the new Germany of Bismarck and Krupp, which,
flushed with the victories of Dttppel, Koniggratz, and Sedan,
sought ever more power and technical progress as the only ends
worth striving for, while it deemed art, classical culture, and
refinement mere accessories — and rather dull ones at that. Emil
Rathenau's remarks about the apparatus he constructed for the
Royal theatres are characteristic: CI felt little interest in this
work. Neither the stage nor the chorus, whose groupings were
assisted by wrought-iron machinery, had the power to attract
me; my attention was wholly absorbed by the progress of the
firm, in which principally other people's money was invested.'

Indeed, Emil Rathenau, one of the pioneers and master
builders of modern Germany, belonged to a world infinitely
remote from that of his gay mother and contemplative, rigid,
old father in their fine house on the Tiergarten; and as he not
only exerted a decisive influence on his son Walther, but was
also an eminent engineer, a great captain of industry and an
extraordinary personality, he is worth considering at some
length.

His biography by his old and intimate friend, Professor
Riedler, together with frequent references in his son's writings,
presents us with a vivid picture of his qualities. They are those

FATHER AND SON

of a man of great parts, but hampered by a fitful and difficult
character, and so absorbed in his own ideas that he often forgot
to be considerate. His son writes: 'He was severe both on him-
self and others, and yet he was a good man, clean and simple-
hearted. . . . But his whole nature was absorbed in obtaining
tangible resultS5 there was something Napoleonic about him:
something powerful, but lacking artifice or routine or diplo-
macy. Thus may the patriarchs, may Abraham, have been. He
thought in things, not in ideas and words. He took for granted
the whole traditional structure of the world except where it
touched his own work. There he showed daring, imagination,
and a rare degree of intuition. . . .' (Letter 584.)

What made him difficult to get on with was the sudden and
unexpected way in which he veered from boundless, overflow-
ing confidence and affection to silent, brooding reserve. 'Rath-
enau,5 says Riedler, 'was full of unbounded optimism when
planning his ventures, but weighed down with pessimism and
the keenest doubt when putting them into practice.' In the
optimistic mood he opened his heart to every one, took the
whole world into his confidence, 'revealed everything that he
had in his mind . . . chatted openly about his plans even with
rivals. . . . There is a tale of how a great firm went bankrupt
because of St Moritz Bad. The manager of the firm went to St
Moritz every year, where he was sure of meeting Rathenau,
and wormed out of him his latest ideas 5 then he hastened to
apply them indiscriminately at his own discretion with con-
sistent optimism and steadily disastrous results5 (Riedler). In
his optimistic phase Rathenau was a visionary, a prophet.
'What he foretold and described,5 says Walther Rathenau in
his obituary speech, 'was the future, and into this future he
saw as clearly as we see in our own time. , . . Thus he saw
many things which today are unrealized, but which will one
day attain to realization.5 He saw them even as Faust saw the
unfruitful sea as 'a place for many millions to dwell in, not

WALTHER RATHENAU

safe indeed, but free and active.* But then Faust was sud-
denly changed into Mephistopheles. As his son says in this
same passage: 'His thirst for truth made him delve ever
deeper into the heart of life and things. . . . And thus he
turned on himself 5 thus in moments of doubt, insufficiency and
distress he rent his own work asunder.' Riedler describes this
in detail: 'The very opposite, the most intense pessimism,
seized Rathenau when the responsible stage of the work ap-
proached. One day, without warning, he would begin to criti-
cize his own ideas with the utmost severity, as though he had
never felt the slightest enthusiasm for them, and all matters
connected with them he would subject to the same severe scru-
tiny. The most complete distrust followed on the most com-
plete enthusiasm. While before he had discussed his idea with
everyone, he now worked it out jealously on his own, became
secretive, lived on self-criticism, on raising and allaying his own
doubts, grew difficult to deal with. . . . When in this stage
he was never cheerful and pleasurably excited as in the first
stages of his plans, but often dejected and always sceptical, re-
served and without any enthusiasm. . . .'

This pessimistic mood had distressing consequences for his
family and colleagues. 'Rathenau,' says Riedler, 'was a man
of unusually simple tastes. His personal requirements were
very modest, and he judged others by his own standard. Now
when the pessimistic mood came over him, this showed itself
in money matters also; in every point he demanded the greatest
economy. His friend, the banker Carl Furstenberg, once said:
"Rathenau understands and approves everything up to the limit
of three hundred marks, but beyond that there is a vast interval
in which he is money-blind. Only when three million marks are
reached does he begin to see again." This thumb-nail sketch
must, however, be supplemented in one respect: small sums had
to be kept separate} if they were added up or multiplied he
would become adamant even against requests for less than three

FATHER AND SON

hundred marks. . . . The spending of money without any ade-
quate return he would not tolerate. . . .' That explains what
Walther Rathenau is alluding to in his Apology when he says:
<I grew up in an atmosphere, not of want, but of anxiety.'
And also the deeper, and somewhat pathetic, meaning in the
funny little birthday greeting he sent his mother when he was
thirteen, words written in a graceful childish hand under the
drawing of a money-bag:

Die, thou monster!
Of every care
And every sorrow
The burden vile.

His father's quick changes between boisterous affection and
brooding reserve seem to have galled the boy deeply. For in
complete contrast to his father, Walther Rathenau was, even as
a child, remarkably good-tempered and patient, and, however
trying the circumstances, always serenely cool and reserved.
Even at that time nothing was more foreign to his nature than
emotional outbreaks or excitement. In her charming book on
him Etta Federn-Kohlhaas relates how his mother told her that
when she inflicted little punishments on him for some trifling
misdemeanour, he met these with a smiling indifference, which
in itself nullified the punishment. 'His mother would put him in
the corner, and there he would stay without a trace of bad tem-
per, smiling gaily and completely unconcerned, till some urgent
reason, such as his father's return, or bed-time, caused her to
fetch him out of it. At which he would come to her cheerfully
and lovingly, showing no sulkiness, but also no remorse, and she
would see how ineffective the punishment had been.'

Along with this cheerful reserve there went a very pro-
nounced feeling of his own dignity and responsibility, a strong
childish self-esteem. Etta Federn-Kohlhaas relates concerning a
French governess 'with what charm and sweetness, and in his

WALTHER RATHENAU

childish way with what sense of responsibility, the little boy
promised to work for her and earn her a living, so that she
might have beautiful clothes and good food and nothing to do.'
His father's alternating fits of tenderness and indifference must
have cruelly wounded the boy's self-esteem.

His and his father's characters were, indeed, very different.
Walther's chief traits, his good nerves, his kind heart veiled be-
hind a cool reserve, his strong self-esteem, he clearly inherited
from his mother, who came from Frankfort, of a well-to-do
Jewish banker's family, the Nachmanns. She was a lady of
almost stolidly good nerves, and of an imperturbable calm and
dignity} a Puritan, whose granite-like profile none can forget
who saw her in the Reichstag at her murdered son's funeral.
As a young woman she was very beautiful, of a southern type,
with dark eyes and hair, which she attributed to Spanish an-
cestry. She came from a rich Frankfort town house, with num-
bers of retainers, splendid carriages and every luxury, to the
shabby-genteel surroundings and circumstances of the Chaus-
seestrasse, and it took her a long time to get over the change.
She found some consolation, however, in her little sons and in
music, went in for literature, was sentimental and romantic after
the fashion of her day, but hard and austere in. her dealings
with men; and with her own husband and children passionately
jealous. Being quick and clever, and a good diplomat, she un-
derstood how to win her son to her side, whereas between him
and his father little conflicts and difficulties were continually
occurring.

These were further nourished by the outward circumstances
of Emil Rathenau's life during Walther's early boyhood. When
Walther turned fourteen his father had been without regular
occupation for nearly ten years — just when he felt his capacity
for work at its height. Hence he was soured, inclined to fret
and brood, and, with no interest in life but work, inwardly con-

FATHER AND SON

sumed by a desire for something to do, without any prospect of
his wish being fulfilled. When the war broke out in 1870 he
had sold his factory in the Chausseestrasse, and soon after the
financial crisis of 1873 he retired also from its management.
cToo young for the position of a rentier,' he threw himself into
the study of applied science in all its branches. In the course of
his studies he visited the rapid succession of great exhibitions,
which in the last third of the nineteenth century went side by
side with the development of world trade: Vienna in 1873,
Philadelphia in 1876, Paris, where he came across the first arc-
damp, in 1 878, and again in 1 8 8 1, when Edison was showing his
incandescent lamp for the first time. Rathenau, the mechanical
engineer, had so far taken little interest in electricity. But the
new incandescent lamp came upon him as a revelation: 'Rathe-
nau recognized/ says Riedler, cthat to the incandescent lamp be-
longed the future, that it was destined to be not only the lamp
of the wealthy, but also of the poor, the lamp of the garret and
the stable, whereas the arc-lamp could serve neither luxury nor
poverty.' In one of those moments of visionary optimism which
were peculiar to him, he bought Edison's European patents at
the exhibition itself. And as his own means were inadequate, he
borrowed money from some German firms with whom he was
on friendly terms, and with it proceeded to found an experi-
mental company immediately on his return to Berlin. The year
after, in 1882, at the Munich electrical exhibition, he was
already able to exhibit a galaxy of incandescent lamps which
created a sensation. While the exhibition was in progress, the
director of the Court Theatres, Baron Perfall, entrusted him
with the lighting of the Royal Residenztheaterj on the com-
fortable understanding, however, recorded by Riedler, that *you
do the job at your own riskj if it is a success, I will pay youj if
not, so much the worse for you.* Finally, in April, 1883, the
'Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaf t fiir angewandte Elektrizitat*

WALTHER RATHENAU

(German Edison Company for applied electricity), the original
of the subsequent A.E.G. (General Electric Company), was
founded in Berlin under Emil Rathenau's management with a
capital of five million marks ($1,250,000).

When his father secured the Edison patents and entered on
his new profession as an electrical engineer, Walther was four-
teen. The ultimate effect on his relations with his father was
profound and had a decisive influence on his future and the
philosophical ideas he subsequently developed} the immediate
result, however, so far as the boy was concerned, was that his
father, absorbed by his new profession, vanished, as it were,
from the family circle. 'Throughout a period of more than ten
years,' says Riedler, 'the working day of Rathenau and his col-
leagues lasted from early morning till late at night, with half
an hour at midday for luncheon. At table, business was dis-
cussed at length; in the evening, factories were inspected} over
night, Rathenau took work home with him, which he attended
to even on Sundays, for on Sundays one is not disturbed. . . .
For ten years Rathenau hardly allowed himself a free after-
noon. His leisure really consisted only in some change of work}
leisure and amusement in the usual sense of the words were
alien to his nature. Necessity alone could make him interrupt
his work. Like Napoleon, he could say of himself: "I am born
and built for work, I have never known the limits of my activ-
ity."'

The effect of this tremendous activity on the entire industrial
system of Germany was nothing short of revolutionary. As
managing director of the new firm, Emil Rathenau soon be-
came one of the leading captains of industry, an inventor of
new forms of business, and a pioneer of large-scale capitalism.
Riedler has given an illuminating account of the gift which se-
cured him his supremacy. 'Rathenau could only understand
what was simple. Therefore he applied himself only to those
things and those situations which were clear and simple, or

FATHER AND SON

which he could make so. He was able to extract the essential,
the convincingly simple, out of the complex, where others could
not see it. ... He never approached matters which he could
not simplify. . . . That is a great and fruitful gift. For no
matter in itself is ever simple} every problem always presents
innumerable aspects full of inner contradictions} the essential
thing is the mind that gets to the heart of a problem.'

Emil Rathenau's influence was, indeed, derisive on German
and even world industry. He made mass production possible in
one of the most important branches of modern industry — i.e.
electricity — by fundamentally rationalizing the conditions both
of its manufacture and its distribution. He invented new forms
of co-operation between banks and industrial concerns, being
the first to secure the help not of one big bank only, but the
joint participation of several in his own firm, the A.E.G.,
thereby teaching the world how huge sums of money could be
made available for the benefit of rapidly expanding branches of
industry. And over and above this, he paved the way for the
'horizontal trust,' by combining his own with other electrical
firms, by incorporating many undertakings in one great eco-
nomic unit under his supreme control, and by sharing interests
with foreign companies such as the General Electric Company
of America. All the fundamentals of modern big-scale indus-
try: the cheap and economic incandescent bulb as a mass prod-
uct, the municipal power station as the new heart of the city,
the distribution of electric current in the shape of light and
power in rural districts, the economic exploitation of water
power for the production and distribution of electricity, the in-
troduction of electric instead of steam power into industry and
locomotion — all these which we take for granted today are due
to him more than to any one else — that is to say, to that unique
combination of the highest technical and commercial skill which
was his. Walther Rathenau has summed up what was revolu-
tionary in his father's activity in these words: <What happened

WALTHER RATHENAU

when applied electricity came into being [through Emil Rathe-
nau's activities] was the mapping out of a new province of in-
dustry and the transformation of a great part of the prime con-
ditions of modern lifej a transformation, however, which did
not proceed from the consumer, but had to be organized, and,
as it were, forced on the consumer by the producer. Countries
which left this development to the consumer could only produce
this result incompletely and indirectly. Electricity in its present
centralized form really originated in Germany, a country with-
out any special qualifications for this so far as capital or geog-
raphy is concerned. It is true that in America electricity made
stupendous progress as a result of enormous consumption, but
nevertheless it retained right into modern times the form of the
older industries, though certainly on the largest scale.' (Letter
20.)

Among the men of comparable stature who played a leading
part in the shaping of present-day big business, Werner Sie-
mens may be considered greater as a scientist, Edison more
revolutionary and prolific as an inventor, and Ford more thor-
ough as an organizer of labour and machinery. But Emil Rath-
enau remains the most typically representative figure of Ger-
many and continental industry, because he embodied with the
greatest intensity and singleness of purpose the two basic tend-
encies which distinguish modern big business from all earlier
forms of industry: the immediate utilization of every technical
innovation for mass consumption, and the immediate absorp-
tion of every new source of capital for the increase of produc-
tion.

Indeed, the thoroughness with which Rathenau directed both,
tendencies to one goal, the inexorable logic with which he tested
every step towards this goal, are the very elements of his in-
dustrial tactics and the chief reason why, in his long and ad-
venturous career, he never met with a serious reverse. For many
years he passed, even with some of his colleagues, for a mere

FATHER AND SON

speculator to whom fortune had been kind. The very president
of one of his own boards of directors once exclaimed in be-
wilderment: 'But you do not mean to' say he really under-
stands applied electricity ?' Now, in point of fact, his triumphs
were the result of the almost fanatical concentration with which
he applied his immense knowledge of technical matters to com-
mercial ends. Not that he cared personally for money; his love
of gain so far as his own pocket was concerned was of the
faintest. But, as Riedler records, he pressed on every one of his
colleagues as his fundamental principle that cit is our duty to
make money for the shareholders j that is our sole business, it
is for that we are appointed j only when our establishment is
yielding large profits have we fulfilled our trust.' That gave
him his standing with the banks and made it possible for him
to raise almost unlimited sums; big and steady profits gave him
the confidence of the investor. Thus he made sure of the one
factor indispensable for the world-wide expansion of his busi-
ness: the influx of almost unlimited capital. The other pro-
pelling force of modern big business, the rush of technical in-
vention, he harnessed with equal thoroughness by diverting and
concentrating it, like Ford thirty years later, on mass produc-
tion and cutting of prices. Thus, while in his inner life as an
inventor and creator he remained a dreamer and idealist, in his
industrial activities he became a complete, indeed a stupendous,
example of the 'purpose-ridden man,' as Walther Rathenau
afterwards called this type, the man who completely subordi-
nates himself and his soul to some purpose which lies outside
himself. 'He never touched,' says Riedler, 'anything which did
not fit in organically with what he was planning and scheming,
however important it might seem or be in itself 5 activities in
which mastery was out of his reach, he disdained. He avoided
frittering away his energies. And in accordance with this self-
restraint, his personal range of interests, compared with modern
standards, was very narrow. His only real interest was his pro-

WALTHER RATHENAU

f ession. Yet his outlook was wide. Rathenau had an excellent
general education 5 but everything that did not move him per-
sonally was soon forgotten. From his school days he had re-
tained little .more than a knowledge of geography and natural
science. . . . His only permanent interest was the world of
facts, the many-sided developments of applied science and in-
dustry. Art in the ordinary sense of the word attracted him but
little. Everything in the way of literature left him cold; the
theatre he considered merely as an amusement unworthy of
serious attention; he only half heard what they were saying on
the stage, and saw the same play several times without becom-
ing aware of the fact.5 Stendhal has an anecdote of Napoleon
during an opera adding up the number of his battalions and
cannons, Cimarosa's music only serving as a stimulant to stra-
tegical considerations. That was Emil Rathenau's attitude to-
wards art.

It might be unjust or misleading to state that Walther Rath-
enau was thinking of his father when he drew up his indictment
of the 'purpose-ridden man,' the man who sells his soul for
material success. There were elements of greatness in Emil
Rathenau which are lacking in the vulgar type of the 'purpose-
ridden man/ the business man with nothing but facts and hard
cash in his mind, such as Dickens's Bounderby or Mr Sinclair
Lewis's Babbitt. Deeply imbedded in all Emil Rathenau's
activities, as their source and impulse there lived creative imagi-
nation, vision, intuition, a sort of second sight independent of
any plans for making money or ousting competitors. But out-
wardly, as a great financier and captain of industry, he cannot
but have shown many of the traits and limitations from which
Walther Rathenau recoiled. And over and above this, Walther
realized that his father was not the master but the servant of
the industrial Frankenstein's monster he had himself created.
The huger the machine grew, the more did it feed on his free-
dom. Now, nothing was more abhorrent to Walther Rathenau

WALTHER AND ERICH RATHENAU

FATHER AND SON

than any kind of personal servitude. Every limitation of his in-
dependence caused him acute pain, and he always rather de-
spised those who did not share this feeling. And yet, here was
his father agreeing, without any outward necessity, to an unpar-
alleled restriction of freedom. The jealous care with which
Walther Rathenau, as a sixth-form boy, shunned every sug-
gestion of control is shown by a story which his mother told
Etta Federn-Kohlhaas. She was attending one of the public ex-
aminations in the Wilhelm Gymnasium, and had taken her seat
in the front row. *When her son came up with his class he took
no notice of her, but purposely answered none of the questions
put to him, remaining completely dumb. His mother felt in-
tensely distressed in her front seat and returned home angry
and mortified, with the intention of scolding her son. He, how-
ever, came in as if nothing had happened and in the best of
spirits, merely asking her whether she would soon attend an-
other examination.' And some years later, as a young clerk, he
writes to his mother from Neuhausen: clt fills me with despair
that I should be dependent and that so far as I can see there is
no escape from it and no end to it. To be under someone's con-
trol day by day, to have work set you day by day, to have to
submit to questions, to have to humiliate yourself by making re-
quests and sometimes even apologies, when you believe yourself
to be in the right; to have inferior people as colleagues . . .
years of this are enough to drive you mad, if you value your
freedom above everything.'

These were the views and feelings with which he witnessed
his father's growing enslavement. Emil Rathenau's defects, his
fitful moods, his hardness in money matters, had always caused
friction} but now his acquiescence as a great leader of industry
in a state of practical slavery produced a worse and more pro-
found estrangement.

Thus it came about that in his boyhood and early youth
Walther was deeply and completely devoted to his mother

WALTHER RATHENAU

alone. In her he thought he saw the embodiment of the ideal
world of Goethe and of the great German Romantics j whereas
his father personified to him another world, breathless in its
pursuit of gain and technical innovation, undignified in its sacri-
fice of personal freedom. And yet, so insistent was the im-
pact of this new world rising about him, so impressive his
father's genius, that both forced their way into the very depths
of the boy's soul 5 and the clash between the equally powerful
influences of his father and mother produced or fostered in him
a sort of dual personality, a conflict which from then on never
ceased raging in him between an unquenchable desire for the
pure life of the spirit and a mysterious, irresistible urge towards
commercial and technical activity, and outward material suc-
cess. It was this conflict which finally made of his life a tragedy,
and, when it became an open secret through his writings, a sort
of public scandal for millions of his countrymen, till a violent
death appeared even to himself, as it did to many of his friends,
his foredoomed and inevitable fate. But it was this same con-
flict that made of Walther Rathenau a tragic symbol of our
civilization, which, rent in twain as it is between the ever-in-
creasing need for soul-destroying labour and the no less insist-
ent calls of the spirit, also has to choose, unless it find a com-
promise, between sudden catastrophe and, still worse, slow ex-
tinction.

CHAPTER II
THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

WALTHER RATHENAU'S dual personality, the peculiar
character of his spiritual life, which seemed to re-
volve round two disconnected axes, developed in him
early under the conflicting influences of his home. Many a boy
is divided equally between some form of romantic idealism
and competing mirages of worldly success. But, as a rule, youth-
ful idealism is finally disposed of by 'sound common sense'
when he goes into business or one of the professions. Or if his
mind and spirit happen to be of a finer and rarer stuff, idealism
gains the day, and unity is restored by the boy's definitely turn-
ing prophet or poet. Now the case of Walther Rathenau dif-
fers from the norm by the persistence of both tendencies in him
tlirough life, each getting the upper hand in turn, each prov-
ing itself in turn a master passion, each triumphing, only to
be immediately challenged and defeated by its rival. The re-
sult, apart from far-reaching effects on his reputation and
career, was a peculiar iridescence of Rathenau's intellect which
seemed to clothe every idea it evolved in a brilliant and multi-
coloured halo. He had a vast, indeed a unique, store of knowl-
edge, economic, scientific, literary, historical, political, and a no
less unique store of business experience. Now all this was kept
perpetually moving to and fro between two systems, intro-
spective asceticism and shrewd worldliness, each complete in
itself, each hardening rather than compromising with its rival
as life proceeded, and each illuminating every idea, as it rose
over the horizon of Rathenau's mind and passed on its way,
with brilliant and ever-changing hues* His intellect thus caine

WALTHER RATHENAU

to resemble an astonishing coat of many colours, which he dis-
played for the delight or the discomfiture of those who ap-
proached him, and behind which he concealed, from himself
and others, the painful hesitations of a nature torn between two
mutually destructive passions.

Outwardly he ran a very ordinary course as a boy and youth.
He never shone particularly at school. It was only in German
literature that he excelled, and the drill inherent in German
education went against the grain of his nature. Unsatisfactory
reports led to repeated friction with his father. Once, we are
told, he was near committing suicide. However, he was only
seventeen when he left school for the university. He studied in
Berlin and Strassburg: mathematics and physical science with
the great Helmholtz, chemistry with Hofmann, and philoso-
phy with Dilthey. In 1889, when he was only twenty-two, he
graduated with a dissertation on 'Light Absorption by Metals.'
He then went in for electro-chemistry, the new branch of in-
dustry which was just in its beginnings, giving the significant
reason that his father had no say in it, his father's firm not yet
having turned its attention that way. In order to fit himself for
the profession of an electro-chemist he took a postgraduate
course in Munich, where he remained a year} and then accepted
the post of a subordinate technical official in the 'Aluminium
Industry' Company in Neuhausen, Switzerland, where he per-
fected a process for producing chlorine and alkalies by means of
electrolysis. In 1 893 he took over the management of the 'Elek-
tro-chemische Werke G.m.b.H.' in Bitterfeld in the Prussian
province of Saxony, remaining there for seven years in a pro-
longed struggle with all sorts of difficulties and ill-luck. He
did not give in, however, and stayed till he had achieved suc-
cess. When he left Bitterfeld, in 1900, his apprenticeship was at
an end. He was thirty-three, with a reputation for technical
skill and business ability already established and a mind richly
stocked with knowledge acquired by extensive reading in the

THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

dreary isolation of a small provincial town. Life seemed to
open out for him a vista of easy triumphs. And yet, if one con-
siders more closely the lines on which he was developing, one
can observe the implidt tragedy drawing relentlessly nearer.
The qualities which tied the knot of his destiny move on to the
stage one by one and hand in hand like the Virtues and Vices in
an old play, and gather unto themselves strength for the battle
which was to end for him in catastrophe.

He was devoted to his mother. Yet even in his dealings with
her, he was of a curiously secretive disposition. His mother's
reminiscences, as quoted by Etta Federn-JCohlhaas, show how
he drew a veil between himself and her, a very definite line of
defence against that complete intimacy which for a child al-
ways implies a surrender of its independence. His mother, who
was jealous by nature, was deeply mortified by this aloofness,
and used to reproach him for it. One of his earliest published
letters was evidently written in reply to some such reproaches.
'You must not imagine that I am an enemy to emotion or
affection. But living amongst passionate people — and we are^all
passionate — has made me shy of excess. I think it a fine thing
to live in intimate communion with others without enthusiasm
or self-annihilation, but with a steadfast and immutable same-
ness of affection strengthened and heightened by calm but in- ''
def atigable activity. But it is the expression of this, its outward
proof, that I do not like. . . It may be that I go to the other
extreme and that I should show more consideration for you,
who are not made like that. But I cannot help it. It goes too
much against the grab, and I find it difficult even to write you
this, especially as one can never express adequately what one
feels on this subject.' He was positively haunted by the fear
of anybody's drawing him out and establishing an ascendancy
over him. He reacted with a sensitiveness which seemed almost
morbid to the faintest attempt at influencing him. In his Apho-
risms, jotted down probably in Bitterfeld, he says: 'Beware,

WALTHER RATHENAU

man, lest they love you as they love a beautiful animal, not out
of affection, but out of covetousness.' Professor Saenger, who
knew him for half a lifetime, records: 'Even when he appeared
most frank, even in the middle of an intimate conversation,
Walther Rathenau always seemed hidden behind a sort of veil.
. . . He kept watch over the inner workings of his soul as
though it had been the Holy Grail.' And he himself once
wrote: c Years ago I was inclined to make a present of my heart
to any one. A kind word unlocked my soul. Although a Jew, I
am not by nature suspicious, but, on the contrary, eager to trust
people. But when I found out that I was being used as a means
to an end, I felt crushed, dishonoured, disgraced, betrayed. I
was ready to be helpful of my own free will, but to be taken
for a fool and treated like a common, despicable tool, like a sort
of swindler outswindled! Wounded vanity is slow to healj it
was some time before I found myself.'

He found himself by assuming the leadership in every rela-
tion with others, by making himself their superior, their prop
and help, by always setting the tone. Thus he preserved his
independence. There is a photograph of him with his younger
brother Erich, when they were in their early teens, showing
how soon this patronizing tendency expressed itself even in his
gestures: Walther's arm is laid on his younger brother's shoul-
der, as though he were protecting him, a habit he came to adopt
almost as a matter of course when in prolonged conversation
with a friend. Up to the very end of his life he delighted in
playing the *big brother' even to casual acquaintances, who
often failed to appreciate his condescension.

The weapon with which he imposed his leadership on others
was his intelligence. His Jewish blood and remarkably gifted
family had endowed him with an intelligence far above the
average j and this he had still further widened and trained,
made supple and brilliant, by his own indefatigable industry.

THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

To intelligence was added an extraordinarily active imagina-
tion} and both together seemed to stretch out like an Indian
idol with a thousand arms to seize and hold all who came within
their reach, friends and enemies alike. Yet he himself thought
little of the origins of the intellect, reviling it as the product of
fear. Tear and courage, as seen in the movements of the will,
the tendency to oppression and assault, and the tendency to de-
fence and flight, form,' so he says, 'the great antinomy which
runs through all Creation . . . these are the antagonistic primal
elements of all human impulses, uninfluenced by experience, in-
dependent of thought and will, of faith and knowledge. These
impulses (one or other of them) govern from first to last the
life of men, of peoples, and of races. . . . Courage is the out-
come of strength, fear of weakness. The weapon of the strong
is confidence and strength, the weapon of the weak is fear and
flight. . . . With his eyes anxiously fixed on the future the
man who is fear-ridden becomes conscious of the power of his
intellect, which dispels the surrounding darkness. He thinks and
plans, strives and covets, seeks and broods. Thus he forges as
his defence against fear the new weapon of intellect. . . .'
(Weakness y Fear and Purpose, p. 13 ff.)

The principal fear-ridden race and hence the race with the
highest intellectual powers is the Jews. 'When has a man of the
blond type of the Nordic Gods ever achieved greatness in the
world of art and thought?5 (Aphorisms.} From the very be-
ginnings of their history the Jews have been a race governed by
fear, driven by their experiences, by their 'God,5 to a one-sided,
stupendously exaggerated cultivation of this one organ, the in-
tellect. In one of his brilliant table-talks (it must have been
about 1906), sitting after supper with the poet Hofmannsthal
and myself, he expounded to us his view of the history and
origins of the Jewish people: 'This is what happened. When
God created the world he acted after the manner of a good
French cook, who gets ready in the morning an ingredient he

WALTHER RATHENAU

will be wanting for dinner in the evening. He allowed himself
the luxury of setting aside a portion of pure mind,1 a certain
quantity of brain matter 5 this he sealed up in a jar and sent it,
so to speak, to the bottom of the sea for two thousand years. In
this watertight jar he enclosed one book, one single book, and
apart from this he left it, hermetically sealed against the rest
of the world, to ferment by itself. And what has been the re-
sult? For two thousand years this mass of mind has gone on
thinking over the same thoughts, till it has brought them to the
last pitch of refinement and complexity. Having written com-
mentaries on every sentence in the Bible, the Jewish mind then
wrote commentaries on its own commentaries, and then com-
mentaries on the commentaries of its commentaries. On this one
book was heaped a mass of knowledge so stupendous that only
a few men could master it. But, from time to time, such a man
arose, and then from Cordova to Cracow, from Posen to Lis-
bon, people would make pilgrimages to see him. The power and
prestige of the intellect, of this quite unpractical but most
highly refined and complex Talmudic intellect, grew and grew.
And thus was created an intellectual form, which now, in the
twilight of civilization, has become indispensable for our mod-
ern world, for the international economic life of today. Without
it world trade in the modern sense is unthinkable. And yet I
consider this mere intellect to be in itself unfruitful. Simmel 2
is the most perfect example of it among scientists. And what do
we find? In reality he merely runs a sort of broker's shop in
which to barter ideas. And the same is true even of trade when
we look closer into the activities of Jews in this branch of
human affairs. The Jews are the salt of the earth j but you
know what happens when one takes too much salt. I have al-
ways found that people who are clever and nothing more come

1 In a letter to Fran Minka Gronvold, Rathenau defines 'Mind* as 'consciously
differentiated thinking. Lower form: intellect. Higher form: reason.* (Letter 69.)
8 The German philosopher Georg Simmel (see Index).

THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

to grief even in business. And they richly deserve itj for in
themselves they are unproductive/

The legacy which his forefathers had bequeathed him, Rath-
enau felt, was fear, and, as the product both of fear and of a
peculiar history, a stupendous intellect, overcultivated to the
point of sterility. Whatever one may think of the myth of
dark intellectual races governed by fear and a blond unintellec-
tual race impelled by daring and born to rule, the fact that
Rathenau believed in this myth and made it the starting-point
of his philosophy of history is in itself a confession. Although
Rathenau was, as he proved later, physically fearless, he yet
felt himself to be one of a dark, timid, servile race. Somewhere
within him he felt fear lurking as his basic instinct, haunting
him like a ghost, possessing him in a thin, highly intellectual-
ized Jewish form, torturing him whenever he was faced by the
brutal violence of things, or by any intellectual, moral or social
superiority. In those very years. which were decisive for his
future career this lack of self-confidence was deepened by an
experience which made him at the same time painfully con-
scious both of the fact that he was a Jew and of the harshness
of the world.8 In his essay The State and the Jews (Staat imd
Judentum) he says: 'In the youth of every German Jew there
comes a moment which he remembers with pain as long as he
lives: when he becomes for the first time fully conscious of the
fact that he has entered the world as a citizen of the second

8 It is, perhaps, necessary to explain for the benefit of English and American
readers that there have been no legal disabilities imposed on the Jews in Germany
for over a century. In Prussia they were emancipated by an edict of Frederick
William III. in 1812. But their real status differed almost as widely from their
legal status as the real status of negroes from their legal status in the Southern
States of America. Jews were practically debarred from the Army and the Civil
Service, and only very gingerly received into Society till the days of the Jast
Kaiser, who himself, by the way, received them at his Court and thus contributed
a good deal to the removal of the prejudice against them. But in Rathenau's
youth, when a Jew of genius was ruling the British Empire in the interests of
British aristocracy, the Jews in Germany were still looked down upon almost as
dangerous aliens and segregated in a moral Jim Crow car.

WALTHER RATHENAU

class, and that no amount of ability or merit can rid him of this
status.' During his year's service in the Horse Guards, though
he proved himself an efficient soldier, he was not promoted.
His romantic admiration for the fair-haired Prussian Junker
caste must have made this humiliation particularly painful to
him. And so he let himself be guided, though he despised him-
self for it, by the wisdom of his fathers, and not seeing any
other way of mastering his sense of uneasiness, trusted for his
defence to his intellect. In his violent philippic against the pur-
pose-ridden man, Rathenau has himself described, though
with much exaggeration, the mood in which he let himself be
driven along the path of worldly shrewdness: 'Feeling that he
cannot out of his own strength wield power, he attempts to sub-
stitute authority for strength. A slave by nature, he seeks to
dominate over slavesj tortured by fear, he seeks to awaken fear
in others.'

The first step on the path of worldly cleverness was the re-
nunciation, in spite of a talent and inclination for painting, of
an artistic career, and the choice of a technical and commercial,
i.e. lucrative one. In the short introduction to the Swedish edi-
tion of his book, In Days to Come, he notes: 'Choice of voca-
tion; hesitation between painting, literature and natural science.
Decide on physics, mathematics and chemistry, as the founda-
tions of modern technology and science.' He took this decision
because he feared that he might have to remain dependent on
his father, if he chose a career which gave no sure prospect of
financial success. He notes with satisfaction in his Apology:
'By the age of seventeen I had finished my schooldays, at
twenty-three I entered on my profession. And from then on,
as was customary in my family, I neither asked nor accepted
any further assistance from my father.' And at the age of
twenty-four he writes to his father: 'You know me well enough
to judge how I suffer from my subaltern position. I would
never of my own free will be a subordinate official in any works.

THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

I find it unspeakably hateful to have my work assigned me
every day by a superior, who comes from time to time to see if
I am doing what I ought, to whom I owe an account of every-
thing I do, and who is in a position to give me orders, etc. . . .'
(Letter 7, 14.11.92.) Against such a state of material de-
pendence the only protection is money; money, which is ob-
tainable by industry, brains and strict economy, and which pro-
tects like golden armour the all-too-thin and tender covering
of the soul.

Perhaps it really was the soul of the Jewish race, downtrod-
den, humiliated, persecuted, and hunted from ghetto to ghetto
for two thousand years, which kept Walther Rathenau for
seven years of his youth earning a competence in the dreary
manufacturing village of Bitterf eld. There he stayed, the son
of rich parents, without any other motive j without a wife or
family, against his artistic leanings, solely in order to achieve
his material independence. Once every month or two he paid
a short visit to his mother in Berlin; in between, it was only
work, work, work, at experiments which yielded but scanty
profit. The work was often exhausting, and sometimes even
physically disgusting. His assistant at Bitterf eld, Hugo Geitner,
relates that on one occasion, in the so-called 'disintegrating
chamber' at the works, in which the electric current was sent
through hydrochloric add in order to produce alkali-lye, the
fumes became so suffocating that, in spite of the sponges
steeped in vinegar which they had strapped to their mouths,
the workmen ran away, leaving their apparatus; at which Rath-
enau stepped into the breach and himself attended to the ap-
paratus throughout the night.

On one occasion, when he himself had doubts as to the ulti-
mate success of his technical experiments, he wrote to his
mother: TBut if no practical use can be made of my results —
and I begin to have doubts on the matter — what then? Yes, in-
deed, what then? I don't know. I ponder and ponder, and still

WALTHER RATHENAU

I don't know. Another career? ... A new course of study at
the University? Noj so long as I have not got enough money
to live independently, no, emphatically no. . . J These words
sound like the passionate disclaimer of an emancipated slave
who, having won his freedom, is terrified at the prospect of
falling back into slavery.

But money alone is not a sufficient protection against humili-
ations. The intellect provides yet another weapon against social
injustice, namely, social diplomacy, the art of appreciating at
their true value and turning to account the conventions of so-
ciety and the secret impulses, weaknesses and prejudices of in-
fluential people. What is needed for this is sympathy and in-
sight j when these go hand in hand with imagination they crys-
tallize into intuition, that is, the ability to build up before the
inner eye the workings of another soul, the conflicting tend-
encies of an entire society, to study its laws, so to speak,
in the model, and to calculate its rhythm and output
like that of a machine. Rathenau possessed this gift from a
very early date, as is shown by a play which he wrote in Strass-
burg in 1887, at the age of nineteen. He had it printed anony-
mously, offered it to a theatre, and when it was refused, de-
stroyed all except one copy of it, secreting it even from his
mother. This was the hitherto unpublished play, Blanche Tro-
card. In judging it one should remember that it was written at
a time when the German theatre seemed dead and buried: a
year before Sudermann's Ehrey two years before Gerhart
Hauptmann's first play, Vor Sonnenaufgmgy at a period when
Ibsen had hardly been heard of in Germany, and Oscar Wilde
had only just begun to experiment on the stage for the
benefit of a highly exclusive set of English aesthetes. This
work by a student still in his teens is something quite different
from the usual type of schoolboy drama. It is neither con-
ventional nor revolutionary, but based throughout on the ob-
servation and expression of the most delicate, scarce-perceptible

THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

half-tones in thought and feeling, of the most subtle shades in
social relationships. In his complete avoidance of all theatrical
convention, of cliches and of rhetoric, and in his supple imagi-
native sympathy for the lightest stirrings of affection or distaste
between people, for the most transient fluctuations of the social
barometer, he stands much nearer to the modern French drama-
tists, Charles Vildrac or Porto-Riche, or at least the little po-
etical Proverbes of Musset, than to the models which the the-
atre of that day offered him: the Parisian successes of the
younger Dumas or of the author of Le monde ou I'on fennwe.
Blanche Trocard is worth studying more closely for the light
it throws on Rathenau's precocious insight into people and their
relationships. It is a short drama of marriage, in which the
tragedy is only just suggested between the lines, in which pas-
sions and conflicts, which threaten to destroy two human lives,
glimmer but faintly, with a light dimmed by social convention,
behind the simple, everyday words. There are two married
women. One of them, Madame Rozan, a former musical-com-
edy star, has bought herself a husband; the other, Blanche
Trocard, a respectable girl without money, has been bought
by her husband. The two men are partners, and they and their
wives live together in the same country house. Between the
two women there exists a not unnatural aversion. The former
musical-comedy star obtrudes herself on Blanche, from whom
she has secretly, as she thinks, stolen her husband. Blanche,
however, is aware of the situation, and without complaining re-
pels all Madame Rozan's advances. The play opens with the
arrival of a young man named Berthier, who had formerly
loved Blanche, but, believing his love unrequited, had made
way for her present husband. Here, as a specimen, is the first
conversation between Blanche and her former lover:

MME TROCARD. Don't your memories of France and the
friends you have left there have any influence over you?

WALTHER RATHENAU

BERTHIER. It is just my memories of France which drive me
away from it, for they are part and parcel of what makes life
so particularly hateful to me and turns all my other worries into
indifferent trifles. Nor do my memories of my friends hold me
back, although they are for the most part rather amusing, in-
deed very amusing. If it comes to that, I cannot think of any-
thing that could be more amusing than my friends and my
memories of them.

MME TROCARD. I should never have expected a man like
you to think unkindly of his home, you, who hardly seemed to
know what it meant to have a wish unrealized — spoilt by for-
tune, spoilt by your surroundings, loved by all, and envied by
so many. . . .

BERTHIER. You would never have expected it — that I can
well believe 5 but you understand it. Even as you understand,
alas, that a woman may be young, beautiful and wealthy, and
nevertheless unhappy. And that is much more strange!

MME TROCARD. I don't know what you mean.

BERTHIER. Yes, dear lady, our fates are similar; and I must
confess that I find some comfort in the fact. To have found
you unhappy is indeed sadj but I don't know what I should
have done if I had found you happy.

MME TROCARD. You are wrong, M Berthier, I am not un-
happy. What makes you think I am? Really and truly you are
wrong.

BERTHIER:. I grant that to all appearances you are happy.
Your words are those of a happy woman. So is your laugh and
the tone of your voice — perhaps indeed a little over-cheerful
— but I know you too well. I can tell the difference.

MME TROCARD. Please don't think that I am acting. I have
no need to. — Why should I feel unhappy?

BERTHIER. How often have you put yourself this question,
and how often have you answered it! But / have no right to
do so.

(Short pause)

THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

MME TROCARD. I know what you mean, M Berthier, and
I dare to put it into words: you think that my husband neglects
me. But you are. wrong. My husband is more considerate than
he wishes to appear. Don't you believe me? But suppose he
were not — should I then have a right to complain or be un-
happy? Certainly not. I cannot forget that I was nothing at all
before my husband made me his wife, and that it was through
him that I first learnt what consideration was.

BERTHIER. Is that his view too?

MME TROCARD. I don't know.

BERTHIER. If you wish it, I will gladly believe — what I
have never noticed, but also have never denied — that Trocard is
conscious that in you he possesses one of the best of women.
All the deeper and more hidden, then, must be the grief which
feeds on your happiness, and which has torn from your heart
that gladness which was so beautiful and so unconscious of
itself.

MME TROCARD. In heaven's name — what do you mean by
that?

BERTHIER. Have you still the same trust in me that you
used to have in Paris? You have, haven't you? And I thank you
for it from my heart.

Why shouldn't we speak openly with each other? We meet
again after a long separation. Through unfortunate circum-
stances, which I cannot explain without wounding you deeply,
my happiness has been destroyed. Through circumstances of
another kind, for which, however, you are not responsible, so
has yours. We both know these circumstances and feel them
equally deeply — so why deny that they exist? If it is your
wish, not another word shall be spoken on the subject of your
grief. But at least you will not forbid me to share it.

MME TROCARD. Tell me, M Berthier, what you know. I
beg of you. . . . Let me hear everything.

BERTHIER. I know no more and no less than you.

WALTHER RATHENAU

MME TROCARD (with growing uneasiness and agitation).
And even if I did know it! ... Tell it me to reassure me. I
implore you. I cannot bear this uncertainty. — Does it concern
my husband?

BERTHIER. Forgive me, dear lady, but you can hardly expect
it from my lips.

MME TROCARD. Don't drive me to despair with this un-
certainty. Tell me whether apart from him . . . Tell me
whether a woman . . . Oh, I implore you, please. . . . Men-
tion a letter of her name. . . .

BERTHIER. Why this word-game? Well, then, so be it. I was
thinking of Madame Rozan.

MME TROCARD (bursting into tears). O my God! that it
should be so obvious!

The way in which in this dialogue, as in the further conversa-
tions between Berthier and the former musical-comedy star, be-
tween her and Blanche, and between Blanche and her husband,
the tragic situation shines through the simple indifferent words,
like a lower layer of paint which cannot be completely hidden
by the picture itself j the way in which this situation becomes
gradually clearer, then reaches its crisis, and remains finally
without a solution — as in life — all this proves not only Walther
Rathenau's dramatic gift, but even more his natural talent for
the intimate refashioning of everything which brings about
coolness or warmth, compliance or firmness, weakness or power,
ascendancy or subjection, between people in their relations with
one another.

In fact, Rathenau belongs to that group of writers — in Ger-
many a very small group — who in France are described as <mor-
alistes': men of the world, philosophers and statesmen, like La
Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, Vauvenargues, Chamf ort and Ri-
varolj men who have pierced with intelligence, sympathy and
creative imagination into the secrets of the human heart and

THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

social relations, illuminating them with their brilliantly polished
aphorisms j men, for the most part, of a timid, over-sensitive
nature, or who have become so through external circumstances,
like Oscar Wilde or the German Lichtenberg, who seek in their
image of the world an inner support against the real world.
But whatever in a particular instance may be the source of this
gift for revealing the essence of social life, what ultimately
matters is whether the insight so gained can be put to practical
use. And Rathenau rightly estimated this gift of his more
highly than all his others.

One could make from his works a selection of concise and
vivid images, which would provide a general view, a consistent
and convincing model, of the entire modern world, starting
with the smallest and obscurest wheel hidden away within the
individual soul, and leading by a series of intermediate stages to
the great fly-wheels, pulleys and shaftings of social, commer-
cial, political, economic, religious, national and international
life. Doubtless in Rathenau's own mind there existed some such
model as this which at any moment he could set going. In his
long years in Bitterf eld he had built it up piece by piece for his
own private use. Buried away in the comfortless little manu-
facturing village, where he fought for material independence,
he sought, not diversion, but composure and inner stability, by
making the great and mysterious world beyond his factory
chimneys visible to his inner eye and accessible to his imagina-
tion. His studies were voyages of discovery to their various
spheres; efforts to conceive of everything in the form of im-
ages, and to comprehend all activity in terms of its function.
Sociology, political economy, history, philosophy, and litera-
ture, just as much as balance-sheets, business journeys, and
negotiations with financiers or competitors, were subordinate to
the aim of building up and formulating an — in this case rightly
so-called — outlook on lif e ('Weltanschauung*).

In the first place it was his concern to gain a clear conception

WALTHER RATHENAU

of his most immediate environment: the Jewish question and
the world of business. Two essays, which he gave Maximilian
Harden for the Zukwvft) namely, Hear 0 Israel! (Hore Is-
rael!) and The Physiology of Business (Physiologie der Ge-
schafte), formulated his ideas on both subjects so definitely
and, for him at least, so finally, that his insight into the rest of
the world followed naturally from this firm foundation.

'I will confess from the outset that I am a Jew.' So runs the
first sentence of Hear O Israel! published in Maximilian
Harden Js Zukwnft for March 6th, 1897, in which he appeared
in print for the first time.4 It is a bitter and fateful sentence, like
the opening theme of a tragic symphony. For Rathenau's Juda-
ism was his ruin. — Then, in a style still trembling with self-
laceration, he struggles to give a clear picture of the Jewish
problem. Whoever wishes to see it 'should wander through the
Tiergartenstrasse at 12 o'clock on a Berlin Sunday morning, or
else look into the foyer of a theatre in the evening. Strange
sight] There in the midst of German life is an alien and iso-
lated race of men. Loud and self-conscious in their dress, hot-
blooded and restless in their manner. An Asiatic horde on the
sandy plains of Prussia. . . . Forming among themselves a
close corporation, rigorously shut off from the rest of the world.
Thus they live half-willingly in their invisible ghetto, not a liv-
ing limb of the people, but an alien organism in its body. . . .'

'Yet I know,' he goes on to say, 'that there are some among
you who are pained and shamed by being strangers and half-
citizens in the land, and who long to escape from the stifling
ghetto into the pure air of the German woods and hills. It is to
you alone that I speak.' This was no cry of hollow pathos, but,
as Rathenau proved by his life, a cry for help out of the depths
of his distress} for he, the Jew, was in his heart on the side of

4 Two small essays on 'Electro-chemical Works' and Industrial Securities,*
which he published in the Zukunft in 1895, may be left out of account, as they
were concerned with purely technical matters.

THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

his opponents from the beginning. He says in one of his aph-
orisms: The epitome of the history of the world, of the history
of mankind, is the tragedy of the Aryan race. A blond and mar-
vellous people arises in the north. In overflowing fertility it
sends wave upon wave into the southern world. Each migration
becomes a conquest, each conquest a source of character and civ-
ilization. But with the increasing population of the world the
waves of the dark peoples flow ever nearer, the circle of man-
kind grows narrower. At last a triumph for the south: an ori-
ental religion takes possession of the northern lands. They
defend themselves by preserving the ancient ethic of courage.
And finally the worst danger of all: industrial civilization gains
control of the world, and with it arises the power of fear, of
brains and of cunning, embodied in democracy and capital
. . .' The tragedy of the Aryan race, not of the Jewish! That
was his feeling, and that is the peculiarity of Rathenau's attitude
to the Jewish problem. And for this reason none of the current
solutions satisfied himj for example, the removal of all restric-
tions, or conversion to Christianity, or Zionism. Suppose the
social boycott and the 'citizenship of the second class' removed}
that would be an act of justice and an advantage to the subor-
dinate race, but not enough to loose the tragic knot. 'So what is
to be done?' he asks in Hear O Israel! 'An event without his-
torical precedent: the conscious effort of a race to adapt itself to
alien conditions. Adaptation, not in the sense of Darwin's theory
of mimicry, according to which certain insects have the power
of adapting themselves to the colour of their environment, but
an assimilation, in the sense that racial qualities, whether good
or bad, which have proved repugnant to their fellow-country-
men, should be discarded and replaced by others more suitable.
. . . The goal of the process should be, nqt imitation Germans,
but Jews bred and educated as Germans.'

He developed this solution further at a later date when he

WALTHER RATHENAU

had ceased to assign a deeper meaning to differences of race,
and had come to recognize only differences of temperament,
the difference between people who are governed by fear and
those who are governed by courage. During the war he wrote
to a nationalist friend: cl am convinced that religion, language,
history and culture are of far greater importance than physio-
logical questions of blood mixture and that they cancel them
out.5 (Letter 191.) And a few months later to the same friend:
'You say incidentally "my people" and "your people." I know
that you do this merely for the sake of brevity, but I should
like to say a word or two on the point. "My people" are the
Germans and no other. For me the Jews are a German race,
like the Saxons, the Bavarians, or the Wends. . . . The only
qualifications I recognize for membership of a people or nation
are those of heart, mind, character and soul. From this point of
view I put the Jews somewhere between the Saxons and the
Swabians. They are less near to me than Brandenburgers or
Holsteiners, and perhaps somewhat nearer to me than Silesians
or Lorrainers. I am speaking, of course, only of German Jews.'
(Letter 208.)

Thus the conscious adaptation of the Jews to German life
came to appear merely as a matter of will and perseverance.
This conviction of Rathenau's hardened from year to year. It
offered him the surest support against the spectre of fear, which
he felt within him. And from this starting-point he laboured at
moulding his own personality. His appreciation of Junker
ideals, his preference for old Prussian forms of art, .as exem-
plified by his purchase and restoration of the little castle of
Freienwalde, the peculiar bareness in the style of 1813 which
he loved to have around him, in short his Prussianism, pro-
ceeded, at least in part, from this conscious adaptation to the
race of which with such passionate pathos he longed to be a
member. Hence to some they seemed affected, to others super-
ficially romantic, because few, and those only gradually, became

THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

aware of the deep necessity from which they sprang. Above all,
his enemies questioned his sincerity, and took advantage of the
alleged dubious nature of his German sentiments as the most
effective means of agitation against him, until the nationalistic
circles, whose ideals he really shared, ended by bringing him to
bay and murdering him. In the sentences quoted from the essay
Hear O Israel! this tragic development is already implicit.

The second and already completely mature product of Rath-
enau's persistent endeavour to attain to a clear conception of the
world is The Physiology of Business y which appeared in 1901
in Harden's Zukwnft. In spirit and in form this work bears a
close affinity to that of the French 'moralistes'; it is witty and
pointed, opening out perspective after perspective with such in-
sight and at times with such clarity that some of his sayings
have already become classical:

'To recognize and create a demand is the secret of all sound
business.'

'An organization should cover its territory like a spider's web:
from every point a direct and practicable route should lead to
the centre.'

'Business concerns should be run monarchically. Committees
at their worst are very bad, but at their best they are only
indifferent.'

'To have colleagues is to have enemies.'

'Put yourself constantly in the other person's pkce. Pro-
pose what you yourself would accept if you were in his position;
and when anything is said to you, consider what interests lie
behind it. Do the thinking for others, as well as for yourself.'

'With intelligent people who know each other and are ex-
perienced in negotiation, few words suffice to make important
decisions. An inexperienced listener would hardly realize that
they were dealing with the point in question, and would often
not know whether the outcome was refusal or consent.'

'When one considers how often the origin and fate of great

WALTHER RATHENAU

undertakings is decided by a walk or a lunch, a yawn or a nod
of the head, one may well doubt whether man's strength or his
weakness is the more to be wondered at.'

'I don't care a straw for what are called "great ideas." They
can be had for the asking. They come by the dozen, this rabble,
when we are dreaming, or digesting our food, or seeking rec-
reation. And that is their proper time and their proper place.
... I can imagine a king of industry reading his own biogra-
phy, and seeing how the "great thought" of life is set out and
interpreted and extolled. How the good man must laugh over
the chroniclers' credulity! For when he took it up the great
idea had already become a well-worn platitude, an heirloom,
the common property of all sensible people j what had been
lacking was the man, the will, the industry and the persever-
ance. And if genius was needed, it was the genius for dealing
with a thousand different methods and complications, the gen-
ius of obstinacy and persuasive force.'

CI hate clever thoughts and distrust brilliant and paradoxical
sayings/

'People who fit successfully into an organization are always
Germans or Anglo-Saxons. Of all form of racial superiority this
seems to me the most important. Jews are never officials. Even
if it is on the most insignificant scale they are employers and
business people on their own responsibility.'

*A young man of good family was once commending his
abilities to me, and asked me what he could earn by a com-
mercial career, provided that he only worked five hours a day.
To which I replied that in business only work of seven hours
and upward is remunerated, and induced him to enter the Civil
Service.'

The views which are formulated in the last aphorisms of the
little collection are of decisive importance for the further de-
velopment of Rathenau's ideas:

'Plutocracy. There is nothing more depressing than the

THE WAY OF THE INTELLECT

knowledge that we are irretrievably committed to plutocracy.
Three or four Teutonic states still hold out against itj but for
how long?'

'The Future. I see the rulers of the future and their children.
Horrible people with huge skulls and burning eyes, men who
sit perpetually, sit and count, calculate and advise. Every word
an act, every look a judgment, every thought directed to that
"which is." Perhaps they will be somewhat more cultured than
their brothers of today, probably less healthy.

cAnd their descendants! — They are their heirs in everything
except intellect and strength. A feeble, nerveless rabble, mor-
bid, pampered, ill-tempered and irresolute. The dragon's brood,
they exist on the treasure that has been left them, too lazy to
increase it and too weak to keep it. The best of them and those
who will earn the gratitude of sensible people will be those who
by gambling, extravagance or passion restore to the world that
which belongs to it. — The golden spectre approaches inexor-
ably.'

'Euplutism. If the accumulation of riches must be taken for
granted, then I confess that the sceptre of wealth in the hands
of men like the elder Krupp, Pullman or Montefiore seems to
me less dangerous than the insignia of political power in the
hands of legitimate and constitutional princes such as Louis
Philippe or Frederick William the Fourth*

'The most tolerable kind of plutocracy, and therefore the
one most worth striving for, seems to me to have been reached, ,
when the most clever, efficient and conscientious people are at .
the same time the richest. For the sake of brevity I should
like to use the word ewplutism for this state of things. Darkly
and confusedly the popular will and legislation of all countries
is striving towards euplutism. In the long run, why should not
this aim be frankly recognized, and pursued by the appropri-
ate means?

'The condition of euplutism will only be approximately at-

WALTHER RATHENAU

tainable; with the same degree of approximation perhaps as in
pur present-day efforts to make the wisest men into representa-
tives of the people, the bravest into the leaders of our armies,
the justest into judges, and the noblest into rulers. But if the
goal is in itself worth striving for, then the ways of attaining
it follow naturally.

*Such ways are: graduated income-tax; heavy duties on in-
herited wealth, dowries and settlements j taxation of capital un-
productively employed, especially of foreign loans; diminution
of arbitrary monopolies by the right to nationalize mines, trans-
port and urban land; abolition of monopolies where govern-
ment contracts are concerned; state control of combines, cartels
and trusts.'

These passages written in 1901 when he was thirty-four and
had just emerged from obscurity already contain Rathenau's
future programme. But there is still .more behind them: the
clear image of a world whose problems are no longer national,
but international; the new world of the twentieth century which
has already superseded that of the nineteenth. His systematic
exploration of reality made Rathenau — who in his tastes and
ideals remained throughout his life a thorough Prussian, in so
far as he was not a Jew of the Old Testament type — much
against his inclinations into a representative of European, in-
deed cosmopolitan, thought. And from this point he progressed
inevitably to those views which are embodied in his great the-
oretical works, and from which proceeded his two historic
achievements: the organization of the supply of German raw
materials at the beginning of the war; and, after the collapse,
the f oundation of a new German foreign policy, the so-called
'policy of fulfilment,' to which Germany owes the beginning of
its recovery, and Europe the beginning of its rehabilitation and
pacification.

CHAPTER III
SOCIAL INTERLUDE

c TpN 1899,* says Rathenau, cafter I had spent seven years in
I the little manufacturing town of Bitterf eld, the under-
JL takings began to prosper. I decided to retire from industry
in order to devote myself to literature. The A.E.G., however,
invited me to join their board of directors and take over the
department for constructing power stations. I undertook the
work for three years, and built a number of stations — e.g. in
Manchester, Amsterdam, Buenos Aires and Baku. I retained
the directorship of the electro-chemical works, and became at
the same time delegate of a great foreign electricity trust. . . .
In 1902 I left the A.E.G. in order to enter finance. I joined the
management of one of our big banks, the Berliner Handelsge-
sellschaf t, and reorganized a great part of its industrial under-
takings. I gained an insight into German and foreign industry,
and belonged at that time to nearly a hundred different con-

cerns.'

With his return to Berlin Walther Rathenau started on a
career in society — a further advance along the 'path of the in-
tellect' in the form of social diplomacy and of insight into the
mind of modern Germany in its focal point, Berlin, and in its
typical representatives, the Berlin bankers, Berlin Court Society,
and the Kaiser. Any one who met him then will remember a
slim and very tall young man, who startled one by the abnor-
mal shape of his head, which looked more negroid than Euro-
pean. Deep-set eyes, cold, fawn-coloured and slowj measured
movements 5 a deep voice j and a bland address — these formed

WALTHER RATHENAU

the somewhat unexpected, and, as it were, artifidal, setting for a
dazzling display of intellect.

In Court Society, where everybody knew everybody, his in-
trusion seemed strange at first. But once one had noticed him,
it was impossible to forget his appearance and the peculiar im-
pression he made: an impression of massive strength and at the
same time of a certain weakness, perhaps, for all one knew, of
a too tender skin. He was f asdnating and somewhat mysterious.
He reminded one of Stendhal's Julien Sorel, with his dark
frock-coat and pierdng eyes, or even more perhaps of another
young Jew, who had forced his way into society seventy years
before in another country, with an equally brilliant intellect,
but adorned with ear-rings and an embroidered Turkish waist-
coat— Benjamin Disraeli. With Rathenau it was only the in-
tellect that glittered, the intellect and the rush of images
crowding each other in his conversation. His bearing and ges-
tures, and his neat and unobtrusive, but always fashionable
dress, revealed a well-considered intention to oppose to the sim-
ple military style of Prussian Court Society another, still more
simple, of his own. Never for a moment did he forget, or
allow others to forget, that he was a Jew; he seemed to want
people to feel that he was proud of his race, that it made of him
a distinguished foreigner who had a right to special courtesies
and to pass through doors closed to others. He contemplated
the great ladies, and the young nobles of the Horse Guards,
as though they belonged to another planet. Herbert von Hin-
denburg's novel Crinett, which had just appeared, and which
gave an unfriendly but authentic picture of this world, Rath-
enau studied like a Baedeker. 'Important material for getting
at the ideas of the Prussian nobility,' he sets down in his diary.

His delight in being received into this strange Berlin Court
Society, whose rays had shone as from some distant star upon
his childhood — and no less his pride in his old middle-class

SOCIAL INTERLUDE

Berlin ancestry — are both reflected in the following "(unpub-
lished) early letter to a woman friend:

'Today I am not pressed for time, I have the night before
me, my coffee machine is on the boil, and I have just come from
my old friend, the Countess Kalckreuth, we Babette Meyer.

'Mme Abeken spent the whole evening telling me of the
1840'$. Her mother was Schubert's "Fair Maid of the Mill,"
which you sang to mej she was a Staegemann by birth and in
her house the Miller songs originated. Mme Abeken (a sister
of Marie Olf ers, who was also there) is almost beautiful by her
excess of ugliness. She was wearing a little jacket of light grey
velvet with three large strings of pearls, and her teeth, which
are grey pearls too, were all set in gold. But she told me how
Tieck read, how Sonntag sang and Elsler danced. Elsler wore
long clothes and danced the ballet Sytyhide, in which she used
to die with the utmost grace. Mme Abeken cannot understand
how Elsler could put up with that old fool, Friedrich von
Gentz, who was a friend of RahePs. "One" [viz. members of
the Court Circle] was friends with Varnhagen till '485 after
that he became too radical.

<I know you care nothing about all this; but to me it is some-
thing rare and strange that Iy the little electrical engineer,
should actually touch with my fingers the magic ring of the
Romantics*

*Who else was there? Voss [the novelist] and his wife, and
the two von Wildenbruchsj in all eight women and four men.
At the end Exzellenz Wildenbruch [an official of the Foreign
Office] made himself agreeable to me. . . . "Have you been
long in Berlin?" "For just four generations." "And may I ask
what profession you are going to take up? The Foreign Office?"
"No, I am a banker." "And very nice too!"

'The fourth man, on the other hand, a Count Baudissin,

1The italics are mine.

4-5

WALTHER RATHENAU

was better informed. He took me for the art critic of the
Zukunft. . . .

€Mme Abeken also knew Bettina. On the site on which the
Roland Fountain now stands [near the Tiergarten and not a
hundred yards from the Rathenaus' house in the Victoria-
strasse] there was a certain very tall poplar tree; beside this, in
the Kempergarten, they used to eat cold beer soup — which
tasted quite different in those days — and cherry tarts. Tieck
had the most beautiful blue eyes, and read the female parts
in a kind of falsetto. His friend, the Countess X, wore a green
eye-shade. Sonntag, by becoming Countess Rossi, advanced to
the position of an ambassador's wife. Nevertheless she sang
the I$higenia in society, and had some young girls to make a
chorus. In '48 she lost all her money, returned to the stage,
earned half a million, and died in Mexico.

c "Historians," said Mme Abeken, "are no use. They have
no knowledge of the people they are dealing with, and try to
classify everything rigidly, however complex it may be." '

Rathenau's two booklets, The Kaiser and To the Youth of
Germany {An Deutschlands Jugend}y give a terse account of
the other impressions the new German Empire made on him
after his return to Berlin:

'We had become both rich and powerful, and we wanted to
show it to the world. . . . The feverish life of a great city,
hungry for realities, intent on technical success and so-called
achievement, clamorous for festivals, prodigies, pageants and
such-like futilities, for which the Berliner has invented the
nicknames Klimbim and Klamauk, all this produced a sort of
combination of Rome and Byzantium, Versailles and Pots-
dam. . . •

'The monarch was surrounded by the Court, which untiringly
and self-sacrifidngly idolized him, regarded the State as the All
Highest's family affair, and shielded him from any kind of
unpleasantness. "He must have sun," they said.

SOCIAL INTERLUDE

'The Court consisted of the aristocracy, landed, military, or
bureaucratic. Prussia was its private domain, which it had
helped to makej and it was bound to the Crown by mutual
interests. . . *

'Round Society the plutocratic bourgeoisie lay encamped, de-
manding admission at any price, and prepared to defend any-
thing and countenance anything. . * .

'Beyond lay the people. The people of the countryside, con-
servative, uninformed, resigned to the authority of the nobility,
the church, the drill-sergeant, and the sheriff 5 the people of the
towns, restless, disrespectful, yet easily impressed, spending
themselves in a feverish rush for money and enjoyment And
in the background the working-class, resentful, despised and
despising, systematically denying the present and living on the
future.

'The promising young man making for a "career" was gen-
erally a coxcomb} bloated, insolent and cynical in his bearing,
with hair pasted down on his scalp and duelling scars on his
face, in tight breeches and spurs, with strident voice, aping the
officer's tone of command. He looked down on his professors
and passed the paltry examination standard with the help of
crammers; his manners were aggressive and defiant, except
where influential connections were concerned, and he spent his
time in duelling, getting drunk, and telling dirty stories. Boys
of this stamp were tolerated, in fact welcomed; they were
destined to become the rulers and judges, the pastors and
masters and doctors of the peopled

This type, which, as Domela 2 attests, is not even yet com-
pletely extinct, at that time controlled all the avenues to power
in the State. The attack direct against it and its representatives
in the Civil Service and the Army was difficult and perilous

2 Harry Domela, a young- adventurer who impersonated the eldest son of the
former Crown Prince, and who has recorded his adventures in post-war Germany
in a very entertaining book, A Sham Prince, published in an English translation
by Hutchinson and Co., London.

WALTHER RATHENAU

even from above, from the highest positions; Bismarck himself
confessed that it had defeated him. From below, it had to be
circumvented by strategy. Rathenau, to whom a superiority
based solely on brutality and arrogance must have seemed par-
ticularly objectionable, managed to evade it by finding his way
into that section of Court Society which appreciated intellect
and individuality. This small, but very exalted set, which
breathed a little fresh air and culture into the upper regions of
the Prussian Army and Civil Service, combined elements from
the circles of the late Empress Augusta and Empress Frederick
with those younger or more advanced members of the Aristoc-
racy who had a European rather than a bureaucratic outlook.
This tradition of culture had been passed on from great lady
to great lady, as the salt of Berlin Court Society, from the days
when the wife of the Prussian Minister of the Royal House-
hold, Frau von Schleinitz, afterwards Countess Wolkenstein,
intrigued against Bismarck and patronized Richard Wagner,
and when, a little later, the Empress Augusta scandalized old
Prussian country gentlemen by employing a French poet, who
happened to be Jules Laforgue, as her reader, to the little
Court of the Empress Frederick, the friend of artists and
musicians, and thence to the small company of fashionable and
high-born women who about 1900 were the leaders of Berlin
Society: the beautiful Mistress of the Robes, Countess Harrach,
nee Pourtalesj the daughter of Prince Munster, Frau von
Hindenburg; the daughter of Meyerbeer, Frau Cornelia
Richter; the dark and rather mysterious Russian beauty, Prin-
cess Guido Henckel-Donnersmarck; the formidable niece of
the great Talleyrand, Princess Marie Radziwill} and, above all,
the wife of the Chancellor, the stepdaughter of Minghetti, the
self-willed, lively and witty Italian Princess, Marie Billow, All
these were Europeans, had great European family connections,
were independent by reason of their wealth, could snap their
fingers even at the Kaiser, and by their prestige, their tact and

SOCIAL INTERLUDE

intelligence exerted an influence which actually counterbalanced
that of official circles when it came to making important appoint-
ments, especially under the chancellorships of Prince Bulow
and Bethmann-Hollweg, both of whom were intimately con-
nected with this set. Soon after 1900 Rathenau, as the only
representative of his class, became a welcome guest in this
inner circle, from which the New Rich were still ruthlessly ex-
cluded, and to which even Ministers, if they were not either
very well born or very clever, were only admitted on probation.
One of the great ladies of this group not long ago wrote to
me in answer to my question about her acquaintance with
Walther Rathenau: clt is more than twenty years since I
first met Walther Rathenau at a small dinner party given by
Frau Cornelia Richter. When her son, Gustav Richter, told
me that Rathenau was to take me in to dinner I was rather
annoyed, as I was accustomed at the Richters' to being taken
in by some old friend of mine. Gustav was very much amused,
for Rathenau was also annoyed. Cornelia, however, smiled; it
had been her intention to bring us together! And we under-
stood each other at once. With Rathenau, I never had the feel-
ing that I was under critical observation, which with others I
am apt to feel acutely. When he was free, he often came to see
mej the very day after this first meeting he told me how de-
lighted he was about it.'

Between these lines one can read the secret of Rathenau's
social success. In society, just as at ^ later period in diplomacy,
he could adjust himself to those he met with lightning intui-
tion; he took their measure so rapidly that they never noticed
he was observing them; and he so captivated them by the play
of his astonishingly versatile mind that most people left him
with the desire to meet him again as soon as possible.

This was the key to his relations with the Kaiser. Funda-
mentally the two had many traits in common, for the Kaiser
also was timid at heart and governed principally by the impulse

WALTHER RATHENAU

to mask his weakness by brilliant talk and assumed leadership 5
the difference was that he was more of an actor than Rathe-
nau and entirely lacked his gift of intuition. Starting from this
dissimilarity in similarity, one can follow in Rathenau's essay on
The Kaiser, written immediately after the Revolution, the man-
ner in which he felt his way into the monarch's mind and veiled
whatever criticism he had to offer in the semblance of heartfelt
sympathy. From 1901 onwards Rathenau saw the Kaiser, as he
says, 'on an average once or twice a year, often for several hours
at a time.' 'On the first occasion, I had to repeat before him a
scientific lecture which I had already delivered before a larger
audience, and which I thus had at my fingers' ends. The Kaiser
sat right in front of me so that I was able to observe him closely.

'How different he was from what I had expected! I was
familiar with pictures of a dashing young man with heavy
cheekbones, bristling moustachios, and menacing eyesj and also
with the dangerous telegrams and the sabre-rattling speeches
and mottoes.

'And now there sat before me a youngish man in a bright
uniform covered with exotic-looking medals. His hands were
very white and decked with many coloured rings, and on his
wrists he wore bracelets. His skin was delicate, his hair soft,
his teeth small and white j a veritable prince; intent on the
impression he was making; for ever struggling with himself,
and tyrannizing his nature in an attempt to win from it mastery,
dignity and strength. He had scarcely an unconscious moment;
he was unconscious only — and this was the pathetic thing — of
the struggle within himself. His was a, nature unwittingly
directed against itself.

'Since then many have confessed to me how they were struck
by a certain feeble longing for support and friendship, a vio-
lently suppressed childishness, which one felt at the bottom of
his displays of physical strength and feverish and boisterous
activity. Here was a man who needed some strong arm to

SOCIAL INTERLUDE

protect him from dangers which he darkly felt, yet did not
realize, and which all the time were dragging him towards a
precipice.

'A friend asked me my impression of his bearing and con-
versation. I said: He is an enchanter and a man marked by fate.
A nature rent, yet not feeling the rent He is on the road to
disaster.' (The Kaiser, p. 26 /.) 8

At this stage of his career Rathenau could probably have
obtained some high state appointment. For as a result of his
social diplomacy, which had opened to him the inner circle of
Court Society and put him in close touch with the Emperor,
he was looked upon as a 'coming man,' as a possible Ambassador,
or even Minister. The only visible difficulty in his way was the
fact that he was a Jew. The reason why he did not remove
this difficulty by becoming a Christian is, in spite of his own
explanations, not quite clear. He could have had no consci-
entious objections on the score of religion} for he was a Chris-
tian by conviction, and acknowledged himself as such. Thus, in
his pamphlet Polemic on Belief (Streitschrift vom Glauben)y
he writes: 'Perhaps you have read some of my writings. Then
you will know that I take my stand on the gospels.' The reason
which he gave himself was that it would have been a con-
temptible thing to purchase a personal advantage at the cost
of conversion, and thereby countenance the wrong done to the
Jews. Thus in a letter to Frau von Hindenburg, who wanted
him to become Foreign Minister, he wrote: 'My industrial
activities give me satisfaction, my literary activities are a neces-
sity of life to me, but to add to these a third form of activity,
the political, would exceed not only my strength, but also my
inclination. And even if I were inclined to take to politics, you
know, dear lady, that external circumstances would prevent it.
Even though my ancestors and I myself have served our coun-

8 As early as 1906 Rathenau spoke to me of the Kaiser almost in the same
words.

WALTHER RATHENAU

try to the best of our abilities, yet, as you know, I am a Jew,
and as such a citizen of the second class. I could not become a
higher Civil Servant, nor even, in time of peace, a sub-
lieutenant. By changing my faith I could have escaped these
disabilities, but by acting thus I should feel I had countenanced
the breach of justice committed by those in power.'

That is convincing, so far as it goes, but it is inadequate.
Certainly there must have been still more weighty reasons:
possibly some doubt whether he would be able to achieve any-
thing worth while in face of the opposition which his appoint-
ment as a Jew to an important political post would inevitably
involve. Then, too, there was his opinion of the Kaiser's per-
sonality and of the Prusso-German system of government,
whose methods seemed to offer him scant hope of being able to
attain any profitable goal. But the strongest motive, conscious
or unconscious, was his reluctance to break finally, not only with
the religion of his childhood, but also with those more recent
tendencies of Judaism which are based on an undogmatic
mysticism, and to which the unworldly, ascetic side of his nature
was very specially drawn.

So he hesitated on the brink of power, half hoping, half
desponding, because the preliminary run he had taken never
seemed to lead to an actual take-off. So much the greater, then,
became his longing for intellectual ascendancy. Soon after his
return from Bitterf eld he found himself in the very centre of
the artistic and intellectual life of Berlin. The painter Max
Liebermann, the head of the new and revolutionary 'Secession'
art movement, was his cousin. Those literary and artistic circles
which came into prominence through their violent feud with
the Kaiser and the boycott with which the imperial art critic
honoured them were his daily environment: Maximilian
Harden, who in the Zukimft led the opposition against the
Kaiser and was then at the height of his success, Max Rein-
hardt, still a beginner, but already boycotted officially, Frank

WALTHER RATHEKAU, FROM THE PORTRAIT BY
EDVARD MUNCH

SOCIAL INTERLUDE

Wedekind, the dramatic author who was somehow climbing
from failure to failure towards a niche in the German Pan-
theon, Hofmannsthal and Dehmel, the two most prominent
poets of the day, Gerhart Hauptmann in the flush of his first
triumphs, the literary drcles centring around the two periodicals
Pan and Insel which had introduced into Germany the im-
pressionist art and symbolist poetry abhorred by the Kaiser,
the architect Henry Van de Velde and the Norwegian painter
Edvard Munch.

All these people used to foregather and discuss artistic,
literary, economic and political questions in Rathenau's modest
flat in the Victoriastrasse, not far from the house of his parents,
or else as his guests at the Automobile Club. His conversation
on these occasions sounded like a tale from the Arabian Nights,
even when it was only a matter of electric power stations or
bank balances. He clearly felt most at home with Maximilian
Harden, with whose cynical and brilliant mind his had much
in common. But he always kept up the part of the distinguished
foreigner, as it were a Prince from some distant Oriental land,
gently discouraging too great an intimacy.' He hated to be
contradicted j arguments irritated him} and a downright attack
would sometimes completely disconcert him. What he liked best
was to do the speaking himself. Just as he had drawn a veil of
smiling reserve between his mother and himself, so now as the
years wore on, he spread a web of magic formulas around him,
woven word by word, and more or less consciously designed to
conceal his inner self and give him power over men and things.
He was deeply pained if any one lifted his hand against this
magic veil, and could get positively angry if the attack was
violent or clever enough to risk tearing it.

For he either could not or would not give reasons in defence
of his views. Perhaps he had lived by himself too long; perhaps
he was afraid of the Jewish tendency to endless argument
slumbering within himj perhaps he really disbelieved in the

WALTHER RATHENAU

efficacy of argument In the Physiology of Business he had
said: 'It is not possible to convince a man, and certainly not
by arguing with him. Quote new facts and new points of view,
but never insist. The best policy lies in thinking out fresh pro-
posals as soon as strong objections are raised.' More important
was it that behind the deceptive mask of intellectualism
which he still flaunted before the world a revolution was taking
place. The second axis about which his soul moved, the longing
for a deeper spirituality, was rapidly gaining strength, attract-
ing to itself the forces of his inner life, and preparing the way
for a repudiation of the mere intellect and a revolt against its
ascendancy.

CHAPTER IV
THE REPUDIATION OF THE INTELLECT

THIS is the turning-point of Rathenau's drama j at this
point it becomes tragedy. The impulses which his in-
tellect had forcibly repressed rise up in open rebellion.
Too weak for final victory, yet too strong for final defeat, they
poison his inner life with fruitless longing for their ascendancy,
and compromise him before the world by their ever-undecided
strife. As in The Pilgrim's Progress, the opposing tendencies
of the soul take on material shapes and battle with each other:
courage with fear, trustfulness with wary cunning, free imagi-
native creation with designing business capacity, visionary in-
tuition with the critical intellect, the wish for full humanity
with a placid acquiescence in the narrowing of the soul in the
interests of material gain. Homeric antagonists, Homeric, too,
in their insults. No one, except Harden at a later date, has so
pitilessly dissected Rathenau piece by piece or so ruthlessly laid
bare his worst tendencies as did Rathenau himself in his essay
Weakness, Fear and Purposey which appeared in Harden's
Zuktmft in 1904. In this pamphlet, in which the rebellious
forces of the soul openly pillory those others against whose
lordship they are revolting, the ^purpose-ridden man/ or *f ear-
ridden man/ or 'cunning man/ may in almost every case be
taken to mean that worser self which haunted Walther Rathe-
nau's imagination. And the picture he draws does indeed give,
in a rough way, an idea of the darker depths of his personality.
Here, in abstract, is his description of the spectre he sees
before him: 'Laughter, to the vital man a natural expression of
joy, is to the cunning man a reaction to wit: half Schadenfreude^

WALTHER RATHENAU

a malicious pleasure in other people's misfortunes. To admire
is hateful to him, for instead of exalting, it abases him. He is
curious, eager to learn, greedy for knowledge. A mechanical
lucidity and a straightforward theory seem to him desirable.
He does not realize that existence in itself is a source of happi-
ness. He does not know the joy in one's own strength and in the
beauty of the world. So he hankers after that which is to him
a substitute for joy, after pleasure. Laying the blame for his
own deficiencies on the outer world he hopes, by striving for
what is difficult, to gain that pleasure which is denied him by his
own nature. The weak man envies the strong man his strength.
The opinion of other people is important to him. He is him-
self only what he appears to others. He craves, asks and begs
for recognition. Hence, that which men are used to call vanity
and arrogance is in him the deepest modesty, for it is in truth
servility. And thus he becomes an object of loathing. For he
demands of others two things they never give together: admira-
tion and bond service. And therefore as master he is impossible.
With some people, so great is their human covetousness that
they can hardly set eyes on their neighbour without desiring to
possess themselves of all about him. They must know who he
is and what he does; they must make an impression of some
kind on him, please him, impress him or strike him, and, if all
else fails, at least master and possess him in their own way
by criticizing him. Even when the mind of such a person is left,
without restraint, to choose its own path, it concerns itself with
highly personal and practical matters: "Granted that such
and such a thing happens, how shall I reply? How shall I
behave? What will be the effect of my action?" And thus he
becomes an actor playing the part of his own life.'

Rathenau turned in horror from this picture, which in the
course of long years of intimate contact with hard-headed
'purpose-ridden men' had gradually grown to completion. By
relentless self-discipline he had succeeded in suppressing in

THE REPUDIATION OF THE INTELLECT

himself a number of the tendencies he loathed, even trans-
muting them into their opposites. Thus he was practically free
from base envy, pleasure-seeking, Schadenfreude and the itch
to criticize everything. On the strength of this he believed that
any one can, by the persistent exercise of the will, bend and
twist his own nature into new shapes. 'That which makes the
superficial person shrink from there being no free-will/ he
writes about this time, cis the fear that he will be condemned,
by reason of his weakness, to lead an inner life which is contrary
to his will: "So must thou be, thyself thou canst not flee!"
Goethe's statement is truej not so the inference from it. What,
then, is the truth of the matter? If your fear of yourself is
strong enough to set in motion a strong will, then you will be
able to penetrate to the innermost cells of your body and soul.'
He felt himself to be an experiment, one who was chosen out
to test on himself how far a 'man of fear' can change himself
into a 'man of courage,' 'a man fettered by his purpose' into
'one whose soul is free.' In an unpublished letter to his closest
friend he writes: 'Both in my good points and my bad you will
not look upon my like again. For with me God has set going
an experiment which even if it proves a failure — and that
seems to me more likely than the opposite — will at least have
been an interesting one. And the best of it is that I am honestly
and earnestly awake to the position, and follow the .threads in
all their windings, whithersoever they lead.'

But yet at the same time he had a secret affection for the
'man of fear' whom he was seeking to slay within himself. He
wrote to Frank Wedekind in 1904 with reference to the pam-
phlet Weakness, Fear and Purpose: <The man of fear. Only
an ideal reader, with the gift of divination, could feel that I
love him — if only to justify God's ways to man. For is he not
the only truly unhappy man? And is not suffering the only true
nobility? Lucifer and Prometheus, are they not the most
sublime of man's dreams? And are not the Olympian gods —

WALTHER RATHENAU

and men — cold, heartless idols? Let me for once confide what
I believe, but do not actually assert: genius consists in the closest
mixture of the two elements. Whence otherwise has pain its
receptivity, its insight and sympathy? And all profiles prove it.
The Greeks were fear-men, and I dare to say so.' (Letter 22.)

Thus the struggle proceeded between the opposing forces
of his soul. And as the conflict which raged under the smooth,
or artificially smoothed, surface of his nature was the same as
that which rages under the glittering surface of our western
civilization, the revolt of his repressed spiritual forces against
the crippling of his full humanity was transmuted into a revolt
against the crippling of mankind through its bondage to
material ends.

But where find a gift more powerful than the intellect,
capable of overthrowing the forces opposed to the unshackled
development of man? Rathenau believed that he saw this gift at
work in his father. Till his return from Bitterf eld his relations
with his father had been cool, to say the least. Now they were
both working together in the A.E.G., Walther as manager,
Emil Rathenau as chairman of the board of directors. In his
Apology Walther says: 'These three years [from 1900 to
1903] were the only ones of my working life which I spent in
my father's own particular province.' In 1903 a family bereave-
ment brought them into the closest personal touch. This was
the death of Walther's younger brother, Erich, who, unlike
Walther, was his father's idol. Even as a child he had suffered
from severe articular rheumatism, and his parents, warned by
the doctors, foresaw that he had not long to live. He died
suddenly on January i8th, 1903, at Assouan, while on a trip
to Egypt with his father. Emil Rathenau's despair knew no
bounds; indeed, he was so distracted that people feared for his
reason. He could no longer conduct the most simple business
negotiations, he forgot the relevant figures, broke down at
general meetings, and began to weep because Erich's coiEn

THE REPUDIATION OF THE INTELLECT

suddenly came back to his mind} he was completely helpless.
It was at this point that Walther Rathenau leapt into his place,
accompanied him, conducted the necessary negotiations for him,
addressing meetings in his name, and became in fact his second
self. It was the conclusion of a long and painful family drama,
resembling that between Frederick William I. and his son
Frederick, which had a decisive influence on Walther Rathe-
nau's philosophy of life. He realized, when working in dose
association with him, what it was that gave his father his
superiority: not the intellect narrowly set on its goal, but vis-
ionary intuition eliminating the goal from its consciousness.

The Physiology of Business contains an anonymous portrait
of Emil Rathenau: 'My chief was anything but a diplomat.
When an important question of principle busied him, he en-
listed the advice of all who came his way. He discussed it with
his employees, with his wife, with his competitors, and where
possible with his servants, much as it is commanded to the Jews
to discuss the Law "when thou sittest in thine house, and when
thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down and when thou
risest up." He not only allowed objections, but conscientiously
reported to each new person what his predecessor had said. At
last, often weeks later, when every one else had ceased thinking
about the matter, he produced his proposal. Badly propounded,
with long digressions this way and that, his solution gave the
impression of something quite trivial, uninteresting and ob-
vious j it resembled much that had already been discussed
high and low — and yet it was not quite the same. His directions
were quietly followed, and only much later for the most part
did it become evident what prospects were opened out by the
new way, the peculiar quality of which had not at first been
visible. . . . As with the artist, so with the industrialist and the
trader, the highest gift is "the eye for the essential." ... If
you are seeking for genius in this sphere of human activity it
is to be found — following on from the just-mentioned gift for

WALTHER RATHENAU

the essential — in what I should like to call a divinatory survey
of the needs of today and tomorrow, and in the perception of
possible ways of fulfilling them. This power of divination was
possessed by the industrialist of whom I have just been speak-
ing. . . . He had no love for theoretical considerations, and
would not look at anything but the matter immediately in front
of him. Some chance remark would suddenly reveal in part the
idea he bore within him, somewhat as a section of the brightly
lighted stage is partly shown through a chink in the theatre
curtain.' (Collected Works, Vol. IV, p. 324.)

This description reveals what it was that Walther 'Rathenau
rated more highly than the analytical intellect, what seemed to
him a more effective means of imposing one's authority on men
and things: that was, an eye for the essential, a visionary and
imaginative quality of thought and perception j in short, a grasp
of the world such as the artist possesses. The painter does not
set out to $rove that his picture is correct} he convinces by the
picture itself, or not at all. Nor does the dramatist offer a
scientific psycho-analysis of his hero's character} he sets him on
the stage and convinces the spectator by the logic of his words
and actions. Art does not work by proofs, as does the intellect,
but rather by visions, which are often truer than the so-called
truths of contemporary science. Rathenau believed his father's
superiority to be based on his visionary penetration of reality.
And it pleased him to deduce from this the inferiority of the
intellect. 'The intellect,' he says in his Unwritten Works, 'must
lose itself sooner or later in the unessentially real} only the
imagination can find the way which leads up to the essentially
true. The materially enterprising world of today can carry
on only if it turns from its crass admiration for the analytical
intellect and bows to the ideal. Only by sacrificing itself can
the intellect maintain its existence.' (Collected Works, Vol. IV,
p. 210.)

About this time Nietzsche's posthumous works were pub-

EMIL RATHENAU

THE REPUDIATION OF THE INTELLECT

lished. Rathenau, who read everything, almost certainly read
these. They contain a fragment On Truth and Falsehood in
their Ultramoral Sense, which gives to intuition and intellect
much the same values as Rathenau. There are ages when the
rational and the intuitive man stand side by side, the one in
dread of visionary intuition, the other full of scorn for the
abstract j the latter just as irrational as the former is inartistic.
Both desire to impose their will on life 5 the one by knowing
how to meet the most important needs with foresight, prudence,
regularity; the other as an "over-joyous" hero by ignoring
these needs and taking life as real only where it is all make-
believe and beauty. Wherever perchance intuitive man, as for
instance in the earlier history of 'Greece, wields his weapons
more powerfully and victoriously than his opponent, there,
under favourable conditions, a culture can devdop and art can
establish its rule over life. There, make-believe, a determina-
tion not to give in to every-day needs, a splendour of meta-
physical ideas and especially a directness of belief in the unreal,
accompany all manifestations of life. Neither the house of
man, nor his way of walking, nor his clothing, nor his earthen
jug suggest that necessity invented them; rather, it seems as
though all these were intended merely as expressions of a sub-
lime happiness, an Olympic cloudlessness, and, as it were, a gay
game with the serious sides of life. Whereas the man guided by
concepts and abstractions uses these only to ward off misfortune,
without even gaining happiness for himself out of these
abstractions, and whereas he strives only after the greatest pos-
sible freedom from pain, the intuitive man, on the other hand,
safely encamped in a culture of his own, garners from his
visionary intuitions not only the warding off of evil, but also a
continuous enlightenment, exhilaration and redemption.*
(Nietzsche's Works, Vol. X, p. 190.)

As a matter of fact the repudiation of the intellect and the
exaltation of visionary intuition as a prof ounder and more £ ruit-

WALTHER RATHENAU

ful form of perceiving were rather the fashion about 1900. Just
then the eloquence of Bergson was investing intuition with so
seductive a magic that for some years, in the Paris of Madame
Verdurin and the Duchesse de Guermantes, his works were to
be found on the tables of the most advanced and fashionable
Parisian ladies hobnobbing with the latest thing in curios, old
Persian bowls, Maillol statuettes and Han terra-cottas. Indeed,
the idea that visionary intuition unfettered by any ulterior
purpose can pierce deeper into the reality of things than
analytical intellect enslaved by its goal is as old as the world.
The first saying of the most ancient of all philosophers, Lao-
tse, runs:

'He who stands at a distance, sees clearly;
he who takes a part, but dimly/

and his second:

'The perfect man lives without goal,

rules without word,

acts without motive,

creates without object,

thinks without aim,

does without doing/

And yet for Walther Rathenau the superiority of visionary
intuition over the intellect was undoubtedly a personal experi-
ence, gained from observing his father, whose example illus-
trated for him daily and almost hourly the difference between
administrative and creative activity, and the part played in
creative work by intuition. Hence, he evolved on his own, on
the strength of experience which to him was convincing, a new
set of values, which he catalogues as follows in his Unwritten
Works, published in 1907 (Collected Works, Vol. IV, p.

'Eye for the essential,

admiration,
trustfulness,

THE REPUDIATION OF THE INTELLECT

goodwill,

imagination,

self-consciousness,

simplicity,

joy in the senses,

transcendence/

These values he sets up against the 'tendencies of the servile
sold/ the tendencies against which he is struggling in his own

self:

'Delight in novelty,

pleasure in criticizing and in argument,

scepticism,

Schadenfreude,

desire to outshine others,

love of small-talk,

affectation,

aestheticism.*

Thus did he justify to himself the repudiation of the intellect
and make the way clear theoretically for his later ideas.

But to imagine that the struggle within him was thus at an
end would be to misunderstand his personality. The intellect
with its brilliance and its barrenness, with its bondage to pur-
pose, remained for him, as for our civilization, the most power-
ful of all impulses, against which the qualities that, as he ex-
presses it, 'compose the aristocracy of the soul/ can at best
continually rebel.

WALTHER RATHENAU

emotion of self-surrender ; he could feel himself into it, was
capable of expressing it verbally, but yet, behind even his most
passionate words, he could never really bring it into being.
This halfway inhibition made the affairs of his heart myste-
rious and puzzling to others. He often bitterly disappointed
those who had been led by his words to expect complete devo-
tion, and he finally became more and more isolated, because
the bridge he sought to build between himself and others
always broke down before reaching the farther shore.

Hence, he never got beyond mere friendship, beyond a sort
of emotional helpfulness, a readiness to sympathize with the
most delicate movements of other people's souls. Even with
women this seems to have been the strongest emotion his
nature allowed him; an emotion indeed which he directed with
almost equal warmth to men or women. In his letters to men
like Wilhelm Schwaner, Ernst Norlind and Constantin Brun-
ner, passages occur in which the sentimental colouring is no less
pronounced than in those addressed to women which are almost
love letters. Everything that opened out a prospect of friend-
ship, of that attenuated and bridled form of sentiment which in
him took the place of sensual and unbridled passion, he seized
on greedily and almost naively; and then, usually very soon,
disenchantment followed on both sides, and the friendship
rapidly cooled down. Thus friendship followed on friendship,
with men and women, significant or insignificant, renowned or
unrenowned, unscrupulous or over-scrupulous, simple or
subtle; they lasted usually only for a matter of months, weeks
or even days, and left not a trace behind. And so it was not
without justice that some one who followed all this, year after
year, said of him, half regretfully, half in fun, that he was only
*a Don Juan of friendship.3 In one case, his friendship with
Harden, the disappointment of the other party grew into im-
placable hatred, lasting to his death and beyond; in many other
cases it faded into a somewhat contemptuous indifference.

FRIENDSHIPS

Some contented themselves with what he was able to give them
and responded with a lasting affection to his sympathy and
helpfulness. On the whole, however, this emotional life, so
peculiarly inhibited and yet so active, made him more enemies
than friends, and created a core of the disenchanted, whose
hatred radiated outwards into other and wider circles.

This inhibition of his emotional life through the complexity
of his nature also accounts for his attitude to art. He once
formulated a 'fundamental law of aesthetics/ laying down that:
'Aesthetic enjoyment arises when one becomes aware of an
underlying order.' (Collected Works, Vol. IV, p. 49.) This
formula takes for granted the dethronement of the senses
and emotions through abstract reasoning} for laws are appre-
hended by the intellect. If you consider the perception of an
underlying order to be the ultimate effect of a work of art, and
not at best the first step to enjoying it through your sensual
and emotional faculties, you are like a man who imagines love
to be merely a method of propagation, and not a sensual and
emotional communion between two souls in which all their
faculties are involved. For that also is the essence of great art,
an emotional communion between the artist and him who is
captured by his work, the art clover,J an emotional communion
involving all their faculties and without any further purpose
than its own intensity. Reason, the perception of an underlying
order, may in certain cases contribute, but always merely in a
secondary way, to this emotional communion. All this is self-
evident to the point of being trite. But all the more significant
was it for Rathenau's state of mind that he entirely ignored it,
giving paramount importance in aesthetic enjoyment to some
more or less conscious form of reasoning. It is not surprising
therefore that like most natures debarred from the depths of
sensual experience by some inhibition he did not really appre-
ciate great art. He had a gift for painting and architecture, both
of which he practised} his pencil sketches go beyond mere

WALTHER RATHENAU

amateurishness} and his restoration of the little eighteenth-
. century pleasance of Freienwalde, and also his Griinewald
house, which he designed himself, show a delicate, if rather
frigid, taste. His preferences in art went to the charming, some-
what provincial Prussian classicism of the beginning of the nine-
teenth century} a classicism giving the impression of delicate
frozen flowers, somewhat akin to that of Sheraton, the brothers
Adam, and Wedgwood, or the late colonial style in America,
in that it was a Roman shoot grafted on a Puritan stock, and
thus entirely different in spirit from the florid and pompous
French Empire style. He took pleasure in works of art which
Were graceful and simple, designed in accordance with easily
comprehensible rules and in a style which had stood the test of
time. But beyond this his taste did not go. In a letter to his
most intimate friend he says: 'Much as I admire the powerful
in art, or rather the powerful subdued by art, the bold, intense,
abrupt kind of art is not to my taste.' A Van Gogh was to him
an eyesore. Among the works that he purchased for his collec-
tion there is not a single really great work of art.

After all this, it is not surprising that the only one of his
relationships which was really tinged with passion failed like
the others to reach fulfilment, for it was like them enmeshed
in the net of his inhibitions. Some letters which have been en-
trusted to me and which I am enabled to publish here and later
in the book throw a dim but curious light on this one great
semi-passion of his life. They sound as though they were ad-
dressed to an ideal being, a sort of lay figure away somewhere
in the Empyrean, but retaining enough of the flesh and blood
of a woman to set his senses on fire, to give him joy and pain
and to lure and bewitch him, as Helen of Troy lured and be-
witched Faust, and even to unseal his lips to the brink of self-
revelation. Indeed, as one reads these letters, the f eeling grows
upon one that perhaps unconsciously he was all the time using
this one great love of his life as a looking-glass in which he saw

FRIENDSHIPS

himself — often in romantic poses, sometimes with uncanny
realism, and always with a sincere uneasiness and a deadening
sense of impending doom.

The sequence of the letters is no longer ascertainable. Most
of them are undated; but those which follow in this chapter
range over the period from 1906 to 1911.

Your beautiful, earnest letter touches me deeply. I have
had it with me since yesterday.

In Schreiberhau, on the way to Agnetendorf , I told you with
complete candour what it is that men find puzzling in me, and
what compels even those who love me most to fear and hate
me. In the first place I cannot belong completely to any one.
I am in the grip of forces which — whether good or bad,
whether they control me in jest or in earnest — determine my
life. It seems to me as though I could do nothing of my own
free will, as though I were led — gently if I comply, roughly
if I resist.

If I follow out my past life, I find no external landmarks
except in my ideas; these always seem to me different —
whether stronger or weaker I don't know — from those of
other people (which to my mind are usually very much like
each other), and in real life they have brought me many
strange successes, and in my spiritual life much fresh enlight-
enment. But I am in no wise master even of my thoughts j you
are yourself acquainted with my hopeless periods of mental
extinction.

Secondly: it is true that my nature is polyphonic. The melody
rises like a treble above the other parts, but it is very seldom
unaccompanied. And in the bass and tenor other sounds are
heard, sometimes harmonizing, sometimes in utter discord with
the song. I know incomparably greater men, in fact great men,
in whose every word and thought I detect the same phenome-
non; in this I find I do not stand alone. Indeed, it sometimes

WALTHER RATHENAU

seems as if it were this very strength or weakness which like a
shell re-echoes, though faintly, the rush and roar of the whole
world. Meanwhile the pure flute notes of more simple natures
seem to me monotonous, charming and rather dull.

Now, this is why people are mistaken in me, because in this
medley of voices they fail to recognize a melody. But I recog-
nize one, and know that it is there, and that it controls all the
rest.

And the proof of it is this: Life itself does not deceive, even
if all else does. Now, consider my life. Do you know of an-
other more earnest, more self-denying? And this is not due to
lack of sensibility or dulness. Nor is it due to any wish of mine.
For I wish nothing. Ruthlessly though I have questioned my
inner self, I have never found anything of this world that I
wish. I wish what I must, otherwise nothing. And what I must,
I see, as a wanderer by night sees by the light of his lantern
only a few steps in front of him. That this my life is an
oblation, offered gladly and willingly to the powers above, not
for reward, nor in hope, this I may say, and you yourself know
itj that I forfeit the love of my fellow-men in the process I
know, and feel it cruelly.

Now, when I say that your life is a game, this does not
mean that it is frivolous, but rather that it is not an oblation.
You have been created for the sake of your beauty and your
Greek nature, and this and this alone can be my light.

Remain what you are, and remain to me what you are to me.
Adieu, I am leaving today for Cologne. Farewell!

Your W.

Now, what do you really want of me? You know that with'
Nature, with my God and with myself I stand on good terms.
Even you are sometimes quite well disposed towards me, and
spoil me off and on. What more would you have me do? What
concern have I with the rest of mankind? Do you really want

FRIENDSHIPS

me to set a 'window in my heart in order that you may thank
me afterwards for cthe interesting sight'? Or would you like
me to set aside a few years of my life for acquiring a label, so
that I shall nofbe taken straight away for a silly ass?

On two points you do me an injustice. Over-estimation of
self, indeed! I realize my limitations very precisely and have
always respected them. But you do not realize them, for one
does not exhaust a man's possibilities in conversation. And de-
spite everything, you are bound by the (established opinion:
'witty, subtle and cold' No matter.

But that you of all people should reproach me with being
cold and unfeeling, that I do resent. That is your egoism,
which defeats your better judgment

God be thanked. You may squabble as much as you like.
For in the long run I would rather be scolded by you than
praised by any one else.

Affectionately yours,
29.vii.o~6 W.

This is the third we have had of these belated summer days,
cloudless and mild} a summer has slipped by unheeded. Your
letter has made me very sad j I read it early in the morning, and
since then these empty days have become still more unreal.

And the four songs you transcribed for me are oppressively
sad too. But they are beautiful, tender and delicate, like every-
thing good in the art of sensitive Jewsj they remind me of your
brothers, especially of Robert. Beside such warm and gentle
work I seem to myself like a primitive savage who shatters
and mangles, not one who shapes and builds. It is only in tan-
gible things that I succeed, perhaps, in being more delicate5 I
have spent these evenings in building with pencil and paper,
and have made six plans for the house, which please me. I
will make three or four more and then show you the lot. But

WALTHER RATHENAU

all this work seems to me unsatisfactory} it is too easy and
irresponsible, almost woman's work.

I know that you suffer, and it tortures me; and I want to say
something loving and comforting to you, and yet I cannot. Now
you will think I am cold and heartless, but I am neither of
these. We both suffer under this eternal constraint, from which
we can only dream to be free. And when I once again examine
possible hypotheses and motive forces, I see that it could not
have been otherwise. Constraint and misunderstanding are re-
sponsible for this, and if we shrink from each other now and
then, it is because we merely flash across at each other like
planets whose orbits and revolutions are never in harmony.
That other lesser reason lies in our own natures which do not
want to live in harmony with one another.

So it seems to me at present; but I don't wish to write any
more on the subject, however obscure it may sound, either now
or later.

Farewell. Tell me that things are going better with you. If
you find that what I have written to you is cold analysis, then
I have no hope of ever making myself understood. Read it
over quietly; you must understand me.

From my heart,

Your W.

I have been trying to do another hour's work, and was just
about to go to bed. But on my way through the dining-room I
passed the large black sideboard and stopped to take one more
look at the lovely branch of fir with its seven cones which you
gave me. Just think: a veritable miracle! The branch has blos-
somed! Everywhere the bright spiky flowers are breaking
through the pine needles. Good-night! I had to tell you of this.

What do you mean by belittling yourself and talking as
though I could give you something, when you are so much

FRIENDSHIPS

more rich and enlightened than I? My one merit is that I love
you and that you are sure of my love. I feel as though I had
never suffered through you and could never suffer through
you, but only through my heart and its narrowness. But your
dear words have stirred and troubled me, and your beautiful
image haunts me, and I am able to feel again warmth, light
and peace. But early tomorrow I will tear up your letter, and
go into the country. I hope for snow.

Ever and only,

YourW.

CHAPTER VI
THE REALM OF THE SOUL1

IN MAY, 1906, Walther Rathenau made a journey to Greece.
In his sketch-book, between views of Delphi, Corinth,
Taygetos, etc., there is a brief entry under the title of
Breviarium Mysticum, which records a decisive moment in the
development of his philosophy:

*I. The picture which each man has of the world is the measure of
his soul.

2. Many are born with a soul; all can attain to one.

3. Every one who is bonae voluntatis is vouchsafed a soul,

4. The soul is the image of God.

5. The powers of the soul are threefold: Imagination, Love, Awe.

6. With the Imagination the soul comprehends the world, with Imag-
ination and Love God's creatures, with all three powers God.

7. The soul is disinterested, the intellect is the slave of purpose.

8. In its conflict with the intellect the soul attains to victory, because
the intellect defeats its own ends.

9. Art and unconscious creation are the expression of the soul, science
and conscious creation the expression of the intellect.

10. The soul derives its nourishment from the urge to life, the intellect
from fear of death.*

In this entry there is a word which strikes one as weighted
with a new meaning, or rather with a new significance, a new
pathos: the word 'Soul? Why did this word suddenly acquire
such a high value for Rathenau? What was its meaning to him?

In his principal work, The Mechanism of the Mind (p. 30
seq.)y he describes the 'birth of the soul*; and behind his words
we seem to see, only thinly disguised, three experiences con-
nected with his visit to Greece: Greek scenery in its sublime

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

grandeur, a new delight in artistic creation, and the urge of a
passionate, unfulfilled craving for love. Every one familiar
with Greek landscape will recognize it in this vision of the
world as it appears to the eyes of youth. <A nature not touched
by age surrounds him} not stones, plants, air and water, but a
mysterious Cosmos teeming with life, mind, blood, light and
love. Things no longer speak the language of everyday life}
they whisper of the Unspoken and Unspeakable. A second
Nature lies veiled behind the visible, ready to burst forth}
speak but a word and all reality will be dissolved. The Spirit of
the World breathes majesty and love, and the soul when it
is still young demands nothing but to give itself up to the
forces of the world and be absorbed in their workings.3

The second experience that moved Rathenau deeply while
he was sketching in Greece was the joy of creation for its own
sake as vouchsafed to the artist. In the passage just quoted
relating to the 'birth of the soul' he continues: 'There remains
the faculty of creating} but no longer for the sake of the ma-
terial values it produces} there remains solicitude, but not
for the sake of the object to be attained. Creation now means
the transmutation of the soul into visible form, giving shape to
what the imagination has conceived} a process of nature com-
parable to the behaviour of the mussel and the spider, which
with joy and pain weave their clothing and their armour out of
the sap of their being in accordance with an inner necessity.3

Most decisive of all, however, is love; and the words in
which he describes the part love has in the birth of the soul —
words which are in very dose relation to the Breviarium Mysti>-
cwn — are so loaded with real feeling under the artificial
warmth of their palpably affected style, they reflect so clearly
his vain struggle for sincere and unfettered emotion, that they
are more eloquent of the strife which preceded what he calls
*the birth of the soul' in himself than an explicit confession
could be. 'The love of man is not devotional as is the love of a

WALTHER RATHENAU

woman, for it is a love which demands; and yet in a certain
sense it goes further than the devotion of woman: it is pre-
pared to sacrifice itself. Woman desires to accept and to yield,
whereas man desires to possess, but at the same time to sacrifice
and bestow himself: thus at the very moment when it is most
intense the will to live is stultified and purpose is destroyed.'
And a little later in the same paragraph: 'There remains love;
the more pure and glowing the fire of the senses, the more
brightly is it surrounded with the aura of supersensual clarity.
The love of humanity stirs within us, and the love of God,
and there is awakened the love of St Francis, which embraces
all creatures, including the stars, and which reaching up to
heaven compels God to descend. For this love is transcendent.
It is divination and comprehension of the seen and the unseen,
it is surrender and sacrifice, but it is also fulfilment and trans-
figuration. It grasps the world, but not with the talons of the
intellect; rather it dissolves itself, is submerged, unites itself,
becomes one and, in that it becomes one, comprehends. Thus
out of nature and creation, love and transcendence, the soul of
man is born; in truth it is born only out of love, for love em-
braces in itself the other three powers.' (Mechanism of the
Mindyip. 32.)

Thus Rathenau gives the name of cSouP to inner experience
when it is devoid of purpose, that is to say, when it follows
only its own inner impulses, not the lure of material or other
outer ends. (Brewarium Mysticum VII.) *SouP is the collective
name he bestows on all those inner experiences which are alien
and hostile to the schemer, the man enslaved by purpose; it is
the rallying-cry of all those faculties which Rathenau summons
up within his own self to fight the dreaded and detested intel-
lect: a cry to which they immediately respond in serried ranks.

But *souP is more than a mere word: the elements of experi-
ence which it summarizes have in common something real,
something which distinguishes them from all other moments of

-'^^^ '- " -•' •" -

THE 'BREVIARIUM MYSTICUM'

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

inner experience, and which sets them above them — namely,
the fact that only in them is man completely himself, that is to
say, truly free. That such moments of inner freedom can be
attained, that they, and they only, are fraught with happiness,
that they are, in truth, the only moments in life which are
really valuable— this was what Rathenau brought back with
him from Greece as a matter of experience, as an unshakable
fact of his inner life.

The typical example of such experience, and one with a
significance apart, he chose to see in disinterested, transcendent
love. The reason why to him this transcendent love was so
fundamentally important is apparent from the previous chap-
ter: he realized with anguish that the fullness of earthly and
human love was removed beyond his reach by insuperable
inhibitions. Nevertheless, it was the one earthly passion of his
life which opened to him the conception, and enriched him with
the experience, of the cSoul.J He himself hinted as much in a
letter which, many years later, he wrote to the woman whom
he had loved, on sending her a copy of his book The Mecha-
nism of the Mind. 'You think that nothing in this book belongs
to you? But when you have fully mastered it — and you will
master it — you will feel that it is not only a confession, but
also the transmutation of personal experience.'

When he left for Greece he was quite aware of the fact
that his passion, both for outward and for psychological reasons,
was hopeless. Possibly the journey itself was a gesture, a con-
scious or unconscious gesture of renunciation. Yet we find him
writing from Athens to the woman he loved, with a last faint
hope:

'More calm and a better frame of mind. Yesterday I spent at
the ancient seat of the mysteries: Eleusis. Tomorrow I shall
greet the Delphic Oracle. I have much to ask it (including your
whereabouts).'

From Delphi, he informed her that he had consulted the

WALTHER RATHENAU

Oracle about her. By way of answer, in the sublime solitude of
Parnassus an eagle had suddenly started up before him and
risen to the sky.

Some days later he writes again from Athens (May 23rd,
1906) : 'Many thanks for your letter. It was waiting for me at
the gates of Athens and thus fulfilled a part of the Delphic
Oracle that I hinted to you. This Oracle itself was phantastic
and almost magnificent, so that I shall probably have to keep
it secret. The drive up to Delphi, the deep, cool ravine and
the distant greeting of the sea, quite thrilled me, and I was
content to linger a little longer than the ordinary tourist. Today
I must take leave of Athens. I have sketched out a wonderful
journey through the Peloponnesus which involves eleven hours
of riding. Its' end and consummation is to be Sparta and the
Taygetos with its ravines. Even here in Greece I have my
heretic moments: I avoid the desecrated fields of nuns swelter-
ing under a pitiless sun, and keep to the perennially youthful
realm of water, air and earth. . . . The snow-capped Parnas-
sus was impressive, f adng the sea on two sides, bleak, unflinch-
ing. Its unseen presence hovers over the Delphic landscape, and
its deep shadow falls upon the animated valley. The Campagna
is only a dull image of this purity and greatness} here the fun-
damental elements are at work in eternal calm; vegetation and
humanity are merely a faint breath which scarcely colours the
picture. . . .'

The question which he put to the Oracle is not recorded j
but we can easily imagine it, and also how Rathenau interpreted
the eagle's flight: <Rise up above things earthly, and you will
find redemption in transcendent, heavenly love.' But what kind
of redemption? The answer had been revealed to him when
he set down the Breviarhtm Mysticum in his sketch-book: Re-
demption through the birth of the soul. As Dehmel, the great
German lyric poet, who, in his philosophy, was nearer to

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

Rathenau than any of his other contemporaries, said in the
Induction to his epic Two Human Beings:

'Arise, arise with thy passions,
Abjure lukewarm complaining,

• • •

Round the hub of life revolve,
Equally blessed, joy and pain;
See, with irresistible yearning
Man leads man onwards to God!'

For Rathenau this revelation of the 'Sou? was the most
important thing that ever happened to him, his greatest ad-
venture, coming on him suddenly somewhere on Parnassus
or in the mountain passes beyond Sparta, a profoundly disturb-
ing, uprooting, revolutionary inner experience, because it
suddenly blazed forth a sort of glory on the shortcomings, the
inhibitions, the negative part of his being, and gave them a
positive significance, making of them marks of superior
humanity.

Indeed, over and above this, the cSouP seemed to give a
new significance to life in general. And this revaluation of
life in general was no less revolutionary and important to him
than the revaluation of his own being.

For he was hopelessly puzzled — as is sooner or later every
human being not completely primitive, and every civilization as
soon as it outgrows the myth from which it originally sprang —
by the fundamental question: Why do I exist? What is the
purpose of my life? What is the purpose of life in general?
What is the purpose of the world? Is there any purpose any-
where? Or is everything without any sort of significance, just
a meaningless play of atoms? When civilization gets to the
point of not being able to answer these questions convincingly,
it must needs discover for itself a new myth, or else take the

WALTHER RATHENAU

irretrievable plunge into the formless abyss which Nietzsche
describes as 'Nihilism.' ('Nihilism,' explains Nietzsche: 'no aim,
no answer to the question: Why?' Will to Power, p. n.)
Classical civilization, when it reached this point, invented Chris-
tianity and planted in it the seeds of the medieval and modern
world. Our civilization is now at the same crossroads and, like
Classical Antiquity two thousand years ago, needs a 'trans-
mutation of all values' in terms of a new myth in which it can
grow new roots and find new impulses. Nietzsche propounded
'the eternal recurrence of all things' and the 'superman' as such
myths. Rathenau found an answer to the great 'Why?', and,
bound up with it, a myth, in his experience of the 'Soul.' Why
is man here? Nature or God, answers Rathenau, evolved him
in order that he might feel ever afresh the pure joy of freedom
and the 'Soul.'

The personal significance of this answer to Rathenau is ob-
vious. Up to this moment his writings and letters bear witness
to a perpetual war between his two dispositions. 'I am a Ger-
man of the Jewish race,' he says in his Appeal to German
Youth, which he published soon after the Revolution, 'my peo-
ple is the German people, my home is Germany, my faith is
the German faith which stands above all creeds. Yet Nature in
mocking perversity and arbitrary liberality has brought the two
springs of my ancient blood into tempestuous opposition: the
urge to actuality, and the yearning for the spiritual. My youth
was passed in doubt and strife, for I was conscious of the con-
tradictory character of my gifts. My action was fruitless and my
thinking false, and I often wished, when the horses bolted with
the bit between their teeth, that the cart might dash itself to
pieces.' He had now had a revelation that would, he hoped, put
an end to the struggle. Indeed, he felt so certain about this that
before he got home he had made up his mind to retire from
business. He told me so when I first saw him after his return,
explaining that he had asked himself why he did all he did —

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

and had been unable to find & satisfactory answer. Actually
the answer that was in his mind ran: CA11 my business activity
is much ado about nothing} yet something exists or could be
made to exist, which would make life worth living: my soul. I
must adapt my way of living to this revelation} for that alone
can give my life significance.'

The reserve which had been characteristic of him since
childhood now took on a new quality} behind the veil which
he drew around himself he seemed henceforth to shelter from
the crudeness of the world not only his timorous soul, but some
kind of mysterious knowledge about which he maintained an
awed silence. But when for a moment he contemplated aban-
doning his business activity, he misunderstood his destiny, the
incurable nature of the rent within him} the impossibility of in-
tegrating his divided life. He could not by mere resolution
thrust aside his most powerful driving force, his practical in-
telligence, or subordinate it to weaker impulses.

Instead, something else took place, which made him a crea-
ture unique and strange: he branched off a part of his business
capacity, of his immense experience of men and affairs, of his
restless energy and practical intelligence and set it to the task of
reconstructing economic, social and political life in the interests
of the Sold.

That Rathenau's philosophy had its ultimate roots in per-
sonal experience cannot be doubted} that, like every other phi-
losophy, it also derived nourishment from alien sources, is no
less certain. In his case, however, such sources are not easy to
discover, because he purposely never, or hardly ever, disclosed
them himself, and because he had no use for other men's ideas
until they had been transmuted for him by the light of his own
personal experience. His explicit references hardly go beyond
the words of St Paul on love in the First Epistle to the Corin-
thians, and the words of the Gospel: 'For what shall it profit

WALTHER RATHENAU

a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? '
(Mark viii, 36.) Plato himself he hardly mentions. But there
can be no doubt that he was deeply influenced by the most re-
cent and most impressive manifestation of Jewish mysticism,
Hassidism, a philosophy inaugurated in the first half of the
eighteenth century by the 'master of the good name/ Baal-
shem-tov. He studied Hassidism and accepted it in so far as it
confirmed his own experience and gave a significance to life. It
happened that just at the critical time he met the historian of
Hassidism, Dr Martin Buber. He read Buber's first book on
the subject, The Tales of Rabbi Nachmany when it came out in
the late autumn of 1906 (indeed after he had written down
the Breviarwm Mysticum), and found there the very answer
he himself had given to the question regarding life's 'Where-
fore?': that life was intended as a means of experiencing joy
in Godj that its aim and end must be the soul's spontaneous
entry into God, and that this end was attained most completely
in ecstasy. cBut ecstasy,' explains Martin Buber, cis not [in the
view of Hassidism] as in German mysticism, a dissolution of
the soul, but its unfolding; it is not the soul which contracts and
renounces itself that merges into the unconditioned, but the
soul attaining to its own perfection. In ascetic renunciation the
spiritual being, the Neshama, shrivels up, becomes limp, empty
and dulled j only in joy can it grow and perfect itself until, free
of all limitations, it ripens into the Divine. Never has a teaching
based the "finding of God" so firmly and clearly on "being
one's self."' (Martin Buber, The Hassidistic Books, 1928,
p. 14.) *

1 Dr Martin Buber writes to me:

'Heppenheim, 16.1.28. I knew Rathenau well. It is true that we rarely met
during the time in which I was living in Berlin, i.e up to the end of 1915 (and
after that time we had no further personal contact, although our inner relation-
ship was not weakened), but when we did we always had a long talk. As I
gleaned from all sorts of remarks and hints, he was an attentive reader of my
books on Hassidism. We discussed Hassidism with one another repeatedly 5 I Had

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

Certainly also Rathenau was influenced by Spinoza, as is evi-
dent from the Latin title of the Breviarium Mysticwn, its se-
ries of numbered propositions mimicking Spinoza's style, and
the essence of its philosophy. When Rathenau states, in the Bre-
viarium Mysticttm, that *the soul is the image of GodJ he is not
only recording a personal experience, but resting it on Spinoza's
conception of God as the one infinite substance of which space
and time, mind and matter, and we ourselves, are mere transi-
tory manifestations. For Rathenau's proposition follows log-
ically from this conception: the soul, being a manifestation of
God, must needs be His image. Rathenau's personal experi-
ence— the divine quality of the soul when unfettered by pur-
pose— confirmed for him the truth of Spinoza's conception. In
the same way, when Rathenau speaks of the transcendence of
love as of something experienced by himself, this experience be-
comes fused with Spinoza's conception of love as an emotion of
God, an expression of God's love of Himself, wherefore hu-
man love, our love of ourselves, and of other finite beings is
ultimately nothing more than man's incomplete and partially
expressed love of God, or, more predsely, nothing more than
a particle of God's own love of Himself. Whence it may be
said that love always is transcendent and, beyond and through
the beloved, always seeks God. Thus Rathenau takes Spinoza's
metaphysic, illuminates it from within and uses it as a basis for
further development.

It became in the first place a basis for a new interpretation of
Fichte.2 Rathenau was influenced more by Fichte than by any

the impression that it signified for him an extension of his self-knowledge, and
that what he derived from it and from my Addresses on Judaism was not with-
out influence upon a change in his attitude towards the nature and destiny of the
Jewish people. He was desirous of working back to the original sources himself
and, as you are well aware, he studied Hebrew zealously for some times his
teacher, whom I. met again in Palestine many years later, told me on that occasion
how seriously and thoroughly Rathenau pursued this study. Why he subsequently
abandoned it I do not know.'

2 The philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, born in 1762, died in Berlin in

WALTHER RATHENAU

other philosopher except Spinoza j he was fascinated by the
ascetic, Spartan-Prussian spirit of which Fichte's philosophy
was an ideal, highly intellectualized embodiment, and by his
disdain for utility and purpose. Fichte evolved his ethical postu-
lates directly out of Spinoza's concept of the relation between
God and man. As every man is a unique manifestation of God,
it follows logically that his highest duty is always to be himself
without allowing any outward purpose to deflect him from his
path: for every contradiction with himself involves him in con-
tradiction with God. 'As certainly as man possesses reason,' says
Fichte, 'so certainly is he his own purpose; i.e. he does not exist
because something else is, but he exists quite simply because he
is: his mere being is the ultimate aim of his being. . . . Man
is an end to himself $ he must condition himself, and never per-
mit himself to be conditioned by anything outside himself.
. . . I will therefore express the fundamental precept of moral
philosophy in the following formula: Act in such a way that
you can conceive the maxim of your will as an eternal law for
yourself. The final vocation of all finite, rational beings is
therefore absolute unison, continuous identity, complete ac-
cordance with their own selves.' ( Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Uber
die Bestimmwng des Gelehrten, Jena and Leipzig, 1794, p.
8-12.) It is hardly necessary to point out how convincing these
passages must have sounded to Rathenauj for they merely gave
expression to what he had himself experienced and henceforth
valued as his most precious possession.

Thus by a natural process of growth Rathenau's personal ex-
perience of the 'Soul' broadened out into a philosophy to which
the New Testament, Hassidism, Spinoza and Fichte each con-
tributed something, without however obscuring that personal
revelation which remained the live core and motive of all

1814., the great exponent of an ascetic Prussian view of life, who by his teaching
instilled into the youth of Germany the spirit which made it rise against Napoleon-.

84-

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

Rathenau's thoughts. This live experience even brought about
a fundamental difference between Rathenau's philosophy and
that of Fichte and Spinoza. For they did not distinguish be-
tween different states of the soulj Spinoza conceived all work-
ings of the soul as equally complete manifestations of God —
and Fichte's man was man without any qualification. But Rath-
enau bestows the name of 'sou? on inner experience only when
it is impelled by its own tendencies alone without any outward
purpose — only in those moments when it is not twisted and
crippled by bondage to outward, material ends, is it the pure
image of God. From this premise he was led inevitably to two
startling propositions: First, that there are men who possess no
soul — a view incompatible with Spinoza's conception, but ac-
ceptable to the Jewish Cabbala, which on the other hand also
conceives of men who have two souls or even several. Men who
are without a soul have failed to evolve one, either because ex-
ternal bondage or sheer misery has left them no leisure to
acquire one, or because business and pleasure so engross them
that they never have a single disinterested moment, never a
breathing space when they are not the slaves of some scheme or
purpose. And from the same premise follows just as inevitably
that in most men the soul has yet to be 'born.' 'Many are born
with a soul,' says the Breviarium Mysticum, 'all can attain to

one.'

Hence the f Birth of the Soul* advances to the rank of a mys-
tery, of a kind of miracle of the Holy Grail around which cen-
tres Rathenau's philosophy, as Christianity centres around the
mystery of the admission to the fellowship of Christ through
Baptism and Holy Communion. Men are different from one
another not according to whether they are 'good' or *bad' — for
Rathenau's moral philosophy, like that of Nietzsche, is 'beyond
good and evil' — but according to whether or not the birth of
the soul has taken place in them, whether they are 'soul-less' or
men who have a soul. This mystery, this initiation, which a man

WALTHER RATHENAU

must go through before he emerges on the side of Redemp-
tion, is obviously nothing but the first experience of his own in-
dividuality and uniqueness, of his being a child of God. It is
therefore identical with the religious experience on which so
many great mystics have founded their teaching: not only the
Jewish Hassidim, but also Lao-tse, Buddha, Plato, Christ,
Plotinus, and later the great German mystics Meister Eckhart,
Jacob Boehme and Angelus Silesius. And to English readers it
will suggest Wordsworth's lines in The Prelude which describe
a mystical experience in a wild Alpine pass, curiously like
Rathenau's revelation on Parnassus:

Our destiny, our being's heart and home
Is with infinitude, and only there.

• • • • •

Under such banners militant, the soul
Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils
That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts
That are their own perfection and reward,
Strong in herself and in beatitude. . . .

The idea that not everybody has a soul and that in every man
the soul must first be 'born,' though limiting and narrowing
Spinoza's and Fichte's concepts, actually supplements the lat-
ter's fundamental proposition — that the paramount duty of
every human being is to prevent the pure light of God as re-
vealed in his soul from being obscured — by pointing out that
man has first to throw off the bondage of material purpose in
order to acquire a soul. With Fichte's proposition thus supple-
mented and reinforced, Rathenau finds himself justified in
demanding with insistent vigour what is as revolutionary today
as it was two thousand years ago — that nobody shall be hin-
dered in his efforts to acquire a soulj and hence to proclaim
that every limitation of man's freedom on the path to his soul
is intolerable, and constitutes an injustice which upsets the di-

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

vine order of things and a tyranny which it is man's duty to
destroy.

And yet another consequence can be deduced from the con-
cept that man is not necessarily born with a soul, but neverthe-
less can evolve one subsequently: the hope that the painful dis-
harmony between man and the world which Christianity de-
scribes as sin, can be resolved even on earth — provided that,
faced by the world, man first breaks through to his soul, and
henceforth secures to it the upper hand. To this hope however
there is a sinister corollary. For if a man later on, after he has
discovered his soul, fails to establish and uphold its supremacy)
then the strife and pain in him become worse than before. That
is the meaning of the parable of the rich young man in the New
Testament, and also of the belief prevalent in the ancient world
that the man initiated into the mysteries who did not in life
remain true to the divine revelation was punished by an aveng-
ing God. In Rathenau's case it is a fact that the dangers latent
in his dual nature did not become threatening until, at those
cross-roads in Greece, perhaps not far from the cross-roads
where Oedipus met his fate, he stood face to face with his soul,
but, turning back and hindered by a thousand inhibitions, was
only able to give it half a hearing.

And yet the divinity of every human soul, its uniqueness and
its paramount importance, which Spinoza conceived as a semi-
mathematical formula expressing the relation between man and
infinity, and Fichte used as an abstract hypothesis on which to
found a new system of ethics, stood before Rathenau's imagina-
tion as a magic ring of indisputable facts vouched for by his own
personal experience and liberating him from the depths of
misery. cHe who has experienced the first stirring of the life of
the soul,5 he says, 'needs no proof. His inner certainty, which is
more living than any other experience, assures him of a new ac-
tivity of the spirit which, entirely separate from the intellect,

WALTHER RATHENAU

opens the way to new powers, new joys, new sorrows, and to a
life above life.5 (Mechanism of the Mind, p. 36.)

But it is not only in the individual that this miracle, the
birth of a soul, this infinitely delicate, mysterious process, can
take place 5 a community also can give birth to a soul, a com-
munal soul, strange as this idea would presumably have seemed
to the old Mystics. Just as according to the Cabbala several
souls can have their home in one body, so modern philosophy
and folklore recognize that thousands, even millions, of men
can participate in one soulj and not only millions who are con-
temporaries, but also generations past and to come, all of whom
through the fact that they have a share in this one soul consti-
tute, as it were, only one body. Thus families, races, peoples,
nations, religions, and civilizations arise round this central mir-
acle of the birth of a soul which is what truly forms the com-
munity, just as the birth of a soul in man is what makes him
truly human. As a man only experiences himself in the soul
which comes into being within him, so does a community only
experience itself when a communal soul works within it, which
reveals itself in its customs, its speech, mythology, poetry, art,
life and culture.8 By means of this concept German classical
philosophy made a decisive advance beyond pure individualism.
Formulated by Herder, developed and carried to its logical
conclusion by Fichte, this concept became the living core of rev-
olutionary nationalism, the most powerful lever of the political
upheavals of the nineteenth century. For, as Herder recog-
nized, it implies that the soul of a community is no less a mani-
festation of God in Spinoza's sense than the soul of an indi-
vidual} and that, according to Fichte's fundamental proposi-
tion, a community therefore has, no less than individual man,
the right and the duty to demand of mankind that it shall in no

8 See Professor William MdDougalPs Psychology, Home University Library,
pp. 228 ff. and the writings of Professor Durkheim. It need hardly be pointed
out what use the French nationalist writer Maurice Barres and his friends made of
this concept in their agitation for the reconquest of Alsace-Lorraine by France.

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

way be interfered with, or shackled, or hindered from realizing
its individuality. 'The peoples' right of self-determination':
here is its transcendental root.

But how is the birth of a communal soul possible? How can
numbers of men participate in one soul and even pass this soul
on from generation to generation? Rathenau explains this by
two psychological principles, which he calls 'addition' and 'radi-
ation.*

Just as in a family between husband and wife, parents and
children, a communal soul arises through the medium of love,
so in a larger community a soul arises through processes similar
to love: through the feeling of solidarity and the willingness of
individuals to sacrifice themselves to the community. Every
community, whether it be a family, a race, a nation, or a con-
federation of several nations (as, for example, Switzerland),
within which solidarity and the sense of sacrifice hold sway,
possesses the soil from which a communal soul can be born.
The birth of a soul in such a community Rathenau explains
through the process of 'addition,' since through solidarity and
sacrifice the part-souls of the individuals 'add themselves up'
into a communal soul (Mechanism of the Mind, p. 55 #.) } its
survival, through a process which he calls 'radiation.'

'Radiation' (Mechanism of the Mind, p. 131 jf.) is the proc-
ess which in a, community takes the place of memory, en-
abling it to organize its spiritual life into a continuous experi-
ence. This radiation can best be explained by means of an ex-
ample. The shape of the waterspout which rises out of the
round pond in the grounds of Sans-Souci in Potsdam is exactly
the same as in the days when Frederick the Great watched it.
Now, since Frederick's death the water has never Been the same
for an instant, yet for a hundred and fifty years the form of its
jet has never altered — in a thousand, in two thousand, years,
provided the water comes out of the same pipe, it will always
be the same. This principle of radiation, as Rathenau rightly

WALTHER RATHENAU

recognized, is the law of all life, its fundamental law. Every-
thing is in flux, yet at every moment matter in its onward rush
is caught up in a millionfold net of forms, which give the
world the appearance of permanency because, from the form
of the Universe to that of the atom, they are, according to hu-
man standards, immutable. This 'radiation' — in a paper pub-
lished in Harden's Zukunft in 1906 1 first called attention to its
bearing on the phenomena of Nationality, naming it the 'princi-
ple of permanent form-tendencies — is paramount also in the
realm of the mind, giving individual experience the chance of
surviving the individual in the shape of a form-tendency in-
grafted into the community. It is the rise and survival of per-
manent f orm-tendencies that explain how the same experience,
the same tastes and urges can recur mysteriously in generation
after generation of men. It is not blood, but a body of perma-
nent form-tendencies, f ordng matter and mind ever again into
the same forms, that gives a community its individuality and,
in Rathenau's sense of the word, its soul, — in the forms of its
speech, its art, its morals, its religion. The birth of a soul in man
and the birth of a soul in the community are twin manifesta-
tions, twin mysteries which cannot be separated, and as such
dominate Rathenau's moral philosophy and his schemes for in-
dustrial, social and political reform.

Great thoughts, as Rathenau himself says somewhere, are
to be had for the asking: it is easy to conceive them, but dif-
ficult to put them into practice; and when a complicated nature,
hemmed in by more inhibitions than Hamlet, undertakes the
task the result is likely to be tragic. With the object of pre-
paring the way for the 'realm of the sou? — which was a con-
cept similar to Fichte's 'perfect society' — a realm in which both
the individual and the community should be given scope for the
unfolding of their souls through freeing them from the bond-
age of material purpose, Rathenau outlined in three revolu-
tionary books the fundamental features of a new human, social,

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

industrial and political world-order. These three works are:
Criticism of the Age, published in 1912, The Mechanism of the
Mind, published in 1913, and In Days to Come written during
the war.

With a ruthless determination to get down to realities he
asks of the world of today: What of the soul? In seeking for
an answer he comes upon a fact which appears to him the fun-
damental cause of the present soulless state of the world: mech-
anization. 'Mechanization/ says Rathenau, *is the amalgama-
tion of the whole world into one compulsory association, into
one continuous net of production and world trade.' (In Days to
Come, p. 28.) 4 In this oppressive organization, in this strangle-
hold, the soul droops and withers. A problem is therefore set
before humanity: How to save the soul out of the grip of mech-
anization, how to give it back its freedom in a world thoroughly
enslaved by purpose? Now the problem Rathenau thus exalts
to the position of a world problem is in fact the problem of his
own personality. 'With the gigantic search-light of his ego-
centric spirit he projected the image of his inner fate upon his
century/ says Emil Ludwig in his essay on Rathenau. But Rath-
enau was entitled to do so, because his fate and the fate of the
world were curiously alike, and he was thus led to realize more
vividly than most people what must happen unless the conflict
between the two tendencies which rend the modern world ends
in the victory of the spirit.

Fate governs this struggle because mechanization, as Rath-
enau shows, is the ineluctable consequence of the unprecedented
increase of the world's population in the course of the last cen-
tury, and indeed is the sole effective means of preserving it. If
freedom of the soul proves finally incompatible with a mech-
anized wtorld, mankind will one day have to choose between its

4 The page references throughout are to the English translation of Von Kom-
menden Dingen, published by Messrs George Allen and Unwin, Ltd (London,
1921).

WALTHER RATHENAU

overgrown body and its soul. Rathenau experienced to the full
the tragedy of this dilemma. Hence the pathos of his writings:
the pathos of a tragic personal fate raised to the unthinkably
terrible fate of mankind.

But is it true that an unprecedented increase of the popula-
tion is responsible for this? According to Sombart (Hochk&pi-
talismus, Vol. Ill, p. 355), between 1 800 and 1914 the popula-
tion of Europe increased from 1 80 millions to 452 millions and
the white population of the whole world from 185 millions to
559 millions. The chief cause of this increase is certainly, as
Sombart shows, the decrease in the death-rate, not the increase
in the birth-rate j but that is not to the point at present. For
whatever may have been the causes of this unprecedented in-
crease, in order to meet the needs of such a huge population,
'there remained/ says Rathenau, 'only one thing for the peoples
to do, and that was to acquire completely new customs and laws
of life and work, with the object of increasing material produc-
tion to the utmost and adapting it to the teeming millions of
mankind. This was only possible in one way: by a ruthless adap-
tation of means to end, which greatly increased the effectiveness
of human labour and at the same time utilized the product of
this labour to the fullest extent. The formula which lies at the
basis of the mechanizing of the world is increase of production
secured by economy of labour and material.'

This end is brought about by the aid of organization and
technology, 'organization, in that it directs production and con-
sumption into the desired channels by means of division, unifi-
cation and ramification} technology, in that it controls natural
forces and places them at the disposal of new organizations for
production and transport either by power, by chemistry, by elec-
tridty, or by skilful mechanical devices. . . . If in this manner
mechanization had its original roots in the creation of com-
modities it did not long remain confined to this province. Ad-
mittedly even today this is still the centre from which it rami-

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

fies and casts its shadow? for the creation of wealth remains the
central province of material life; that which all others touch
at one point at least.

'But we encounter mechanization over whatever department
of human activity we cast our eyes, although its forms are so
complex and varied that it seems presumptuous to attempt to
grasp the whole sweep of the ever-changing picture. To the
economist it appears as mass production and distribution of
goods? to the industrialist as division of labour, accumulation
of labour, and manufacture} to the geographer as development
of transport and communication, and colonization} to the tech-
nician as control of natural forces} to the scientist as the appli-
cation of the results of research; to the sociologist as the organ-
ization of labourj to the business man as capitalistic enterprise}
to the politician as realistic economico-political statecraft. But
all these have in common something which separates them in a
definite and peculiar fashion from the modes of life of earlier
centuries: a spirit, namely, of specialization and abstraction,
standardized thinking devoid of surprise and humour, compli-
cated uniformity} a spirit which seems to justify the name
"mechanization" even when applied to the sphere of emotion.'
(Criticism of the Agey pp. 42-56-)

Thus mechanization signifies a complete revolution of the
whole mental, social, economic and political outlook. First of
all, with regard to economic life:

'From all parts of the surface of the earth raw products of
mineral and organic origin are streaming along railroads and
water routes into the reservoirs of towns and harbours. There
they are sent to the various factories in which they are to be
treated and in which they are combined in prearranged propor-
tions in order that, having been chemically or mechanically
modified, they may begin another cycle as semi-products. Again
separated and recombined and worked up, they appear as final
products, which in their third form are brought into the ware-

WALTHER RATHENAU

house of the wholesale dealer before they find their way along
highly differentiated paths to the retail dealer and finally to the
consumer, who converts them into waste material and sends
them back into the process of production. Like the blood stream,
the stream of commodities flows through the network of its ar-
teries and veins. Every moment of the day and night, metal
thunders, propellers churn, fly-wheels whir, retorts steam, to
renew and to maintain this circulation. ... If we consider this
vision in its entirety, the earth cannot but appear to us a single
and indivisible economic unit.'

Capital is the driving power behind this prodigious new
world machine. clf this economic bee-hive, which had attained
to a visible unity, was to secure its life and existence, there had
to be a system of tacit agreements, links and relationships to
hold together the human elements in the organization, distrib-
ute labour, and at the same time chain the dead material to these
living elements. . . . The core of this invisible organization of
the economic world is the institution of property, and this par-
ticularly in the form of property which is most closely associ-
ated with the individual: inheritable property. For this highly
personal institution to adapt itself to the manifold forms and
movements of mechanized types of production, it had to be-
come equally flexible and impersonal. Property had to be infi-
nitely divisible, yet susceptible of infinite accumulation; it had
to be mobile, exchangeable, active j its fruits had to be separ-
able from their source and realizable in themselves. In fine,
property had to learn to correspond to the pattern of mecha-
nized actuality, of division of labour, accumulation of labour,
organization and combination; it had to be mechanized. Mech-
anized property is what we call capital. That procedure which,
regarded physiologically and from without, presents itself as
mechanized production, appears, regarded from within from
the human and organizational point of view, as capitalism.
Hence capitalism will persist as long as the mechanized system

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

of production is in existence. . . . One can therefore speak of
the cessation of private capitalistic society, but not for the pres-
ent of the cessation of the capitalistic type of production.' (Criti-
cism of the AgBy pp. 61-62.)

From the revolution in industry there follows an equally
fundamental revolution and crisis in political thought: 'Along-
side of the anonymous, autonomous and rational organization
of property there stands a second, supporting it and supported
by it, which is built on the basis of custom, prestige, power and
sanction — the organization of the state. In it, for an incalcu-
lable period, the mystical principle has fought with the mechan-
ical, the first invoked to reinforce custom and purpose, the sec-
ond called into being by the increasing tasks and difficulties of
the moment. The mystical power of the state lay in its age-long
association with religion. From the time when the changes in
industry, the growth of population, the policy of expansion,
compelled the state to exercise tolerance and no longer to re-
gard heresy as a crime, but rather to recognize the rights of the
religious beliefs of its neighbours, the basis was transferred
from the unconditioned and the transcendental to the condi-
tioned and the utilitarian j the religious state was a sacrament,
the modern state a contrivance.' There remain indeed, as indis-
pensable functions, foreign policy and defence, law and police.
'But actually and normally nine-tenths of the political activity
is devoted to the industrial demands of the moment, and the
remainder to the industrial demands of the future. It would
perhaps be premature to depict the state of today as an armed
confederacy for production on a national basis; but it is cer-
tainly out of date to regard it as a mystical institution on a
higher level than mechanized industry and business.' (Criticism
of the Age, p. 68.) Thus the inevitable consequence of mecha-
nization is a weakening— an irrevocable weakening— of the con-
ception of the state, its subordination to economic considera-
tions.

WALTHER RATHENAU

Thus we have a world turned upside down, in which eco-
nomic interests are on top, political interests subservient, and
the soul crushed and suffocated beneath both. But in what way,
we ask, does this new condition of things effect the crushing of
the soul? Rathenau describes this in detail. To begin with, the
world today strangles the soul in a network of organizations
which hinder it in every one of its natural activities. 'A German
citizen returning home from America without a penny in his
pocket has only the right, if he is not going to solicit charity, to
proceed along the public thoroughfares at a normal pace and to
record his vote at parliamentary elections.' (Criticism of the
Age, p. 70.)

Organizations throw their manifold, invisible meshes over
every foot of the earth. 'If once upon a time a German was able
to boast of being a Christian, a subject, a citizen, the father of
a family and a member of a guild, today he is the subject and
object of countless associations. He is a citizen of the Empire,
of his particular state and his town, a resident in a district and a
province, and a member of a parish; he is a soldier, voter, tax-
payer, the holder of honorary posts; he is a member of a pro-
fession, employer or employee, tenant or landlord, customer
or purveyor; he is an insured person, a member of a trade
union, of a scientific society or a dub; he is the client of a bank,
a shareholder, a creditor of the state, the owner of savings cer-
tificates, mortgagee or mortgagor; he is a member of a political
party, a subscriber to a newspaper, the telephone, the postal
cheque system, an inquiry office, he has a season ticket on the
tramways; he makes oral and written contracts and agreements;
he is sportsman, collector, connoisseur, dilettante, traveller,
reader, pupil, student; the possessor of testimonials, a passport,
diplomas and titles; he is agent, member of a firm, a 'refer-
ence,' a competitor; he is an expert, confidant, arbiter, witness,
magistrate, juror; he is heir, testator, husband, relative, friend.
These are the ramifications of the nervous system of media-

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

nized industry laid bare in all their complexity.' They imply
that the behaviour of the individual reflects to an increasing de-
gree not himself but a system. And no less than the individual
have the professions and occupations lost their outer peculiari-
ties through the effects of mechanization. Formerly, but two or
three generations ago, one could at least recognize every man's
occupation by his outward appearance: one could distinguish
from afar a doctor, an artist, an artisan, a farmer. But today all
are 'middle-class': the mason looks exactly like the journalist,
and the boxer like the priest. Every one tries to be as like as
possible to every one else, since cliving machinery (like mecha-
nized society) must, in order to maintain the productivity of the
earth, consist of uniform, normal and solid material' and cits
parts must be producible and exchangeable on a mass scale.*
(Criticism of the Agey p. 71.)

Thus, out of these two elements, mechanized organization
and mechanized occupation, there develops cthe decisive char-
acteristic of mechanized society: its homogeneity. ... A lawyer
of today resembles his medical colleagues very much more than
a linen-weaver used formerly to resemble a cloth-maker. And
there is still more resemblance between their domestic arrange-
ments, their way of living, their clothing, their mode of
thought and their desires.' (Criticism of the Age, pp. 70-72.)

That men become more and more similar to one another in
their outward aspect — first within each particular country, and
then all the world over — is probably the most obvious result
of mechanization} but of course it affects them in ways still
more fundamental and revolutionary.

Thus, it creates a completely new spiritual atmosphere by
increasing to an unprecedented extent the personal experience
and the knowledge of each single individual} not, be it well un-
derstood, his 'culture,' as one used to say, his breeding and as-
similated knowledge, but rather the mass of sheer facts which
are forced down his throat. The average German 'leaves school

WALTHER RATHENAU

with some general knowledge of the past and the present, and a
superficial acquaintance with several languages and with mathe-
maticsj he has some idea of the multiplicity of human institu-
tions and of the classification of natural phenomena. Countless
reproductions of works of art of all periods, styles of archi-
tecture, countries and their peoples, are put before him* A walk
in any town shows him more goods and contrivances of every
kind than Babylon, Bagdad, Rome and Constantinople together
had even heard of. He is trained to understand the working of
machines, communications, and manufacture} he can look with-
out surprise at men of every occupation and every country, at
the animals and plants of every region of the earth. . . . But
the flood of insistent information does not cease with his school-
days and his entering on a career. At least once a day the curtain
of the world-theatre rises and the newspaper reader is pre-
sented with murder and violence, war and diplomatic intrigue,
horse races, discoveries and inventions, expeditions, love affairs,
public works, accidents, theatrical productions, stock exchange
business, the weather report: in one morning over his early
coffee more remarkable events than his forefathers were vouch-
safed in the course of a lifetime.' (Critkism of the Age, pp.
81-83.)

In these days of wireless and cinema Rathenau's indictment
seems almost old-f ashioned'j the stupendous flood of new ideas
has increased enormously since then, penetrated into the remot-
est villages, into furthest Asia and Australia. But does the in-
undation bring nourishment to the soul? All this information,
these visions, these ideas, rush past as though carried away by a
roaring torrent. Very few ever succeed in taking holdj most of
them whirl past, merely serving to provide man with moments
of self-f orgetfulness, to make him from day to day less inti-
mate with himself, to draw him away more and more from the
depths to the mere outer trappings of his soul.

But still worse than this devastating mass of cheap inf orma-

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

tion are the effects of the mechanized methods of work, of our
latter-day division of labour carried to such a point that the
work of most men has become a purely mechanical operation
having nothing in common with the craftsmanship of former
times. 'With the exception of a few creative occupations, such
as the artist's and the scientist's, the mechanized occupations
are as it were mere "jobs." The workman sees no beginning and
no end, the finished article is no concern of hisj for the prod-
ucts he makes and the stages he deals with are intermediate.
. . . Thus is man strangely modelled in the school of his call-
ing. If labour is a joy to him, it is no longer the joy of creation,
but rather that of getting through his work. A task is done, a
danger obviated, a stage reached: all that matters is what comes
next, what follows.' (Criticism of the Age, pp. 84-87.)

The man who, in a factory with a thousand other men,
makes the same movement of the hand twenty times a minute
is not an image of God, nor even truly a man, but just a
machine, a soulless piece of clockwork of which the artificial
men of Karel Capek, the 'robots,' are not even caricatures. His
work takes no account of his individuality} and when he walks
out of the factory gate he might as well have been dead for
eight hours. Who has still the effrontery to preach to him
about the 'joy of labour'? The Vossische Zeitung of March 8th,
1928, printed this letter from a machine-worker, Franz Flach-
senhaar of Mannheim: Tut yourself in the place of a worker
who formerly gave himself heart and soul to his work, who
breathed his spirit into it, grew with its progress and found his
own self in the completed work. And now he stands beside the
band and makes the same movement of the hand day after day,
hundreds and even thousands of times, and always at the pre-
scribed speed. He has been forced to bury his pride as a crafts-
man, for what he is making can be made equally well by any-
body else. He has been forced to sacrifice his soul to rationaliza-
tion.'

WALTHER RATHENAU

Hence in order to tap man's creative energies other im-
pulses than the joy of labour must be aroused: fear of hunger,
delight in superfluous possessions, ambition, the pursuit of
pleasure. And actually the typical mechanized man is a com-
pound of greed, lust and vanity. It is this last remnant of his
soul, his 'iron ration' of spirituality, which suffices to keep him
and the world going.

But have we not forgotten the other side of the question, the
spiritual forces fostered by mechanization? Has not the age of
mechanization witnessed the growth of an ideal which has
overshadowed all others, namely nationalism? Not patriotism,
but nationalism. Patriotism implies a willingness to sacrifice
oneself for one's own people without any ulterior motive, a
pure sacrifice for their defence and welfare. A striking and
graphic illustration of patriotic sacrifice pure and simple with-
out thought of any advantage is offered by the poet Theodor
Daubler's description of the saving of the Greeks of Asia
Minor after the catastrophe of 1921 by the poor Greek sailors
and fishermen of Santorin, Paros, Naxos, Syra, etc.; it exhibits
the element of patriotism, one of the most precious in the
human soul, so well that it deserves to be quoted in full as he
wrote it down for me:

'Coming from Santorin, I left the Greek steamer at Paros in
order to pay a visit to the marble quarries on the island and its
wonderful Byzantine church. The people seemed to me pro-
foundly unhappy. A great disaster seemed to be in the air, but
no one mentioned it. After having spent two days there, I
wished to leave Paros; but the old fishermen in the harbour
shook their heads as they gazed out to sea and said: "There is
no ship in sight." "When will one come?" I asked. "Perhaps
in a month," answered the pilot, "perhaps earlier." I had with
me a government paper which invited all Greek officials to
give me their assistance. I was able to make good use of it, for
that very afternoon the port officials succeeded in getting me

100

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

aboard a sailing ship which was conveying fish, packed in ice,
to the Piraeus. It was the kst which set its course for the cap-
ital. All the Greek steamers had received instructions to pro-
ceed to the coast of Asia Minor in order to collect refugees.
The Greek army had been routed j Ionia, the native land of
Homer and of the great philosophers of the ancient world,
had been surrendered. The victorious and exasperated Turk had
fallen upon the towns and villages of his rebellious subjects.
This time the Greeks and Armenians were to be exterminated.
The islanders were aghast. Through a violent norVester every
ship, even small sailing boats which were scarcely of a size to
battle with the threatening waves, could be seen taking an east-
ward course. Every Greek who possessed a boat of any sort was
moved by the soul-stirring cry: "Hellas in Asia is lost ! " Every-
where along the coast of Asia Minor that faces Europe the
cry rang out: "If there are Christians here, or Greeks, come!
Your brothers are waiting to take you away." A miracle took
place: nearly half a million men and women, old people and
children, had been brutally butchered, yet three times as many
were saved and transported to Europe. I saw this with my own
eyes. I am not romancing, but reporting.5

Opposed to this readiness for unselfish sacrifice is national-
ism, the policy of armed expansion, claiming special rights as
the perquisite of a chosen people. Since mechanization has over-
run the world, nationalism thus understood has blossomed to
a remarkable degree; but it is in no sense a new departure, as
Rathenau seems to hold. Wherever there have been greedy
business men and ambitious states, there have also been nation-
alists. Alcibiades, Socrates' fair pupil, the declasse aristocrat and
boon companion of the rich Athenian corn-merchants, who
drove Athens to her doom in Sicily, was a nationalist who con-
ducted a policy of armed expansion in the name not, of course,
of the Athenian corn-trade, but of the 'higher mission' of Ath-
ens. Nor has a nationalistic policy by any means always led to

101

WALTHER RATHENAU

disaster j the British Empire from Cromwell to the younger Pitt
is a masterpiece of ruthless nationalism, with Providence on its
lips and plenty of powder and shot in the holds of its men of
wan Nor would it be fair to deny to nationalism an ideology.
The assurance of belonging to a chosen people and having on
that account a right to a privileged commercial position does
foster idealistic tendencies, however uncertainly they may flut-
ter around the solid core of good business.

So much we can grant. But can we therefore hope to see
nationalism free man from the strangle-hold of mechanization?
Millions certainly believe it. Even after the fruitless orgy of
nationalism in the Great War and subsequent Peace it still re-
mains the peculiar faith, the sole religion, of masses of people
everywhere. Yet obviously nationalism can never; by any chance
free the soul from the meshes of mechanization. For it is itself
scheming, purposive, profiteering — a growth of the same ma-
terialistic, pettif ogging spirit as mechanization, and thus es-
sentially related to it, its elder brother so to speak — but if an
elder brother, a hostile one, stranded halfway between the old
world, which was cut up into economic units, and the new,
which has willy-nilly become welded into one economic com-
munity. Nationalism, therefore, though apparently dominating
the age as its only substitute for religion, is really involved in
a lif e-and-death struggle with the spirit of the age and fated to
go under in this contest. For both these reasons, because it is
itself materialistic, and because its day is on the wane, it can-
not f ulfil the hopes of the Italian Fascist or German 'Volkische*
and become the seedling of a new type of soul raised above
mechanization. That is why Rathenau, although to a certain ex-
tent sympathizing with it, finally rejected it, and took up the
line he did, before, during and after the war. clf it looks as
though nationalism, because it is a question of bread, must re-
main with us for all time, one can only reply: It is not soj for

102

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

that which is contrary to reason cannot persist.' (Criticism of the
Agey^. 1 1 6.)

Mechanization thus leads to outer bondage and inner starva-
tion of the soul without providing it with any redeeming ideal.
And yet, however severe this indictment may seem, it is not
complete; for we have not yet considered the worst crime of
mechanization, its fostering of an immense 'Proletariat,' a class
of human beings which has no share in the means of production
and is therefore entirely dependent on those who have. The
question of how man shall free his soul from the strangle-hold
of mechanization becomes an even more urgent and terrible
problem for the proletarian than it is for the bourgeois, a spe-
cial problem which keeps him in a state of permanent unrest
and which he must solve if he is not ultimately to go under both
physically and spiritually. Seen in this light, the so-called 'So-
cial Question' is a special case of the much more general prob-
lem set humanity by mechanization.

By conceiving the struggle for the emancipation of the pro-
letariat as part of the much more extended and complex strug-
gle for the emancipation of man, Rathenau broadened the basis
of the proletarian claim and envisaged a task far beyond the
mere economic improvement of the proletarian's lot. Marx
justified the 'class war' by a sort of legal title: the employer
class, the 'bourgeoisie,' do not refund to the proletarian the full
value of his labour in the form of wages, but only a fraction of
that value: the rest (Marx calls it 'surplus value?} they pocket,
giving nothing in return j to this sharp practice they owe their
income, their capital and their very existence. The proletarian
demands that the 'surplus value,' the fraction of the value of
his labour out of which he is habitually swindled, be refunded
to him; but in mechanistic (or 'capitalistic5) society his claim
is turned down, not because it is not just, but because the em-
ployer class have laid hands not only on the means of produc-
tion, but also on the state, and can therefore deflect justice by

103

WALTHER RATHENAU

bringing political power to bear on it. Hence the proletarian
must conquer both the means of production and the state, viz.,
political power. And in this 'class war5 justice is on his side 5 on
the assumption, of course, that Marx is right and that the em-
ployer really does deprive the working man of a portion of the
value of his labour. Such is the ethical basis of Marxism. To
the agitator it has proved invaluable, and for the purposes of
attack on the bourgeois position most effective tactically} but it
is narrow and obviously weak, since it rests entirely on an as-
sumption which to say the least is disputable.

Now Rathenau also starts from the assumption of an injury
inflicted on the proletariat by the bourgeoisie, but this injury is
clear and undeniable. Whether the employer appropriates a part
of the value due to labour, says Rathenau, may be doubtful.
But what is not doubtful is that the institution for which he is
responsible crushes and destroys his workman's soul. 'Not any
inherent necessity of the principle of mechanization,' says Rath-
enau in In Days to Comey p. 34 ff., <but mere expediency, has
turned the inevitable distinction between hand and brain work
into a permanent and hereditary separation} and brought into
being in every civilized country two peoples, of one blood and
race, yet eternally separate, and related one to the other as were
racially distinct upper and lower layers of population in former
times. They are divided and governed compulsorily. . . . This
compulsion is intolerably hard on the second people. . . . The
proletarian's (forced) labour enjoys, it is true, a sort of decep-
tive anonymity, called subordination} he receives not orders,
but instructions} he obeys not a master, but a superior} he does
not serve, but of his own free will enters into a contract} his
rights in law are the same as those of the man he contracts with j
he is free to change his habitat and situation} the authority by
which he is governed is not personal} even though it take the
shape of an individual employer or firm it is in reality Bour-
geois Society. But the proletarian's life, however he may ar-

104

WALTHER RATHENAU BEFORE THE WAR

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

range it within the bounds of his sham liberty, will run its
course from generation to generation in the same dreary uni-
formity. . . . Whoever realizes that this life never ceases, that
the dying workman sees the long sequence of his children and
grandchildren doomed to undergo the same fate, will feel the
conscience-pricks of a great crime. Our age calls out for state
intervention when a cab horse is ill-treated, but finds it natural
and right that one people should have to go on slaving for cen-
turies for the benefit of another which is its kith and kin, and
is indignant when that people refuses to vote for the main-
tenance of the present state of affairs.5 (In Days to Come, p. 34
jjf.) Later on in the same book he returns to the insurmount-
able barrier which separates the proletarian from the bourgeois.
However strenuously the workman attempts to rise to the so-
cial class above him, he cannot do so. 'The charmed circle is
closed. Money is the shibboleth. To him that hath, shall be
given j what he has increases, but first, he must possess. . . .
Thus walls of glass rise on every side, transparent yet insur-
mountable, and beyond them lie liberty, self-determination,
comfort and power. The keys to the forbidden land are knowl-
edge and property, and both are hereditary. Under the mask
of liberty and self-determination, we find anonymous slavery,
not of man to man, but of people to people. It is incompatible
with the claim to the liberty of the soul and its development
that one half of mankind should condemn the other half, which
is endowed by God with the same features and gifts, to be its
drudge for all eternity.' (In Days to Come, p. 69 f.)

Rathenau has epitomized his moral judgment on this state
of affairs in the words: <A moral vindication of the proletarian
relationship is impossible.' And further: 'The will to become a
free people is incompatible with the will to class division. You
must choose between having German citizens, and German
proletarians.' (In Days to Come, p. 201 ff.) One hears the
voice of Fichte: 'The choice of a status in life should be a free

105

WALTHER RATHENAU

onej no man should be forced into or excluded from any status.
Every individual action as well as every institution which is
based on such compulsion is contrary to justice.' (Uber die
Bestimmwng des Gelehrteny .1794 edition, p. 64.) And some-
what earlier in the same work: 'Every one who regards himself
as the master of another is himself a slave. Even if he be not
really a slave, he certainly has the soul of one and will cringe
basely to the first man strong enough to subdue him. He alone
is free who wishes to make all around him free' (l.c.y p. 39).
Rathenau concludes: 'Thus the demand for redemption no
longer appears as the demand for the liberation of one class,
but as an aspiration towards the raising of industry and society
in general to a higher moral plane, to the level of personal re-
sponsibility.' (In Days to Come, p. 85.)

But what is to be done? CA proletariat stirred to its depths,
terrifyingly silent,' Rathenau writes in the latter part of the
war, *lurks down below, a nation apart, a lake of darkness, out
of which now and then a glance and a cry strike the upper air:
the embodiment of the guilt and sins of mechanized society.'
(In Days to Comey p. 201.) How is this nation apart to be re-
deemed from the lowest circle of the hell of mechanization and
assisted to a soul? The task appears beyond human strength,
and doubly so, because it is only a part of a much greater and
bolder undertaking: the endeavour to raise both the proletarian
and the bourgeois once more to the full status of man. And at
this point it is only just to emphasize again the fact that the
form in which Rathenau raises the so-called 'Social Question'
— whether we agree with his answer or not — signifies an ad-
vance beyond Marx, not only because it proves the need for
a fundamental reconstruction of Society by arguments much
more general and less controversial, but also because obviously
the solution of the greater task, the awakening of man out of
the death-sleep of mechanization, is necessary if the proletarian
is to become not a mere $etit bourgeois, but a man. Rathenau

106

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

never failed to recognize the enormous, the almost insuperable,
difficulties of the task which he had set himself j in fact, they
were only too familiar to him from his own inner backslidings
and personal failures. For even though the mechanized world
have no ideal, it is at least not based on mere material power,
but on a general tendency of the age, which it is even more
difficult to overcome: the pursuit of the purely rational. *We
must recognize,' says Rathenau in his Criticism of the Age,
'that never in the history of man has any system of ideas so uni-
formly dominated such a stupendous number of people as has
the mechanistic. Its power seems inexhaustible, since it embraces
both the sources and the methods of production and the forces
and aims of life} and this power is based on Reason.'

'Nevertheless,' he says, 'nevertheless, mechanization has al-
ready received its death-blow. For in its heart of hearts this
world of ours is terrified of its own self 5 its inmost impulses ac-
cuse it and strive to be free from the eternal domination of
purpose. The world says that it knows what it wants. But it does
not know, for it desires happiness and concerns itself with ma-
terial things. It feels that material things bring it no happiness
and that it is condemned to perpetual desire. It is like Midas,
dying of thirst in a flood of gold. . „ . But through all this
confusion the voice of desire is doubly piercing because, repudi-
ating the self-complacency of knowingness, it has to admit that
it really does not know what it is yearning for.'

With these words, which sound like a personal confession,
Rathenau introduces in the Criticism of the Age his search for
counteracting forces which, if they cannot do away with, can
at least lead us on beyond, mechanization. For there can be no
going back on mechanization. 'After working for years at the
fundamental problems of industry I have come to the con-
clusion that only mechanization itself can lead us on beyond
mechanization.' (Letter 263.) But where are we to look for the
forces strong enough to resorb mechanization and render it

107

WALTHER RATHENAU

harmless? We have seen that nationalism is not equipped for
this task. Can it be achieved by any of the traditional forms of
withdrawal from the world?3 'Who can teach the man of this
Age, anguished by doubt, what he should prize, love, desire and
strive for? He addresses himself to philosophy. It replies:
Some people believe this, some that; the choice of a creed is
determined by character and circumstances; everything is true,
everything is false. He turns to religion ... he is presented
with a history of God; God becomes a subject for natural his-
tory. . . . He inquires of Science; she advises him to special-
ize. Art opens before him a picture gallery which enshrines the
beauties of all ages and peoples from Memphis to Paris, from
Mexico to Pekin; extolling one epoch and abusing the other,
with more than a hint that tomorrow it will do the exact oppo-
site. ... It is as if the world had become fluid and was trick-
ling through one's hands. Everything is possible, everything is
good. But man thirsts for faith and values.' (Criticism of the
Age, p. 127.)

This is not to say that philosophy, religion, science and art
are of no avail, but rather that they are not sufficient, that their
driving power is no longer, or not yet, strong enough to force
open the iron vise of mechanization without any outside aid. 'It
is implicit in the consequences of mechanization, which faith-
fully reflects the present intellectual state of the world and vies
with it with ever-increasing intensity, that these counteracting
forces cannot be political, social or economic: in a word, they
cannot be mechanical. Even the emergence of a theoretically
perfect collectivistic state, the nationalization of the means of
production and the pooling of commodities, would not destroy
mechanization, but, at the most, effect a redistribution of prop-
erty and power inconsiderable from the point of view of cul-
ture, and with no guarantee for its continuance.' (Mechanism
of the Mind, p. 303.)

The world really presented itself to Rathenau as a macro-

108

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

cosm, as a stupendous image of his inner self. Just as his own
intuition, imagination and emotions waged war on his intellect
and purposiveness, the moment he had secured a competency,
and suddenly in the experience of the soul revealed to him a
meaning in life and an escape from the toils of mechanization,
so, Rathenau believed, would these forces and others allied to
them show man that there was a meaning in his history and
raise him above the plane of mechanization, as soon as the ma-
terial obstacles of poverty and intellectual inhibition were re-
moved by a reorganization of Society and a new spiritual out-
look. Rathenau thought he already saw the power of these anti-
intellectual tendencies increasing cwithout external or internal
assistance, without any new creed, without any conscious reshap-
ing of the aims of world politics or history, any deepening of
spiritual experience.' Instead of the spiritual forces born of
fear, 'qualities closely allied to courage, such as imagination,
vision and inwardness, together with the less exalted qualities
of energy, patience and tenacity, will come to occupy a central
position among those forces which mechanization will need in
its zenith and decline, and which in days to come will show the
way to the complete development of the soul.' (Mechanism of
the Mind, p. 332.)

At the same time the intellectualist impulses which had hith-
erto been the main driving forces behind mechanization — ac-
quisitiveness, ambition and ostentation — would be ousted from
their ascendancy. *We are all aware that even today in this ac-
quisitive age the most enlightened and spiritual people choose
that mode of life in which property plays the smallest possible
part. . . . We know that possessiveness, luxury and extrava-
gance are the mark of this dissolute heir, of the mere grasping
upstart; men of creative genius are independent of them. We
know that nowadays men of great wealth are becoming more
aware of their responsibilities, and are more and more inclined
to rid themselves of this burden during their lifetime instead of

109

WALTHER RATHENAU

leaving its disposition to the caprice of their heirs. It needs little
foresight to recognize that the time is drawing near when, in so
far as the institution of private property still persists, the right
of inheritance will be stringently curtailed and the greater part
of private incomes assigned to the community. . . . The worst
conceivable work is that which is done from necessity, or purely
for the sake of gain. If there is still anywhere a well-sewn
pair of boots, then they have been made by a cobbler who has
joy in his craftsmanship. Thus from a purely business point of
view we see that the ground even of material life is being pre-
pared for the future.' (Mechanism of the Mind, p. 298 #.)

Indeed, the weakening of those impulses which have built up
the mechanized world raises the question whether there is not
a danger *that the human motives which drive the social mech-
anism may be weakened, or even destroyed. ... Is not this
stupendous mechanism driven by greed and competition, by in-
tellect and scheming? What will happen if the driving forces
slacken, greed dies down, competition ends in love, the intellect
is superseded by vision, and scheming ceases? Many will fear
that, without driving forces, the world would not carry on for a
single day, and they thereby testify to mankind that it does
not deserve to live a day longer and that it would be better
if it had never been created.' (Mechanism of the Mmdy
p. 290 jjf.)

This question will have to be considered carefully further
on, when we come to Rathenau's proposals for reconstruction.
Here where we are only concerned with mapping out the two
positions, the one defending and the other opposing the sub-
jection of man and his soul to purpose, it must suffice to record
Rathenau's answer: that although it be true that these forces
have propelled the mechanism of the world, they have not been
really creative. 'Ambition has never produced anything in this
world but sharp practice, petty expedients and mere casual suc-
cesses. . . . But if we consider the truly great, the creators in

1 10

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

thought and deed, we find that they were men who served a
cause. . . . Display, immediate results, and reward meant
nothing to themj they were willing to give up property, power,
and life itself for the sake of their cause. Such devotion is tran-
scendental, for it is disinterested and intuitive j the spiritual
forces which release it are the result of imagination and vision.
Of such a kind were and are the men who have given to the
things of the world their form. The passion that moves them is
the same which inspires the artist, the scientist, the craftsman
and the builder j it is the joy of creation. And they must have
yet another emotion in an unusual measure, the consciousness
of being called by the will of spiritual or divine forces to an ac-
tivity which absorbs their whole being, demanding a ceaseless
struggle against their own imperfections, incapable of delega-
tion and endowed therefore with the dignity of a personal bur-
den and necessity. This consciousness we call "responsibility,"
meaning thereby that the spirit must render its account to God
and man.' (Mechanism of the Mind, p. 297.)

Behind these words is not only a personal confession to
which the future was to give a tragic significance, but also the
figure of Emil Rathenau. Walther turned to what seemed to
him the driving forces of his father's personality, in the expec-
tation that they would take the place of ambition and acquisi-
tiveness, and become the mainspring of human activity long
before these had died down.

This prospect, however, only applies to the leaders of in-
dustry, not — f or the present at any rate — to the proletariat, the
majority of whom have been robbed of every possibility of
joy in creation by the division of labour. But in their case
another impulse is gradually gaining ground which, he thinks,
is destined to overwhelm like a rising flood the cold supremacy
of the intellect and to reinstate the soul: the feeling of Solidar-
ity, if by this we mean that within a community the individual
becomes aware of the fact that one necessarily stands for all and

ill

WALTHER RATHENAU

all for one. The description and analysis of this impulse of
solidarity is one of the central features of the Mechanism of
the Mmd. And rightly so; for the feeling of solidarity, which
is in process of growth not only within each nation, but between
different nations, and also within other types of community,
corresponds to the increasingly close texture of human relation-
ships and is therefore the most hopeful counter-movement
against the mechanistic impulses of selfish acquisitiveness and
personal ambition. But, says Rathenau, the sense of solidarity
is not merely a harbinger of the soul; it is itself a part of the
soul. And this enables the lowly and disinherited, whose souls
are most in need of salvation, to play a quite special role in the
overcoming of mechanization. Since suffering is their common
lot, and their sense of solidarity is thus particularly strong,
they bear within them, in the very midst of mechanization, an
element of the future soul of man. They therefore are the truly
elect, called upon to free the soul from the bondage of self-
interest. 'Perhaps,' says Rathenau writing in 1912, 'no greater
example of true fellowship is to be found today than among
the oppressed Russian peasantry. We shall soon realize that it
is not social and political formulas, not institutions and laws that
make men free and happy; if only the superstitious belief in
mechanistic contrivances could be shaken, there would arise
from the depths of our own peoples the firstfruits of a spiritual
life stronger than the faint stirrings of our neighbours. . . .
Thus the last shall be first; the way of courage was too short,
the way of intuition too narrow, but now the broad way of suf-
fering and introspection is smooth and manifest for all. The
sufferings of our soulless age have not yet reached their climax,
but their end is in sight. Those very masses who today set the
pace of mechanization, and are enslaved by and succumb to it,
are hastening this end. It will come not by sacrificing the upper
classes, nor by revolution, but through the rebirth of the

112

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

peoples themselves, redeemed by the sacredness of suffering.'
(Mechanism of the Mind, p. 334.)

That the forces opposed to mechanization would, if they
accomplished their task, completely reshape society, industry
and the state, that they must, in other words, be revolutionary,
is obvious. Rathenau himself drew up a programme for such a
reshaping. But as he has described it most clearly in the works
which he wrote during the war and after the collapse of Ger-
many, the exposition of this aspect of his thought is better left
to a later chapter.5

But at this point we cannot but ask whether the abolition of
the proletariat and the elimination of self-interest would really
achieve Rathenau's ultimate aim: a solution of the problem of
the universe which will satisfy our age.

Nietzsche with the vision of genius realized what would have
to be the formal premises of a satisfactory answer: *When the
nihilist asks "why," he is following the tradition according to
which life is given its aim from without — that is to say, by
some authority above man.5 Such an authority is consciously
or unconsciously rejected by the great majority of men today.
Therefore an aim or meaning in life which is determined from
without can no longer afford a solution. 'But,' asks Nietzsche,
*could we not separate the setting-up of an aim from the proc-
ess, and yet approve of the process? Such would be the case if an.
end were achieved at every moment within that process, and that
end at every moment the same. Spinoza gained such a position
of acquiescence in life by assuming that every moment was log-
ically necessary} and logic being his master passion he gloried in
such a texture of the world. But his case is only a special appli-
cation of an attitude which can be stated in much more general
terms. Any trait so fundamental that it lies at the root of and
finds expression in every happening, would necessarily drive

5 In Days to Come, chapter viii.

WALTHER RATHENAU

the individual, who feels it to be his, to glory in every moment
of creation and to call it good. What is needed is that one
should joyfully feel this trait to be good and valuable.' (Will
to Power, p. 22.)

Now Rathenau did imagine he had discovered in man a
fundamental trait — merely obscured by mechanization and
modern man's exclusive preoccupation with material ends — in
a yearning for the growth of his soul} man, he says, asks noth-
ing better than to be his innermost self without interference
from aims that come from without. If Rathenau was right he
had thereby laid bare something that is indeed 'at the root of
every happening, which finds expression in every happening,
and which, when it is felt by an individual to be his funda-
mental characteristic, should lead him to approve of every
moment of creation.'

Only the future can show whether modern man will recog-
nize this to be his ruling trait and the final and satisfactory
answer to his question: Wherefore do I exist? Nietzsche, we
know, found the essential justification of life in something else:
in the 'Will to Power.' But, one must ask, is Rathenau's yearn-
ing for the soul really, as it appears at first sight, merely
quietistic, nothing but a turning of his back on the world, a
flight into the beyond, a pure renunciation, or is it not also an
embodiment of the 'Will to Power' in another dress? In his
Unwritten Works there are two observations which seem to
betray him: 'To the strong will all doors are open} non-willing
lifts the world off its hinges'} and 'All power lies in the Soul}
and all outer activity is vain' (p. 213). Non-resistance, the
will not to will, may be the form assumed by the Will to Power
in 'fear men,' in the weak and insecure, tempted to seek for
power precisely in the pushing to extremes of their weakness,
their lack of confidence, their instinctive recoil from the world.
We now realize that the humility, the otherworldliness and the
renunciation of many Christian priests, popes and saints, and

114

THE REALM OF THE SOUL

of the great Jewish cabbalists, was but a highly spiritualized
will to power. May we not therefore conceive of an epoch in
which precisely this form of the will to power would prove
to be the most effective and hence the most universal, so that
its usual expression would be non-willing, non-resistance, con-
templation and the yearning for the soul? And could not such
an epoch succeed in overcoming mechanization? An epoch in
which mechanization as a necessary evil was carried further in
order to provide for the increase of population, but in which
all real power was in the hands of those whose principal con-
cern was with their souls — this seems to be the vision at the
back of Rathenau's mind For thousands of years of experience
have driven deeply into the Jewish soul the consciousness of
the power of powerlessness. Lion Feuchtwanger has given a
striking expression to this particular bent of the Jewish mind in
a passage of Jew Silss:

cTo many it was not clear 5 only a very few could have ex-
pressed itj some shielded themselves from a definite recogni-
tion of it. But it pulsed in their blood, it was in their innermost
soul} the deep, mysterious, certain awareness of the senseless-
ness, the inconstancy, the worthlessness of power. They had sat
so long, puny and straitened, among the peoples of the earth,
like dwarfs, dissipated into absurd atoms. They knew that to
exercise power and to endure power is not the real, the im-
portant thing. The colossi of force, did they not all go to rack
and ruin one after the other? But they, the powerless, had set
their seal on the world. And this lesson of the vanity a,nd
triviality of power was known by the great and the small alike
among the Jews, the free and the burdened, the distant and
the near, not in definite words, not with exact comprehension,
but in their blood and their feelings. This mysterious knowl-
edge it was that sometimes brought suddenly upon their lips
that enigmatic, soft, supercilious smile which doubly pro-
voked their enemies, because to them it signified an iconoclastic

115

WALTHER RATHENAU

insolence, and because all their tortures and cruelties were
powerless in front of it. This mysterious knowledge it was that
united the Jews and smelted them together, nothing else. For
this mysterious knowledge was the meaning of the Book.' 6

Nevertheless Rathenau failed to allay the conflict within
him. Although he despised the one way to power, the way of
cleverness and industry, he yet pursued it 5 he could not con-
tinue to the end on that other more lofty way of the soul, the
way of Tolstoi, Gandhi and the great mystics. Thus the sover-
eign power that comes from the soul remained beyond his
reach. 'It sometimes happens,' says Rabbi Isaac Luria Asch-
kenasi in his 'secret doctrine,' which Lion Feuchtwanger quotes,
'that not one soul only, but two or even more, set out on their
new earthly pilgrimage in one and the same human body. It
may be the one is balm, the other poison, the one a beast's, the
other a priest's or saint's 5 but now they are confined together,
belonging to one body like the right and left hand. They
permeate each other, grip each other, get each other with child,
flow into one another like water.'

Rathenau realized this double nature in himself. 'Have I
stilled the urge to power within me?' he writes to a friend.
'I fear not, but at least I know that I am fighting it. What you
say is certainly just: that one is ruthless towards the passion
by which one has been most dominated.' (Letter 366.) And to
another friend he writes: 'The human race has never ceased to
struggle, and each new affliction is more grievous than the last.
Yet every affliction has only added to its stature. Even this
intellect which we despise had to be fought forj today we are
fighting for our soul. . . . But do not think that he who says
this to you has a right to do so. I darkly realize these things,
but I myself live unregenerate in the things of this world.'
(Letter 374.) In these words he has inexorably depicted his
own fate — perhaps also that of our age and culture.

6 Jew S#ss, English edition, translated by Edwin and Willa Muir, pp. 164-5.

116

CHAPTER VII
THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

THREE hundred men, all acquainted with each other/
wrote Rathenau in 1909 in an article in the Christinas
number of the Neue Freie Presse, 'control the eco-
nomic destiny of the Continent.' He himself was one of the
three hundred. He was associated at that time with eighty-four
large concerns, either as a member of the supervising Board or
as a Managing Director. The centre of his activity was the
A.E.G., which, as he wrote in 1907, was then 'undoubtedly the
largest European combination of industrial units under a
centralized control and with a centralized organization.' With
its numerous undertakings and subsidiary companies, not only
in Germany, but also in England, Spain, Italy, Russia, Switzer-
land and South America, it grew from year to year under Emil
Rathenau's steady, yet enterprising guidance 5 and Walther
Rathenau was his father's right-hand man. But apart from the
A.E.G. there were many other undertakings in the founding
and direction of which he played an important part: electro-
chemical works which made use of his own inventions and
patents, transport concerns in the towns, motor works, cotton
mills, and the mines and steel works of Prince Donnersmarck,
who had requested him to join his board. From a statement
which I owe to the courtesy of his private secretary, Herr
Hugo Geitner, it appears that in the course of about ten years
he played a leading part in the direction of eighty-six German
and twenty-one foreign enterprises, viz., abroad: Italy 6,
Switzerland 6, South America 2, Spain 2, Africa, Finland,
France, Austria and Russia i. And at home (joint stock com-
panies and limited liability companies) :

117

WALTHER RATHENAU

1. Electricity and allied industries 24

2. Metals 10

3. Mining, etc 8

4. Railways and light railways 8

5. Chemicals 7

6. Telegraph and cables 6

7. Banks and trust companies 5

8. Spinning and weaving mills 4

9. Aviation 3

10. Glass 2

11. Rolling mills

12. Potash

13. Carriage-building

14. Motor-cars I x each

15. Dockyards

1 6. Paper making

17. Pottery

1 8. Precious stones

Apart from the A.E.G. the Berliner Handelsgesellschaft
and the Bank for Electrical Undertakings in Zurich, the most
important of these concerns were the following:

1. (Electricity and allied industries)
Berliner Elektrizitats- Werke,
Felten and Guilleaume, Koln,

Elektrizitats, A.-G., vorm. Lahmeyer und Co., Frankfurt a.M.,
Osram G.m.b.H., Kommandit Ges., Berlin,
Schlesische Gas- und Elektrizitats A.-G., Gleiwitz,
Deutsch-Uberseeische Elektrizitats-Ges., Berlin;

2. (Metals)

Metallbank und Metallurgisch Ges., Frankfurt a.M.,

Gebr. Korting, Hannover,

Ludw. Loewe und Co., A.-G., Berlin,

Glockenstahlwerke vorm. Rich. Lindenberg A.-G., Remscheid,

Mannesmannrohrenwerke, Diisseldorf;

3. (Mining, etc.)

Schlesische Zinkhutten, Donnersmarck,
Internationale Kohlenbergwerks-Gesellschaft, Koln,

118

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

Braunkohlen- und Brikett-Industrie A.-G., Berlin,
Hohenlohewerke A.-G.;

4. (Railways and light railways)

Allgemeine Lokalbahn und Kraftwerke A.-G., Berlins

5. (Chemicals)

Th. Goldschmidt A.-G, Essen,
Riitgerswerke, A.-G., Berlin,
Permutit A.-G., Berlin,

Elektrochemische Werke, G.m.b.H., Bitterfeld;
9. (Aviation)

Deutsche Luftreederei, Berlin;
10. (Glass)

Vereinigte Lausitzer Glaswerke A.-G., Weisswasser-Berlin;

12. (Potash)

Actiengesellschaft Thiederhall, Thiede;

13. (Carriage-building)
Linke-HoflFman-Lauchhammer A.-G., Berlin;

14. (Motor-cars)
N.A.G., Berlin;

15. (Dockyards)

Deutsche Werf t, Hamburg.

Of the foreign companies with which he was associated these
were the chief:

Otavi Mines (Africa),

Officine Elettriche Genovesi, Genoa,

Unione Tramways Elettrici, Genoa,

and finally the two great electric railways in Valparaiso and
Santiago.

The initial period of concentration in big business involved
some momentous transactions, such as the fusion of the A.E.G.
with 'Union/ with Felton and Guilleaume, and with Lahmeyer,
all three of which Rathenau carried through. This necessitated
daily negotiations, interviews, committee meetings, inspections
of factories, and an enormous correspondence, the index of
which fills four volumes, as well as frequent journeys, chiefly

119

WALTHER RATHENAU

to the Rhine, Switzerland and Italy. In inspecting factories he
used a particular method, which gave him a really intimate
knowledge of the technical and commercial procedure em-
ployed} his visits were sudden and unexpected, and conducted
with extreme thoroughness and precision. In his diary for the
years 1911 to 1914 there recur as regularly as the days of the
week the names of all the great German industrial magnates of
that epoch: Carl Fiirstenberg, Prince Henckel-Donnersmarck,
Franz von Mendelssohn, Salomonsohn, Paul von Schwabach,
F. von Guilleaume, Krupp-Bohlen, Eberhard von Boden-
hausen, Klockner, Ballin, Hagen, and Stinnes. Thus ever closer
grew the network of his practical activity, of what he indicted
in his philosophy as purposive scheming; while at the same
time, his knowledge of the real nature of production and dis-
tribution on a world scale grew daily more intimate.

His Physiology of Business, written when he was still a small
provincial managing director at Bitterfeld, had shown how
acute was his faculty of observation even from there. But now
he was in the very hub of German big business, able to add
daily to his information and acquiring an insight into the
mechanism of business — its wheels and gearing, the forces
which drive it, the friction by which it is impeded — in a way
only open to very few, while even fewer have the imagination
and physical endurance necessary to take advantage of this
insight. He got to know the whole European machinery of
production and distribution, as a racing motorist knows the
machine which he has dismantled and assembled piece by piece,
tested on good and bad roads, and driven in every kind of
weather. He knew every little wheel, every spring, every tube,
the conditions under which it worked most safely and economi-
cally, the demands which one could and could not put upon it.

He knew its failings too: the points which could be im-
proved, and those which were part and parcel of it and hence
not susceptible of improvement. Above all he was aware of the

I2O

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

weaknesses which result from the political construction of
Europe and particularly of Germany. An unexampled in-
dustrial development had brought Germany in the course of a
few years to the position of the third greatest industrial power
of the world; an almost equally astonishing political decline
during the same period had forced her from the first place
among the great powers into a subordinate position. A frivolous
policy which interpreted whims and fancies as necessities of
state, which at one and the same time disquieted England over
the Fleet, France over Morocco, and Russia through a blind
championing of Austria, had led — by way of the Franco-
Russian Alliance and the Anglo-French Entente — to a set-back
at Algeciras in 1906, which, however camouflaged, was never-
theless the first unmistakable symptom of Germany's loss of
prestige. The German Government replied to the danger-
signal, not by altering its course, but by speeches and arma-
ments; and when the Reichstag made difficulties, its dissolution
gave an opportunity for more speeches and more armaments.
The elections of February 5th, 1907, by crushing the Social
Democrats and convincing the Centre Party of the wisdom of
the Government's policy, opened the way which led from one
false step to another, from naval estimate to naval estimate,
straight to the World War.

On February I2th, 1907, a week after the elections, Rathe-
nau made his political debut in an article entitled The New
Er&y in the Hawnoverscher Courier. This article is noteworthy,
not only as Rathenau's first political statement, but also because
it shows that he differed fundamentally even then with all the
leading German politicians in his estimate of the relative im-
portance of the forces making for success or failure on the
political stage. His guiding principle was that the right method
in politics is 'to look at the facts scientifically, and, after elimi-
nating minor factors, to weigh up the chief forces involved and
their interplay. For nature and stubborn fact are more powerful

121

WALTHER RATHENAU

than the wishes of men, whether single or combined.' The most
important of all the factors which were at that time almost
universally thought to determine a country's international
status was its effective armament, the number of men which it
could put into the field, and the guns and warships which it
could bring into action at short notice. Armaments were thus
the principal concern of the Kaiser and his Government. The
then Chancellor, Prince Bulow, formulated in his German
Policy (p. 20) the lines along which he was thinking: 'The
greatest and most urgent task of post-Bismarckian policy was
the building of an adequate fleet.'

But in his article enumerating the forces that determine
international status Rathenau made no reference at all to arma-
ments, apart from a brief, sharp and ironical obeisance to the
new armoured cruisers ; and indirectly he denied them any real
value, since 'in these days, even war fails to produce any de-
cisive result. We realize that the wars of the future will be
decided neither by single combat between heroes as in Homer's
day (for "heroes" read "armoured cruisers"), nor by crack
regiments. The War God of our days is industrial power. . . .
But even war is seldom decisive. No longer are the peoples
good enemies, they are bad competitors; and the game of
foreign policy is directed towards manoeuvring oneself into
a strong strategical position, rather than towards inflicting
disaster on others. But in this game the protagonists have just
so many counters as their economic power provides, and thus
the principle which has at all times been active even if un-
perceived now becomes abundantly clear: a nation can win and
retain just so much weight in foreign affairs as corresponds to
its moral, intellectual and economic resources.' Thus it is not
armaments, but moral, intellectual and economic strength,
which has become the decisive element in international policy.

The German Government's policy, which, however desirous
for peace, yet sought it chiefly through the reckless piling-up

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

of armaments, could not have been repudiated more funda-
mentally than it was in this article. Though cautiously framed,
it cut at the very root of the Kaiser's policy. In this Rathenau's
criticism of the imperial policy differed from that of the
Kaiser's chief adversary Harden, who, though much more
violent in tone, was not nearly so searching. Rathenau's meth-
ods and point of view were altogether those of the twentieth
century, Harden's, like those of the Government, were still of
the nineteenth. Still less had any bourgeois German politician
freed himself from those antiquated and misleading concep-
tions} their views were so remote from Rathenau's — which
were derived from his precise knowledge of the international
situation — that, in spite of enormous expenditure on the army
and navy, Germany entered the war completely unprepared
economically} and thus, by an irony of fate, Rathenau himself
had to intervene after the outbreak of hostilities to put Ger-
many's economic house in order.

But Rathenau's first political announcement is noteworthy
in other respects also. For it was really directed against the
semi-absolutist imperial system and the privileges of the
aristocracy. It demanded the admission of the middle class to
influential government posts, the creation of a great middle-
class liberal party, and constitutionalism. The first Russian
Revolution had just ended with the capitulation of Tsarism,
while the Republic in France had been confirmed on the basis
of the Radical Left as a result of the clerical defeat in the
Dreyfus affair. 'The political climate of Europe/ wrote Rathe-
nau, ^appears to be changing somewhat. In the East absolutism,
in the West clericalism, are running dry. How, we must ask,
can we justify the fact that Germany is ruled in a more abso-
lutist fashion than almost any other civilized country and on
more clerical lines than the majority of Catholic states. Ger-
many is no longer the land of dreamers and professors. In the
economic battle the Germans hold third place for achievement

123

WALTHER RATHENAU

and first place intellectually. It will be difficult to show —
especially to foreigners, who are asked to respect us — why by
his Constitution the German is allowed so much less influence
in affairs of state than the Swiss, the Italian, or the Roumanian.
The Continental barometer stands today at "self-government,"
and we cannot very long continue to have a special climate of
our own. . . . Neither agriculture, nor feudalism, nor Catholic
clericalism can create the enormous increase of industrial
wealth which is required by our growing population} this is the
province of middle-class intelligence. But at present this intelli-
gence is politically at sixes and sevens 5 it is of small significance
in legislation and as a factor in governing it is nil. . . . Sooner
or later the new elements must combine: the liberalization of
Europe, the resuscitated interest in constitutional questions, the
tension in foreign politics, the disappearance of phantoms which
belong to the past. And it is quite conceivable that this combi-
nation might bring into being a national movement of the urban
middle class, comparable in power, perhaps, to the agrarian
movement which has hitherto determined the direction of our
trade policy, but is now more or less played out. Such a move-
ment would adopt the constitutional conceptions of liberalism
and therefore, as in England, work not in opposition to the
government, but along practical business lines in accordance
with the interests of the country. It would demand a more
decisive share in the government than the right wing of our
middle parties, and would there defend the interests of the
urban middle class against those of feudalism, narrow agrari-
anism and orthodoxy. ... It would support the moderniza-
tion of the state, and would take a wide view in connection with
business relations abroad, whether with the Colonies or the
Great Powers. In the long run the country cannot dp without
a bourgeois evolution of this type.*

How far Germany still was from such a bourgeois evolution,
even in the first years of the war, is illustrated by an anecdote

124

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

told by Dr Stresemann in his preface to a recent book, Theodor
Eschenburg's The German Empire at the Crossroads. When
he and his chief, Herr Bassermann, the leader of the National
Liberal party in the Reichstag, were on a visit to Bulgaria
during the war, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria asked Bassermann
to come and see him, and discussed the political situation with
him at length for an hour and a half. ^When Bassermann re-
turned from the audience/ said Stresemann, *he said to me:
"The King of this country looks upon it as a matter of course
that he should compare notes and discuss the situation with me
as the leader of a German party. No party has ever been more
loyal to the monarchy and the Kaiser than ours. But never has
the Kaiser thought it necessary to speak one single word to me 5
and when, during the Kiel week, he visited the Hapag liner on
which I was a passenger, he gave orders that none but ladies
should be presented to him, so that he should not have to run
the risk of speaking with me. That makes one feel bitter." And
yet Bassermann would have recoiled from any decisive step, not
merely because he realized the difficulties and dangers of the
parliamentary system, but because, though he felt that he was
at liberty to criticize the Kaiser, he yet remained fundamentally
an officer of the Kaiser's army. That constituted the conflict
during the war between Bassermann the politician and Basser-
mann the major.5

Billow who wanted to give a liberal tinge to his naval and
clerical blocy which had just emerged victoriously from the
polls, and who probably saw in Rathenau nothing more than a
young millionaire dilettante of liberal tendencies with a footing
in Society, sent for him and offered him the opportunity of
accompanying the Colonial Secretary, Dernburg, as his right-
hand man on a tour of inspection to Africa. Rathenau accepted
the proposal and thus for the first time occupied an official
post. It would be fascinating to know what he who gave and he
who accepted the post, the actual and the future Foreign Min-

125

WALTHER RATHENAU

isters, said to themselves when they met officially for the first
time* Each doubtless considered the other a dilettante. Both
were good conversationalists, both were brilliant, apt at quota-
tions, aphorisms, and metaphors, both were cynics in the sense
that, not having a very high regard for the person with whom
they were conversing at the time, but rather fearing him, they
strengthened their inner certainty by an assiduously disguised
contempt. Unfortunately nothing is preserved regarding this
historic conversation. And the post itself did not produce any-
thing of direct significance. Rathenau accompanied Dernburg,
who would probably have rather had a Christian for a com-
panion, to Africa on two occasions, in 1907 and 1908. As is
evident from his letters, he enjoyed the vast African land-
scape, but seems frequently to have found his subordinate posi-
tion painful. Both journeys were more or less in the nature of
agreeable holidays, which brought Rathenau nothing, inter-
fered with his other activities, and left him otherwise un-
affected.

To be sure they did have the indirect effect of turning his
attention more closely to England and her relations with Ger-
many, which were even then a source of justifiable anxiety.
After returning from his second journey in 1908 he handed
Billow a memorandum on England's Present Position which,
as time has shown, correctly diagnosed England's attitude and '
the effects of German naval policy without falling into the
illusions that then prevailed. The memorandum begins by
sketching out the foundations of England's vast power — her
industrial and colonial supremacy — and describes in detail the
dangers which were threatening it, showing how <both sources
of anxiety, the industrial and the colonial, serve to concentrate
English attention on Germany. . . . England looks into the
racial cauldron of the Continent and beholds a people of un-
ceasing activity and enormous capacity for expansion, hemmed
in by nations that are rapidly becoming effete. Eight hundred

126

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

thousand new Germans every year! Every five years an in-
crease almost equal to the entire population of Scandinavia or
Switzerland! How long will anaemic France be able to resist
this pressure? Germany becomes the embodiment of English
fears. ... It would be foolish and superficial to believe that
small acts of friendship, deputations, or press campaigns can
still a disquiet which flows from such deep sources. It is only
by our policy that we can create the impression in England
that on Germany's part there is no ill-feeling, no fear, no need
for expansion or for an offensive.'

As is well known, this policy actually took the form of
accelerating the building of the fleet with the help of the new
Reichstag, fostering the quarrel with France over Morocco,
driving Russia into the arms of England through a virtual
protectorate over Turkey, and offending Edward VII. by im-
perial indiscretions which amiable relatives were only too ready
to pass on.

But, in contradistinction to Harden, Rathenau refused to
hold the Kaiser solely responsible for Germany's decline. He
saw as a second and more profound cause the Prusso-German
system of government which, by showing a fatal predilection
for a few families, restricted the choice of talent for the service
of the state. In The State and the Jews (p. 199) he says in
answer to a Herr von N.: *A people of sixty-five millions has
the right to demand that the leading posts in the state shall
be filled by the very best talents, and positions of responsibility
by competent specialists. A thousand ruling families, whatever
their natural or technical accomplishments, cannot cope either
in numbers or character with the enormously increased demands
on the administrative machine. No right-thinking man will wish
to belittle the services these families have rendered, or to lose
their decisive co-operation in the highest matters of state. But
if they wish to monopolize the machinery of state permanently,
conditions will go from bad to worse and the way be open to

127

WALTHER RATHENAU

those makeshifts which have several times, though by hard
knocks, brought the obstinate conservatism of Prussia to reason
and which may therefore well be described as dispensations of
Providence.'

He repeatedly alluded in his writings, in conversation, and
in letters to the dangerous consequences of this arbitrarily re-
stricted method of selection. In his Criticism of the Age (191 i,
p. 121), he deals with this point in detail. I quote only the
following passages: 'Although the Prussian aristocracy has the
gift of producing much remarkable talent from a small number
of men, its equipment is not really intellectual. Its great ad-
vantages lie in an infallible sense of honour, a sharp eye for
the practical, in its courage, endurance and frugality. . . .
When mechanized industry converted whole fields of state ad-
ministration into pure business enterprises, and changes in out-
look and in function called for daily reorientation and contin-
uous resource, it became clear that even the very best sort of
mediocrity was sometimes inadequate by itself to solve prob-
lems which had no precedent} nor could it compete with the
best foreign talent. For meanwhile other countries had con-
sciously or unconsciously arrived at the conviction that supreme
responsibility should only be borne by conspicuous talent, and
that there is no excuse for a great state if ft fails to discover
such talent. Thus without the help of legislation, but as the
result of a freer practice in those countries, independent meth-
ods of selection of the greatest variety have been evolved,
which all, however, have this in common, that they sift out the
gifted from the mass of mediocrity, and entrust them with the
responsibilities for which they are designed by nature. This is
not the place to analyze these methods of selection} it is enough
to point out that Prussia ignores them and is consequently
obliged to recruit its leaders after the antiquated custom, from a
field a hundred times smaller. Hence the doubly onerous task
of discovering superior talent falls upon three royal "Cabinets,"

128

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

and it may happen that owing to the exaggerated demands for
wealth, birth, a good appearance and personal charm, the most
serious responsibilities in peace and war do not always fall on
the strongest shoulders.' *

In 1912 he wrote to a diplomat: 'What concerns me is not so
much the fact that government posts are occupied by aristocrats,
as the absence of an independent method of selection. It is a
matter of complete indifference to me from what social stratum
competent people are recruited. But what is necessary is that
there should be some guarantee that only the most fitted —
and these in the largest possible number — should be entrusted
with responsibility.' (Letter No. 77.) To Captain von Muffling
he wrote during the war (1917) : clt is my belief that as time
goes on political and administrative tasks become more and
more complex and difficult and call for correspondingly higher
talents, talents which the hereditary system is less and less able
to provide. ... As I see the matter, talent is not among the
privileges of heredity. It must be continuously generated anew
from the ranks of a healthy people. A lack of suitable talent
and an excessive reliance upon inherited qualities have led to the
policy of the last thirty years and to inevitable conflicts re-
sulting from it.' (Letter No. 244.)

But his point of view is most clearly formulated in the book
which he published during the war, In Days to Come (p. -344) :
'Energy and fixity of trend are the two most important weapons
in the struggle for existence among nations. They are the con-
cern of the peoples themselves. Neither reigning families nor
castes can provide these essentials, for one of the rules of the
struggle is that all the available powers of a nation should be

1 All appointments in the Army, the Navy and the Civil Sendee were made by
the Kaiser as Emperor or as King of Prussia through his three private Secretariats
(called 'Cabinets') the 'Militar-Kabinett,' the 'Marine-Kabinetf and the <Zivil-
Kabinett,' who thus exerted a paramount influence in all personal matters and
were responsible to nobody but the Kaiser himself. Their members were members
of the Kaiser's personal suite and neither the Reichstag nor even the Ministers had
any say in their councils or any direct influence on their decisions.

129

WALTHER RATHENAU

utilized, including all its forces of spirit and of will. Fixity of
trend arises as the distillate of all possible thoughts, energy as
the essence of all conceivable manifestations of human genius.
If we restrict the possible sources of supply to a narrow circle
of a few hundred or thousand souls, we deliberately impoverish
the spirit and the will of a nation, and that nation will perish
as soon as its neighbours stake the whole wealth of their posses-
sions against it. A people numbering many millions has the
duty, metaphysically speaking, at all times and in all spheres
of activity, of generating a vigorous trend of will and a galaxy
of highly gifted persons. Should it fail to do this, or should
these forces be diverted to the pursuit of gain, mechanical
invention, or a life of idle comfort, or, should they remain
undiscovered owing to political indolence and an inadequate
sense of responsibility, then this people has passed its own death
sentence.'

Thus it is not surprising that Rathenau's views very soon
became even more pessimistic than those then usual; from the
combination of two such fateful causes as the Kaiser's abnormal
mentality and the inadequate basis of selection for government
service he divined the inevitability of a catastrophe. As early as
the autumn of 1906, I had casually remarked in conversation
with Rathenau that the general mismanagement had already
lasted so long that one might begin to hope that it would run its
course without disaster; to which he replied: 'You are mistaken.
A bank like the Deutsche Bank can be run for five years by quite
incompetent directors without the public becoming aware of the
fact; but after that its position will gradually decline. With a
state like Germany, misrule may perhaps continue for twenty
years without any great damage: then suddenly the conse-
quences become visible on every hand.'

After his second journey to Africa Rathenau held no further
official post until the war. His activities in connection with the

.130

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

A.E.G. and dozens of other undertakings continued to increase,
as also did his literary activities. In 1908, by way of making
a clearance, he collected a number of articles and aphorisms
which had appeared anonymously in the Zukunft under such
pseudonyms as W. Hartenau, Walter Michael, Renatus, and
Ernest Reinhart, and published them under his own name with
the title of Reflections. The book appeared in the form of a
huge Bible-like quarto and was printed in two colours on ex-
pensive paper. Its pretentious get-up deceived many people into
regarding it as the mere whim of a millionaire; it seemed to
flaunt the wealth of its author and his vanity. I well remember
the impression it made: it was not favourable. People glanced
at it casually, and put it down with a smile.

Perhaps it is from this unfortunate literary venture that we
must date the atmosphere of faint contempt, almost impalpable,
rarely expressed, but increasingly perceptible, which enveloped
Rathenau like a cloud, obscuring his image for the majority,
doing him an obvious injustice and causing him much bitter
pain. For to one who was so ready to erect a barrier between
himself and others, this emergence from anonymity had been
no light matter; he had produced something which he knew
to be of value, he had given of his very best, and the result
was that people refused to read him, or listened to him only
with a smile. Some years later, after he had published his third
book, he summed up the attitude of the world to his works in
the following letter to a friend: 'You want to write about my
book? My friend, I must warn you. If you depart an inch from
the stereotyped judgment: "witty, cold, a dilettante in sixteen
subjects, and a tolerable business man," you will be laughed to
scorn. This is what people will have me to be, and I am content
to be tolerated as a harmless fool. They ask me: "How do you
find time for such nonsense?" and if I told them that that is my
life, they would send for the doctor. Be prudent, dear friend5

WALTHER RATHENAU

it is not considered good form to treat me kindly.5 (Letter 65,
January 2Oth, 1912.)

It was now that Rathenau's tragedy came out, so to speak,
into the open 5 the duality of his nature, which had until then
been a personal matter, suddenly became a weapon with which
he was attacked from without. His enemies acted according to
the immortal recipe of Bartolo in The Barber of Seville: 'To
begin with a faint rumour which skims the ground like a swal-
low before a storm — pianissimo: whispering tones — and a
poisoned arrow falls in its flight! Some ear or other catches
it and deftly conveys it — piano, piano — to your ear. Now the
trouble is sown 5 it germinates, crawls along the ground, sets
out on its journey, hastens — rinforzando — with infernal speed
from mouth to mouth. Suddenly, you cannot tell how, calumny
has made its appearance: it whistles shrilly, puffs itself out, and
in a trice it has the form of a giant. It takes a run, spreads its
wings, flies up, strikes with thunder and lightning and becomes,
with the help of God, a general clamour, a crescendo, a choir
of vengeance and damnation. Who the devil could withstand
it?5

The stages which led from the indifferent reception of
Rathenau's Reflections to the bullets in the Konigsallee can be
arranged in a practically continuous series. At first he was
ignored. But when he continued to court publicity with the
Criticism of the Age and the Mechanism of the Mind, whispers
and irritation arose among his colleagues at the fact that a man
who was a director of eighty companies should also write books.
People found it comic that a business man should preach the
birth of the soulj compromising, that a rich man should attack
luxuryj shocking, that at the same time he should build a villa
in the Griinewaldj grotesque, that he should let the Chamber-
lain wheedle him into buying the royal pleasance of Freien-
walde. However, these were petty offences, which one could

132

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

laugh at. But it was unforgivable, if not pathological, that a
leader of industry should advocate the nationalization of
monopolies, the abolition of the right of inheritance, the ruth-
less taxation of the wealthy, the liberation of the proletariat,
a society without classes, and other Red impossibilities j that
stamped him as a dangerous subject, against whom any steps
were justified.

Without doubt he was himself aware of the paradox of the
situation: that he, the great industrialist, should come forward
as the protagonist of a policy which was more radical than that
of the agitators in his own factories. He always saw himself
quite clearly, and certainly realized how unconvincing and
dangerous was the part he had assumed. He has been accused
of vanity, and Lord d'Abernon, in his memoirs, repeats the
accusation. But this does not seem to me to go to the roots of
the matter; the real springs of his actions lay deeper. He was
under the compulsion at least to thmk out to the end, even
though he should not live to see it completed, the process by
which the soul can be freed from the shackles of mechaniza-
tion; or, putting the case in other words, he was in subjection
to his intellect, which, kindled by imagination, continued with-
out respite to illumine like a flare the conditions of inner free-
dom down to their smallest details. It would be unjust to
Rathenau not to keep constantly in mind this irresistible power
of his intellect, which in the complicated workings of his inner
life raged like an element unchained — and which he therefore
hated like a secret vice, while regularly succumbing to it. And
over and above this pressure of the intellect, there were at
work in him the same motives which led him later in spite of
all warnings and in the face of manifest danger to his life to
accept the post of Foreign Minister. These were a peculiar
fatalism which he had perhaps inherited from his Jewish
ancestors, and the transmutation of the inhibitions due to
caution into their opposite, into a stimulus to restless action;

133

WALTHER RATHENAU

this transmutation being due to the glamour of 'courage' in the
eyes of a 'fear man' who despised nothing in himself so much
as fear and had striven to eradicate it by a ruthless discipline.
For spiritually he belonged to those whom Nietzsche has de-
scribed in his Frohliche Wissenschaft as 'men on the way to
courage: men who have an inner impulse to seek in all things
something to be overcome'} and whom he goes on to describe as
'endangered men, fruitful men, joyful men! For the secret of
getting what is most fruitful and enjoyable from life is to live
dangerously!' (Nietzsche, Works, V, p. 215.) Finally, merging
all these elements into an irresistible impetus, there was
spiritual pride, which has nothing in common with vanity: the
sin of Milton's Lucifer, 'what time his pride had cast him out
from Heaven/ the determination not to bow spiritually to
any one.

And yet the extent of the hostility which he aroused sur-
prised him. In his Apology he says: 'This hostility became
positively passionate after my writings began to deal with
economic problems. Powerful groups and associations of trade
and industry considered their interests affected, and spent an
enormous amount of money and labour in fighting by press
campaigns, lectures, political agitation and literature those of
my ideas which they considered to be dangerous' (p. 72). And
in a letter written in 1918: 'So much hatred has been, and
will continue to be, stirred up against me by the campaigns of
interested parties, by the Hansabund and all the others, that I
need no little will-power to defend myself. I have never ex-
pected thanks for my work} but no German for decades has
been subjected to the amount of enmity which has come in-
stead.' (Letter No. 439.) Thus a man who in the afternoon had
met him at a board meeting or for a confidential discussion per-
haps financed a meeting that very evening to protest against his
'double life.' For it was his 'double life' that provided the
weapon of attack: 'This man does not practise what he preaches.

134

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

His principle is: Judge me by my words, not my deeds.*
(Apology, p. 83.) 'To others he preaches abstinence; he himself
lives like a prince. Others are to work for their souls without
any thought of reward; he allows himself to be paid hand-
somely by a dozen companies. He wishes to abolish the in-
equality of wealth and the right of inheritance, so that every
one can have an equal chance; but he does not hesitate to take
advantage of the privileges which his father's position gives
him. You are to become humble Christians again; he remains,
needless to say, the cunning Jew! J

Every one who has studied Rathenau's personality will reject
as the opposite of the truth the degrading reproach of hypoc-
risy, dishonesty, and deception which lies behind these charges.
For in reality the contradictions with which he was charged
grew from the depths of his personality with the relentlessness
of fate. It was true, however, that in his actual life his two
natures did conflict with each other, and so gave an easy open-
ing to demagogues to indte against him crude persons to whom
such contradictions were inexplicable. The villa in the Griine-
wald was not simply, as he says in his Apology, 'respectably
bourgeois'; it was far above the middle-class standard in style,
cost and extent. His expenditure was not, as he believed, 'more
or less appropriate to the junior partner in an industrial con-
cern,' but, for all his precision where money was concerned, to
that of a leading industrialist. He had bought the pleasance of
Freienwalde not merely to save it from destruction, but because
it pleased him to pass a few weeks in the summer in an
historical and charming old Prussian country seat built by his
favourite architect, Gilly.2 Outwardly, there was nothing to
prevent him from giving up his directorships, reducing expen-
diture to the level of the purely necessary, and living by the
light of his work and his soul in modest bourgeois style. If we

2Friedrich Gilly (1772-1800), the leading Prussian architect of the classicist
period.

135

WALTHER RATHENAU

must impute some tragic failing to Rathenau, then it lies here:
not in what he did or neglected to do, but, as is the case with
every tragic figure, in what he was. It followed inevitably
from the complexity of his nature.

But his ideas also followed from this complexity, and their
value lay just in those contradictions in which they were rooted.
For they were rooted in the same contradictions as is the world
of the twentieth century, and for men who belong to this world
the ideas that are valuable and redemptive are not those that
come from simple souls. We cannot provide the soil of divine
simplicity in which the ideas of St Francis would blossom j at
the best we cultivate such ideas like exotic plants which may
perhaps bear a few sickly blooms on alien soil, but no ripe
fruit. Only those ideas are fruitful for us which are born in
men whose souls are of our own typej only such ideas can find
their accustomed climate and can develop to maturity.

Thus Rathenau is saying too little when he writes in his
Apology: What gives power to my writing, the one quality
which it possesses, is that it does not reek of the midnight oil.
It is experienced and lived.5 He is saying too little, because
immediately afterwards he denies a part of his life by attempt-
ing to gloss over actual contradictions. The truth is that it was
only because, like Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Ulrich von
Hutten in a similarly agitated period, he was ca man with his
contradiction,' that his ideas are a serious and fruitful chal-
lenge to us — who are also 'men with our contradictions.' Had
Rathenau resigned his directorships, moved into a slum, lived
in poverty, and devoted himself entirely to the salvation of his
soul, he might perhaps have become a saint 5 but he would have
solved the great problem of the age only for himself, for his
solution would have left the outside world as cold as does the
continuance of mendicant friars or yogis. But that with all his
inconsistencies he strove for a solution — whether practical or
not5 that he passed old and new ideas through the filter of his

136

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

contradictions} that fate compelled him, as it compels but few,
to be completely that which he was — these things exposed him
to the hatred and bullets of his enemies, but they also give him
an authority which saints and theorists can no longer command.
He has accurately indicated the point at which he was obliged to
turn his back on Tolstoy, whose teaching had moved him
deeply: 'Tolstoy's mistake was that, instead of following the
kw which he divined in his own nature, he bowed to a theory
which suppressed his creative spirit as artist and thinker, in
order to give strength to the weak forces of his "enthusiasm."
. . . But he who embraces the enthusiastic life, not from the
beginning and from his own unconscious necessity, but strives
for it consciously, or worse still, with a definite purpose — he
does himself violence and sins against the light.' (Apology,
p. 92.) It may be accounted a form of 'tragic guilt' in the
Greek sense if a man grasp for a crown that he has not strength
enough to hold, but those alone are entitled to look down upon
him who have striven for the same object and who, with an
equally complex nature and without denying its complexity,
have achieved the unity that was denied to Rathenau.

And now in the course of the next few years this tragedy of
Rathenau the man and Rathenau the millionaire-revolutionary
was merged into one still greater — the tragedy of a world
rapidly nearing catastrophe. The background gradually assumes
an uncanny clearness. There is still a distance, a breathing space 5
but slowly the background moves up and approaches him,
draws him into itself and swallows him up.

1911: Agadir, the first warning flicker of the Great War.
Germany makes a panther-spring on Morocco and finds Eng-
land at the side of France ready to fight $ Italy goes to Tripoli
and throws a fire-brand into the Balkans, destined shortly to
set Europe and the world alight. In Germany, Billow is in dis-
grace, Bethmann-Hollweg Chancellor in his stead, Kiderlen
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Jules Cambon cautiously watch-

WALTHER RATHENAU

ing events from his Embassy on the Pariser Platz. Agadir
causes a panic on the stock exchange 5 but it turns out to be a
false alarm, after which trade goes on booming. For in all the
great capitals, Berlin, Paris, London and Petersburg, the dance
before the guillotine is about to begin.

Talleyrand said of the last years before the outbreak of the
French Revolution: 'He who has not lived through them does
not know what life is.3 And now again the world seemed in the
throes of a delirium, shivering with apprehension and yet in-
toxicated with a sort of ecstasy, reeling headlong in a revel to
its doom 5 and wherever that was at its wildest, there Nijinsky,
the genius of the dance, appeared in its midst. But Rathenau
writes, ^Wherever I turn, I see shadows before me. I see them
every evening as I make my way through the shrill noise of the
Berlin streets: I see them when I consider the insane way we
flaunt our wealth} when I hear the empty, sabre-rattling
speeches, or read the reports of pseudo-Teutonic exclusiveness
which collapses before newspaper articles and the casual re-
marks of court ladies. It is a mistake to think all is well simply
because the lieutenant is spick and span and the attache opti-
mistic. Not for decades has Germany known a more critical
time.' (The State and, the Jews, 1911. Collected Works, Vol.
I, p. 206.)

Rathenau, who for the last three years had devoted his
energies wholly to business and literature, now returned to
politics. Freienwalde is not far from Hohenfinowj the Chan-
cellor was Rathenau's neighbour, and friendly relations de-
veloped between them. At a dinner at the Chancellor's in
February, Bassermann, the leader of the National Liberals,
invited Rathenau to become one of the Party's candidates for
the Reichstag. The outcome was that in May he was asked to
stand for Frankfurt an der Oder. Rathenau accepted on condi-
tion that he should be nominated jointly by the National Liber-
als and the Freisinningen (Radicals) as the first step in the di-

138

ROOM IN THE SCHLOSS FREIENWALDE

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

rection of a great liberal bourgeois party such as he had advo-
cated in his article in the New Era in 1907. After some weeks of
disappointing negotiation he withdrew his name. His decision
seems to have been determined by reports from his constituency:
the name Rathenau was like a red rag to a bull, because he was a
Jew and because of his well-known opinions. It was the first
time that Rathenau really felt the practical effects of his un-
popularity and his particular views. He was spared the experi-
ence of a public rebuff 5 the episode remained secret. Most
people, including his closest friends, knew nothing of it.

Meanwhile the Agadir affair was maturing. During the
spring there was increasing tension with England over the
naval question. Germany had to choose between two courses:
either attempt an understanding with England over the Naval
Estimates without any beating about the bush, or else pursue
the same object in a more roundabout way, by first bringing
pressure to bear on England and disintegrating the Entente,
and only afterwards negotiating about the fleet. The German
Government chose the second course: in a speech in the Reichs-
tag Bethmann made an evasive reply to the English feeler
towards a direct understanding. Rathenau himself was in favour
of such an understanding. In an article entitled Politics,
Humour and Disarmament, published in the Neue Freie
Presse of April I2th, 1911 (Collected Works y Vol. I, p. 173
seq.}, he put forward practical proposals in the matter, intro-
ducing into the discussion the notion of a quota of armaments.
Once again, as in his article in the New Era, his point of de-
parture was the view that armaments do not constitute a de-
cisive factor in a state's position. 'The part which a state is
justified in playing on the world stage is conditioned at every
moment by geographical, physical and moral factors. Its actual
sphere of power may temporarily extend beyond these limits,
or on the other hand it may not reach themj but in the end
power and the justification of power, expansion and the iustifi-

139

WALTHER RATHENAU

cation of expansion, will hold the scales.' On this assumption it
is 'certainly a difficult but not a hopeless task to find a means
of relieving the military tension and keeping it at a tolerable
level along the lines of the quota system, and in this sense the
idea of disarmament is no mere Utopia.* Practically, as he goes
on to explain, the task falls into two parts: the correlation,
firstly, of material expenditure with national resources, and,
secondly, of man-power with population. The first part of the
task could be accomplished by an international agreement to
the effect that cthe annual estimates for land, sea and air forces
should not exceed a fixed proportion of the total expenditure
of the state. The figures would have to be checked by an inter-
national bureau.' Without perhaps himself realizing it, Rathe-
nau was here running far ahead of public opinion j for an
international bureau empowered to check the expenditure of
the various states would be a super-state organization such as
no responsible statesman had advocated before the war. The
second part of the task, the correlating of man-power with
population, would be relatively easy. 'For the census of the
population can be — and for the most part has been — exactly
ascertained, so that it would indeed be singular if no inter-
national proposal were put forward for determining the maxi-
mum proportion of military strength to size of population.'

The German Government, however, persisted in its policy}
the Panther made a demonstration in front of Agadir — more
on the fleet's account than on Morocco's, and with an eye to
England rather than to France. If a state of tension arose be-
tween France and Germany it had been supposed that England
would hold prudently aloof} but she stood firm on the side of
France. Germany was obliged to save her face by negotiations
regarding compensation for Morocco} and a year later Billow,
in conversation with Rathenau, summed up the result by saying:
'They know well enough abroad that Germany gave way in
July, 1911.' Tittoni had said to him: 'What a change in the

140

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

behaviour of France compared with 1905! It is difficult to
believe that that was only seven years ago/ (Rathenau, Diary,
October 4th, 1912.) 8

1912. January. In Paris, Society is mad for war against Ger-
many at England's side: journalists, bankers, men about town,
poets, dowagers are militant In the cheap cabarets of Mont-
martre, where the petit bourgeois sips his cherry brandy after
supper, the theme which goes down best is Agadir and the
German climb-down in face of England's cruisers. Musset's
answer to Die Wacht am Rhelny 'Nous Pavon-s eu votre Rhin
allem&nd} becomes a music hall success, applauded frantically
by the gallery. From Paris D'Annunzio bombards Italy with
war odes — one every ten days as punctually as an artillery
barrage j a million and a half copies are printed of each, to be
posted up in the barracks, distributed amongst the regiments
fighting in Tripoli, recited publicly by enthusiastic students in
cafes and squares. Italy is wild with excitement. Giolitti, the
Prime Minister, has to resort to artifice in order to seize a
French ship, alleged to be smuggling arms to Tripoli, so as to
divert some of the Italian war fever from Austria on to France.

Meanwhile, in England the agitation was deeper though less
perceptible. On February 8th Haldane, the Secretary of War,
appeared in Berlin and for the last time made overtures for a
naval agreement. The negotiations broke down owing to the
opposition of the Naval Secretary, von Tirpitz. Still worse,
Haldane left Berlin with the impression that Germany was less
to be feared than he had previously imagined. He had ascer-
tained that chaos reigned at the top: the Kaiser told him one
thing, Tirpitz another, the Minister of Foreign Affairs some-
thing elsej and each made complaints about the others. And in
addition he had found — and this had deeply impressed him —

8 Rathenau's Diary, which I have been allowed to use, is still withheld from
publication.

141

WALTHER RATHENAU

that the spirit which had made Prussia and Germany great, the
high philosophical and ethical culture that stood at the bade of
all great German achievements, had withered at the summit,
where it no longer counted for anything. When Haldane, him-
self a philosopher, deplored the neglect of the graves of Fichte
and Hegel, the Kaiser replied: 'In my Empire there is no place
for fellows like Fichte and Hegel.5 4 Seldom has the remark of
a monarch on a historic occasion been more unfortunate. It is
true that a few days later the Kaiser observed to Rathenau that
'the French were at present uneasy 5 all that was necessary was
for him to go to Cowesj then he and the King of England
would put everything straight again. His plan was: A United
States of Europe, including France, against America.' (Rathe-
nau, Diary, February I3th, 1912.) The French uneasy! George
V. against his Cabinet! England against America! These words
express the spirit in which German policy was pursued j credu-
lous, optimistic without adequate grounds, and without any
precise idea of the forces that were actually at work.

Rathenau's conception of the international situation was
somewhat less naive, as he shows in two articles he wrote for the
Neue Freie Press*. The first, which was clearly written with
one eye on the Kaiser, was published on April 6th, 1912, under
the title of England and Ourselves. A Philippic. (Collected
Works, Vol. I, p. 209.) In it he again considers the quota sys-
tem and tries to make it palatable to the Kaiser by adding as a
corollary that 'England should offer Germany a treaty of
neutrality' (i.e. a promise, embodied in a treaty, to remain
neutral in the event of a war between France and Germany).
clf England prove willing to come to such an understanding, it
will be up to us to arrive at some agreement in the matter of
armaments which will give both nations a breathing space,
whether it be on the lines of Churchill's proposals for a naval
holiday, or the adoption of the quota system on the basis of

4 Lord Haldane himself repeated these words to me.

142

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

keels or tonnage.' It must be admitted that this proposal re-
vealed a lack of understanding, unusual and remarkable in
Rathenau, of the psychology both of English political circles
and of the German Admiralty. To the latter the idea of a quota
in any form was unacceptable, no matter what corollaries were
attached} for the English a promise of neutrality would have
brought about precisely that which England was ready to go
to war to avoid — i.e. it would have given Germany a free hand
against France, after which she would have been in a position to
build as many ships as she wanted. In his diary for February
1 4th Rathenau notes: 'For several days past a very great strain;
busy almost every minute.' And under April 3rd: 'Slack and
exhausted for several days.' Perhaps the psychological weakness
of his first article is to be explained by this physical state.

In the second article, Political Selection, published on May
1 6th, Rathenau makes another attempt to trace the responsi-
bility for Germany's present position, and finds it to lie, as in his
Criticism of the Age, published a year earlier, in the inadequate
methods by which German diplomats and statesmen are re-
cruited. Formerly the Prussian nobility were also the economic
leaders of the state, and in the much more simple conditions
then prevailing were quite able to recruit the necessary material
from their own ranks. 'Today, however, the nobility have lost
their ascendancy, and the industrial intelligence of the world
1 lies with the middle class; the international situation is one of
utter confusion; in other countries it is the best brains that lead
. . . our competitors confront us with their finest talents and
most experienced fighters. Now if only we can mobilize our
mental forces in like manner we shall have nothing to fear
from the contest; but failure to do this will leave us exposed to
a constitutional weakness of a kind that has repeatedly proved
fatal in the long run. ... It is not the workers that threaten
Prussia's greatness, for modern socialism lacks the strength of
positive ideas; no, the danger, a twofold one, lies in another

143

WALTHER RATHENAU

quarter: the lack of adequate leaders and the unequal distribu-
tion of burdens. Our age bears a remarkable resemblance to
that of Frederick William II.5 This time, let us hope, internal
equilibrium may be restored without serious convulsions.5 (Col-
lected Works, Vol. I, p. 223 ff.)

In the autumn of the same year, 1912, in the October number
of the Zukunp, he wrote a strangely sombre Festal Song for
the Centenary of 1813, which was permeated throughout with
a sense of impending catastrophe. The underlying note of this
remarkable Festal Song, which was in reality a desperate pro-
test against the organized and false enthusiasm on the occasion
of the centenary, is indicated by the terrible text from Ezekiel
which Rathenau put at the head of his work under the title of
Oppression:

Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God unto the land of
Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land.
The end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come.

(Ezekiel vii, 2, 6.)

Meanwhile Rathenau had suffered severely at the hands of
fate. A few days after the appearance of his article, England
and Ourselves, his friendship with Harden came to a sudden
end as the result of a personal difference — an event which both
from the human and the political points of view amounted to a
catastrophe. Long negotiations and unsuccessful attempts at
reconciliation led to Rathenau's challenging Harden to a duel,
which the latter refused on principle} this was followed by an
endless succession of reconciliations and further breaches which
continued up to the Revolution and after. Finally on Harden's
side friendship gave place to an implacable hatred, in which,
however, up to the very end one could detect a certain desire
for reconciliation and for the affection that had been lost. After

5 The King whose slackness was held responsible for the collapse of Prussia
before Napoleon at Jena.

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THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

Rathenau's death he not only wrote the well-known article
dictated by hate, but also and at the same time a letter to Rathe-
nau's mother which showed very real feeling. Yet the details of
this quarrel cannot yet be revealed} it must suffice to note that
their relationship, which passed from friendship into mutual
contempt and hostility, was for both of them a profoundly dis-
turbing experience.

Soon afterwards Rathenau met with a still severer blow.
His father, who was suffering from diabetes, returned from
Vienna in the middle of May with a gangrenous wound in his
foot. It was amputated, and as his condition at the time and his
natural violence of temper precluded the possibility of asking
his permission beforehand, Walther had to assume responsi-
bility for the operation. He could not help fearing that his
father, in his headstrong passionate way, would never forgive
him. And in actual fact when Emil Rathenau learned what had
happened he was so beside himself that he struck with his
crutch, as if demented, at his daughter who was standing by
the bed. The extent to which Walther was shaken by this illness
and the serious responsibility it entailed is shown by the hand-
writing of his diary, which during these weeks becomes irregu-
lar and agitated for the first and only time.

The clearest light on his life, intellectually so honest,
humanly so lacerated and so tossed from pole to pole, is thrown
by the letters written during these years to his friend. Since
he could never get away from himself and was always looking
into himself, and since he used his friend as a mirror, these
letters are a series of self-portraits, and reveal with terrible
clarity his seclusion, his growing isolation, his restlessness, and
the manner in which his nature was concentrated on himself
and his problems.

I have suffered no less than you, and I feel far from well.
I hoped that you would make us some sign earlier and then

145

WALTHER RATHENAU

detain me. (Perhaps that was impossible.8) He [Harden]
called on me in order to fetch a book, and came into the house
to stay five minutes.

I had much to tell you which has now perhaps no further
interest, and I also wanted to ask you about several things 5 but
now I feel utterly crushed and exhausted. I am sitting with
burning eyes beside the lamp.

Affectionately yours,
W.

You have not hurt my feelings j on the contrary, you have
helped me. True, as far as details are concerned I still think I
am in the right} these literary questions I have thought out
carefully, and in this matter I do not recognize any of my con-
temporaries to be a judge. 'Humble si je me considere, fier si
je me compare?

But it is true: there are too many people worrying and
plaguing me, although I neither want anything from, nor
plague any one myself. Is it really weakness? Or is it just
human and perhaps even something better? Let me for once
suppose the worst j then two things only will help: either flight
or rudeness. Which, remains to be considered.

Whether it would be right for me to retire from business I
dare not decide. My last three jobs, the African ones and the
transport one, which all had their value, would never have been
if I had not been living the life of this world.

The greatest mistake I have made in the last few years of
my existence, a mistake moreover which is really quite alien to
my nature, has been my communicativeness. My fate is loneli-
ness and I accept it. Just as I have no brother, so there is no-
body who can place himself in my position; from time to time

6 Refers to Harden's intervention — equally unexpected and undesired by both
parties — during a visit of Rathenau's.

146

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

a sort of parallelism seems to occur, and then suddenly every-
thing seems infinitely distant again. If I were to measure my-
self by other standards, then I should be a failure in good and
ill. If I were an eccentric — and why am I not? because I fight
against it — then people would leave me to my whims. But be-
cause I go part of the way with others, peaceably and sociably,
they all want to model me to their taste, which however they do
not succeed in doing.

Au revoir till Sunday, and with warmest greetings,

YourW.

I shall expect you on Wednesday. I am free from six o'clock
onwards and thankful that you are coming.

Since midday on Saturday I have been suffering from your
message which you repeated on Sunday. It makes me doubt
my reason if I am to believe — as I am now trying to without
success — that I have only dreamed the terrible scorn of your
lines. You only wish to see me in the presence of a third party?
And this is your answer to my readiness to meet you in a free
and friendly spirit after this difficult experience? Ajid it was not
enough to give me your decision, which was in itself sufficiently
appalling; no, you must needs repeat it, clearly, distinctly and
in writing.

It is beyond my comprehension. I feel one thing only, that
whether deliberately or not you have done me the most terrible
wrong. And now you actually speak of scorn and thereby seem
to mean me, who merely said that I must try to get over what-
I felt about all this before I saw you again. Do you really think
that I could so far forget myself as to come to you now when
you would have everything prepared for a meeting in the pres-
ence of a third party?

I can only repeat that I am completely unable to understand

147

WALTHER RATHENAU

it, although I have been trying for hours now to see it from
your point of view; it would seem that you yourself have for-
gotten what you arranged and wrote to me.

Farewell. I feel no bitterness, but I am very worried.

VlCTORIASTRASSE 3

The only thing about your letter which gave me pleasure
was P. . . ,'s tranquil, rich Venetian poem. Hauptmann's in-
fluence has had a good effect on him.

Harden's affairs do not concern me. But your cold injustice
hurts me most deeply. Again I have to see myself in this cursed
light and everything that has been and is hard for me, that
human considerateness and inner decency demand of me, is
branded as a crime. I often ask myself: is your view of me
really so superficial, or do you wish to destroy me or confuse
me completely? You have much} I have nothing; but you
want to take from me even what little peace of mind I have,
for again and again you put your finger on this one point, in
amused wonder as to what I shall be able to bear — and yet you
express surprise when I speak of your thirst for power.

That you put me on a level with him (H.) and contrast me
invidiously with everything which is in keeping with your na-
ture— this wounds me doubly as the conclusion and end of such
thoughts.

These words of yours, written in perfect calmness— -the
handwriting shows me that — do more to estrange me than a
whole year of absence. For you it is only the obvious present
that lives (for your will is to dominate) ; to me the inner im-
age is equally valuable. And that you smash to pieces like a
child, for the pure joy of it.

Tour W. R.

148

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

'Soothingly into the heart.5 It is out of the Chino-German
Days and Seasons. And two lines further:

In you vision and faith unite;

But the seeking soul strives and struggles, never wearying,

To find the law, the reason, the Why and How.

Warmth and affection! You know I have often put my af-
fection into words and you know too what my real feelings are.
But because it is sometimes possible for me, the inwardly dumb,
to say things to you which are at other times inexpressible — you
therefore take them as mere half utterances, because they are
not more; is then what is spoken more than that for which
language can find no words?

No, you have no right to doubt mej I say this in a higher
sense than that in which you wrote it. What you call *the ele-
ment of uncertainty' lies not in me but in your image of me. To
satisfy yourself that this is so you have only to compare your
present conception of me with that of a year ago. [Even in this
letter what motivation! ] You should have known that my de-
pression was deep and not merely momentary by the fact that —
for the first time — I did not answer your letter! There are two
things you cannot get over: distrust and the suspicion that I am
vain. And this failure in discernment corresponds — forgive me,
I certainly don't want to hurt you — to the weakest point in your
intuition, which is otherwise so clear.

Both in my good points and my bad you will not look upon
my like again. For with me the Lord God has set going an ex-
periment which even if it proves a failure — and that seems to
me more likely than the opposite — will at least have been an
interesting one. And the best of it is that I am honestly and
earnestly awake to the position and follow the threads in all
their windings, whithersoever they lead. You know that in this
game you have much influence} I warn you not to abuse it.

My warmest thanks for your letter of today, for it is again

149

WALTHER RATHENAU

you yourself writing; and if this answer too seems to you cold
and heartless, then ask yourself for a moment why I have writ-
ten it.

Your W. R.

Very many thanks for your two dear letters and the charm-
ing flowers. Their scent and colour surround me now. Just
think! Yesterday I came across the vase made sixteen years ago
expressly for your semi-circular recess; I have packed it up with
the drawing showing how it should be placed, so that it may
bring you my Christmas greetings.

Today I am going to do what I never do; I am sending you
a book, and what is worse a sad one.7 I don't suppose you will
read it, and perhaps the second half is not worth reading any-
way. Goethe sent this book to Charlotte von Stein and said that
it was as if by a younger brother, but an unfortunate one. I have
not got the right to say this; but there is much that the book
would make clear to you. You would see the danger which at-
tends the man to whom youth means oppression. To find one's
way into freedom out of such a labyrinth is a difficult, almost
superhuman task. And to succeed in this is, I think, a greater
achievement than any external triumph. The author did not
quite succeed. He remained broken and floating on the sur-
face his life long. The capacity for love was lost. Things might
have been quite different; but in reality he was only stubborn,
not strong. But there is one thing that you would understand:
what, that is to say, the action of demoniacal forces can do to
men. Fallen angels and liberated demons: the principle in-
volved is the same. Even about education there is something to
be learned here.

I was very pleased to see you again at last, and in a world to
which you belong and which is able to do you justice.

T Anton Reiser by Karl Philipp Moritz, a friend of Goethe. This autobiograph-
ical novel was published in 1785-1790.

150

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

I am thinking of how you looked standing at the head of
your little staircase — it was just as I should have wished.

Farewell I have a great deal of work to do this winter and
shall be egoistic and shut off from the world. Give me a little
light in my solitude.

Affectionately,

Your W.

Your letter has disconcerted and disarmed me. So that I now
feel myself entirely to blame. I seem to myself unjust and
hardhearted and yet I know that what I wrote and said was not
from any coldness of heart.

But there is one thing that you should know: what is it that
continues to hold me together in this world, me, the loneliest
man I know, whose only choice lies between passionate flight
from the world and dismal seclusion in the midst of the alien
tumult? You know well what it is: I cannot do without you. And
if there come hours of f orgetfulness when I know nothing of
myself and feel myself to be only a mechanism — at the first
return of consciousness I find myself on the old road again.

I must expend myself, not only on the things I love and
dream of, but also on many others — things that make me hard
and cold. I must do this, because men of my type are respon-
sible for all that nature has given them to do and be 5 I have no
right to live a life of imagination and contemplation without
spiritual conflict and exertion. Nor must I ask the reason why.
Nature has united in me heterogeneous elements j and she must
answer for it. And I must do my work conscientiously, without
knowing for whom. I know that this must make you suffer.
You do not possess me completely; but nobody will ever possess
me to the extent that you do. There has been a certain change
in my feelings in the last few years, but not in the deeper
spheres. I am more at peace, but also more confident. And you
must believe me when I tell you that in the distance there is

WALTHER RATHENAU

always that which calms my heart, a certain feeling between us,
your feeling for me and mine for you.

I say this with reluctance, for I have remained silent about
other things which I consider highly to my credit. And yet one
other thing: can you really believe that this mood of returning
to my thoughts, speaking out, revealing — so rare and so un-
precedented in my life — can be a thing of the moment and of
chance, a mere superficial gesture? And if you do not believe
it, then you must know and feel that of all the things you give
me there is one above all others that simply must not be taken
from me j the certainty I have of finding in you something that
belongs to me and that I cannot be deprived of. If I have re-
proached you — perhaps unjustly — at bottom it was due to the
fact that in the midst of doubt and change it was not I but my
sense of security that felt threatened. I have suffered too
much in my life from worry, doubt and trouble, so that nowa -
days renunciation comes easier to me than despair. If you were
able to picture to yourself the nature of my life — which you
do not really understand (and perhaps rightly) because it is
dualistic but not .divided against itself — you would be less anx-
ious aii3 atsoxauie less anxiety to nie/who have the unfortunate
quality of receiving and condensing rays like a concave mirror.
Thus if the mirror trembles ever so slightly the image swings
up and down.

Can you understand me? I am afraid that very little will
be dear amidst all this confusion. But I mustn't spend the
whole night writing. My car is at the door. Tomorrow I shall
be in Westphalia and the day after in Munich at the Continen-
tal. I think it would do me good to find two words — not more
— from you there, otherwise your last letter will ring too long
in my ears, and there is a note in it which makes me uneasy.

Yours affectionately,
W.

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

Now at last I can and must write to you again, for I have just
finished my summer's work.8 Though small in size, it is large
in content, for it contains a man's whole life. For that reason
it may have some human interest for you, though I find it
difficult to picture you finding your way through this mountain-
ous region j it is a sort of history of mankind. I don't know
whom I ought to give it to as a whole, and so I am hesitating
as to whether there is any sense in printing it.

I have tried to be as dear as if I were addressing children,
but now I have got to the end I feel it should have been grand-
children rather than children.

Don't be alarmed! This is not arrogance, but loneliness. You
have often prophesied that this is what must happen. But you
were wrong in one point: only now do I feel completely my-
self 5 my wishes become ever quieter, and when I look out
through the pouring rain over the restless sea to the far green-
gold expanse of sky beyond, I have a sense of deep peace and
freedom. It is as though this book, which has meant so much to
me, had liberated a part of my very self — a beautiful foretaste
of a happy death.

Don't be alarmed! I don't want to hurt your feelings, yet I
cannot keep silence or speak of anything else. Only an hour
ago my thoughts were entirely centered — as indeed they have
been for the last two and a half months — on the past and the
future. Now the sheets lie in front of me as if they had flut-
tered down from the sky, almost alien, no longer my own, and
it is as if years had passed.

I have nothing much more to say. I have been here since
Saturday — there is an autumn sea, Nature is all ram, waves,
banks of cloud, while the sun breaks through at intervals (it is
actually doing so as I write). I think I shall stay here till the

8 Criticism of the Age.

153

WALTHER RATHENAU

end of the month j there is no hope for staying longer 5 work is
piling up in Berlin.

Farewell. Warmest greetings. W.

Thank you for your words of reconciliation, and for so deli-
cately drawing bade the veil that had begun to cover unforget-
table memories. . . .

This winter it has become clear to me as never before that a
man's life signifies nothing unless all his powers of mind and
sense of responsibility are exerted to their utmost. There is
something half -wrong in receiving gifts, even from Nature.

All good wishes for you and yours j may they bring happiness
to your home and your countryside and your life!

Yours affectionately,

22.I2.II W.

1913.- Poincar6. On January i6th Poincare is elected Presi-
dent of the French Republic 5 Pams, whose election slogan had
been 'Peace,' is defeated. All Paris responds with the cry: 'Poin-
care <?est la guerre? The period of compulsory service is
lengthened to three years. To popularize the army, Millerand,
the Minister of War, institutes a great weekly tattoo 5 late every
Saturday the troops, gay with flags and music and Chinese lan-
terns, march in procession through the streets of Paris, accom-
panied to right and left by the patriotic songs of the mob who
march along with them. Society flocking to Nijinski at the Cha-
telet and to Caruso at the Opera stop their cars when the troops
come past and during the intervals step out into the streets to
applaud them. In the East the Second Balkan War is raging.
Russia raises a loan of 665 million francs in Paris for strategic
railroads. The Grand Duke Nicholas, Russian Commander-in-
Chief, pays an official visit to the French armyj the Grand
Duchess, a Montenegrin princess, publicly salutes 'the lost
provinces of Alsace-Lorraine.' In England, Lord Haldane,

154

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

after his abortive visit to Berlin, is quietly organizing the
British Expeditionary Force. In Germany the Government has
put before the nation a scheme for an 'emergency loan' of a
milliard marks for new armaments. In order to start it off and
as a prelude to the 'Great Age5 that is to come, an 1813 cen-
tenary celebration is held on the grandest scale.

On March 23rd Rathenau counters this agitation with a pas-
sionate warning in the Neue Freie Presse — The Sacrifice to the
Eumenides. (Collected Works, Vol. I, p. 253 /.) It would be
worth while to reprint every line of this article, which is the
most powerful and convincing he ever wrote, but I shall quote
here only the more essential passages:

'The German empire is asking its citizens for a loan of a mil-
liard marks and the interest on some further milliards in order
to strengthen its defences in the east and its army in the west.
It is a question, they say, of averting a doom, and we are asked
to recall the voluntary sacrifices of a hundred years ago. Six
months ago fourteen millions for special troops seemed beyond
our powerj today a thousand millions seem to come of their own
accord. It is the psychology of the annual company meeting: a
wretched embezzlement on the part of a bank messenger causes
an uproar, but the loss of half the company's capital is met with
a determined resignation which seems to say "Thank Heaven it
is only half." . . . The last generation looked on quietly and
without surprise while two worlds were being parcelled out, the
African and the Mohammedan. . . . Nine-tenths of the plun-
der went to France and her allies; Germany got her colonies by
private initiative, but by exploiting the strength of her position
politically or diplomatically she got nothing whatsoever. And
yet the German Empire entered the Concert of Europe as the
undisputed paramount power, as an umpire and guarantor. . . .
It has raised a fighting force such as this pknet has never seen
before, and passed an equally unprecedented defence estimate
of one and three-quarter billion marks. No Continental power

155

WALTHER RATHENAU

has a fleet that can rival it in sizej none is so prosperous, or has
so many civilized inhabitants. And the result is — nothing. In-
deed less than nothing, for the voice of Germany, which was
more powerful than any in Europe thirty years ago, has now
ceased to matter, or at least matters less than that of France
. . . In such a situation, politically starved, with declining self-
confidence, and torn by internal difficulties, we have now to face
the prospect of being encircled on the East. . . . Hitherto the
Entente and the Triple Alliance have never measured their
respective strengths j now they have done so and, behold, we
have the sun against us — but for the moment only the sun. So
we quickly take stock of our forces, personnel and materiel,
and make out the account. A milliard is needed} produce it and
the account is balanced. . . . The sacrifice should and will be
made.

*But it is misleading to compare the taxes proposed by the
Bundesrat with the national sacrifices of 1813. The finest thing
about that period was not the sacrifice nor the victory, but the
heart-searching that preceded them. . . . Money and arma-
ments alone will not avail to avert our doom. Material forces
only call up material forces in reply. ... If the extension of
the military service in France becomes a law, war is assured.
. . . The double tension — that, more dangerous than out-
spoken, between England and ourselves, and that, more out-
spoken than dangerous, between France and ourselves — is now
acquiring full explosive power, reinforced by the sensitiveness
of Russia, who sees the seed of our milliard loan sprouting in a
ring of fortresses about her borders. By this sacrifice to the
Eumenides, demanded in the name of the hundred years' cycle,
our doom will not be avertedj it will be hastened. . . . Class
rule and its concomitants, inadequate personnel and weak pol-
icyj the conservatism of the ruling elements, and its concomi-
tant, the unequal distribution of burdens: that is the double in-
justice and the double danger of our country. . . . Perhaps it

156

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

is not yet too late to apply the true lesson of that great epoch
and abolish the injustice. But the most crying injustice of our
age lies in the fact that the most efficient industrial nation in
the world, the nation most rich in ideas and with the greatest
capacity for organization, is not allowed to control its own des-
tiny. . . . The weakness this two-fold evil causes Germany,
year in, year out, cannot be made good by any number of bri-
gades. ... It is not the physical power of the battalions in
themselves, but this power multiplied by the degree of busi-
ness capacity, that decides a nation's position in the world. . . .
*Wars and national destinies are not the product of the will;
they spring from natural laws which lie at the root of differ-
ences of population, national energy, and physical factors. Yet
above these mechanical laws stand others which are ethical and
transcendental. When inner strength grows slack, when the for-
mulas, morals and ideas of a nation lose their significance, then
external destiny takes control. It is not outer conditions and
political constellations, but inner laws, moral and transcendental
necessities, that forcibly determine our fate. Our sturdy people
has been educated by the same method that it likes to use with
its own children — by blows. Formerly the obstinate pride of the
ruling caste was responsible for our catastrophes, but now this
pride is accompanied by the indolence of the nation, which is
not prepared to fight for its responsibilities and so will be com-
pelled to fight for its security. But when the hour of fate
arrives, people will realize that all effort which does not rest
on the double foundation of a strong policy and a just constitu-
tion is like chaff before the wind. The passion which at present
serves the interests of material life will then be transformed
into real concern for the welfare of society and the state, and
obsolete rights and privileges will meet the same fate as the
bloated carcass of our present industrial system. One single hour
will see the crash of what was believed to be secure against the
ravages of time. . . .*

157

WALTHER RATHENAU

At the end of the year Rathenau followed up this powerful
challenge with a further article, German 'Dangers and, New
Aims, which appeared in the Neue Freie Presse on December
25th, 1913. (Collected Works, Vol. I, p. 267 #.) It was a
final attempt to offer a solution which should find for Germany
a way out of her desperate situation and at the same time guar-
antee peace to Europe: 'There is one possibility left: an indus-
trial customs union, of which sooner or later, for better or for
worse, the states of Western Europe would become members.
. . . The problem of securing Free Trade for Europe is diffi-
cult, but not insoluble. Commercial legislation must be co-or-
dinated, companies indemnified, receipts from tariffs must be
distributed, and some substitute provided to make up for themj
but an industrial unit would be created which would equal and
perhaps surpass that of America, and within the league there
would no longer be any backward or unproductive regions. At
the same time the most potent cause of international hostility
would be removed. . . . What prevents the nations from
trusting one another, mutually supporting each other, exchang-
ing and enjoying in common their possessions and strength, is
only indirectly questions of power, imperialism and expansion 5
the root of the matter is industrial. Fuse the industries of Eu-
rope into one — and that will happen sooner than we think —
and political interests will fuse too. This is not world peace or
disarmament, nor is it general debility; but it is an alleviation
of conflicts, an economy of power and the solidarity of civiliza-
tion.'

Meanwhile Rathenau's most important book, The Mecha-
nism of the Mind, had appeared in October, dedicated cto the
young generation.' At first it caused less stir and had a smaller
sale than his Criticism of the Age, which appeared in January,
1912. It was three years before the first three thousand copies
were sold, whereas the first edition of the Criticism of the Age
of the same size had to be reprinted after a month. The basic

158

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

idea of the Mechanism of the Mind had been expressed by
Rathenau in his Festal Song, in the words:

cMan! The folds of the deceptive veil
Obscure the vision with vanities,
And hide from you the ways of God.
• • • * •

Man, O man, think of thy soul!'

This conception was, to be sure, irreconcilably opposed to
the sabre rattling and the riotous orgies of the period. Rathenau
was well aware of the contempt with which his appeal to the
soul was received by public opinion in general, and of the defi-
nite hostility it aroused among his colleagues. The blows of fate
which fell upon him had momentarily disorganized the deli-
cate mechanism of his soul — as his handwriting shows. In the
self -analysis of his letters to his friend a new note can be de-
tected: a certain serenity, the first signs of exhaustion, a renun-
ciation, an inner stillness like the lull after a storm. One feels
the evening drawing near.

I found your kind beautiful letter, and the red roses, on my
return home early today; thank you! I will thank Paul for his
thoughtful and friendly information tomorrow. Now it is
night.

No, the soul is not to be gained by battling for it! But it does
not rest in peace, like the gift of the blue skyj it grows, like all
living things, according to its own law. Nor is it hostile to life
like the distorted kind of ascetic Christianityj it is wholly free,
courageous and joyful, like the true sayings of the New Testa-
ment. It does not separate the body and spirit; it demands no
renunciation, service or cult; its most inward expression is a
certain moral disposition.

This disposition, however, is as much Franciscan as Goethean,
as much pagan as Christian; it is the disposition that lives for

159

WALTHER RATHENAU

the thing and not for the person, which deifies creation rather
than the ego*

It is not only those who have come out of the darkness who
walk this path. There has never been a true spirit, gay or
sombre, happy or suffering, who has not trod it. The spirits who
are chained to the ego all look the same, however various the
faces they bear. Therefore I am not afraid of giving this book:
to the young} if it leads them to sentimental enthusiasm this
will mean that they have not understood it. But they will un-
derstand it! And they will understand, too, the way that leads
from the ego to the thing, to the idea, to beingj and this same
way will also lead to the greatest deeds.

It is not a forerunner that I wish to be, but a sort of sign-
post at the cross roads, who will watch with joy all who take
the right road. But I will not again change my direction} the
thin compass needle is fragile, but every little piece of it points
to the pole.

You think that nothing in this book belongs to you? When
you have mastered it, and you will master it, you will feel that
it is not only a confession, but also the transmutation of an ex-
perience.

Affectionately yours,

27.11.13 W.

GRAND HOTEL QUIRINAL

ROME

What can I do but take the hand you offer me? You must
believe me: even in those most difficult days you never ceased
to mean a great deal to me, and in these last years of difficulty
and disillusionment and anxiety about my father, your image
has always been with me. Your image — f or our actual meetings
are no longer a success.

When we meet among other people I feel a tension and em-
barrassment which make every word constrained. For a few

160

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

moments you control yourself — with effort — I feel it — and
then comes a movement, a look or a word which wounds me to
the quick, which — forgive me for speaking so freely — infuri-
ates me. And then against my own nature I become suspicious
and prone to take offence j I can no longer believe wholeheart-
edly in the kind things you say to mej every word seems to
bear a double meaning.

When we are alone, on the other hand, other things are
blown aside like a breath as if they were lies and foolishness. I
remember your once saying to me: 'But come, we can't talk
about botany9 — and then nothing remains but the I and the
Thouj however, even then we are not united, and the atmos-
phere remains troubled and threatening. I ask you: 'How am 7
to understand this?' You say you feel constrained in my pres-
ence. Isn't it rather undignified to expose ourselves to such situ-
ations? Ought we to destroy the best that is in us and between us
by such influences? In me they tremble and vibrate for weeks
afterwards, even though I have something of my father's
strong constitution. I wrote and said to you a year ago: It de-
pends on you, not on me. What is the use of trying to find out
now the reason for this unfortunate state of things? If we can-
not now muster strength to gain our freedom, then we are not
worthy of freedom. And if this freedom dies, all trust, security
and confidence die with it. For how can I feel you by my side as
the inspirer of my life and work when I know that you never
have a moment's ease in my presence, and when, moreover,
every friendly word is drowned in a thousand shades of contra-
diction and opposition? I feel frankly — forgive me once againj
I am going to say something very unkind — that there is a false
note, whenever you take a step towards renunciation, compan-
ionship and mutual understanding} I realize that you are
prompted by the kindest motives, but I also realize that you are
demanding a sacrifice from your nature which it is humiliating
for me to accept. And in any case what is to happen? It isn't a

161

WALTHER RATHENAU

question of sacrifice. Freedom will only be possible when you
can bring yourself willingly and fearlessly to recognize things
for what they are. I know what this means — not to me — but to
your free-born nature. I shall never again bow to your will}
but neither shall I desert you. I shall always come when you
call, but I shall hold back in silence until I am wanted.

But in the meanwhile I take your hand and hold it with deep
affection, whether we are near or far apart. I know that we can-
not completely lose one another} this I know, even at this dis-
tance, from the feeling I have when I see your dear handwrit-
ing which your own hand has formed and on which your arm
has rested. But from people such as I life demands strength
and freedom and sometimes even sternness.

Farewell. I should like to have told you something of Rome
and your own dear land along with my Christmas wishes and
greetings, but after all it is more important that we have at
last cleared the air between us.

Affectionately,

21.12.1913 Your W.

1914. The times are out of joint. A peculiar atmosphere is
abroad, something intoxicating, a mixture of brutality, un-
bridled sensuality and mysticism, slowly permeated by the smell
of blood. Extraordinary events are happening everywhere,
which in this atmosphere seem like the signs and portents that
precede Caesar's death in Shakespeare's play. In Berlin, Court
circles, usually so hopelessly matter-of-fact, take to attending
spiritualistic seances } spirits are raised from the dead in the very
study of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Moltke. In
Paris the wife of the French Minister of Finance, Caillaux,
assassinates a famous journalist. Russia, having secured a loan
of six hundred million francs in January for the construction of
strategic railways, becomes brutally outspoken} on March I2th
the Petersburg Stock Exchange News publishes a threatening

162

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

semi-official announcement: 'Russia is prepared for War,' which
soon proves to have been written by the Russian Minister of
War, Sukhomlinoff, himself. This is followed in June by an
article in the Prussian Year Book on The Motives and Aims
o/ Russian Policy by a Russian professor, Mitropanoff, which
without making any bones about the matter offers Germany
the choice between the withdrawal of her military mission from
Constantinople and war. On June 28th the Archduke is assas-
sinated at Sarajevo.

In London the season is at its height, such a season as Lon-
don has not seen for years. Again the Russians are leading the
dance: the Russian ballet, Chaliapin, Prince Yusupoff (who was
afterwards to murder Rasputin) and his bride, a Grand Duchess
— he remarkably handsome, she remarkably lovely, and still
almost a child, weighed down like a Russian ikon by a mass of
jewels. All Europe, half America and half Asia are in attend-
ance! Indian Maharajahs flaunting precious stones worth the
labour of ten generations, American bankers with gorgeous
yachts anchored off Cowes, the most fashionable of Parisian
beauties, great artists like Rodin, Richard Strauss, Debussy and
Stravinski — London the cynosure of the world!

Then suddenly a transformation. It looks as if the feast
might end like that of Belshazzar. There is a mutiny of Brit-
ish officers in Ireland, and the Government dare not punish
them. In London the soldiers of the Irish Guards on duty at
the Palace jeer at Mr. Asquith on his return from a meeting of
the Privy Council. At the luncheon party at his house, which he
is delayed from attending, the rumour of this demonstration
precedes him and the former French Premier, Jules Roche,
draws me aside and says: cHow tragic to watch the collapse of
a great empire at such close quarters! J The sister of Lady Ran-
dolph Churchill is said to have left suddenly for Ireland in or-
der to distribute rifles hidden in her park. When the German
Ambassador, Prince Lichnowsky, rather rashly inquires of Lady

163

WALTHER RATHENAU

Randolph about this journey and asks her what it means, she
raps out sharply just one Italian word: 'sangue5 [blood] and
then, with a flash of her remarkably fine dark eyes: 'But if we
are attacked we shall all stand together like one man.5 °

Meanwhile Mr. Winston Churchill Was assembling the
Grand Fleet. On July I5th the Third Squadron began its 'Test
Mobilization5; on the iyth and i8th incomparably the great-
est assemblage of naval power ever witnessed in the history of
the world5 was reviewed at Spithead, and all London thronged
to see this stupendous spectacle. Finally, on the morning of the
1 9th, says Mr. Winston Churchill in his book The World Crisis,
'the whole fleet put to sea. It took more than six hours for this
armada, every ship decked with flags and crowded with blue-
jackets and mariners, to pass, with bands playing and at 15
knots, before the Royal yacht, while overhead the naval sea-
planes and aeroplanes circled continuously.5 Such was the re-
sponse of the British Government to the situation on the Con-
tinent, while in their minds, as Mr. Churchill records, 'the
squalid, tragic Irish quarrel5 was uppermost. But six days later
the Austrian ultimatum burst on the world 5 instead of civil war,
War!

Rathenau wrote in his diary for 1914: 'At the end of Janu-
ary or the beginning of February a memorable conversation
with Bethmann in the presence of Winterfeldts. He inquired
(perhaps rhetorically) whether one should be consistent or op-
portunist in national affairs. I replied: "This alternative does
not exhaust the matter. What the country demands above all
else is a clear lead.55 5 On March I2th he breakfasted with the
Kaiser at the Minister of Transport^ house. The Kaiser seemed
peculiarly nervous about Alsace: 'We can no longer feel se-
cure about the concentration.5 The wife of Moltke, the Chief
of the General Staff, having made Rathenau5s acquaintance,

* I happened myself to witness this scene and hear the words at a tea party in
the garden of the Prime Minister's house in Downing Street.

164.

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

asked him to attend a lecture of the mystic and prophet, Ru-
dolf Steiner, in his community, of which she was a patron.

Rathenau's letters this spring show a new and tender pre-
occupation with Nature 5 the realm of the soul hovers only just
below the surface. On March 22nd he writes to Fraulein Fanny
Kiinstler: clf your picture of me mounted on the easel of your
dear memory has brought you help and strength, it is now
time to take it down again. I am not this creature of clarity and
harmony you seem to think I am. Like all of us, I suffer from
worry and passion, from fear and desire, from misery and fool-
ishness. If I have gained anything out of the conflicts I have
been through, it is the possibility of finding my bearings when
the cyclone has died down. Today is the first day of spring. I
went for a walk along the banks of the Havel; a rainstorm
came up, and passed over the distant waters and the red and
yellow of the young tree tops.3 (Letter 120.) To Fritz von Un-
ruh in April: 'The four of us were sitting in the Freienwalde
Kurhaus when the news came, the Hauptmanns, Ekke and
myself, and we all thought of you. It was one of those cloud-
less summer days we have been having lately; the blossom just
coming out, the garden a carpet of flowers, and a clear view
of the distant hills.3 (Letter 132.) The next day to Fanny
Kunstler: CI love to think of your beautiful home; it reminds
me most pleasantly of my South German relatives' charming
houses. They have lived for generations in the same spots in
Mainz and Frankfort, in sweet-scented rooms thick with
memories; great pear-trees grow in front of the windows and
bear enormous fruit which used to enchant us when we were
children. At Freienwalde yesterday there wasn't a cloud in the
sky all day, so clear was the atmosphere that one seemed to be
able to see an almost infinite distance; the first fruit trees were
in blossom on the hills in the summer-like warmth." (Letter
124.) Then again to Fanny Kunstler at Whitsun: CI came here
yesterday, but unfortunately cannot stay long, for there is work

165

WALTHER RATHENAU

awaiting me in Berlin. I still feel that I can't shake off the
winter. I have hills and trees around me again, but I am too
dull and stupid to understand their language} I can only
breathe irregularly and with difficulty in the long pulsations of
Nature. Yet the sky is streaming peacefully from west to east}
cloud columns, gloom and sunshine follow one another} and
now with the last banks of clouds the night is here in all its
silence.' (Letter 131.) At the end of June again to the same
person: cThe roses are in bloom here now, or rather they are
like a river of colour. I have to close the window at night, so
overpowering is the scent of the limes. I cannot work.' (Letter
135.) The middle of July: 'The roses are making elaborate
preparations for their second bloom. The trees stand heavily
laden in their blue-green foliage} they already have their fruit
and are beginning to dream of autumn. Hot (days dim the hori-
zon, and evening comes, still late, with the clouds aflame with
colour. By the time I get up it has been broad daylight for
hours: I wake up in sunlight.' (Letter 136.) Finally, at the end
of July, when the war was already close at hand: The last few
days I have had to be in Berlin, and I now return to find the
chill of autumn, and the rich foliage shivering in expectation of
summer's end, Alas, the end is here, the days are drawing in} in
all one's thoughts there is something of farewell.' (Letter
140.)^ ^

This is the turning-point, also, in Rathenau's life; and it may
therefore be well to make clear in what respects the policy that
he propagated both in writing and by word of mouth differed
from that of the Kaiser. For this policy, which was even at this
date quite clear in his mind, is the key to his actions and out-
look during the war, while it is also the foundation on which he
built up a new foreign policy for Germany after the catas-
trophe. The material for this survey is to be found in his po-
litical articles in the period preceding the war, and it is for this
reason that I have dealt with them in such detail. In one of

166

THE PATH TO THE ABYSS

these articles, Politics^ Humour and Armaments, he puts the
question: 'What does business or political genius really amount
tor' He replies: 'It seems to me that it resides in nothing else
but the fact that in the camera obscura of the mind an image
of the world takes shape which reflects all the essential laws and
relationships of reality, and which thus can always to a certain
extent be rearranged experimentally, so that within human lim-
its it can even show the image of the future.' (Collected Works>
Vol. I, 174.) That is true} but one should add that not only
political genius, but any sort of political activity — no matter on
how small a scale — if it is to be successful, presupposes a con-
scious or unconscious, but certainly precise and consistent, pic-
ture of the world. What struck one about the Kaiser, who de-
termined the general lines of Germany's pre-war policy, was
the contradictions, the lack of precision, the arbitrary assump-
tions, the superficiality, of his picture of the world. He oper-
ated upon the body politic as a surgeon of the Middle Ages op-
erated upon the human body, with a conception of its anatomy
which was derived in part from the Bible, in part from a patch-
work of the latest pet ideas of those professors who were in fa-
vour at court. Rathenau, on the other hand, had before him an
altogether precise and consistent picture of the world, the de-
tails of which might be incomplete or disputable in places, but
which taken as a whole reproduced the actual state of affairs,
and not merely its surface but its real depths. The world of
today presented itself to him as a single industrial and intel-
lectual mechanism which was only superficially divided by
political frontiers. Armaments, which only serve to strengthen
political boundaries, are therefore incapable of maintaining a
state permanently above the level which the interplay of its in-
dustrial, intellectual and moral forces assigns it. It is these last,
and not armaments, which determine a nation's true standing
in the scales of fate, and in the long run its actual position in
the world. And these deep forces are bound up with one an-

WALTHER RATHENAU

other all the world over, for the whole world is a single
machine, and any industrial, intellectual or moral force which is
lost at any point diminishes the amount of power available for
driving the whole machine and each of its parts. On this account
the mobilization of all the industrial, intellectual and moral
forces and talents of a people, by means of an unprejudiced
and democratic system of selection, is more decisive for the in-
ternational standing of a state than any number of armoured
cruisers could ever be. And finally, as every state is only a part
of the one great machine, it is doomed to perish if it isolates it-
self, or is isolated from the others. Thus in war the most deadly
weapon is the economic blockade} and if the war should be a
long one intellectual and moral isolation is no less dangerous.
The remoteness of Rathenau's picture of the world from the
old imperial policy is shown by the paths which the latter actu-
ally took: for thirty years it persisted in regarding as its most
important, indeed almost its sole, task the solution of the arma-
ments problem: how to increase the German fleet without com-
ing into conflict with England; it precluded a third of the na-
tion, the social democratic workers, from any sort of partici-
pation in the affairs of the nation on the ground that they were
cf ellows without a fatherland* j it preferred to tolerate a heredi-
tary lack of talent in diplomacy and in the highest offices of
state, a lack which it actually admitted itself, rather than open
leading positions in the state to middle-class talent, such as
during these years was appearing on all sides in commerce and
industry; it failed, to take only one example, in that province
which was most its own, the preparation for war, because it
overlooked the significance of industry in war and so confined
its industrial measures to a vague project which was never taken
seriously and therefore never carried out. And thus at the be-
ginning of the war Rathenau had to spring into the breach in
order to fill this fatal gap in the German front.

168

CHAPTER VIII
IN DAYS TO COME

RATHENAU'S first work of historical importance — of in-
ternational importance in its effects — was the organiza-
tion of German raw materials at the beginning of the
war. As early as July 3ist he had protested in an article in the
Berliner Tageblatt entitled On the Situation against the pol-
icy of the government in following Austria blindly and stupidly
into the war: 'The government has left us in no doubt of the
fact that Germany is intent on remaining loyal to her old ally.
Without the protection of this loyalty Austria could not have
ventured on the step she has taken. The government and
people of Germany have the right to know both what Russia
has asked and what Austria has rejected. Such a question as the
participation of Austrian officials in investigating the Serbian
plot is no reason for an international war.5 (Collected Works,
Vol. I, pp. 305, 306.) The article discloses a trace of hope, the
hope of one who stands at the bedside of a dying man 5 but it
shows little confidence in the judgment and stability of the
German government, and still less in Austria's desire for
peace. And rightly so: for we know that the Austrian demand
which Rathenau mentions was put forward with the. express in-
tention of making war with Serbia inevitable.

And so the war came} and Rathenau seemed completely
overwhelmed. Witnesses testify that while the people were
seized with a delirious excitement that has never been paral-
leled, Rathenau was wringing his hands in despair. AJI old
friend, Frau von Hindenburg, describes how he came to her
and sat in silence, while the tears rolled down his cheeks. How

169

WALTHER RATHENAU

differently he had sat opposite Bulow a few years before, scep-
tical, yet eager, accepting without much ado his first official
post, displaying without doubt the gentle magic of his conversa-
tion. Now he was suddenly silent, old, broken. He writes to a
friend in September, that gloriously beautif id St Martin's sum-
mer, which will always be remembered for its mildness by all
who spent it under the open sky: 'The year has lost its colours
and seasons; I feel winter.5 (Letter 145.) He shuddered be-
fore the death shadow which he felt to be spreading over his
beloved land. He saw — what practically no one else did — the
stupendous world machine which was being set in motion
against Germany. He knew its inexhaustible sources of power,
against which those of Germany were small and strictly lim-
ited; he realized the inadequacy of our political leadership, to
whose importance in war people were blindly indifferent; he
saw the fragile nature of the political structure in which the
storm had overtaken us, and the insufficiency of our armament.
He said to the deputy, Conrad Haussmann, in the autumn: cDo
you know, Herr Haussmann, what we are fighting about? I
don't, and I should be glad if you could tell me. What will
come of it? We have no strategists and no statesmen.' (Conrad
Haussmann, SchlagUchter^ pp. 13, 20.)

But what most distressed him was something else: he felt
that the moral strength which had been ours in former wars
was now lacking. He wrote to Fanny Kiinstler in November:
'Apart from this obvious pain there is another, a duller pain,
more mysterious, which benumbs everything within me. We
must win, we must! And yet we have no clear, no absolute right
to do so. ... How different it was in 1870 with the ideal of
unity before us! How different the demand for our very exist-
ence in 1813! A Serbian ultimatum and a mass of confused
precipitate telegrams! Would that I had never seen behind the
scenes of this stage!' (Letter 199.) And in December: 'There
is a false note about this war; it is not 1813, nor 1 866, nor 1 870.

170

IN DAYS TO COME

Necessary or not, superior might or not — it shouldn't have hap-
pened as it did. . . .' (Letter 157.)

This mood remained. The outbreak of war was a blow from
which Rathenau never recovered. It was the crisis of his life.
And the way in which he reacted to it throws more light on the
real relationship between his two natures than all his writings
put together. It was only in his letters that he took flight into
the realm of the soul j in practical life he reacted as a cfear man'
with his intellect, in that he threw his whole personality into the
breach, in the attempt to ward off future dangers of which at
that moment practically nobody but himself was aware. 'Even
if everything else deceives, life itself does not deceive. Con-
sider my life/ he had written to his friend. Ecce Homo! Here
was a choice between two attitudes, a choice which involved not
only his life, but his whole spiritual existence. And he chose that
which the intellect, not the 'soul,' dictated to him. 'Soon after
the outbreak of the war,' he wrote in his diary, 'I took two
steps:

'i. I offered the Chancellor my services and worked out for
him a project for a customs union between Germany-Austria-
Hungary-Belgium-France.

'2. I went to Colonel Scheuch at the War Office and sketched
out to him my ideas for the organization of raw materials.'

It shows the depth of his insight that even at the beginning
of the war he envisaged the dangers of the post-war period cor-
rectly, and instead of proposing an allied customs league, as
Naumann did later in his Central Europe, suggested the in-
clusion of enemy countries, France and Belgium, as well — i.e.
an industrial union of the whole of Europe — a state of affairs
which is being brought ever nearer by developments since the
war.

But it was only his second idea, the organization of raw ma-
terials, which could be put into practice at this date. In an ad-
dress on 'The Organization of Germany's Raw Materials,'

171

WALTHER RATHENAU

given at the ^Deutsche Gesellschaft' on December 2Oth, 1915
(Collected Works, Vol. V., p. 23 /.), he explained with classic
simplicity his guiding principles and the methods he applied.
'Raw materials, organization! An abstract, colourless phrase like
so many others of our time, for modern speech lacks the crea-
tive power to evolve vivid words for strong concrete ideas } a
lifeless phrase, and yet a great conception if one really tries to
picture it. Look around you: everything you see, buildings and
machinery, clothing and food, armaments and traffic — all con-
tain some foreign ingredient. For the industrial life of the
various nations is indissolubly connected} by land and sea the
riches of all the countries of the earth flow together and unite in
the service of life. . . . Every day we hear about the difficul-
ties of providing food for the people. And yet this provision-
ing is based upon a productive capacity which can deal with
more than eighty per cent, of the demand. A blockade can re-
strict our supply, but it cannot annihilate us. It is a different
matter with those materials which are indispensable for carrying
on the war} here a blockade may mean annihilation. . . .
On August 4th last year, when England declared war, the ap-
palling and the unprecedented occurred: our country became a
beleaguered fortress. Cut off by land and sea, we were thrown
on our own resources} and the war lay before us, unpredictable
in duration and expenditure, in danger, and in sacrifice. Three
days after the declaration of war I could not endure the un-
certainty of our position any longer} I went to see the Head of
the General War Department, Colonel Scheuch, and was re-
ceived by him on the evening of August 8th. I put it to him
that our country could probably only reckon on a supply of in-
dispensable war materials for a limited number of months. His
estimate of the duration of the war was not less than mine, so I
felt I had to ask him what had been done and what could be
done to save Germany from strangulation. . . . Very little had
been done* ... On returning home anxious and dispirited I

172

IN DAYS TO COME

found a telegram from the Minister of War, von Falkenhayn,
asking me to come and see him at his office next morning. It was
Sunday, August 9th. The conversation lasted for some time, and
by the end of it the Minister had decided to set up an organiza-
tion, no matter how large, no matter by what means, provided
it was effective and solved the task that was imposed upon us.'

The War Raw Materials Department' was instituted by
ministerial decree. It was directed by Walther Rathenau and a
retired colonel, who was attached as an observer. Rathenau's
other colleagues were Professor Klingenberg of the A.E.G.,
and Wichard von Mollendorf , afterwards Under-Secretary of
State, who, as Rathenau pointed out in his address, cm the
course of friendly conversations with me was the first to put his
finger on this serious breach in our industry.' At its f oundatio*
the department consisted of five people in all. And since the
War Office had no clerical staff to place at their disposal, they
were obliged to spend several hours a day in addressing envel-
opes. Also, the number of materials with which the Department
had to deal was at first small. Foodstuffs and liquid fuel were
excluded 5 but everything which could be described as war raw
materials was included. The official definition ran as follows:
*Such materials as are needed for the defence of the state and
which are not obtainable permanently or in sufficient quantities
within the country itself.' To begin with, only about a dozea
came under this definition, later the number grew from week
to week, and finally there were a good hundred. They begaa
with metals, then came chemicals, then jute, wool, rubber, cot-
ton, leather, hides, flax, linen, ^horsehair. All these materials
were seized in accordance with the new 'commandeering' regu-
lation devised for the purpose on Rathenau's suggestion 5 and
they were then dealt with by another institution, the War In-
dustrial Companies.

In order to collect the materials, or, if they were not forth-
coming in sufficient quantities, to manufacture them and place

173

WALTHER RATHENAU

them at the country's disposal, four different methods were de-
vised: 'Firstly, all the raw materials in the country were con-
trolled [by commandeering] j they were no longer left at the
disposal of individual will and individual caprice. No material
or semi-product was allowed to be used for luxury or for sub-
sidiary purposes. Secondly, we had to force all available ma-
terials from over the frontier into the country, either by buy-
ing them in neutral countries, or by requisitioning them in occu-
pied territory. Thirdly, there was manufacture. We had to see
to it that everything indispensable or unobtainable elsewhere
was manufactured in the country, and that new methods of pro-
duction were discovered and developed in cases where the old
methods were no longer adequate. Fourthly, the materials
which were difficult to obtain had to be replaced by others more
easily procurable.'

The opposition which Rathenau had to overcome would have
broken many a stronger man. Some of the military bureaucrats
regarded him, the civilian and the Jew, whom they had to toler-
ate because he was making up for what they had themselves
neglected to do in long years of peace, with a distrust which
they seemed to take pleasure in accentuating. One day his de-
partment was isolated by a wooden partition, which had grown
up overnight, from those of the other old-established gentle-
men in the War Office, as if it had been a cholera station. Even
with his immediate colleagues his relations were not always very
peaceful; with industry, trade, and agriculture and with certain
deputy generals about the country they were at times positively
warlike. But the tenacity he had acquired through long business
experience and the superior attitude he had so skilfully main-
tained from childhood onwards proved even stronger than the
wooden partition behind which the guerilla war was waged
against him. Under their protection he was able to perfect his
organization and after nine months hand it over, to the vexa-

174

IN DAYS TO COME

tion of his opponents, to a successor from the War Office se-
lected by himself, Lieutenant-Colonel Koeth.

From two points of view this organization of Rathenau's
was, and still is today, of exceptional significance:

It saved large areas of Germany from sharing the fate of
northern France; for without it the German army could only
have defended the frontiers for a few months. As early as Oc-
tober, 1914, the nitrogen question had become so urgent that
General Staff officers at the front considered that the war could
not possibly last beyond the spring, since the supply of nitrate,
which is indispensable for all forms of explosives, would only
kst till then. For the military authorities at the front this ques-
tion was a far more serious matter then than questions of rein-
forcements or even strategy. The catastrophe was only avoided
by the unparalleled speed and skill with which Rathenau took
the necessary steps to conjure away the threatening nitrate
shortage — and this in those same days in which the spiritual and
mystical side of him wrote the despairing letters to Fanny
Kiinstler and told Conrad Haussmann that he didn't know
what we were fighting the war for. Through 'commandeering,'
all the supplies of nitrate in the German Empire (and later in
occupied Belgium, especially in Antwerp harbour) were se-
cured for the armyj and as the War Office had made no pro-
visions for a supply this chiefly consisted of an immense num-
ber of small and even minute quantities which the peasants had
been hoarding for manure and which in a few weeks would
have been spread over the soil and irrevocably lost as far as
the army was concerned. By appropriating these supplies and
deflecting them to the munitions factories (in the face of des-
perate opposition on the part of the farmers) he held in check
the nitrate shortage until such time as this substance, which had
hitherto been exclusively an imported article, could finally be
produced in the country itself. To this end steps were taken to

175

WALTHER RATHENAU

produce nitrogen from the air by the Haber-Bosch process.
Rathenau commissioned numbers of factories with this object,
and thanks to his energy and gift for organization they sprang
up astonishingly quickly, in spite of bureaucratic interference,
and were able to make up in time for the decreasing supplies of
requisitioned material. By Christmas the crisis was over. This
work did as much towards protecting the frontiers of Germany
and frustrating the meeting of Cossacks and Senegalese un-
der the Brandenburger Tor as the Battle of Tannenberg or
trench warfare in France. It was one of the really decisive ac-
tions of the war.

Again, the organization had great significance for the future
of industry. Rathenau touched on this as early as 1915 in his
address. I refer to the War Industrial Companies, which were
an entirely original and typical idea of his own. Their task was
the commercial management of the requisitioned raw materials 5
that is to say, after these had been commandeered it was then-
business to get hold of them, to look after them, if necessary
to collect and store them, to fix their price, and finally to allot
them to industry at the right time and in the right quantity.
No bureaucratic organization composed solely of officials would
have been able to do this, nor would that free play of forces
which we call private enterprise. Therefore, Rathenau invented
and created a new, mixed type of undertaking, the 'War Com-
pany*} and it was these which first placed German industry in a
position to supply the army's requirements.

Rathenau refers in his address to their 'paradoxical nature7:
*On the one hand they signified a decisive step in the direction
of state socialism ... on the other hand they aimed at self-
government in industry, and this on the largest scale. How
were these opposing principles to be reconciled?' 'The War
Companies are self-governing in character, but by no means
unrestricted in their freedom. The War Raw Materials Com-
pany was instituted under strict official supervision. Officials of

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IN DAYS TO COME

the government departments and the ministries have an un-
limited veto, the companies are run for the public benefit and
may not issue either dividends or profits from liquidation. In
addition to the usual bodies of a joint-stock company, the board
of directors etc., they have an independent Commission for Val-
uation and Distribution, directed by officials or members of
Chambers of Commerce. In this way they occupy a position be-
tween a joint-stock company, which embodies the capitalistic
form of private enterprise, and a bureaucratic organization: an
industrial form which perhaps foreshadows the future.5

Through the activity of these companies the whole of Ger-
man industry was converted, according to the different areas of
production, into a series of self-governing bodies, which, under
the supervision of the central state administration, had all pro-
duction and distribution in their hands: an industry regulated
in accordance with the needs of society, carried through to com-
pletion and functioning systematically, which for the first time
in history took the place of an industry existing for the profit of
the private capitalist. Rightly did Rathenau say in his address:
'Our industry is (already in 1915) the closed industry of a
closed industrial state. In the future our methods will have a
very far-reaching effect.'

It is worthy of note that the Allies, too, were compelled by
the pressure of the war to replace private enterprise by a sys-
tematic industry based on their needs. Sir Arthur Salter, who
directed this transition from the one to the other and who
realized like Rathenau its significance for the future, has de-
scribed it in detail in his admirable book, Allied Shipping Con-
trol (Oxford, 1921). The difficulties which confronted the Al-
lies were different in character from those of the Central Pow-
ersj they were not threatened with a shortage of foodstuffs and
raw materials in themselves, but with the difficulty of being
able to transport them both from overseas. Hence their system-
atic industry did not, like ours, develop out of the requisition-

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WALTHER RATHENAU

ing of raw materials for the army by a department of the War
Office, but out of the requisitioning of cargo space for transport
by a department of the Admiralty. But in order to adapt the
production, transport, warehousing, distribution, and prices of
raw materials and foodstuffs to war requirements, they, too,
were obliged to form War Companies for the individual prod-
ucts— the so-called 'Programme Committees/ which, like
Rathenau's, were mixed self-governing bodies under the con-
trol and direction of government officials and which also co-
alesced into an organized industrial system. But in the case of
the Entente this systematic control of industry finally extended
even beyond the national frontiers, because the sea was the com-
mon and indivisible line of communication between all the Al-
lies and the source of their supplies: and towards the end of the
war the national industrial systems of the various Allies — Eng-
land, France, Italy, etc. — were united under an inter-state au-
thority, the 'Allied Maritime Transport Council5 in London.
This welded more than two dozen states into one single inter-
national industrial area for producing the necessary supplies.
In the last two years of the war the most urgent question was
not the conflict between the two armies, but the struggle be-
tween the two industrial bodies, which had divided up the sur-
face of the earth into two powerful state socialist organizations
to the exclusion of all but a few small and rapidly dwindling
enclaves of private enterprise. And what decided the struggle
was not the defeat of the German army, but the defeat of the
German industrial organization through the blockade and the
convoy system. This succeeded in frustrating the German
counter-attack — the attempt to cut the arteries of the allied
supply organization by means of the unrestricted submarine
war. Had this achieved its aim3 the Allies would have been
compelled to abandon the contest, not through a military defeat
in the traditional sense of the term, but through the breakdown
of their supply system. Sir Arthur Salter points out that in

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April, 1917, when the U-boat campaign was at its height, this
appeared to him, and to all who were in a position to review
the situation, to be an imminent danger, and only to be avoided
by the convoy system, which was employed as a last resort. It is,
in any case, an established historical fact that industry system-
atically controlled by public bodies functioned on the whole
satisfactorily on both sides for several years, and that both
parties were thus led to recognize its superiority, at least in war
emergencies, over the traditional type of private enterprise*

Rathenau summed up his war experiences in their relation to
his main problem — the overcoming of mechanization through
a 'realm of the soul' — in a book published in February, 1917,
under the title of In Days to Comey which he supplemented in
January, 19 1 8, by another work, The New Economy. The ideas
he develops here are to be found in essence in his Physiology
of Business, published in 1901. In the meantime, however, the
experience of the 'soul,' and then the war, had both served to
extend and render more precise his original conceptions. For
the experience of the 'soul' gave him an aim which lay beyond
industry and politics 5 while the war, by calling into being new
types of industrial organization, helped to foreshadow a new
order of industry beyond the mechanistic plane, and hastened
a change in outlook which appeared to justify the hope of a
coming reform.

There are three tendencies of the age, furthered by the war,
which seem to point to a stage beyond mechanization — in Rath-
enau's sense to a coming 'realm of the soul': in public opinion,
a growing contempt for mere riches (often in the form of 'anti-
semitism'), which goes along with an increasing respect for re-
sponsibility5 in industry, a progressive depersonalization of
property, brought about by the extension of limited companies
and the multiplication of communal undertakings (War Com-
panies) j and in politics, the development of the sovereign state
into the people's state.

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WALTHER RATHENAU

asks Rathenau, with regard to these tendencies, 'is
the transcendental task to be converted into the pragmatic?'
(In Days to Come, p. 64.)

The answer is: The first step should be the abolition of the
proletariat as such. For the burden imposed on the proletariat
is the greatest hindrance to the life of the soul today. But is
the abolition of the proletariat — i.e. of a dispossessed lower
stratum, compelled to work through want — possible without
crippling the process of production? Would a classless society
produce enough for its own existence? To put it briefly, can we
do without slaves today? * Or is their existence necessary in the
interests of the slaves themselves? If absolutely indispensable
types of labour can be performed only by a dispossessed class,
then the answer must be 'Yes.3 The existence of the proletariat
would then be justified, much as the subordination of the
worker bees to the queen bee, or of the slaves in Plato's state, is
justified. Hence Rathenau attempts to show that in view of
the advances in technical science, public opinion, and private
convictions since the war, a dispossessed lower stratum is no
longer necessary for the maintenance of production.

Hitherto, the most important incentives to production have
been hunger and acquisitiveness, ambition, and the desire for
pleasure. The capitalistic world is the product of thefe stimuli,
a product daily reproduced anew. These driving forces owe
their power to the inheritability and inviolability of private
property, and hence to the persistence of a ruling caste privi-
leged by inheritance and inviolable in its legal foundations —

1 Robert Owen, the great cotton spinner and founder of English socialism, tells
in his reminiscences how, round about 1788, he had to work as many as eighteen
hours a day, as salesman in a London warehouse, when he was only seventeen.
This seems scarcely credible. Yet in the recently published industrial programme
of the Liberal Party (Britain's Industrial Future, Ernest Benn, London, 1928) it
is asserted that at the present time (1928) apprentices from sixteen to seventeen
years of age work as much as sixty, seventy, or even eighty-two hours per week 5
in some cases from eight in the morning until midnight or z A.M., thus from
sixteen to seventeen hours a day (loc. «*., p. 388).

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IN DAYS TO COME

the so-called bourgeoisie. But so long as these impulses deter-
mine the process of production we are bound to have the coun-
terpart of the bourgeoisie — a proletariat suffering from birth
from inherited disabilities. Yet even before the war Rathenau
had shown that these impulses were beginning to yield to oth-
ers. And the war, which made short work of the sacredness of
private property, simultaneously favoured the rise of these
other impulses.

In the first place joy in labour began to return. The ration-
alization and infinite division of labour have made this a luxury,
a mere matter of hearsay, to most modern workers. But a
change is gradually taking place. As Rathenau showed in his
small book, Autonomous Industry (Eugen Diederichs, 1919),
p. 7, the process of production has ca tendency to convert man-
ual labour into supervisory work and thus make it a little less
soulless.' Certainly that alone would not suffice, for 'this trans-
formation takes too long and is after all only partial.' But it is
being supplemented by giving the worker more responsibility
over his mechanical labour, a process which made great strides
everywhere during the war. *As there is so little room for the
rise of responsibility within the actual limits of his labour, the
worker must be able to find this outside those limits by having
a share in the management. The provisional solution of the
problem is the co-operation of the workers and officials in the
conduct of the undertaking3 (loc. cit.}. The ultimate solution,
of which more later, is the 'New Economy,' the uniting of the
whole of industry into self-governing bodies, in which each
worker has a voice. It must suffice here merely to refer to this
and to insist that joy in labour in the form of responsibility is
destined to play an ever-increasing part as a driving force in the
process of production.

But it is not merely the division of labour which kills the joy
in creation j it is even more the necessity, the compulsion, to
perform a hated task. Thus the abolition of the proletariat

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WALTHER RATHENAU

would remove one of the most serious obstacles to this joy in
labour. For it is only when the struggle for existence has ceased
to be a crude matter of life and death that 'there will be room
for those pure forces which will be the moving impulses of the
future. . . . We must have freedom from drudgery, freedom
from want and free choice of occupation; we have spoken of
these conditions; they can be fulfilled. If they are, then there
will no longer be any need for ignoble impulses, for the des-
pot's lash, for greed or fear.3 (In Days to Come, pp. 207, 209.)
On this point Rathenau's views coincide with Kropotkin's,
but run counter to Marx, whose Communist Manifesto, with
its cynical view of human nature, demanded that 'everyone
should be compelled to work, and that industrial armies should
be instituted, especially for agriculture.' To the objection that
without compulsion the majority or at least an impossibly large
number of men would not work, Kropotkin answers that 'dis-
like of work may be common amongst savages, but for the great
mass of civilized peoples work is a habit and laziness an artificial
growth/ (Kropotkin, Anarchistic Communism, p. 31.) Which
is right, Kropotkin or Marx? On the basis of Rathenau's
assumptions — free choice of occupation, increased responsibility
for the worker, increased pressure of public opinion (which
would be equivalent to moral pressure), and elimination of
disagreeable work by mechanical contrivances — it will, I think,
be admitted that in an industry working systematically in rela-
tion to demand, and hence, like the war industries, without
serious market crises, the total number of the unemployed and
work-shy would scarcely exceed the average number of those
who are out of work against their will in our existing society.
Thus at least as much would be produced without the existence
of a lower stratum which is compelled to work by hunger as is
today with this stratum. In those Prussian families of the
official and noble class which were in a position before the war
to offer their sons an assured income, the number of idlers

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IN DAYS TO COME

dwindled away almost to nothing tinder the influence of their
class-consciousness which told them that it was no longer 'good
form' to do nothing. And, indeed, with the progressive ration-
alization of industry and the increase of productivity, very
possibly the most serious problem of the future will not be how
to find the necessary labour supply, but how to deal with the
surplus.

Moreover, the abolition of poverty would immeasurably
strengthen another of these impulses: the feeling of solidarity.
We have already discussed the growth of this sense and its root
in the increasing interdependence of human relationships. Even
before the war Rathenau's Meckmism of the Mind had laid
stress on its significance for the new world order. And the
war, which taught us all the absolute and ever-closer interde-
pendence of people and nations, has done much to develop it.
The elimination of want from the competitive struggle would
so enormously increase the influence of this sense that we may
with some confidence reckon it along with the joy in labour as
an impulse of elemental power in the industrial life of the
future.

Thus Rathenau's answer to the original question: Is a dis-
possessed lower class really necessary today? is an unhesitating
'No.' The second question, which is morally raised by this 'No5:
Will a time come, not incalculably distant, when it will be
possible to abolish the proletariat? he answers with an equally
unhesitating 'Yes.' And in In Days to Come, and especially in
in The New Economy, he sets out to demonstrate this by his
great constructive scheme for a classless society, in which there
would be no proletariat, no hereditary oppression, no privileged
ruling caste. This scheme is the very core of Rathenau's life-
work, the residue of his whole personality, the final outcome of
all his experiences 5 of the mystical, transcendental, religious,
just as much as of those organizational, technical, commercial,
and social experiences which were the result of a singularly

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WALTHER RATHENAU

active and many-sided business career. Whatever one may think
of the details of this scheme, there are two things one cannot
deny: first, the sincerity of the transcendent will, the will to
free the soul, by which it is inspired} and secondly, the accurate
knowledge of all the facts of industry on which it is based. It is
not the project of an armchair theorist or demagogue, and still
less the bright idea of a prosperous dilettante} it is, rather, the
most serious part of the life-work of an unusually serious man,
of a man unusually conscious of his responsibilities, and with a
knowledge of the modern world and particularly of modern
industry equalled by few. A great organizer of industry speaks
on the revolution of industrial organization} that alone entitles
him to be listened to with respect.

The point from which Rathenau starts is this: that, partly
as a result of the war, it would today be technically and
psychologically possible to abolish the dependent condition of
the proletariat without violent revolution. Technically, because
taxation is ruthlessly set on equalizing differences in income.
Psychologically, because the change of attitude which the war
helped on has broken down the resistance to this process.

As Rathenau has shown, the war has brought about a new
way of thinking which may be summed up in the phrase:
'Property, consumption, and demand are not private matters.*
(In Days to Comey p. 74.) <In days to come,' he says, 'people
will find it difficult to understand that the will of a dead man
could bind the living} that any individual was empowered to
enclose for his private gratification mile upon mile of land} that
without requiring any special authorization from the state he
could leave cultivable land untilled, could demolish buildings
or erect them, ruin beautiful landscapes, secrete or disfigure
works of art} that he conceived himself justified, by appropriate
business methods, in bringing whatever portion he could hold
of the communal property under his own private control} justi-
fied, provided he could pay his taxes, in using this property as

184

IN DAYS TO COME

he pleased, in taking any number of men into his own service,
and setting them to whatever work seemed good to him, so
long as there was no technical violation of the lawj justified in
engaging in any kind of business, so long as he did not in-
fringe a state monopoly or promote any enterprise legally
defined as a swindle 5 justified in any practice, however absurd
and however harmful to the community, provided always he
remained able to pay his way' (loc. cit., pp. 75, 76).

What follows? That it is possible even now, because it is
widely recognized to be desirable, to introduce legal provisions
for subordinating industry to the good of the community} that
under these new conditions the dispossessed proletariat must
disappear 5 that the fate of the new order should not be left
either to the free play of forces, or to a revolution, and that
therefore the state must intervene by legislation and devise
some means of abolishing the proletariat. (The New Economy,
p. 218.)

These means are, in the first place, the utmost restriction of
the right of inheritance. 'Among those goods of humanity
which are inviolable and beyond criticism, the moral concept of
the inheritance of wealth and power can find no place. Custom
may have made it acceptable to us, but it is nowise sacrosanct.
. . . Yet the whole nature of our social stratification reposes
upon this moral concept. . . . This is what condemns the pro-
letarian to perpetual servitude, and the rich man to perpetual
enjoyment. It binds the burden of responsibility upon the weary
who would fain repudiate it, and chokes the creative impulse
of the functionless, some of whom long for responsibility.5 (In
Days to Come, p. no.) 'The restriction of the right of in-
heritance, in conjunction with the raising of popular education
to the higher level, will throw down the barriers which now
separate the economic classes of society, and will put an end to
the hereditary enslavement of the lower classes.' He fully
admits that 'the nature of the legislative enactment is a matter

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WALTHER RATHENAU

of minor importance. It is of immeasurably greater significance
that the coming transformation is preceded by changes in senti-
ment and ethical values' (p. 112). But yet he demands that a
legislative reform should accompany this change of sentiment.
CA11 inheritance over and above a moderate amount of landed
property should accrue to the state' (p. 117).

By restricting the right of inheritance to this extent one
would radically affect that state of affairs which divides the
nation into two camps. But other measures, already prepared
for by the change of outlook, are also necessary. Thus there
must be a thoroughgoing state regulation of consumption.
'Consumption is not a private matter j it is a matter for the
community, for the state, for morality and humanity. . . .
The years of labour requisite for the production of some deli-
cate embroidery, or some textile marvel, have been filched from
the clothing of the poorest among us 5 the carefully mown
lawns of a private garden could with less expenditure of labour
have grown wheat 5 the steam yacht, with its captain and crew,
with its stores of food and coal, has been withheld for the
whole term of its existence from the possibility of playing a
useful part in the world's commerce. Economically regarded,
the world, and still more the nation, is a union of producers.
Whoever squanders labour, labour-time, or the means of
labour, is robbing the community' (p. 78). 'The most obvious
way of regulating consumption is an extensive system of taxes
on luxury and excessive consumption. In certain spheres these
taxes may have to be practically prohibitive. The purposes of
such a system must not be fiscal. The revenues derived from
the taxation of luxury are accessory. The primary, the ex-
clusive object of taxation is to restrict consumption' (p. 113).
And, indeed, consumption should be taxed in such a way that
£in the case of any expenditure beyond a reasonable minimum
reckoned at so much per head of population [elsewhere Rathe-
nau mentions three thousand marks as the reasonable yearly

186

IN DAYS TO COME

expenditure for one family] for each mark consumed a mark
should accrue to the state' (p. 83). 'Tobacco and spirits . . .
and, above all, manufactured (including home-manufactured)
articles of luxury must be heavily taxed, to the extent of several
times their original cost of production. . . . The occupation of
space must be taxed. Large private parks, extravagant dwelling-
places, stables, coach-houses and garages must pay their quota
of taxation. Steeply graduated taxation must be imposed upon
domestic service. Horses, carriages, and motors, in so far as
these are used for purposes of luxury; excessive expenditure
upon illumination} costly furniture 5 rank and tide — all should
be the objects of taxation, not as a source of revenue to the
state, but in order to restrict consumption in these directions'
(pp. 113, 114).

However thoroughgoing the taxation of consumption, it can
only really touch the outer covering of upper-class privileges;
but their very core is affected by Rathenau's proposals for an
equalization of property, which amount, indeed, to a complete
taxing away of private wealth. The distribution of property,'
he says, cis no more a private matter than the right to consump-
tion' (p. 100). One is reminded of Proudhon's icy words — La
p-op-iete c?est le vol — especially as state interference with
the rights of property is a revolutionary conception, associated,
in fact, with class war. A multiplicity of owners will combine to
form a class, especially when their rights are hereditarily trans-
missible. They think of increase as well as of security. They
may struggle among themselves, but their chief opponent is the
subject class, all the more when members of this class are not
formally excluded from ownership, but can acquire property,
or perhaps already possess a little. It becomes a matter of press-
ing interest to the owning class that the disinherited should be
deprived of all power; that they should be excluded from access
to the weapons of culture, organization, and ownership; that
they should be allowed only such a modicum of rights and re-

187

WALTHER RATHENAU

sponsibilitles as is essential to the maintenance of the existing
social equilibrium. . . . Two concomitants appear. . . . One
of these is power, which is inseparably associated with owner-
ship, and which tends as time passes to come more into the
foreground. The other is inheritance, traditionally associated
with property, although the association is not perhaps destined
to be permanent. In conjunction, the two constitute the power
of the owning class' (pp. 87, 88). 'Economically considered,
the whole civilized world today lives under the dominion of a
mighty plutocracy* (p. 96). (A variation of the remark for
which he was so bitterly reproached: 'Three hundred men con-
trol the economic destiny of the Continent.') 'Plutocracy is
group dominion, oligarchy; and of all forms of oligarchy it is
the most objectionable.' 'Plutocracy does not rest on common
ideas, but on common interests.'

Rathenau now proceeds to examine the ethical and economic
justification of personal wealth. 'Where does personal wealth
come from? How is it acquired?' (p. 101). 'Is wealth savings?
In view of the brevity of human life, a moderate competence
is the utmost that can be saved out of the regular income from
labour. The income which can be heaped up to form riches
is not the reward of labour; it is the winnings of other
categories. The popular notion that any one can grow wealthy
simply in virtue of thrift is erroneous. . . . Any one who
desires to become wealthy must satisfy a widespread economic
demand. But this alone does not suffice, for competition plays
its part. Competitors appear to satisfy a portion of the demand,
and to secure a share in the profits derived from its satisfaction.
In the end the entrepreneur finds that, instead of the anticipated
wealth, he earns no more than average profits, receives merely
the average return for his trouble. The acquisition of wealth,
therefore, is only possible when the entrepreneur can restrict
competition, can raise the profits at pleasure, or can indefinitely
extend the circle of those who are willing to make the requisite

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IN DAYS TO COME

sacrifice. Nothing but a recognized or an enforced monopoly
will put him in such a position' (p. 102). 'Monopolies enrich
their holders, and there is no other way to wealth7 (p. 103).
'At the same time it is obvious that it would be a very simple
matter for legislation to regulate all the sources of individual
wealth, and if necessary to take them out of individual hands'
(p. 104).

Now, the war has shaken to the roots the conception of the
inviolability of private property. State interventions in rights of
property, which amount at times to expropriation, are passed
over almost without comment; it is taken for granted that the
interests of the community take precedence over the economic
right of individuals. cThe first step towards the kingdom of
the future is the realization that industry is everybody's affair.'
Thus the way lies open for the regulation of the conditions of
property and the adjustment of differences of property by the
state.

Of all the reasons which Rathenau brings forward for
abolishing inequalities of property he lays the greatest emphasis
on the monopoly in education enjoyed by the children of rich
parents. 'Our age . . . cannot fail to recognize that every
citizen who, from childhood onwards, is denied access to the
cultural advantages of his day is being robbed. Not only is the
individual robbed, but the state is likewise cheated' (p. 88). It
demands, therefore, universal and equal education. But 'how-
ever well-meant this demand, its fulfilment is hampered by
many restrictions. . . . From rich mansions and poor tenement
houses the members of hostile classes are brought together as
school-mates. The former have been well cared for, and possess
the class consciousness of the well-to-do j accustomed to listen
to the conversation of cultured parents, they have tolerable
manners, express themselves with ease, and are already
equipped with the elements of knowledge derivable from an
environment of good books and works of arts they have gained

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WALTHER RATHENAU

experience from travel, and have often profited by elementary
tuition 5 they are vigorous and well-nourished, with trained
bodies, refreshed by quiet sleep. The others, in all these re-
spects, display opposite characteristics. Now there is demanded
from them new behaviour, a new speech, and the adoption of a
new outlook j they must leave the familiar circle of life, and
while this mere change of scene is already dissipating part
of their energy and will-power, they must laboriously acquire
a new knowledge which comes so easily to their well-dressed
school-mates, and which these already in large measure pos-
sess. Embarrassed and helpless, these little citizens often
enough grow stubborn when obscurely and painfully they be-
come aware of the great gulf fixed between themselves and
their more fortunate companions. Nothing but exceptional
strength of will and exceptional talent can bridge this gulf $
and, even for the exception, talent and will-power may prove
without influence upon the career. As for the others, after a
brief contact they relapse into utter hopelessness, blaming not
merely outward inequalities of fortune, but their own profound
inadequacies' (pp. 88, 89). c£quality in education can only
bear fruit upon the soil of equality in the circumstances of life,
equality in domestic conditions, and equality in civic origin.
. . . Once again we find ourselves compelled by moral neces-
sity to adopt a policy of economic equality' (p. 90).

Thus Rathenau demands that all private wealth be progres-
sively taxed out of existence by taxes on property and income:
*Not, however, as of old will these be regarded as an ultimate
resource for the levying of national revenue, imposed with
fear and trembling, and paid with reluctance. Such taxes will
imply a recognition of the fact that a person who acquires
means beyond what is necessary for the ordinary amenities of
civilized life is only the conditional owner of that which he
acquires, and the state is fully entitled to relieve him of any
or all of it* (p. 114).

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IN DAYS TO COME

This demand, if one takes it seriously, goes far beyond the
programme of the Socialists, which, after all, does not exclude
inequality of property^ it approaches Communism. But did
Rathenau mean it seriously? Is it not perhaps simply a red flag
which he liked to wave over his ultimately capitalist industrial
structure? The answer lies in his whole system. For it is just
this demand for the furthest possible equalization of property
which is most intimately bound up with his goal: the removal
of all obstacles to the free unfolding of man's soul. In fact,
under present conditions, it cannot be separated from this aim,
in so far as in our civilization lack of education makes inner
freedom impossible. Christianity, which also preached the king-
dom of inner freedom in the soul of man, was able to dispense
with equalization of property and communal ownership, but
only when the civilization of antiquity had begun to decline, and
when no education or knowledge were necessary to enable one
to equal the best of the age in spiritual growth.

But if private property is to be completely abolished, where
shall we be able to find another adequate incentive to work? To
put it in another way, how is one going to persuade the leaders
and pioneers of industry to step forth, to set to work, and accept
heavy responsibility, without the enticement of wealth? No
objection is so frequently brought up against far-reaching
schemes of social reform as this one, that under an economic
system in which personal profit is either rigorously restricted or
completely forbidden all incitement to progress would be lack-
ing, and hence stagnation or retrogression would be the result.
'May it not be that when society has been deprived of these
motive forces, its mechanism will run down 5 may it not come to
pass that the progress of civilization will be arrested} will not
the physical and the spiritual goods of mankind fall into decay?
Or will forces remain in operation competent to continue the
planetary process under purer conditions?* (p. 162). Rathenau
replies that there is no cause for anxiety, for the leaders no less

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WALTHER RATHENAU

than the liberated proletariat would be moved by other im-
pulses, by joy in creation, love for their work and the feeling
of solidarity, and moved not only to jog along with the others,
but to exert their influence as innovators, leaders, and pioneers.
And more important still, they would be moved by the true
driving forces of the born leader: the will to power and the
desire for responsibility, which impel him, quite apart from
considerations of pleasure and profit, to great achievements and
great risks. Thus the problem of economic leadership in a
society where the individual has no opportunity of enriching
himself does after all admit of solution, 'and that by distin-
guishing clearly the three effective forms of property: the right
to enjoyment, the right to power, and the right to responsi-
bility' (p. 93). That is to say, the leader- should be left the pros-
pect of power and responsibility j then one can safely deprive
him of the prospect of personal gain, without making him any
the less creative or happy in his work.

One can count on this all the more confidently when the
forms of industry brought into being by capitalism in its last
stages induce of themselves a 'new way of thinking* in the great
industrialists. In his brilliant little work Stocks and Shares
(Vom Aktienvoesen), published in October, 1917, soon after In
Days to Come, which is a sort of reconnaissance before the
break-through to new economic conceptions in The New
Economy, Rathenau maintains that 'the great undertaking of
today is no longer purely a system of private interests} it is
rather, both individually and collectively, a national concern
belonging to the community, which owing to its origin still
bears, rightly or wrongly, the marks of an undertaking run
purely for profit, but which for some time and to an increasing
degree has been serving the public interest.' (Collected Works,

Vol. V, p. 154.)

'Almost without exception,' he says in the earlier book, In

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IN DAYS TO COME

Days to Come, 'these enterprises assume the impersonal form
of the joint-stock company. No one is a permanent owner. The
composition of the thousandfold complex which functions as
lord of the undertaking is in a state of perpetual flux. . . .
This condition of things signifies that ownership has been de-
personalized. . . . The depersonalization of ownership simul-
taneously implies the objectification of the thing owned. The
claims to ownership are subdivided in such a fashion, and are
so mobile, that the enterprise assumes an independent life, as
if it belonged to no one} it takes an objective existence, such as
in earlier days was embodied only in state and church, in a
municipal corporation, in the life of a guild or a religious order.
. . . The executive instruments of an official hierarchy become
the new centre. . . . Even today the paradox is conceivable
that the enterprise might come to own itself by buying out the
individual shareholders with its profits. . . . The deperson-
alization of ownership, the objectification of enterprise, the
detachment of property from the possessor, leads to a point
where the enterprise becomes transformed into an institution
which resembles the state in character' (pp. 120, 121).

Rathenau describes this state of affairs as the 'autonomy* of
the undertaking. For its juridical position and development he
might have pointed to the old German guild law, which con-
ceived of the guilds not purely as fictive 'juridical' persons de-
riving their rights purely from those of their members, as was
the Roman conception, but as real institutions acting in their
own right, and maintaining their own existence independently
of their members. Gierke had already years ago called attention
to the juridical similarity between the modern joint-stock com-
pany and the German conception of the state modelled on that
of medieval German guild law.? Thus Rathenau is right in
saying that the depersonalization of ownership transforms the
undertaking into an institution which resembles the state in

2 Gierke, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, 3 vols., 1868, 1873, 1881.

193

WALTHER RATHENAU

character. For there is no legal difference of principle between
such an autonomous industrial undertaking and that association
of all the nation's citizens which is known as the state.

Naturally enough this objective development of the under-
taking is followed by the subjective psychological development
of the man in charge of it. 'In so far as leaders of private enter-
prise on a large scale still exist, they have long been accustomed
to regard their businesses as independent entities, incorporated
objectively as companies. Such an entity has its own personal
responsibility; it works, grows, makes contracts and alliances on
its own account; it is nourished by its own profits; it lives for
its own purposes. The fact that it nourishes the proprietor may
be purely accessory, and in most cases is not the main point. A
good man of business will incline to restrict unduly his own
and his family's consumption, in order to provide more
abundant means for the strengthening and extension of the
firm. The growth and the power of this organism is a delight to
the owner, a far greater delight than lucre. The desire for gain
is overshadowed by ambition and by the joy of creation. Such
an outlook is accentuated among the heads of great corporate
undertakings. Here we already encounter an official idealism
identical with that which prevails in the state service. The execu-
tive officials labour for the benefit of times when in all human
probability they will long have ceased to be associated with the
enterprise. Almost without exception they do their utmost to
reserve for the undertaking the larger moiety of its profits, and
to distribute no more than the lesser moiety in the form of
dividends, although to the detriment of their individual in-
comes. . . . Covetousness, as the motive force, has been com-
pletely superseded by the sense of responsibility. Thus the
psyche of the industrialist works in the same direction as the
evolution of the conditions of ownership' (pp. 122, 123). In
other words, the power which a gigantic concern of this sort
offers the industrialist is so f asdnating that it constitutes in itself

194

IN DAYS TO COME

an incitement to the greatest efforts, even if it does not bring
him much reward.

But here one encounters another objection: would not the
result of the universal equalization of property simply be to
make everybody equally poor? Rathenau calculates that on the
scale of production in pre-war Germany, and making allowance
for the necessary reserve for the renewal and extension of the
means of production, each family would be entitled to an income
of about three thousand marks. Even if one increases this to,
say, four thousand marks present value, it would preclude all
but the most modest style of living. And therefore the most
pressing task of the new industry is 'so to increase its efficiency
by internal reorganization that the produce of human labour if
distributed fairly and naturally will ensure decent conditions of
life to the individual and free cultural development to the com-
munity.' (The New Economy, p. 207.) And its economic goal
would be 'to raise the standard of industrial activity' (p. 208).

Practically, therefore, perhaps the most important and in-
controvertible part of Rathenau's programme of reform is that
which relates to the heightening of productivity and the better
satisfaction of demand. 'Theoretically,' he says, 'the extent to
which the efficiency of an industry can be increased is quite
unlimited. One can imagine factories so completely mechanized
that one man would suffice to keep the whole clockwork of
production going. In fact, there are certain works, particularly
in the chemical and electrical industry, which have very nearly
reached this state already. Now suppose we had a country
equipped with a thousand such works; the amount of goods it
could produce is beyond calculation, and the individual's share
of the consumption, in so far as the system of distribution was
tolerably just, would be as large as he liked. And as for a
shortage of raw materials throughout the earth, that is such a
remote possibility that we need not let it worry us here.

IJut we shall not arrive at complete mechanization of the

195

WALTHER RATHENAU

means of production all at one blow. All we can do is to speed
up the process to a certain point. For all mechanization demands
reorganization, and this is the result of a stupendous sum of
stored-up labour and inventive skill, of living capital* ... It
cannot proceed more quickly than the world's annual saving of
labour, which is of equal significance. . . . All saving of labour
helps to further the reorganization of world industry, and its
progress in the course of centuries will mean the heightening
of the effectiveness of labour, the increase of goods available for
consumption, the shortening of working hours and the raising
of the standard of living. . . . Hence every hour wasted owing
to imperfect technical development is a national loss' (p.
208 f .)•

From the standpoint of wasted labour Rathenau criticizes our
present economic system root and branch. Its basic defect is
cthe wrong turning given, wittingly or unwittingly, to the
whole process of production' (p. 211). This is the outcome of
unregulated competition and the concentration on profit and
nothing but profit, which means satisfying the demand for
luxuries before dealing with the demand for the necessities of
life. *We spend from two to three thousand millions yearly on
intoxicating liquors, we squander hundreds of millions on show
and all manner of rubbishy trifles, we allow tens of thousands
of able-bodied men to lurk behind the shop counters of our
great cities, and hundreds of thousands virtually to live in rail-
way carriages the whole year round fighting out the competitive
struggle for business orders, with the result that at the end of
the year each firm has sold neither much more nor much less
than last year. Now all this betokens not merely a loss in
national saving, but a positive misdirection of the whole process
of production, through which labour and materials are wasted
to an incalculable degree, factories lie idle, the cost of produc-
tion is heightened and the power to compete with other coun-
tries sensibly diminished' (p. 212).

196

IN DAYS TO COME

Thus the organization of industry is wrong in general; but
it is also wrong and wasteful in particular. Rathenau enumerates
its defects in organization under four heads:

1. With the same resources and the same working hours,
different factories produce an astonishingly unequal quantity of
goods. The causes of under-production in many works are:
wrong situation, antiquated machinery, and failure to utilize
new technical devices for saving power and labour. Germany's
coal consumption alone could be diminished by half if all fac-
tories were run on scientific lines and all sources of power made
accessible. And this saving would itself be completely eclipsed
by the gain in labour, materials and transport, and the increase
in productivity and turnover, if this reorganization were ex-
tended simultaneously to plant and situation, to equipment and
the running of the concern (p. 216 #.).

2. Splitting up of production in factories and types, which
gets in the way of a systematic and scientifically thought-out
division of labour between the different factories, and hence
prevents mass production. 'The entire modern system of pro-
duction is based on the idea of mass control and division of
labour. . . . But whereas within the individual factory the
division of labour is carried out consciously and to an increasing
extent, from factory to factory and between the various groups
it is still left in the main simply to tradition and to the chance
workings of the principle of equilibrium. The group division
of labour, if I may so call it, has made the greatest progress in
England and America, where consumption is at its highest and
production at its most uniform. The English cotton industry
owes much of its world supremacy to this fact. There are im-
portant English factories which spin no more than two or three
different qualities; whereas with us infinitely smaller concerns
find themselves compelled to undertake both coarse and fine
spinning at the same time.

197

WALTHER RATHENAU

'It is impossible to foresee the extent of the economy and
increase in production that would result from a scientific allot-
ment of labour between the different groups. But the specialist
can get some idea of what would happen if he reflects that all
intermediate factories would be transformed into specialist
factories, always working full time at the one kind of work,
with staffs of picked specialists devoting all their energies to
the development of their own particular province, without
having to be responsible for any odd piece of work that hap-
pened to turn up' (pp. 217, 218).

This division of labour between the different factories in the
same branch of industry presupposes, of course, an extensive
standardization of production. 'If Germany succeeds — and it
will succeed, though perhaps not under private enterprise —
in carrying normalization and reduction to type to the point de-
manded by a really scientific labour system, then with an appro-
priate division of work between factory and factory one could
be sure of at least doubling one's productivity, though equip-
ment and working costs remained the same' (p. 221).

3. If what may be termed the horizontal division of labour
between different factories dealing with the same stage of pro-
duction is thoroughly uneconomic, so is that vertical division
which exists between factories which handle raw material in its
progress from intermediate product to semi-product and final
product, and then on its way from the last manufacturer to the
wholesale dealers, large and small, the retailer, and the con-
sumer. 'The time spent on commercial travelling and the dis-
tribution of trifling luxuries and articles of consumption, such as
tobacco, stationery, soap, involves the loss to industry of whole
armies of young and able-bodied men, whose numbers easily
run into six figures' (p. 224).

4. Finally, we lack adequate protection for the country's in-
dustry: protection against competition from without and waste
from within. So long as economic nationalism rules the world,

IN DAYS TO COME

we cannot, to our cost, employ foreign workmen or officials, or
pay interest on foreign loans. This state of things 'will ulti-
mately help people to realize that the industry of the world is
and ought to be a communal industry' (p. 226). But *above all
we cannot allow the old and absolute right, dating from the
time when there was a surplus of resources, to remain intact —
the right of every one who can afford it to employ the labour
resources of the nation for his personal comfort and show, or
for any supposedly industrial purpose he thinks fit ...
Hitherto every heir or recipient of a dowry has been at liberty
to surround himself with a swarm of lackeys; or, if he wanted
to engage in industry, to employ workmen, foremen, and
officials, with the help of whom and of the machinery he had
raked together he was free to start on any sphere of industry
which interested him or seemed likely to prove profitable. In
future the needs of the community must be the deciding factor.
This question of objective, scientifically demonstrable, and
verifiable requirements will form the central point in all
scientific decisions' (p. 228).

The eradication of these mistakes, the reorganization of in-
dustry along proper lines, the progressive increase of produc-
tion with a view to heightening the general standard of living,
the supersession of private enterprise by a communal industrial
system based on demand — these things cannot be left to the
pky of laisser faire. With a blunt directness which is a little
difficult to reconcile with his contempt for ^technical organiza-
tion* as contrasted with changes of mental attitude, Rathenau
advocates a systematic £New Economy' carried through with the
necessary powers and afterwards consolidated by definite regu-
lations. 'The division of labour according to groups can no more
be left to the free play of forces than the internal technical re-
form of individual factories; this task, like the others, can only
be accomplished by a comprehensive reorganization of industry.

199

WALTHER RATHENAU

For good intentions alone, unless they go hand in hand with
supreme authority, are helpless in the face of the arbitrary
splitting up of markets' (p. 218).

His own experiences in connection with Germany's war in-
dustry must have convinced him of the necessity for some
authority strong enough to overcome all obstacles to a thorough
reorganization, and for some means of consolidating the new
system once it had been introduced. The consideration of what
this authority should be and how it should come into being
naturally raises the question whether a dictatorship of the pro-
letariat or of some other group, say a Fascist dictatorship, which
could avail itself of the resources of the state, would be neces-
sary for this purpose. When Rathenau wrote The New
Economy y the Russian Revolution had already taken place. Yet
he himself had no belief in the success either of a sudden revo-
lutionary transformation or of one brought about by over-hasty,
though peaceful, means j because both the necessary increase of
the means of production on the basis of economy, and the
equally necessary change of mental attitude, must needs be
slow to take effect. Thus the only transformation possible is a
slow one 5 one which follows in the wake of increased produc-
tion and changes in public opinion, though at the same time one
which is consciously directed by its leaders, and supported by
the resources of the state.

Having dealt with the necessity for a change of attitude and
for adequate authority, Rathenau then proceeds to depict in
detail that new organization of industry for which he is striving,
the ultimate product of which would be his New Economy. 'Let
us imagine,' he says, 'that all factories of the same kind, whether
industrial, commercial, or mechanical, are co-ordinated, say, all
cotton spinning mills, all iron rope factories, all joiners' works,
all wholesale dealers in goods, all in separate units; imagine
further that each of these associations is co-ordinated with the
other fiusinesses connected with it, and thus that the whole of

20O

IN DAYS TO COME

the cotton industry, the iron industry, the timber industry, and
the linen industry are amalgamated in separate groups. The
first of these organizations we may call functional unions, the
second industrial unions. . . . Associations of this type already
exist in large numbers and in every field, but they serve only
private interests, not industry in general. Functional and in-
dustrial unions would be corporations recognized and supervised
by the state, enjoying extensive rights of their own' (p. 231).

Actually the most important element in the foundation on
which Rathenau is building is not simply the combination of
works of the same kind into unions, but over and above this the
object for which they are combined: for they are not to be
simply representative of private interests, but, like the War
Companies, are to serve the community. Rathenau rightly in-
sists that it is this fact which fundamentally distinguishes them
from those industrial unions, combines, cartels, and trusts which
are becoming increasingly common even under the present sys-
tem of private enterprise. The value of the new order of in-
dustry to be built on them would therefore depend before
everything else upon the means by which, and the degree to
which, they could be brought into relation with these com-
munal aims.

'The most important of the two types of organization,7 says
Rathenau, 4s the functional union. ... It is not only dosely
related to the neighbouring groups, but also to the workers, the
public and the state. ... In form, the functional union most
resembles a limited company, in its activity, a combine. The
individual undertakings are interested in the company (i.e. in
the functional union as company) according to their productive
capacity} they elect the management, which in its turn nomi-
nates the directors. . . . Each undertaking delivers its goods
to the combine (i.e. to the functional union as combine) in so
far as they belong to the industrial circle of the union j those
goods which require further treatment are taken at a discount.

2OI

WALTHER RATHENAU

. . . The union is responsible for selling the goods at prices
which are graded for the small and large consumer, the trader
and those who will work upon the goods further, respectively;
the person who uses the goods himself also has to pay the price
for the completion of the manufacturing process.

cSo far there has been little to distinguish either the structure
or the activity of the union from that of any other syndicate.
The differences begin with the co-operation of the state. . . .
The state grants the functional union important rights, some-
times almost amounting to prerogatives: the right to accept or
reject new participants, the exclusive right to purchase home
and imported goods, the right to close down unproductive fac-
tories with compensation, the right to purchase concerns for the
purpose of closing them down, converting or developing them.
... In return, the state demands a share in supervising the
administration; it demands also that the union shall work for
the common good; and finally it demands a proportion of the
profits. . . . The state is represented on the management . . .
in addition to the workers' (p. 231 jf.).

What are the activities of the functional union? Rathenau
mentions among others:

The organization and handling of sales and export, and ex-
tension of markets.

The procuring, and, if necessary, the importation, of raw
materials and other materials with the assistance of commerce;
the importation of manufactured goods, in so far as, and so long
as, home production is inadequate.

The increase and cheapening of production through the dis-
semination of technical experience, the improvement and re-
equipment of factories, the closing down of unproductive works
and the purchase of those that are obstructive or badly man-
aged; if necessary, the erection and maintenance of its own
model factories and the extension and, when required, the
financing of suitably situated and productively run concerns.

202

IN DAYS TO COME

'The preparation and execution of a large-scale and scientifi-
cally thought-out scheme for the division of labour between
factory and factory, and between district and district. The dis-
tribution of quotas for production, and the deciding voice and
co-operation in the erection of new factories.

'The introduction of uniform types, norms, and models} the
cutting down of the quite superfluous types for show purposes.

'Negotiations and relations with the neighbouring unions of
the same industry, with unions of officials and workers} repre-
sentation of the interests of the union before the government
and legislature' (p. 234 #.)•

Thus it is not the state, nor any official department, but the
functional union (in the administration of which the state co-
operates through its representatives) which effects the trans-
formation of industry, and which, in conjunction with the other
functional unions, works out its scheme, rationalizes and stand-
ardizes production, is responsible for technical progress, and
regulates import and export. Behind it, but with extremely self-
restricted powers, stands the state.

But, it may be objected, will not these unions of carpenters,
cotton spinners, weavers, printers, hat makers, glove makers,
will not all these unions become modernized guilds in the spirit
of the Meistersinger period and relapse into red tape and
nepotism? Rathenau answers, 'No.7 For the functional union is
not an association of small and individual autonomous concerns,
formed to protect individual interests, 'but rather a community
of production, in which all the members are organically bound
up with one another, to right and left, above and below, in
which they are welded into a living unity, possessed of a com-
mon vision, judgment, and will — in fact, not a confederation,
but an organism' (p. 235). He might have added that the co-
operation of the community, and especially of the consumers, in
its management would alone preclude the danger of a relapse
into the fossilized condition of the medieval guilds.

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WALTHER RATHENAU

The functional unions would thus become the nerve centres
of the new industry. 'The activity of the industrial unions is
more simple and fundamental than that of the functional
unions.' The main tasks of the organized industry as a unit
consist in adjustment and mediation between the functional
unions. Generally speaking, there is no profit-making com-
munity within the industrial union, and it need not therefore
have the outward form of a company run for profit} it is suf-
ficient that it should have the form of a union formed to pro-
mote an object (p. 238). Negotiations between different func-
tional unions take place within the framework of the industrial
union over questions of demand, times of delivery, mode of
payment, complaints of the workers, development, limitation
of output, 'Every one who is well acquainted with industry will
appreciate the enormous advantage which is obtained from a re-
view of one's requirements if possible every year* When one
knows at regular intervals the quantity and quality of rails,
yarn, kettles, motors, accessories, chemicals, or panes of glass
that will be required, it is possible to draw up far-reaching pro-
grammes for manufacture and distribution of work, with the
result that all factories work permanently at top pressure, pro-
duction is enormously cheapened, large warehouses are no
longer necessary, traffic is diminished, work speeded up, capital
and interest saved, and efficiency raised generally. Each industry
in its entirety can estimate the extent of the demand both at
home and abroad. . . . Trade between union and union does
away with the middleman, and there is no further need for the
countless branch depots, the hundreds of thousands of com-
mercial travellers, and the dead warehouses, dead stock, doubt-
ful credit, and surreptitious financing. . . . But trade still has
its function, though in a new form. Goods have to be collected
from the various sources into repositories, they have to be sent
from the repositories along various channels, and overseas and
inter-state connections have to be kept up' (p. 238 jf.).

204

IN DAYS TO COME

Who will finance the new industry — i.e. who will take the
financial risk of developing existing undertakings or creating
new ones? 'If we consider/ says Rathenau, 'the actual func-
tioning of large-scale private property, looking at the matter
in a purely mechanical way and leaving aside ethico-social im-
plications, we see that such property performs a duty which
• . . is of great importance from the economic point of view.
Private property shoulders the risks of the world economy.

'All the enterprises of the capitalist system share common
characteristics; they all require large means, and they are all
risky. The revenue department of any properly organized com-
munity can supply the requisite means* Much more difficult,
however, is it for a municipality or a state to engage in bold
ventures. These corporations lack the passionate stimulus of
private enterprise; the sense of responsibility renders them
timid; they are devoid of that autocratic and instinctive judg-
ment which makes the prospects of success outweigh the possi-
bilities of danger. Onlookers are apt to imagine that specialized
skill can provide a substitute for the aforesaid incisive powers of
judgment, but the desiderated substitute will not prove effective
when the risks of great enterprises are under consideration; the
experts will differ among themselves, and by the time they have
settled their differences, the favourable opportunity will have
been lost.

'Private capital secures ample funds by the joint-stock
method; it encounters the risks of enterprise by indefatigable
endeavours towards success and profit; it overcomes the un-
certainties of the future by exercising the greatest possible care
in the choice of its agents, and by the number and variety of
its enterprises.

^Hitherto this demand could be met only by means of the
surplus capital which, accumulating in the hands of the well-to-
do after these had consumed all they considered requisite for
daily life, clamoured for reinvestment and increase. The

205

WALTHER RATHENAU

smaller savings were satisfied with increased security and less
risk.

'The question now arises, what new capitalistic forms will re-
place private enterprise, when the superfluities of individual
wealth have disappeared owing to the diffusion of a general
and equalized well-being?' (In Days to Come, pp. 119, 120.)

To this Rathenau replies that almost all big concerns are
constituted in the form of companies, and directed by officials
who have to bear at least the moral risk for all new ventures
or developments of existing ones. And if these undertakings
become communal in the sense of the New Economy, very little
alteration will really be necessary. clf the constitution [of such
an undertaking] be wisely drafted, the enterprise will be able
to provide for all future requirements of capital, however ex-
tensive these may become. Its first resource will be to lay hands
on the revenues which hitherto from year to year it has dis-
tributed to the shareholders. Next, temporarily or permanently,
it can issue debentures. In case of need it can retract a step and
issue new shares. Above all, if under the protection of a state
whose wealth is inexhaustible (the state of the New Economy is
such a state, because it acquires by taxation all the wealth of
private individuals and practically the complete revenue of all
undertakings) and if subjected to the control of this state, it has
a right to expect that in case of need the state will provide it
with funds in return for sufficient guarantees. Nay, more, the
state itself will wish and demand that autonomous enterprises
shall be willing at any time, under proper supervision, to take
over and to invest surpluses from the state treasury5 (p. 122).

In actual fact a very considerable proportion of big under-
takings all over the world today are financed by these methods,
for the participation or supervision of a state or community has
transformed them into communal industrial concerns. In Ger-
many, according to Professor Julius Hirsch, the capital of all
such big undertakings amounts to fifty-two thousand million

206

IN DAYS TO COME

marks. (Report of the Berlin Chamber of Industry and Com-
merce, March 10th, 1927, p. 224.) According to the Report on
Britain's Industrial Futurey which the British Liberal party
recently compiled with Professor Keynes's help, the capital of
the big undertakings in Great Britain which are more or less
socialized in this sense amounts to four thousand million
pounds, which the Report estimates to be about two-thirds of
the total capital invested in large British undertakings.
(Britain's Industrial Futurey 1928, p. 74.)

In other words, in the New Economy the state in its capacity
of banker, the state bank, will absorb almost the whole net
profit of the country's industry by taxing consumption, income
and property; and thus, together with municipal bodies and the
like, will acquire what is practically unlimited power over the
maintenance, development and foundation of undertakings.
But the risk involved in founding and developing these under-
takings will have to be borne in the main by the functional
unions with the financial support of the state or the munic-
ipality. Hence it is not surprising that no provision is made in
the New Economy for a body which shall protect the industrial
unions, regulate the relations between them, and in fact have
control over the industry as a whole. Nevertheless the functions
of such a body Rathenau considers indispensable — i.e. 'the
determining of what materials, by what means, and to what
ends both the individual and the community shall carry on
production.*

For the regulator of the whole industrial structure is in fact
the state. 'Every one of the changes which we have demanded
on moral, social and economic grounds will strengthen the
powers and completeness of the state. The state will become the
moving centre of all economic life. Whatever society does will
be done through the state and for the sake of the state. It will
dispose of the powers and the means of its members with greater
freedom than the old territorial potentates; the greater part of

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WALTHER RATHENAU

the economic surplus will accrue to it: all the well-being of the
country will be incorporated in the state. There will be an end
of economico-social stratification, and consequently the state will
assume all the powers now wielded by the dominant classes.
The spiritual forces under its control will be multiplied. . . .
The state in which the popular will has thus been embodied and
made manifest cannot be a ckss state. . . . We are faced with
the demand for a People's State.' (In Days to Come, p. 203.)

From his first political article The New Era (1907) on-
wards Rathenau had consistently advocated the effective partici-
pation of the people in the affairs of the nation and the right of
their leaders to hold important state positions. Thus the fact
that during the war he put forward these same demands with
redoubled vigour did not imply any change of faith. For the
'People's State' simply means a state in which the most gifted
personalities from the ranks of the people are free to rise to the
highest offices of state and in which each individual has a voice
in all decisions which affect his interests or outlook. The opposite
of the People's State is the feudal state, in which rank and
property alone lead to the top and in which momentous decisions
lie entirely outside the control of those they concern. The Ger-
man Empire under William II. was no longer the complete
feudal state j it was a mixture, a mongrel incapable of survival.
For whereas the outstanding positions in the industrial world
were open to fairly wide sections of the people, the leading
posts in the army and administration were still filled in accord-
ance with feudal principles j and the people's right to control
their own destinies in political questions was merely theoretical,
while in practice they were deprived of this right by the astute
manoeuvrings of the ruling class, the servility of the people's
representatives and the indifference of the middle classes.

We know what importance Rathenau attached to free selec-

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IN DAYS TO COME

tion from the broad masses of the people for political and ad-
ministrative office, not only after, but long before the war. In
this connection the particular form of the constitution does not
matter very much. Under a monarchy of the English or Swed-
ish type the method of selection may be on the broadest possible
basis, whereas a republic can put all sorts of formidable obstacles
in the way of talent. These things,' as Rathenau once said,
speaking of political corruption, 'are not matters of the form,
but of the essence; they are psychological traits of the peoples
from which they spring.' Hence those who refuse to recognize
Rathenau as a true democrat, because he subordinated the form
of the state to its spirit, misunderstand the real depth of his
conviction. He was not satisfied with the mere name, but de-
manded the thing itself.

He considered the best apparatus for the selection of political
talent to be Parliament through the agency of political parties.
'The parliamentary system,' he says, cis indispensable, because
it is a school for, and a means of selecting, statesmen and
politicians.' That is 'the real meaning of the parliaments of our
age.' (In Days to Come.} At the same time, they still fulfil
their original function of providing a means by which the
people can exercise its control, even though in a very inadequate
and partial fashion. And in view of this inadequacy Rathenau
adopts the new conception which has arisen in France, America,
and England in the course of the last generation on the basis
of Gierke's guild idea, the conception of councils — i.e. the
view that each group of men who fulfil a common function act
in their own right, and that the state merely exists as the
supreme arbiter between these various groups. It follows from
this that, owing to the impossibility of doing justice to the
enormous variety of interests in the modern state, the individual
can exercise his rights in a reasonable, genuine, and effective
way only through the medium of these groups. The autonom-

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WALTHER RATHENAU

ous joint-stock company, which has cut itself loose from its
shareholders and become an independent organism, may have
predisposed Rathenau to this conception} though it is hardly
necessary to point out that the idea of councils which he
adopted is far bolder and more revolutionary than this, since
this new form of association demands far-reaching inde-
pendence even in relation to the state 5 in fact, it almost amounts
to a state within the state.

In The New State (Der Neue Stoat) , published in May,
1919, Rathenau proceeds from the principle that 'the purely
political conception of the state no longer reigns single and
supreme} there is room for new types of organism.5 (The New
State, p. 269.) He considers it a 'paradox' that the modern man
readily allows call his faculties to be subordinated to politics.
. . . Not that I believe that these purely political questions will
cease to have any meaning in the future. They will exist along
with others. . . . But they will lose their supremacy} in fact,
they have already lost it. ... While the imperialism of the
ruling classes was reaching its height, the state had already
become an adjustment of various interests, a mechanism for
organization and administration with incomplete autonomy.
. . . But the centralist^ conceptions remained, though they had
lost all meaning7 (pp. 270, 271).

Today, however, 4t is becoming clear that the idea of the
wise, central power and parliamentary self-government is noth-
ing but a fiction. It is assumed that even though great political
questions no longer determine the fate of nations, one single
body of mediocrities must know, understand, judge, and decide
all fundamental questions relating to the different departments
of national life. . . . Not only must it; it actually believes
that it can' (p. 272 jf.). The reality is the very opposite of this
fiction. Rathenau's point of view coincides with that of Leon
Duguit, Professor of Constitutional Law in the University of
Bordeaux, as expressed in his masterly book, Le$

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IN DAYS TO COME

lions du droit piblic. In this he argues that the supposed
sovereignty of the state is continually being resolved into small,
individual sovereignties of specialized groups which actually
(since the state is no longer in a position to survey them effec-
tively) exercise sovereignty by taking ultimate decisions in the
most varied departments of modern life. Rathenau says of the
modern state: 'It has already become a collection of imaginary
states, a multiplicity of slanting cones on the same level, the
points of which are lost in the parliamentary clouds. Strictly
speaking, in addition to the political and juridical state there are
the military, the ecclesiastical, and the administrative state, the
educational state, and the commercial and industrial state. All
these states are autonomous, even though they are subordinated
to the supreme, political state in some cardinal respects. Though
they are almost independent, they are individually and collec-
tively stunted. For they lack a foundation in the soil of the
people, even though certain of them, especially the ecclesiastical
and the administrative states, have, as it were, thin, tenuous
roots in local self-governing institutions. They receive their
popular admixture solely through the medium of the communal
and completely inadequate central organism of the political
parliament1 (p. 287). The first thing to be done, I maintain,
is to separate these interwoven states from one another and then
to build them up in a realistic spirit and give them an inde-
pendent existence, subordinated though they must be to a politi-
cal head. Thus we should create the new state, the state of the
future; thus we should create the true democracy' (p. 289).

Hence the ideal is far-reaching decentralization, according
to functions, not geographical areas; self-determination, not of
the country, but of the function. Only in this way will each
individual win a real share, and not only a paper one, in de-
termining the infinitely involved circumstances of his life. It is
true that apart from a few mutilated remains, such as the
National Industrial Council and Factory Councils, Rathenau

211

WALTHER RATHENAU

failed to secure the embodiment of these proposals in the new
German constitution for which they were intended. He was as
unsuccessful as I had been some time before with the proposals
I had worked out for the German League of Nations scheme,
proposals which started from the same standpoint as Rathe-
nau's, and which, though advocated by the then German For-
eign Minister, Count Rantzau, and by his legal adviser, the
then chief of the legal department of the Foreign Office, Dr.
Simons, were ultimately turned down by the German Cabinet.
The course of development, however, is bound to proceed along
these lines. Symptomatic of it are the new constitutional laws
of Russia and Italy, which, although proceeding from opposite
poles of thought, nevertheless agree in subordinating the
regional to the functional principle. We have here the begin-
nings of a counter-movement to nationalism, before which both
nationalists and internationalists must bow, for it is an inevitable
product of the extreme complexity of modern life, and hence it
is bound finally to triumph. Rathenau was right in feeling that
only a functionally decentralized state and a functionally organ-
ized world could provide the appropriate framework for the
New Economy, the New Society, and the New Commonwealth
of Mankind.

The success of In Days to Come and The New Economy
was sensational. After the semi-failure of The Mechanism of
the Mind the sudden success of these two books put even the
most successful novels in the shade. The first edition of 5,000
copies of In Days to Come, published in February, 1917, was
followed by one of 8,000 in March and by another of 1 1,000 in
April. In little more than a year, by the middle of 191 8, 65,000
copies of In Days to Come had been sold, while 30,000
copies of The New Economy were disposed of in the first
month after publication, January, 1918. Walther Rathenau be-

212

IN DAYS TO COME

came the most widely read and most passionately discussed of
German writers.3

Looking back upon the entire field and the probable effects
of his proposed reforms, Rathenau says: 'These measures
would have a more far-reaching effect on the whole sphere of
moral and sodal relationships than any other revolution of
modern times.7 (In Days to Come.} True. But can we number
among these effects those for the sake of which the whole
reform was demanded — that is to say, the increased freedom of
man, the broadening and progressive enlargement of the region
within which he can develop his soul? Would they succeed in
transforming into men again the millions of beasts of burden
that work the industrial world machine? This is the touchstone
that Rathenau applies to every proposal for political, industrial
and social reform. Not whether it strengthens the state, in-
creases production, or effects a more just and uniform dis-
tribution of the products of labour. All these things are im-
portant, but not derisive. What is really vital is whether it
makes men finer, deeper, spiritually richer, and freer from ex-
ternal and internal inhibitions. clt is not a question,' he writes
in a letter, cof searching out hidden talent from the masses of
the proletariat, or of making ministers out of trades-union
secretaries} that is all very well, but of quite minor importance.
What does matter is that what you call the mob should be able
to grow into men and children of God, should become, in spite
of all their weaknesses and vices, free men, not good menials or
loyal subjects.' (Letters, New Series. Letter 142 of 29.11.
1919.)

Whether a state of society is attainable in which such things
are possible depends, as Rathenau himself points out, on a num-

8 These figures, like those previously quoted, are taken from the admirable
Bibliography of Walther Rathenau's Works, compiled by Dr Ernst Gottlieb of
the Ministry of the Interior, which he has been good enough to place at my dis-
posal.

213

WALTHER RATHENAU

ber of considerations: on whether solidarity and the sense of
responsibility prove to be sufficiently powerful, without the
pressure of poverty or the stimulus of wealth, to maintain, in
fact to increase, the process of production} on whether this
heightening of production is always and increasingly in advance
of the growth of the population} on whether a new attitude of
mind makes it possible to utilize this increase of production,
not for the greatest profit, but where it is most needed} on
whether democracy (the People's State) is sufficiently powerful
to go on adjusting the differences in wealth by constitutional
methods, without occasioning any violent convulsion. I have
already given Rathenau's reasons for believing that these con-
ditions can be fulfilled. He has himself emphasized the fact
that this will be a slow process and that therefore the New
Economy and the New Society will only gradually come into
being. Are his plans, and in particular his New Economy, for
that reason Utopian? The development which has taken place in
the course of the last few years proves, I think, the contrary —
namely, that they were essentially an accurate forecast of what
is actually, though very slowly and gradually, taking place.

A beginning, a not yet fully grown branch of the New
Economy, has been in existence since 1919: the organization of
the German coal and potash industries. By the laws promul-
gated by the National Assembly on March 23rd and April 24th,
1919, the management of the coal and potash industries was
transformed into self-governing corporations under the super-
vision of the state. Their constitution and functions more or
less correspond to Rathenau's 'industrial unions/ though there
is no socialization — i.e. no direct or indirect expropriation of
the owners. It is, however, definitely laid down — and this is
the decisive point — that these associations do not merely repre-
sent private interests, but discharge their functions 'under the
supervision of the state according to communal industrial prin-

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IN DAYS TO COME

ciples.' 4 The state has confined its intervention to this super-
vision, except for reserving the right to reduce, in the interests
of the community, the prices determined by the self-governing
corporations. It is the latter which direct the business. At the
head of the coal organization is a National Coal Council, which
comprises representatives of the coal owners, miners, coal mer-
chants, consumers, and the separate states j the Reich is repre-
sented by the Minister of Labour. This 'coal parliament3 di-
rects the entire German fuel industry, including export and im-
port, according to communal industrial principles. Under this
parliamentary controlling body all the coal owners are united
into geographical groups, ccoal combines,5 according to districts,
for administrative purposes, and particularly in connection with
the selling of coal. The 'coal combines3 in their turn are united
into a 'National Coal Union,3 which is a functional organ, the
executive of the 'National Coal Council,3 and is particularly
concerned with the periodical fixing of prices.

This organization has many important defects. But the fusion
of the German mining industry into one state-controlled self-
governing body has proved in practice to have such advantages
over the English method that, after studying the German sys-
tem, a British Conservative, Mr. Robert Boothby, M.P., in a
speech in the House of Commons on February ioth, 1928, ad-
vocated a similar fusion and organization in the case of the
thousand and one mutually competitive English undertakings,
which were all conducted on the basis of profit alone, without
consideration of the interests of the publicj only by this means
could they render themselves able to meet competition and be
capable of acting as a unit*

4 Par. 2 of the Law relating to the Coal Industry of March 23rd, 1919, condi-
tions, Par. 47. Conditions for the application of the Law regarding the regulation
of the Potash Industry of July iSth, 1919, Par. 51.

5 Boothby repeated his arguments in a more precise form in an article in The
Nation of March xoth, 1928, entitled An Economic Locarno;

215

WALTHER RATHENAU

Another element of the New Economy has been realized in
the National Industrial Council, which, though crippled at the
outset by those responsible for its birth, represents in its elec-
toral body — composed of employers, employees and consum-
ers, divided according to industrial groups — the skeleton of
what is manifestly a functional organization of the entire sys-
tem of German industry.

But the main way in which the New Economy is taking shape
is in the concentration of whole branches of industry into na-
tional and international combines, cartels, and trusts. At pres-
ent, in Germany, as we have just shown, coal and potash have
made the greatest strides in this direction, but other great in-
dustries are following their lead. Iron and steel, electricity and
chemistry, are already far on the way to fusion into national as-
sociations. These certainly only represent the private interests
of business enterprise at present, but they will inevitably bring
along with them communal control and a communal industrial
organization, and are helping forward the functional, as against
the regional, principle of administration, in that they find them-
selves compelled to amalgamate with similar functional organ-
isms in other countries.

These, then, are the first steps towards the New Economy.
They are finger-posts along the path to which Rathenau
pointed Another indication that he sketched out the lines of
future development in an essentially accurate fashion is af-
forded by the fact that his proposals coincide with those of the
most influential and progressive thinkers in the two great in-
dustrial countries of Europe, Germany and England. His views
approximate most closely to those of the English Guild Social-
ists, who, like him, have laid the emphasis throughout not on
wages, but on freedom, and who seek to obtain this freedom by
similar means. From its earliest beginnings English Socialism
has been distinguished from its Continental equivalent by the

216

IN DAYS TO COME

emphasis it has laid on human freedom and dignity. Its fore-
runners and its founders, Robert Owen, John Ruskin (Unto
This Last), William Morris (Signs of Change), Oscar Wilde
(The Soul of Man Under Socialism), its most important philos-
opher, Bertrand Russell (Principles of Social Reconstruction
and Roads to Freedom)^ have always consistently held to the
principle that the chief concern of sodal reform or revolution
should be man as such and his soul, not his greater or smaller
share in the products of his labour. This English socialism
found its most characteristic expression shortly before the war
in Guild Socialism. One of the leaders of this movement,
G. D. H. Cole, inquires in his book, Self-Government m In-
dustry (London, 1917, p. no): What, I want to ask, is the
fundamental evil in our modern Society which we should set
out to abolish? There are two possible answers to that question,
and I am sure that very many well-meaning people would
make the wrong one. They would answer POVERTY when they
ought to answer SLAVERY. . . . Poverty is the symptom; slav-
ery the disease. The extremes of riches and destitution follow
inevitably upon the extremes of licence and bondage. The many
are not enslaved because they are poor; they are poor because
they are enslaved. Yet Socialists have all too often fixed their
eyes upon the material misery of the poor without realizing
that it rests upon the spiritual degradation of the slave.*

There is no need to point out how nearly this passage ex-
presses Rathenau's fundamental attitude. And in their schemes,
of reform the guild socialists are equally near him. They, 'too,
desire the organization of industry and the state according to
functional' groups. They, too, want each group to be self-gov-
erning within the limits of its function, and every circle of in-
terests therefore to have its own representation in the political
parliament. They, too, contemplate functional and industrial
unions, the so-called 'Guilds,' which amalgamate the different
callings and trades into self-governing bodies under the super-

217

WALTHER RATHENAU

vision of the state. In return for the privileges which each
functional group enjoys, it would be incumbent upon it to per-
form its functions as efficiently as possible, to increase its func-
tional energies to the utmost, and hence open the path to all
talent that exists within the group, in order that this talent
might find free expression without being inhibited by the limi-
tations of the function which the group serves.

Thus, through its conception of function, Guild Socialism ar-
rives at a new and broadened foundation for human freedom.
Man must be free, not merely in general, as an individual, as a
'contemporary,* as like among like; he must be free also in a
special sense as an active individual, specifically, as unlike
among unlike, as one who performs a function along with oth-
ers, as the member of a group engaged on some specific func-
tion within human society, in order that his energies may con-
tribute in their full force to the strengthening of that function,
to the strengthening of the group in its functional activity.
Thus we have a conception of democracy which extends far be-
yond the political province in that it embraces all spheres of hu-
man life and must, in course of time, transform them. That is
the conception of a universal functional democracy, which com-
pletes the one-sided purely political democracy, and whose aim
can be summed up in Nietzsche's stirring words: 'To win free-
dom for renewed creation.3 6

Meanwhile similar views have gained a footing in German
Social Democracy under the influence of Otto Bauer and the
present German Minister of Finance, Dr Hilf erding, and have
pushed the earlier State Socialist schemes into the background.

6 1 have taken these remarks almost word for word from my article on 'Guild
Socialism' in the Sunday edition of the Vossische Zehung for August 8th, 1920.
The idea of Guild Socialism was first mooted by Arthur J. Penty in his book
The Restoration of the Guild System (London, 1906). The best account of the
aims of Guild Socialism in its later development is given in G. D. H. Cole's Self-
Govemment in Industry (London, 1917) and Chaos and Order in Industry (Lon-
don, 1920), S. G. Hobson and A. R. Orage's National Guilds (London, 1919),
and Bertrand Russell's Roads to Freedom (London, 19x8).

218

IN DAYS TO COME

In fact, the leading Social Democrats in the Socialization Com-
mission, Kautsky, Hilferding, and Lederer, rejected in the
most emphatic terms the proposal to nationalize the coal mines.
The reason they gave was that cthe absorption of the coal in-
dustry in the normal state machine, with its bureaucratic con-
stitution, would seriously interfere with the economic working
of the mines.' (Report of the Socialization Commission, p. 32.)
They formulated their aims in the following terms: ^Democ-
racy in the factories with unified control of the whole industry,
the elimination of capital as the dominant factor, the basing of
industry upon the personalities who perform the creative work'
(loc dt.y p. 35, Majority Report)* The only fundamental dis-
tinction between them and Rathenau is that the Social Demo-
crats propose to expropriate the owners of those concerns which
are ready for socialization with compensation, while Rathenau's
scheme secures the same object in practice by slowly but pro-
gressively taxing away property without compensation. From
Rathenau's point of view, however, this difference is funda-
mental, for the progressive taxing away of property and income
over and above a certain modicum would abolish for ever the
distinction between rich and poor, whereas expropriation with
compensation would not; the expropriated owners could always
invest their wealth either in non-socialized concerns or else
abroad. This abolition of differences in wealth was, indeed,
Rathenau's particular aim, for by this means everybody would
be assured the same opportunities for education, inner freedom,
and the choice of a career. And this end can only be attained
by socialization without compensation, as in Russia, or, perhaps
more surely, by the way which Rathenau has indicated.

The points of contact between Rathenau and English Guild
Socialism on the one hand, and the most recent tendencies in
German Social Democracy on the other, raise the question of
whether and how far he derived his ideas from others. It is well
known that some time before the war an illustrated paper of-

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WALTHER RATHENAU

f ered a prize to any one who could discover a single new idea
in Rathenau's works, and that for some incomprehensible rea-
son he himself entered into the stupid joke and provided the
prize money out of his own pocket. The question in this form
was absurd, for probably no completely new ideas have come
into being for several thousand years past — as La Bruyere
pointed out two hundred years ago. A thinker's originality does
not consist in what he thinks, but in how he thinks it, in the
form he gives his thoughts, in his manner of applying them, in
the way in which he relates them to others, and still more in the
depth of the experience which has caused them to be reborn
within him. And what is really striking about Rathenau is the
fact, which appears again and again, that he could only turn to
account that which had become, so to speak, glowing and mal-
leable within him as the result of a personal experience. It was
only through such personal experience that a philosophical
view, or even an industrial scheme, became of service to him.
He points this out himself: 'The things men have to say to one
another, even when they seem mere opinions,' he writes to a
friend, 'are really experiences. Dialectic is childish and leaves
one cold.' (Letter 96.) Reality — and in his case the reality had
to be very personal and actually experienced — selected and
sifted out for his personal use and for the workings of his mind
the incalculable amount of material which he bore within him-
self. In his last years he read little, waiting for the experience
which had to be caught like a fly in the intricate mental net of
his mind, if it was to provide him with a grip on reality. Often
he would have long to wait, and then he would complain of un-
productiveness, hopelessness, emptiness, exhausted by the bar-
ren energies of his inner self. For, all in all, his experiences
were few in number. Yet there was one here and there, and
when this happened the effect was so profound that the ideas
it engendered never afterwards grew dim. 'The law of my ex-
istence,' he wrote to his publisher, S. Fischer, 'lays down that

22O

IN DAYS TO COME

I must not call up my thoughts j I must listen for them. This
leads me to wait and see whether problems will not still present
themselves to which I can do justice.' (Letter 590.) To raise
questions of priority with such a man is like reproaching a land-
scape painter with lack of originality because some one else had
painted the same scene before him. What is important is not
that this or that had been thought or put forward before j nor
even that Rathenau, in his War Companies, invented a new
model for communal industrial undertakings. The really im-
portant fact is that through being brought into a new relation-
ship by their intimate association with his inner experience, cer-
tain economic forms of fundamental importance for the future
development of industry and society acquired a new signifi-
cance, a new direction, a new power. It is like the distinction
which he himself makes between the Old and the New Testa-
ment in a letter he wrote in answer to a certain rabbi. (Letter
307.) He admits that most of the ideas in the New Testament
are not new, but are also to be found in the Old. But in the Old
Testament the emphasis is different, and cit is this radical dif-
ference in tone and essence which concerns me.' Through the
fact that in Rathenau's writings over all his ideas and proposals
the experience of the 'soul' hovers like a light, and because he
insists throughout that the goal is human freedom, not the
state nor industry, nor any sort of material advantage for any
one but man and man alone — because of this, there exists be-
tween his system and others which embody similar ideas and
proposals *a radical difference in tone and essence.' And it is in
this that Rathenau's true originality consists. He is the man
who amid the confusion of an aimless civilization, amid the
stress of selfish conflicts, and in the face of political parties, his
own colleagues and his own unregenerate self, held aloft with
fanaticism and with pathos the banner of man, the banner of the
Kingdom of Heaven that is to be found in every human soul,
the banner that bears the words: <In this sign shalt thou con-
quer 1.'

221

CHAPTER IX
ISOLATION

<Tp WRITE these words on the afternoon of July 3ist, 1916.

I Tomorrow is the second anniversary of the opening of
JL the European war, . . . For two years now I have felt
myself to be distressingly alienated from my fellow-country-
men's way of thinking, in so far as they looked upon the war as
an ordeal which would bring redemption. . . . Rejoicing in
the July sunshine, the prosperous and happy populace of Ber-
lin responded to the summons of war. Brightly clad, with flash-
ing eyes, the living and those consecrated to death felt them-
selves to be at the zenith of vital power and political existence.
. . . I could not but share in the pride of the sacrifice and the
power. Nevertheless, this delirious exaltation seemed to me a
dance of death, the overture to a doom which I had foreseen
would be dark and dreadful — but not accompanied by rejoic-
ings and therefore all the more terrible. . . .' (In Days to
Come, pp. 184, 185.)

From the very first day Rathenau stood almost alone in his
attitude to the war. He realized this, and felt it with all the
depth of his longing for companionship, though at the same
time with a suspicion of the feeling: <I thank thee, God, that I
am not as other men are.' While the Entente as well as Ger-
many were indulging in the first unbridled orgies of annexa-
tion mania, while Erzberger was demanding Calais and Poin-
care securing pledges for the Rhine frontier from the Tsar,
Rathenau wrote on October loth, 1914, to Gerhard von Mu-
tius, who was at the centre of things in his capacity of Foreign
Office representative attached to his cousin the Chancellor:

222

ISOLATION

DEAR FRIEND,

Now that Antwerp has fallen I should like to think that
the time had come for a declaration of a reassuring nature
about the future of Belgium. This would help, I feel, to make
the eventual peace negotiations more easy. For in view of Wil-
son's statement and the whole preliminary history of the war,
in so far as it concerns England, it would appear that the Bel-
gian complication will prove the most difficult point in any
future international settlement. My thoughts will keep recur-
ring to the difficulties of the peace, which seem to me almost
greater than those of the war. Here the expectations of what
victory will bring exceed all belief. No change of territory is
great enough, no indemnity severe enough, to satisfy irrespon-
sible opinion. To my mind the only peace worth having is a real
peace, and one that will give a new and secure foundation to
our policy. . . . What I should most like to see would be the
conclusion of a peace with France which would transform our
enemy into an ally. . . . For this reason I recur to my point
which I should like you once more to urge on the Chancellor:
by building up a central European economic system, we should
gain an internal victory far surpassing all external achieve-
ments. . . . The Austrian programme needs the Franco-Bel-
gian to complete it 5 and I should like again to draw attention
to the fact that economic alliance with a neighboring country
includes future political alliance also. (Letter 150.)

A few days later he writes again to the same friend: *We
must never forget that no nation can stand alone in the world.
While there is war we must work for peace: and the peace must
be a real one. And therefore it will be the chief task of the
peace to try to mitigate the hatred on all sides.' (Letter 153.)

Had Rathenau's advice been followed the war would prob-
ably have taken a different course. For it was just this question
of Belgium — Belgium and Alsace-Lorraine, but Belgium still

223

WALTHER RATHENAU

more than Alsace-Lorraine — which shattered the last hopes of
a reasonable peace in 1917. But the advice was highly remark-
able apart from thisj for the underlying ideas are the same as
were forced upon an intensely reluctant world by dire experi-
ence only ten years later, after Rathenau himself as Foreign
Minister had first made them the basis of German foreign pol-
icy. It is, as I have said, highly remarkable that he should have
clung steadfastly to these views — though they certainly fol-
lowed inevitably from his view of life, and were real convic-
tions and not just vague opinions — while all about him were
losing their heads in the tumult of war. True, the result —
both then and long afterwards — of holding these views was
that, as he confesses in the above-quoted sentences, he <f elt him-
self to be distressingly alienated from his fellow-countrymen's
way of thinking,' that he was to an uncanny extent the victim of
loneliness. So long as he controlled the Raw Materials Depart-
ment of the War Office his work and his official relationships
served to keep from him the extent of his isolation. But when
this work came to an end, and he grew aware of the ingratitude
with which it was rewarded, he felt that he stood completely
alone and unbefriended. A few days before he resigned he
wrote to his friend:

WAR OFFICE
RAW MATERIALS DEPARTMENT

BERLIN, 25.iii.i5

Thank you for your words and good wishes. I feel no incli-
nation to do anything for myself. I dare not describe to you my
thoughts and feelings j how I shall get through these many
months, I simply don't know. Hitherto my work has kept me
busy night and day, but now the void begins; for my power to
influence things is now at an end. Perhaps my best course would
be to go to the Front. I feel equally indifferent to Lugano or

224

ISOLATION

the Mendelj in fact, if I were not afraid of seeing people, I
should stay on here.

The burden of making a decision weighs on me like a cloud.
Like a flock of sheep, understanding nothing, we are driven
into the Unknown.

I find that I can no longer listen to music with pleasure. The
other night I was thoroughly bored by a performance of the
Mass in B minor; it was, certainly, an unpleasant, exaggerated
performance. But I cannot stand being in a large crowd of
people. Thank you for your kind wishes.

Farewell. May the mountains give you a new lease of hope.

And again, six weeks after he had resigned:

65 Konigsallee, 9-V.I5

You must forgive me, but at present I find any but the most
casual conversation impossible. I feel so sore at heart that
every word which goes beneath the surface causes me pain. I
try to concentrate my thoughts on some more or less distant
subject and perform a few unimportant daily tasks.

I hope we shall see each other when I am in the country. I
was there yesterday — blossom and blue sky, and death over all.

YourR.

In addition to the distrust which falls to every outsider who
accepts office Rathenau was also the victim of anti-Semitism,
which now that he had become a public figure was aimed at him
personally for the first time since his year of military service.
In May, 1916, he writes to Emil Ludwig: 'That I, a private
citizen and a Jew, have rendered the state a service of my own
accord, this neither of the two parties concerned can forgive,
and I believe this attitude will continue to the end of my days.5
(Letter 200.) The absurd lengths to which even at this time
certain young men of so-called 'nationalistic? circles went in

225

WALTHER RATHENAU

their attitude to him is illustrated by the remark of a certain
'Lieutenant G.,' of which Rathenau was informed: 'If this man
Rathenau has helped us, then it is a scandal and a disgrace.'
(Rathenau's letter of August i6th, 1916, to Wilhelm
Schwaner. Letters I, p. 219.)

In the course of his social career in Berlin Court society
Rathenau had worn his Judaism like the coat of a diplomat,
which gave him, the distinguished stranger, the key to closed
doors. At that time he had refused with a kind of bravado to
remove the difficulties which his faith put in the way of his
political career 5 and he had proceeded to discuss the question
theoretically and at a distance, as it were, in his essay on The
State and the Jews. But now for the first time the fact that he
was a Jew was brought home to him as a personal and cruel
fate. This is illustrated in the public discussion with a certain
Herr von T.-F. in the Polemic on Belief (published in 1917),
and even more clearly in that remarkable correspondence with
his nationalistic friend Wilhelm Schwaner, the editor of a 'Teu-
tonic Bible.' These letters gave Rathenau the opportunity of
seeing himself, the Jew, exactly as he appeared in his opponents'
eyes, and are remarkable for the extreme consideration which
they show for the nationalistic feelings of Schwaner and his
followers. Rathenau could be very brusque in his replies to at-
tacks which were not anti-Semitic in origin. In personal inter-
course he was by no means always easy to get on with; on the
contrary, he was easily irritated by contradiction, and when he
let himself go he could be extraordinarily unpleasant. But the
letter in which Schwaner conveyed to him — why, one doesn't
really know — the above-quoted remark of the nationalistic lieu-
tenant— a remark distorted by the crassest hatred — this letter
he answered not only in detail, but with an almost pathetic re-
fusal to defend himself j in fact he actually thanks Schwaner
for his *kind letter.'

He certainly did not deceive himself into thinking that he

226

ISOLATION

could disarm his anti-Semitic foes by a friendly and conciliatory
attitude. That he humbled himself before them out of fear is
unthinkable} his whole life contradicts it. In order to under-
stand his attitude, which always remained the same in spite of
the ever-growing strength of the anti-Semitic attack, one must
recall his ideas on Aryans and non-Aryans, on blond and dark
races, and on 'men of f ear* and 'men of courage.' 'The epitome
of the history of the world, of the history of mankind, is the
tragedy of the Aryan race. A blond and marvellous people
arises in the north, etc.' The passage has been quoted already.
Long after he had abandoned his theory of race intellectually
it continued to influence him instinctively. To the last he could
not withhold from his anti-Semitic antagonists a certain measure
of approval — of their principles, if not of their animosity. As a
*man of fear' he felt himself inferior in relation to them. But
this feeling of inferiority, which was fed by the growing anti-
Semitic agitation, did not prompt him to defend himself} it
only plunged him deeper into his inner loneliness, which to
him was more painful than the outer one.

Even before the war he had written to his friend: 'Consider
my life. Do you know of one more lonely?' (Letter quoted in
Chapter VII.) In the Mechanism of the Mind he sings the
praise of loneliness. 'Loneliness is the school of silence. The
creative power of events lies in recollection. In the stillness . . .
things and actions lift up their voices and express themselves}
the event becomes experience. . . . The silent spirit awakens
the echo of the essential.' (Mechanism of the Mind, p. 212.)

His father's death on June 20th, 1915, severed the most in-
timate and perhaps the last really close bond between himself
and another. It is true that so far as his mother was concerned
he now carried out his filial duties more tenderly than ever.
Every day, no matter how busy he might be, he lunched with
her at the Victoriastrasse. He knew, too, how to give her the
proud feeling that she was indispensable to him. But in reality

227

WALTHER RATHENAU

there was much conscious reserve in his relationship to this mas-
terful lady, whose influence he feared either to oppose openly
or to submit to. His sister, who was much younger than he was,
he continued to regard as some one for him to educate. But of
his father he writes in a letter to Wilhelm Schwaner eight days
after his death: *We were a long time in discovering each other,
my father and I j first came respect, then friendship, and finally
love. And now we are truly united; I feel that the last bars to
complete understanding are gone, and I have peace and secur-
ity in his presence. . . . My life grows more tranquil and the
evening is at hand.5 (Letter 169.)

His funeral speech had the effect of intensifying for some
time the campaign of vilification against him. It was pure van-
ity, so people said, to have delivered the speech himself instead
of getting a clergyman to do it — an address moreover which
was carefully prepared and written out beforehand. The echoes
of these criticisms penetrated as far as the Front. In reality he
spoke quite spontaneously, and not from vanity but because a
conventional speech by the grave of the man he loved more
than any other was to him an intolerable idea. Several years
later he could still write: 'Since my father and brother died —
for me they are not dead — there has been no one of whom I
could say, in the highest sense, that he was my friend.' (Letter
1 80.)

The glass wall which as a child he had begun to erect be-
tween himself and others now began to lose its transparency
even for him. Or to be more accurate: only the distance was
clear to his vision. The foreground, when it had ceased to have
any further meaning for him, tended to be more and more un-
cannily hidden from him by the image of his own personality,
his problems, his destiny, and above all by the workings of his
intellect, which completely blocked his range of vision. The re-
flections of his ego, the swarm of his involuntary thoughts,
thronged like ghosts about him. He writes to an acquaintance

228

ISOLATION

soon after the beginning of the war: 'I feel nearer mankind
than before 5 but to the individual I have nothing more to give.*
These reflections of himself became for him a kind of second
ego, which broke loose from him and came between him and
the world. 'It is as though there were two people living within
me, one growing and the other dying. The dying one is moved
by passions and desires and love of pleasure, and with him dies
much of the vigour and colour of life, much of its joy and
friendliness} but the other grows, that other whom I can
scarcely call "I" any longer. For my fate seems no longer to
concern it 5 its ends are impersonal} it makes me the servant of
forces over which I have no control. This other is like an alien
power, which avails itself of my humble existence for a period
in order to carry out its own purposes. . . . What I create,
what I have to give others, is no longer my own. I can no longer
give it j it breaks away as it pleases. On whose behalf? I must
not ask.J (Letter 147. To Fanny Kunstler, 23.ix.i9i4.) And
some months later he writes to her again: *What is there left
for me to take an interest in? All is shadow and dream.'
(Letter 161.)

His underlying mood became more and more one of weari-
ness. The blows which had been dealt his once so vigorous and
tenacious nature by personal conflicts, the serious cares and dis-
appointments of the last years before the war, his despair about
the war and his fears for Germany's future, all combined to
bring about a weakening of his vital energy, a dulling of his
enterprise and of his joy in practical creative work. When his
father died he succeeded him as chairman of the A.E.G., but
of his directorships in various companies he only took over
those which were in difficulties or else still in the developing
stage, or else those whose interests his father had had particu-
larly at heart} the others, in contrast to his earlier insatiable
energy, he refused. Shortly before relinquishing his post at the
War Office he wrote to Fanny Kunstler: 'You will notice a
change in me, for I have become old and tired. We must see

229

WALTHER RATHENAU

whether country life can give me back my strength. . . .
Sometimes I want to live to see the peace, sometimes not.' (Let-
ter 164.)

From the depths of his loneliness he clutched like a drowning
man at any hand that offered. Chance acquaintanceships blos-
somed overnight into gushing friendships, only to fade away
again as quickly as they had come and sink back into the shad-
owy world of their predecessors. He writes to Wilhelm
Schwaner in September, 1915: 'I have been a victim of inner
loneliness too long to be able to change things now. Up till
ktely I have been wont to lament that the passionate experi-
ences which filled my middle years did not lead to domestic
and family life. But that is past. My present wishes are very
few in number: to complete, if possible, the series of my writ-
ings and to fulfil the — probably only temporary — task of help-
ing my father's work over the difficult period of our industry.
What will happen after that I do not ask. In this war year I
have become pretty grey — within as well as without' (Letter

Nevertheless he was still anxious for practical activity — per-
haps less so than formerly, and yet prompted to it irresistibly
by the ^purposive' half of his nature. One of the forms which
this inactivity now took was the assistance he gave to new clubs
whose object was to secure a cessation of inner political strife
by promoting social intercourse between representatives of dif-
ferent political parties. Foremost among these were the
'Deutsche Gesellschaft 1914,' which owed its existence to the
author of The Miracle, Carl Vollmoller, and the 'Mittwochs-
Gesellschaft,* which was founded by Professor Ludwig Stein
and the leader of the National Liberal party in the Reichstag,
Herr Bassermann. Both these dubs played a not unimportant
part behind the scenes. They established connections in what
was for Germany a completely new form, between the govern-
ment on the one hand, and members of parliament, journalists,

230

ISOLATION

leaders of industry, bankers, and people from every department
of public life on the other j and by means of these easy and un-
ceremonious relationships they often exerted more influence on
German policy and the direction of the war, especially in crit-
ical moments, than did the censored press or 'public opinion/
or even the houses of parliament, which after all sat within
hearing of the Entente.

This was especially true of the 'Mittwochs-Gesellschaft/ a
carefully selected and relatively small private club with only 70
members, which met weekly in the Hotel Continental for a
confidential discussion of vital questions of the day. All shades
of opinion from the ultra-conservative Count Westarp to the
Social Democrats Heine, Sudekum and David were represented
in it. Herr Bassermann and Professor Stein began by asking
twelve prominent personalities of different schools of thought
to join, and each of these — of whom Rathenau was one — then
co-opted four others. Among the regular attendants at the meet-
ings were Field-Marshal Moltke, General Kluck, Prince Guido
Henckel, Dr Stresemann, representatives of big business, such
as Hugo Stinnes and Dr Hugenberg, and a number of well-
known newspaper men, amongst whom the most prominent
were Professor Hoetzsch and Herr Georg Bernhard. Leading
Allied politicians, such as Counts Apponyi and Andrassy, came
as guests when they happened to be in Berlin. In this small
assembly, which was conducted on parliamentary lines, Rath-
enau found for the first time a platf orm for his oratorical tal-
ent.

For a short time he seems to have hoped that through the
influence of Ludendorff, who had now become the real ruler
of Germany, making of the Kaiser a mere figurehead, he might
find an opportunity for launching his great reforms. Luden-
dorfPs elasticity, his power of rapid comprehension, the enthu-
siasm with which he welcomed other people's ideas, provided!
they did not clash with his own, a certain childlike quality, a

231

WALTHER RATHENAU

sign one could mistake for genius — all these made a deep im-
pression on Rathenau, who was in every respect his opposite. In
his essay SckicksalssQiel (The Game of Fate) * he says: CI got
to know Ludendorff in Kovno at the end of 1915. I felt that
he was the man to lead us, if not on to victory, at least to an
honourable peace, and from that day on I was one of those who
did everything in their power to smooth his path to the Su-
preme Command.'

His high opinion of Ludendorff and his hope of being able to
further his own ideas through LudendorflPs influence are cer-
tainly in large part responsible for the one serious mistake
which Rathenau made in the war: his letter to Ludendorff of
September i6th, 1916, in which he supported the Belgian de-
portations— i.e. the forcible transportation to Germany of
seven hundred thousand Belgian workers to assist in the *Hin-
denburg industrial programme.' In practice, as every one knows,
the step was a failure j humanly considered and from the point
of view of international law it was indefensible, and most seri-
ously jeopardized Rathenau's particular war aims: international
reconciliation, mitigation of hatred, and the economic unifica-
tion of Europe. To explain his bewildering attitude in this mat-
ter one must take into account other psychological motives be-
sides his regard for Ludendorff: a clouding of his judgment,
not by war psychosis — for from that he was immune — but by
his Prussianism, his deep desire to be German to the core, which
always disarmed him in the face of anti-Semitic attacks, and in
this case proved stronger than the dictates of reason. The con-
flicting moods from which arose this and perhaps other tragic
self-contradictory situations (he used to reproach himself after-
wards for the part he played in the war by his organization of
raw materials) are partially revealed in the words in which he
wrote to Fanny Klinstler soon after the outbreak of war:

1 Published on November 23rd, 1919, in the Zerliner Tageblatt. Reprinted in
Was wrd wrJen? (What Is to Come?) p. 5 /.

232

ISOLATION

'We must win, WE MUST! and yet we have no clear, no abso-
lute right to do so.5 (Letter 155.)

His opinion of Ludendorff, however, was soon shattered.
He has himself given a clear and convincing account of the
dramatic end to their relationship in his essay Schicksalss'piel
from which I have already quoted. 'In the spring of 1917
Headquarters were in Berlin for some days. ... I called on
Ludendorff and reported to him about the carrying out of the
industrial side of the "Hindenburg Programme." I also told
him that from what I knew of them, the views of the experts
on the submarine question were wrong; it was out of the ques-
tion that England could be defeated by the summer. Luden-
dorff did not agree, and the conversation was a brief one. In
June, 1917, 1 reminded Ludendorff of my prediction by letter,
whereupon he invited me to meet him at Kreuznach.' 2

Rathenau carefully paved the way for his visit by an article
entitled Safeguards in the Frankfurter Zeitung of July jth,
in which he objected on principle to annexations in the East,
but — a concession to Ludendorff — did not *in theory,' as he
expressed it, reject them absolutely in the West.8 The inter-
view took place at Headquarters on July loth. The submarine
war was our chief topic. I discussed the monthly returns (which
meant in fact the highest estimates), the small effect on
English commerce, the illusory method of reckoning the total
tonnage, the defensive measures, and above all the possibility of
America's building more tonnage than we sank. . . . Ludendorff
saw me again in the afternoon. He told me that there was only
one point on which he could not agree with me and that was
the question of the submarine war. When I asked him his
reasons he replied that he had none to give me, that it was his
instinctive feeling, that same feeling which had the decisive
voice in his strategic measures. I replied that this would have

2 Loc. rit.y p. 7.

8 Reprinted in the pamphlet entitled ZAtltches.

WALTHER RATHENAU

setded the matter for me if it had been a question of strategy
we were dealing with, but as it was a question of economics and
technology I ventured to oppose my calculations and my feel-
ing to his own. "I respect that," answered Ludendorff, ccbut
you will admit that I have to follow my feeling." ' * When
LudendorflF introduced his 'feeling' thus into a purely statistical
and technical matter Rathenau gave him up as hopeless. He de-
livered a speech in the Mittwochs-Gesellschaf t against the un-
restricted submarine war, which made a deep impression on all
who heard it. He objected to it on the ground that it was the
kind of experiment which clike a leap over the abyss only suc-
ceeds if its success is a hundred per cent, success. But this hun-
dred per cent, includes both an unknown economic factor and a
psychological factor which has never been properly appreci-
ated here.' (Letter 228.) It was one of his most brilliant
speeches, and in the end his estimate proved right and Luden-
dorff's wrong. But we now know from Sir Arthur Salterns book
that in April, 1917, very little was needed to make up the
hundred per cent.

The darker the situation became and the more difficult
and painful the moral decisions involved, the more Rathenau
withdrew into the loneliness of his inner self, out of the pres-
ent into his own visionary future. He wrote In Days to Comey
followed by the Problems of the Peace and Industry (Probleme
der Friedenswirtschaft), Stock Exchange Transactions (Vom
Akfienweseri), and the New Economy (Neue Wirtschaft). 'I
write the whole day,' he says in a letter to Wilhelm Schwaner,
<but it is as when a widow bears a childj such children suffer
much from weeping. I do not weep — but I do not laugh much
either. Worry and anxiety I have often had, both for myself
and those near to me; especially in 1903, when my brother died.
But it was not like this.' (Letter 264, 2ox.i6.) The letters to

4Loc. cit. pp. 9-1 x.

234

ISOLATION

his friend during the last two years of the war are permeated
by a tone of both outer and inner loneliness.

65 Konigsallee, 15.1.17

Thank you for your letter and the flowers. Faust? No. But
I have been reading Nietzsche's letters to Overbeck with horror
and dismay, including those terrible documents — the fossilized
remains of his madness. So close to the abyss — and yet not
over! How well I know the shadows that haunted this happily-
unhappier Ij only my loneliness is a peopled loneliness. And
the greed and scorn of friends, not one of whom will ever come
to one's aid. How well I know them! Smilingly they block the
way in the path to the Abyss, and some must actually be forced
to make room for the tottering waggon, till finally they succeed
in breaking the spokes. How well I have known them, and
know them still! Then with a smile and a shake of the head
they will set up a stone to my memory to serve as a warning,
and innocent young people will come and lay their wreaths on
it.

Don't be alarmed; you will find me no less cheerful than
usual. I will get the better of my mood as I do of other things.
Good-bye for the present.

Your affectionate and ever faithful

65 Konigsallee, GRUNEWALD

How am I to reply? You either do not know or do not re-
spect the laws of production, at least not in my case. Do you
really think that I get my inspiration from my fountain pen,
like any Grub Street hack? I have never yet written a line which
I did not have to write. But once written it belongs to me no
longer. Without faith there is no responsibility and without re-
sponsibility no faith. To get through the task of production I
must believe that it is imposed on mej otherwise I could not

235

WALTHER RATHENAU

get through it. If any of my works are bad, this is not from lack
of good will 5 I try, as hard as any one has ever tried, to make
them as good as I can. If I have failed in this the world must
take them for what they are. The world has always had more
good will from me than I have had from it.

Or ought I to show more consideration for my readers? Lest
I become, perhaps, too prolific? But when I have nothing to
give I am silent for three or four years at a time. When I must
speak, I speak. What impression it makes doesn't interest me.

You know how highly I rate your judgment} and it is at its
strongest when dealing with some concrete problem. But what
a man must do and believe, that no one can tell himj not even
the person who shares all his life's experiences. These are the
affairs of destinyj in face of them one must not and need not
be afraid. They take their course. Wit can do no good, nor folly
harm. If the will is good, tragic they may be, but neither false
nor evil.

Affectionately,

13-6-17 w.

25.12.17

In these last days of the dying year I should like to send you
one more Christmas greeting. In this year, in the midst of great
suffering, you have found your true vocation and have worthily
followed it. I have watched your fate with pain, but with joy
and pride too.

I shall become more and more cut off from my fellowmen;
but I keep the bridges open while I can. Please don't be an-
noyed with me! I know you have a kind heart.

Your W.

17.5.18

If I had to destroy your letters I should feel as though I
were killing some living thing. Fortunately it is technically im-

236

ISOLATION

possible. I must look through my drawersj there is scarcely one
which does not contain some reminder of you. Thus I am afraid
there is no chance of your getting Bettina's letter till the end of
my days, as I have no idea where to look for it It goes without
saying that I have preserved nothing which could at any time
be misinterpreted through malice or stupidity.

I have escaped here for a few days, feeling very tired} I
arrived yesterday at noon in cloudless heat. Today I have been
sleeping for hours on end, almost the whole day long. Here
the lilac is in bloom, and apart from acacias and roses, which
are late this year, it might be the middle of June. It looks as
if we were in for a long drouth} this little district has had
hardly any rain. It is evening now and the garden is full of
nightingales once more. But things are not as they used to be.
Something strange and indefinable has come between. Thoughts
and moods come and go. I don't feel it is spring; there is no
sense of awakening} everything is fully out, and decay is in the
air as in August.

I now know that I shall not live to see the end of this con-
fusion; perhaps none of us will. It is almost a comfort. Other
men will gradually succeed us, and they in their turn will sink
into the darkness. Everything we do is too early or too late. I
feel a sense of freedom when I see the great spaces of the hori-
zon and the daily round, the tyranny of time, disappears.

Twilight is fading away into the warm enveloping night;
the meadows chirp and chatter. I could put on the lights and
go on writing} but I am still so tired and troubled — everything
keeps revolving in a painful circle. Don't be anxious, and above
all don't think that I am ill. Tomorrow there are even some
guests coming, two of my Swedish people. Early this morning
I rang up Felix and said a few words on Raumer's behalf.

Farewell. My warmest greetings,

WALTHER RATHENAU

No, ... it is not right of you to touch again on that wish
of yours j you know it distresses me. However, as it must be so,
I shall arrange in my will for the letters to be handed over to
you — or to whomever you designate — untouched

I am delighted with your little picture. It is in harmony
with the peace of your letter: peaceful and yet vital, slight, ap-
parently trivial, and yet illuminating.

It is a strange thing, but though I have written much in my
time I still find it as difficult as I did at the very beginning. I
wrestle the whole day long, and in the evening four pages lie
before me. How easy are words and how hard! The Greeks said
that under the influence of music and song the Cyclopean stones
of Troy built themselves into a wall. That is a bold image for
a few pages of prose, but in this not outwardly bulky volume I
have taken upon myself a serious responsibility.

I never leave the garden. The ground is still damp and the
trees heavy from all the rain we have had. Throughout the day
the clouds pile up in white masses in the sky, only to disperse
again in the glow of evening. By night whole mountains of
small half -invisible constellations float like snowflakes between
the bright fixed stars, so clear is the sky. The day before yes-
terday I had to spend the day in Berlin. I came back bored and
worried, and as I opened the garden gate and entered the cool
quiet darkness under the trees I felt I had only one desire left.
On my table lie books, scarce opened. Towards evening I often
climb the little hill behind the house and bring back a few
mushrooms for my supper. I have had few visitors. They find
me dull and soon go again. Autumn is beginning.

Please don't think I am depressed or sad. Since the beginning
of the war my best days have been spent working here.

Warmest greetings,

Your W.
FREIENWALDE, 12.8.18

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ISOLATION

When the collapse of Germany became imminent Rathenau
made yet another — almost violent — attempt to break through
the barrier that separated him from his environment. He turned
To the Youth of Germany (it is the book referred to in the
above letter) : <To you, Germany's youth, I address myself. To
my contemporaries I have but little more to say. I have poured
out my heart before themj my faith and vision, my troth and
my troubles, I have displayed before their souls. Many have
read my writings: the scholars to smile at them, the prac-
tical to mock at them, and the interested parties to grow indig-
nant and rejoice in their own virtue. If warm voices have
reached me, they have come from the lonely and the young and
from those who neither grow old nor die.' (To the Youth of
Germany [An Deutschlands Jugend], p. 6 #.)

The style of his appeal is shrill, solemnly prophetic, and at
times over-ornate. It often resembles a hand which is so heavily
bejewelled that one forgets or overlooks the fine delicate
fingers underneath. The ornament frequently obscures the idea
rather than adorns it. One might almost call it modern
baroque. But that would be unfair: for beneath the somewhat
artificial pathos there is a glow of passion} only it is unneces-
sarily concerned with matters of expression; it is uncertain, like
a voice which has too long held converse only with itself. Also
perhaps the gap between feeling and expression had grown too
great, and could now only be bridged by artifice. Yet in places
his real feeling breaks through the elaborate words in un-
mistakable accents: 'Every night I remember in my heart those
who have been killed and those doomed to die, and above all
those in distress and those in fear. For all whom the war
touches most deeply, old or young, live in fear and trembling,
weeping tears that flow within and consume the heart' (loc.
cit.,p. i).

Much in this essay appears to be merely a repetition, in an

239

WALTHER RATHENAU

apocalyptic form, of ideas which he had developed elsewhere 5
this is especially true of his re-proclamation of the 'realm of
the soul.' But here these ideas take solid form as actual needs
of the day. For the war is no ordinary war like those of the
nineteenth century, no mere armed debate between govern-
ments. 'The crisis through which we are passing is the social
revolution ... it is the funeral pyre of the social structure of
Europe, which will never rise again from the flames. . . .'
(loc. tit., pp. 10 and 76). It is the end of a dying, the beginning
of a new epoch of mankind. 'Our ways of life, our industry, our
social structure and our form of state — all are changing; as
are the relation of state with state, world communications, and
politics. Science, too, and even our language are in process of
change. Who has not asked himself when reading one of the
earlier authors of the vanished epoch, say Stendhal or Balzac:
How is that possible? Only thirty years ago the Gay Century
was at the height of its mother-of-pearl brilliance, and now
these drab-clothed men talk away in their new scientific jargon
of industry and the stock exchange, of steamships and parlia-
ments, of bourgeois society and militarism, without giving a
thought to the newness of their world and with only a vague
idea of what went before them. And if perchance they mention
some old nobleman whose youth was spent in that age of gal-
lantry, it is as of a sort of fossil, dead and decayed, an anti-
quated ghost. So in your turn you [the new youth] will pass us

Since the war is nothing but a symptom of the birth of a new
era, 'the time's ills' can only be remedied by the appearance of a
new type of man whose life is centred in the soul and not in the
greed of gain and subjection to material ends, and by replacing
the present condition of political and economic anarchy by a new
organization of mankind.

The new man is the more important of the two. 'No states-
man or act of Parliament, no change in organization can help.

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ISOLATION

. . . Can you find the men and bring them together?5 he
calls to German youth, 'Do not forget: even if we could estab-
lish a German Earthly Paradise today, we should not have the
men to administer it. ... Look around you at these parlia-
ments, these offices, these academies — everywhere. * . . And
once again I lose heart and ask: Where are the men?' (loc. ctt.y
pp. 12-14).^

This was indeed the problem which troubled Rathenau more
than any other. Soon after the Spartacus revolt in February,
1919, he said to me: 'Bolshevism is an imposing system, and
probably the future belongs to it 5 in a hundred years the world
will be Bolshevist. But Russian Bolshevism is like an excellent
play acted by some wretched company in a village barn, and
when communism comes to Germany it will be the same thing
over again. We have not got the men for so thoroughly com-
plex a systemj it demands a far finer and higher talent for
organization than we can show. We — unlike perhaps the Eng-
lish and Americans — have no men of the requisite stature. \Ve
Germans can only organize a la sergeant-major; we cannot
attain the high standard which Bolshevism requires. By night I
am a Bolshevist; but when the morning comes and I enter the
factory and see our workers and officials, then I am not — or at
least not yet.' And several times he repeated: 'not yet.'

Just as he had once attributed the greater part of Germany's
decline to the method of selecting candidates and had found
the only hope of improvement in the introduction of a better
personnel, so now the problem of the new order of things was
to him above all a problem of character: whether, that is to say,
it would be possible to find a new type with more backbone and
a higher moral level to take the place of the mechanistic man
broken in body and soul by his service to material ends. Hence
his call to youth, from whom alone he could expect this new
type of being, and especially to German youth, whom the war
would seem to have made ready for some great spiritual trans-

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WALTHER RATHENAU

formation. He was probably thinking particularly of the circle
cf young men which gathered around Fritz von Unruh and
his brothers.

The new man was the prerequisite j but Rathenau had an
equally clear vision of the new order y 'the economic and social
levelling, the moral and spiritual rejuvenation of industry.*
He saw it in clear outline, like a plan that was certain to be
realized sooner or later. CI have an inviolable faith in these
things, for they are already on their way; they have become
an invisible destiny, for they are perceived, discussed and
listened to, and have thus become a spiritual reality' (loc. dt.y
p. 13). cThe coming peace will be nought but an armistice and
the tale of future wars unending, the greatest nations will sink
into decay and the world into misery, unless this peace succeeds
in furthering the realization of these ideas5 (loc. cit.y p. 86).

With a view to the prospective peace negotiations he is very
much more precise than usual in his picture of a world organiza-
tion whose object shall be the elimination of inter-state anarchy.
True, his plan differs essentially from Wilson's League of
Nations, which was based on the ideas of the eighteenth century.
*A League of Nations is both just and good,' he says, *dis-
armament and courts of arbitration are both possible and
reasonable; but all this will be in vain unless it is preceded by a
League of Industry, a world economic organization. By this I
do not mean the abolition of national industry, or Free Trade,
or tariff agreements, but the distribution and common manage-
ment of international raw materials, and the distribution of
international products and international finance. Without these
arrangements Leagues of Nations and courts of arbitration
merely lead to the judicial murder of the weaker brethren by
the correct method of competition; without these- arrangements
the existing anarchy merely leads to the violent struggle of all
against all.

'This is what is meant by a League of Industry: the raw

242

ISOLATION

materials of international trade are controlled by an inter-state
syndicate. They are put at the disposal of each nation on the
same original conditions, and at the outset in accordance with
their current ratio of consumption. Later on the economic
growth of each particular nation is taken into account.

'The same inter-state authority regulates exports on a corre-
sponding basis. Each state can demand to have its export quota
taken off its hands. This quota is reduced in proportion as the
state refuses to accept the imports due to it. The states deliver
their various products in the proportion in which they have
been accustomed to do soj but they may freely enter into agree-
ments to alter this proportion, and exchange of quotas is
permissible.

'Each state in proportion to its export quota may demand
a share in international financial operations that lead to
deliveries.

'These would be the most important points to arrange' (p.

He goes on to insist, however, that it must needs be a long
time before the development of such a system can be com-
pleted. 'Decades must pass before this international economic
system is built up fully. Further decades, perhaps centuries,
will be necessary before the condition of inter-state anarchy
can be replaced by one in which a supreme authority will be
willingly accepted by all} and this authority must be, not a
court of arbitration, but a sort of welfare centre — the most
powerful of all executives, in whose hands the administration
of the economic system must lie' (p. 88).

We may remember that even before the war Rathenau had
mooted the idea of an international court. The business of this
inter-state tribunal was to examine the various nations' expendi-
ture on armaments and to see that they kept within the limits
assigned by treaty. By this proposal he had consciously or un-
consciously denied the absolute validity of the current idea of

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WALTHER RATHENAU

sovereignty. In his appeal To the 'Youth of Germany he
shows in discreet but unequivocal language that the whole
complex of values connected with the ideas of state and nation
is a matter for enquiry and not necessarily of universal validity.
'It is possible/ he says, 'that modern man will be forced by his
despair to seek refuge in chaos. He may perhaps be driven to
question all ideals, even to ask whether those values, which
Christ, remember, did not recognize as values, fatherland,
nation, wealth, power and culture, are really lofty and funda-
mental enough to justify the world in the hatred and envy, the
injustice and oppression, the intrigue and violence and murder
carried on in their name.' (To the Youth of Germany y p. 35.)
Every absolute value is radical in its effect} it makes one
sceptical of other values, eats into them like an acid, so that
nothing is left of them but a residue — and this residue is at best
only relatively valid. So it was in Rathenau's philosophy with
his absolute value — the csoul.*

But one must not over-estimate this radicalism of Rathe-
nau's. For it was confined to the intellect; and in him the
intellect worked according to its own laws and almost inde-
pendently of the rest of him. His feelings lived in open con-
flict with this part of him, and his feelings were rooted in
Prussia, in Germany, in German industry, and even in the
'blond' Prussian Junker. Thus in critical moments his actions
sprang from a combination of, or often from a compromise
between, these two impulses.

When Ludendorff's request for an armistice brought with
it the collapse of Germany, Rathenau recognized at once the
disastrous stupidity of Germany's declaring itself bankrupt in-
stead of coining to an arrangement with its creditors (cthe most
disastrous piece of stupidity in history,' as he afterwards de-
scribed it — and without exaggeration). Because a general ex-
hausted by years of heavy responsibility had lost his nerve,
Germany ran her head into the noose, thus ruining not only

244

ISOLATION

herself, but all Europe into the bargain, for it destroyed all
possibility of a reasonable peace — a peace that might have
healed the wounds of war. Feelings and intelligence alike were
outraged by this crime. On October 7th, 1918, Rathenau
published an article in the Vossische Zeitung entitled A Black
Day in which he described the step as 'premature,' prophesied
— what was indeed self-evident — that the reply would be un-
satisfactory, and demanded that if it proved to be one that
'cramps and throttles our very existence, we must at least be
prepared for it in advance. The people must be ready to rise
in defence of their nation, a Ministry of Defence must be set
up. These measures should only be resorted to if necessity com-
pels it, if we meet with a rebuff; but there is not a day to lose.
Such a Ministry should not be attached to any existing depart-
ment; it should consist of both soldiers and civilians and have
far-reaching powers. Its task would be threefold: first, to issue
an appeal to the people in the ungarnished language of truth.
Let all who feel the call present themselves; there will be
enough elderly men to be found who are yet sound, full of
patriotic fervour, and ready to help their tired brothers at the
front with all their powers of body and souL Secondly, all the
"Field-greys" whom one sees today in our towns, at the sta-
tions, and on the railways, must return to the front, however
hard it may be for many of them to have their well-earned
leave cut short. Lastly, all men capable of bearing arms must
be combed out of the offices, the guard-rooms and depots, in
East and West, at the bases and at home. What use have we
today for Armies of Occupation and Russian Expeditions? Yet
at this moment we have hardly half of the total available troops
on the Western Front. Our front is worn out; restore it, and
we shall be offered different terms. It is peace we want, not war
— but not a peace of surrender.'

The article created a stupendous sensation. Prince Max, the
Chancellor of the new People's Government, who had agreed

245

WALTHER RATHENAU

to the Armistice proposal, though most reluctantly and under
persistent pressure from the military authorities, now began to
hesitate. On October 8th he submitted the following question
to the Supreme Command: 'Does the Supreme Command ex-
pect that an adequate reinforcement would be afforded by the
levee en masse, as recommended by Walther Rathenau in the
Vossische Zeittwg?' 5 Ludendorff answered the Prince orally
next day: *No. In spite of our lack of men I have no belief
in the levee en masse. It would cause more disturbance than we
can stand.3 And General Scheuch, the War Minister, supported
this view.6 Thereupon Rathenau went to see Scheuch and after-
wards explained to him by letter on October 9th — what was as
clear as crystal to every one except, apparently, the Supreme
Command — that to evacuate the occupied areas as demanded
by Wilson in his reply would be to *make an end of our capacity
for defence and thus put ourselves at the enemy's mercy.*
(Neue Brief e. No. 50.) But the military authorities persisted
in their refusal.

It would be idle to enquire whether the levee could have
been carried out with success once Ludendorff had made his
request for an armistice. As things turned out, the one result
of the proposal was that Rathenau incurred the bitterest hatred
of the masses for cwanting to prolong the war.' And so when
the Revolution broke out his position was indeed unique. For
years he had been attacking the ruling system and all about
it, its constitution, its policy, its economics, its social structure.
He had never ceased to advocate its complete reorganization.
And yet for reasons which were only too obvious — his position
at the head of the A.E.G., his organization of raw materials,
his connection with the 'Hindenburg Programme,' and finally
and worst of all his appeal for a levee en masse — f or all these
reasons (all due in the last analysis to the double nature of his

* VorgesMchte des Waffenstillstandes. Amttiche Urkunden> No. 36.
*Loc. cit.9 No. 38.

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ISOLATION

personality) the Revolution could not but pass him by. This
was probably the bitterest moment of his life. A year later he
wrote to the socialist Prussian Minister Sudekum: 'When the
Revolution came, every one was agreed in wanting to get rid
of me.' (Letter 580.)

And now Rathenau's real tragedy began, the tragedy which
he himself felt as such. A series of mortifying experiences
forced him to realize for the first time that his double nature
imperilled his work, that it threatened not only himself, but
his ideas as well, with extinction. Instead of looking on, as he
had done till then, with a more or less studied detachment at
the struggle of his theories, as set forth in his books, with the
forces of nationalism, big business and organized Marxism, he
now accepted the challenge to fight. Into the struggle he put all
the energy that was left him. And finally he succeeded in saving
at least a part of his ideas — but only at the cost of his life.

The first act in this final tragedy was Rathenau's desperate
struggle to escape from his isolation and assist practically in
the building up of the new Germany. Lectures, speeches, news-
paper articles, pamphlets began to pour out in a continuous
stream — first his Apologie, a sort of autobiographical justifica-
tion 5 then Der Kaiser, setting forth the nature of his relation-
ship to the former Kaiser; the Kritik der dreifachen Revolu-
tion (A Criticism of the Threefold Revolution), a virulent
indictment of the lack of ideas in the German revolution} the
small collections, Nach der Flut (After the Flood), and Was
vwrd werden? (What is to Come?) j his books Der neue Stoat
(The New State), Die neue Gesellschaft (The New Society)
and Autonome Wirtschaft (Autonomous Industry) — all these
are just incidents in Rathenau's struggle to gain first a hearing,
and then a footing, in the councils of the new German Republic.

A month or two before the Revolution he had written an
essay Stoat und Vaterland, which restated in terms of the
actual situation the aims which he had already described more

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WALTHER RATHENAU

generally in his great theoretical works: 'The World is in need
of a Kingdom of Man which shall be an image of the Kingdom
of God, the Kingdom of the Soul. The Kingdom of Man is the
kingdom of Freedom and Justice. The Kingdom of Man is not
ruled by wealth or inheritance, by tyranny or oppression, by
violence or by anarchy; it is ruled by solidarity. Its leaders are
no longer the privileged, the place-hunters and wire-pullers,
but men of proven ability. The supreme law is not interest, but
creation; the ultimate aim not wealth and power, but spirit.
The slavery of man, the slavery of rank and sex and age is at
an end.5 7 And in another passage in the same essay he declares
it to be 'the clear and definite task of the German mind to
base the state and industry on justice and morality, and to make
them an example for the commonwealth of nations.' 8 What
he has in view is obviously something very like Fichte's ideal
state.

Rathenau also attempted to gain a hearing for these ideas
by founding a 'Democratic People's League.' He sent out invi-
tations to a number of people prominent in the intellectual and
industrial world, who shared his fate of having been landed
high and dry by the Revolution, and on November i6th he
held a meeting to explain his aims to them: 'I appeal to that
part of the nation which for the moment is included neither in
the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils, nor in the self-constituted
comradeship of those who have made the Revolution. Let us
unite and hold ourselves ready to assist — individually, in
groups, or as a whole — in the work of reconstruction, wherever
our services may be required. Let us co-operate in this work
freely and gladly and with all the constructive intelligence
which is at our command.' 9 He did not want to form a party,
for his only concern was absolute solidarity and unity. Thus the

7 Stoat vnd Vaterland^ p. 4.8. Reprinted in Nach der Flvt. p. 34 ff.
* Loc. ciL p. 37.
9 Reden, p. 35.

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ISOLATION

only resolution he submitted to them was 'the demand for the
speedy convocation of the National Assembly.' 10

But Rathenau's real aims in founding the 'Democratic
People's League' are to be found in the Appeal to the German
people which he drew up for it:

x. The Democratic People's League' takes its stand on the German
Revolution.

2. It appeals to all German men and women without distinction of
religion or party, except those who openly or covertly give their
services to Reaction.

3. The 'Democratic People's League' stands for a free country and
a free people with the constitution of a democratic state.

4. It demands the end of privileged classes, and of the distinction
between bourgeoisie and proletariat, equal opportunity for ability,
and the abolition of militarism and imperialism, feudalism and
bureaucracy.

5. It maintains the right of every German to both work and edu-
cation. People cannot be allowed to suffer privation through no
fault of their own.

6. Property, income, and inheritance should be restricted.

7. Industry is not the private concern of individuals; it concerns
every one. Production must be increased by avoiding waste — of
labour, of materials and of transport Combines must be sub-
ordinated to the state. Nationalization should take place where
suitable. The import and consumption of luxuries should be taxed
and restricted. The standards of industrial morality must be
raised. Life must be made more simple.

The Democratic People's League was short-lived, or rather
it never really lived at all} for it dissolved itself after a very
few days. Rathenau accounts for this failure in a private letter
written shortly afterwards and still unpublished: u 'The Demo-
cratic People's League gave one more proof of the distaste of
the middle classes for considering social problems seriously,

10 Loc. dt. p. 37.

11 It was to be included in nis Polbische Brief e, announced for publication as
this volume goes to press.

249

WALTHER RATHENAU

and that was why it failed. It could not be got to unite on any-
thing more definite than the colourless demand for a National
Assembly, and this had already lost much of its point, for in
the meantime all the various parties as well as the government
had made it a plank in their platf orm.' The Appeal does not
seem to have been published And, indeed, it was not the Work-
ers' and Soldiers' Councils, but the inertia of the middle classes
— and over and above this, of the trades union and old party
bureaucracies, which the Revolution had not affected — that
made the position of all such unprepared and unorganized
movements hopeless from the start. Hence a definite limit was
set to the work of reconstruction, or, to put it in another way,
the course of the Revolution was predetermined from start to
finish. Against the trades union and party secretariats even Karl
Liebknecht's machine-guns could do nothing. Rathenau had no
illusions in this matter. He saw that the only course that could
lead to definite results was to reform one of the old parties
and its trades union appendage from within. He had cut him-
self off from the Social Democratic party by his blunt repudia-
tion of Marxism. So he turned to the 'German Democratic
Party,' which had been formed under Friedrich Naumann's
leadership out of the old Progressive People's Party and the
South German local branches of the National Liberals.12
Through the influence of Naumann and its strong trades union
element this party stood from the beginning for social reform}
through the influence of great intellectuals like Max Weber 18

12 Friedrich Naumann, a progressive Churchman, who in his youth came under
the influence of the founder of the Christian-Socialist Party, Pastor Stocker, and
then struck out on a democratic line of his own, became a member of the Reichs-
tag for the Radical (Freisinnige) Party, and wrote a book, Mittel-Ewopa, during
the war which advocated a great central European economic unit embracing
Germany, Austria, Poland, the Balkan Peninsula and the Turkish dominion in
Asia. His principal interests were social reform based on Christian and humani-
tarian principles, and the democratization of Germany. He died in August, 1919.

18 Max Weber, professor at Heidelberg (1864-1920), Germany's most original
bourgeois economist His books and essays on The Sociology of Religion, on
Protestant Morals and the Spirit of Capitalism (Die frotestantische Ethik unel

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ISOLATION

and Hugo Preuss,14 for a predominantly intellectual outlook;
and, finally, under the steady influx of diplomats and pacifists,
for the policy of understanding in international affairs. Here
were several points which Rathenau might hope to develop
further.

He was invited by the local branch of the 'German Demo-
cratic Party' in Weiswasser (Oberlausitz), where he was chair-
man of the board of directors of the Vereinigte Lausitzer
Glaswerke A.-G., to stand as their candidate for the National
Assembly for the Reichstag constituency of Rothenburg-
Hoyerswerda. He accepted the invitation. But then the Com-
missaries of the People, instituted by the Revolution, issued a
decree that the elections were not to be held according to the
old Reichstag constituencies but according to Regierungsbezirke
(the larger, provincial units) and under a system of Propor-
tional Representation; and thus the nomination of candidates
for the district became a matter for the party organization of
the Regierungsbezirk of Liegnitz. At the meeting of its dele-
gates at the end of December, 1918, at which Rathenau was
present, he found himself the object of strong opposition,
based on anti-Semitism. He was not even allowed to speak, on
the pretext that this would be unfair to the other candidates,
who happened to be absent. In the end he failed to get his
name placed on the list for the German federal National
Assembly, and it was only through the exertions of his friends
that he managed to gain the sixth place on the Prussian list,
which gave him not the faintest chance of being elected.16

der Geist des Kapitalismus) , on The Economic Ethics of the Great World Reli-
gions (Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen)^ broke entirely new ground. In
this, and in the way he affected German thought, his influence is comparable to
that of Sir James Frazer. By the part he played during and after the Revolution
in shaping German democratic ideals he became one of the founders of the Ger-
man Republic.

14 Hugo Preuss, professor in Berlin (1860-1925), the author of the new Ger-
man republican Constitution, adopted at Weimar in 1919.

15 By the German system of Proportional Representation, the voters do not

251

WALTHER RATHENAU

A series of similar reverses followed in rapid succession.
Shortly after the Liegnitz affair he suffered a still greater
mortification by being struck off the Commission for the
Socialization of German industry, in obedience to the violent
protests of the Independent Socialists. The tone of the letter
he wrote on this occasion to the future President Ebert, then
People's Commissary, shows how bitterly he felt the rebuff:

'You are doubtless aware that I was excluded from the
Socialization of German Industry, in obedience to the violent
and after my name had already been made public in the list
of members. From all parts of the country I am being asked the
reasons for this exclusion j a protest signed by fifty members
of the Soldiers' Council has been handed to me. I think I have a
right to know what these reasons are. . . . I doubt if there are
many men on the bourgeois side who have risked their position
and exposed themselves to hatred and enmity to the extent that
I have donej I have openly attacked the old system, I opposed
the war, and I have worked out in detail a new and complete
economic system on scientific lines. ... In the first days of
the Revolution I pkced myself at the disposal of the People's
Government, as my conscience bade me. It has not availed
itself of my services, and I am only too pleased to learn that
it has no lack of more suitable talent. But if the new People's
State, which I have spent my life in working for, goes out of
its way to show its lack of confidence by striking me off a list of
people who will inevitably have to take my own life-work into
consideration, then I think that the public as well as myself
have a right to know the reason why. Berlin, December i6th,

vote for one particular candidate, but for a list of candidatesj and the party
caucus allots to each of its candidates a specific number on the list. The votes
polled by a list are then divided by 60,000 (or by 40,000 when the election is
for the Prussian Landtag) 5 and for every 60,000 votes polled for the party list
in the constituency the party gets one member into the Reichstag. A candidate
allotted number 6 would therefore be elected only if at least 360,000 votes were
polled for the party list in his constituency.

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ISOLATION

1918.' (Letter 470.) The Independents upheld their veto*
A few weeks later he was further exasperated by an incident
that took place in the National Assembly, which had just met*
In the course of the second session, on February yth, 1919,
two telegrams were handed in containing nominations for the
first President of the Reich 5 one proposed Hindenburg, the
other Rathenau. The first was greeted with laughter from the
Social Democrats: the fate of the second is recorded thus in the
shorthand report:

'Deputy Dr Neumann-Hofer, Secretary of the Assembly
[reads out] :

€ "On behalf of many Germans abroad I propose as President
of Germany the name — respected both at home and abroad by
friend and foe alike — of Walther Rathenau. [Much merri-
ment.] May he be our leader. Eugen Miiller, Stockholm."
[Much merriment on the Right.]' 16

Rathenau took the 'merriment* — of which after all Hinden-
burg had also been the victim — more tragically than it de-
served. Months later he returns to the point in his Apology
in a tone that shows how deeply it had wounded him: 'On the
day that the President of the Reich was being elected at Wei-
mar my name was brought into a ludricrous proximity with
these solemn proceedings by the arrival of a telegram — a well-
meant but highly inopportune and misguided effort on the part
of some Germans abroad. It would have been easy to lay it
on one side, as was done daily with so many others. However,
it was read out* The Parliament of any other civilized state
would have shown sufficient respect for a man of recognized
intellectual standing to have passed over in silence this act of
bad taste. But the First Parliament of the German Republic,

16 The German National Assembly in the Year 1919. Edited by Justizrat Dr
Ednard Heilfron. and Session, Friday, February yth, 1919, p. 16.

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WALTHER RATHENAU

assembled in this darkest and most solemn hour and destined
to set its seal on Germany's ignominy, greeted it with roars and
shrieks of laughter. The papers talked of merriment lasting for
several minutes, and eye-witnesses related how men and
women rocked in their seats with delight at the idea. This was
their way of greeting a German whose intellectual achievement
they either did or did not know, as the case might be. I was
certainly astonished when I read it, but it did not distress me
personally. It made me think of the sardonic laughter in the
halls of Ithaca, as described by Homer5 (pp. 106-107).

As a result of these incidents in Liegnitz and Weimar, Rathe-
nau came to regard the National Assembly and indeed parlia-
mentary government in general in a thoroughly unsympathetic
frame of mind. His disgust was brought to a head by the ac-
tion of the Social Democratic Minister of National Economy,
Wissell. In the great debate on the Socialization Law, Wissell
went out of his way to stress his complete disagreement with
Rathenau, and, unintentionally no doubt, gave an entirely false
impression of Rathenau's proposals. He accused him inter aim
of wanting to turn German industry into a highly centralized
big business, a sort of huge A.E.G., and added: <Rathenau's
ideal is an industrial system working under compulsion and
involving a feverish intensification of labour. We too want to
work; but only on condition that man is given what is humanly
his due.' 1T

A more complete distortion of his views it would be hard to
conceive. Rathenau was justly indignant, and in the Zukunft
of April 1 2th, 1919, he addressed an open letter to Wissell,
which displays an irritation quite unusual in him:

In justice to you I assume that you have not read my earlier
writings, in particular The New Economy y and that you had

1T Shorthand reports. Loc. cit., VoL III, p. 1,490. 2srd Session, March 8th,
1919.

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ISOLATION

yourself supplied with just a few catchwords for the purpose of
your argument. That is, I believe, the custom, but it is none
the less an unpleasant custom. However, I felt quite inclined
to forgive you your incompetence when I read how deliciously
you went on to remark: 'In itself it would not be at all a bad
thing for us to take over a clever man's clever idea, in so far
as it is practicable.' In itself it would not be at all a bad thing!
No, sir, it certainly would not be at all a bad thing! Nor
would it be a bad thing if you were to favour us with a
little honesty and common sense. But then that is so difficult,
isn't it? It is so much more simple to dismiss a man's life-work
in a few casual sentences, especially if one has not taken the
trouble to find out what it is. But I will tell you what is a bad
thing, and that is your empty skeleton of a law for so-called
socialization. It is a matter of indifference to me, Sir, that you
profess to know my writings, and then proceed to show your
ignorance of them by distorting them, and that you make a
pretence of socialization by turning a few sources of wealth to
revenue purposes and by introducing a new bourgeois form of
coal trust. But the people will not be deceived. Germany will
get a new industrial system and a just one, even if not at your
hands.

The dishonesty of the notorious <As I understand it' is only
equalled by the placard announcing that 'Socialization is on
the march.'

With the respect due to you,

WALTHER RATHENAU

What infuriated Rathenau still more than the distortion of
his ideas in a speech that was bound to carry far and wide was
the misguided attempt of Wissell and his Secretary of State,
Wichard von Mollendorff, to set up a new state-controlled
system of industry; an attempt which he felt to be doomed to
failure, both because it could not muster sufficient political sup-

WALTHER RATHENAU

port, and because neither the employers nor the men had yet
acquired those new ethics which seemed to Rathenau the indis-
pensable prerequisite for any new form of industry. He felt
this clumsy and premature attempt at state control of industry
to be a sort of sabotage (unintentional sabotage, of course) of
the ideas which had been his life-work.

For the same reason — because the new ethics were lacking —
he later on refused his assent to the more radical proposals of
Kautsky, Hilferding, Kuczynski and Lederer in the Second
Socialization Commission, which was convened in July, 1920,
after the Kapp Putsch, under pressure from the trades unions.
His point of view he set out in a guarded form in this Com-
mission's Proposal II, to which he put his name: 'It will be our
task to effect the transition to new forms of industry and to
point out the paths leading from our present industrial ethics
to a system based on community ethics j but at the same time
care must be taken to avoid the premature formation of systems
for which the driving force has not yet been developed.' (Re-
port of the Socialization Commission, dated July 3ist, 1920,

p- i?0

It was with the purpose of defending his ideas against revo-
lutionary forces whose plans seemed to him both premature and
doomed to failure that he wrote his last important book, The
New Society, published in 1919. In it he draws a gruesome
picture, or perhaps rather caricature, of this cnew society' in
which the disappearance of the proletariat class is followed not,
as had been hoped, by a society where every one is rich, but on
the contrary *by one where every one is very, very poor.' (Neue
Gesellschafty p. 10.) He tries to visualize the completely social-
ized Germany of the future, and finds that he is describing
'Hell' (loc. cit., p. 48). But, he adds, 'this description presup-
poses implicitly the continuance of our present way of thought
and ethical outlook. . . . Our picture simply demonstrates the

256

ISOLATION

obvious fact that happiness is not to be attained by mechanical
contrivances' (loc. cit.y p. 51).

Does this mean that we must just fold our arms and do
nothing? No. We must hasten on the change of attitude by
shifting the emphasis from material to spiritual values, and
thus bridge the gap between the old way and the new. Even
manual and factory labour must be spiritually rejuvenated.
But, one may ask, surely all this has already been discussed in
great detail? And we have heard Rathenau's solution: solidarity
and factory councils. True. But now he has the courage to con-
fess that 'mechanized and mechanical work is an evil in itself,
and an evil of such a kind that no amount of economic or social
reorganization can remove it. Neither Karl Marx nor Lenin
can get over this fact. ... It is a mistake to suppose that
craftsmanship will ever develop out of the soulless specializa-
tion which is the basis of mechanized production. ... So long
as the division of labour persists, craftsmanship is impossible
and man is doomed to specialization, or at best and under the
most highly mechanized state of development, to supervisory
work. No one can put joy into his work if the mind and soul
have no part in it. The terrible thing about the process of
mechanization is that it makes labour, which occupies more than
half man's working day and is his real element, in which he
moves and has his being — it makes this both ugly and hateful.
. . . Here lies the central problem of socialism' (loc. c%t.y

PP« 75-78).

In other words, Rathenau saw that for the majority of fac-
tory workers the way to the new attitude was blocked by an
obstacle which could not be completely removed, which could
indeed only be slightly dislodged even in the most favourable
circumstances, and that obstacle was the ^weariness of soul' con-
sequent upon the infinitely detailed division of labour.
Solidarity, socialization, a share in the management, all required

257

WALTHER RATHENAU

something to complete them; and this something Rathenau
found in the proposal for the Equalization of labour/ which he
now put forward for the first time. 'The equalization of labour
aims at humanizing labour* Since it is technically impossible to
humanize mechanical labour beyond a given point, the working
day must be humanized by interchanging mechanical with brain
work.' (Neue Gesellschaft, p. 78.) 'The principle of the equal-
ization of labour is that every mechanical worker should be
able to spend part of his day in some suitable form of brain
work, and that every brain worker should be obliged to devote
a part of his working day to physical labour. . . . To this end
every young German man and woman without distinction must
spend a year of training in manual labour' (loc. cit.y p. 80).
Rathenau expands his view in a letter to Leopold Ziegler:
cThe equalization of labour is not to be considered as an actual
measure, but rather as a tendency. . . . For many decades the
process will only be a partial one, and indeed it will only be
completed when it has become superfluous; when, that is to say,
the true meaning of labour has returned, and this will happen
when mechanization has conquered itself.3 (Letter 587.)

One may or may not have doubts as to the practicability of
Rathenau's proposals,18 but they certainly form a noteworthy
climax to his theoretical labours. He acknowledges, in fact, that
the soul-destroying effect of the infinitely detailed division of
labour on the factory worker cannot be avoided either by the
socialization of the means of production, or by a share in the
management, or by any shortening of working hours at present

18 It cannot be maintained that the <year of training9 would be impracticable in
a country that had once known universal service. The equalization of labour,
however, raises questions of much deeper significance, which cannot be discussed
here. The professor of political economy, the industrialist, the clergyman, and
even the poet would be none the worse for four hours daily at the machine $ but
it is not so simple in the case of the doctor, the merchant or the higher officials;
and the intellectual professions which could be made available to millions of fac-
tory workers as serious occupations and not as mere recreation are at present far to
seek.

258

ISOLATION

conceivable, or even by the most highly developed feeling of
solidarity^ and hence that for a long period only palliatives
could and should be devised. After the bright hopes which the
books he wrote in his prime had held out for a liberation of the
soul through a reorganization of industry on a new ethical basis,
this conclusion cannot but strike one as bitterly pessimistic.

And indeed the circumstances in which he was constrained to
begin the decisive struggle for his life-work justified the utmost
pessimism. Germany lay prostrate. France gave open vent to
her desire for our extermination, expressing it monumentally in
her Prime Minister's words: 'There are twenty million Ger-
mans too many.5 The continuation of the Allied blockade after
the Armistice was rapidly fulfilling this wish} within six months
from the Armistice it had achieved a casualty list of 700,000
children, old people and women. Not since the days of Cato's
Addenda est Carthago5 had the world seen such studied ferocity.
The German people, starved and dying by the hundred thou-
sand, were reeling deliriously between blank despair, frenzied
revelry and revolution. Berlin had become a nightmare, a carni-
val of jazz bands and rattling machine-guns. The German
Government, reduced to a handful of courageous men living a
precarious existence from hour to hour, were huddled together
in the Wilhelmstrasse with Bolshevism and Spartacus held at
arm's length. One day in January all that was left them was a
few government buildings riddled by the bullets of the Sparta-
cists. Three risings, which caused more bloodshed than the
whole of the French Revolution, followed close upon one an-
other in December, January and March; but mingling with the
clatter of the machine-guns in the dark streets at night, there
came floating out of bars and night dubs the strains of the
ktest catch or foxtrot. On the very day on which the atrocious
massacre of thirty young sailors was perpetrated in broad day-
light in the centre of Berlin, the streets were placarded with a

259

WALTHER RATHENAU

poster *Who has the prettiest legs in Berlin? Visit the Caviare-
flapper dance at such and such a cabaret at 8.30 P.M.* Profiteers
and their girls, the scum and riff-raff of half Europe — types
preserved like flies in amber in the caricatures of George Grosz
— could be seen growing fat and sleek and flaunting their new
cars and ostentatious jewellery in the faces of the pale children
and starving women shivering in their rags before the empty
bakers' and butchers' shops. Girls and married women were
selling themselves for a quartern loaf. Not only government
and the state, but the very foundations of civilized life,
seemed on the verge of collapse. Anti-Semitism flourished.
Irresponsibility and despair were crystallizing into an attitude
of mind which considered the Browning and the hand-grenade
the only arguments worth using. Civil war was rapidly school-
ing a section of the hot-headed youth of the country, mostly
boys in their teens, to become assassins, teaching them to be
brutally indifferent to human life and paving the way for that
long funeral procession which began with Rosa Luxemburg,
Karl Liebknecht and Leo Jogisches, and led by way of
hundreds of murders perpetrated in cold blood to those of
Erzberger and Walther Rathenau. And, worst of all, darken-
ing every prospect of the future, there was that council behind
closed doors in Paris, where the Big Three, Clemenceau, Lloyd
George and Wilson, were perfecting some mysterious terror,
some instrument of pitiless revenge, something still vague and
shapeless, but already oppressing every heart like a lowering
thunder-cloud with a sense of hopeless anxiety — an anxiety
that became almost palpable when the machine-gun fire of the
revolution stopped at last and a sudden deathly silence reigned
in the streets.

All this must be pictured, if one wants to understand the
fate that was soon to overtake Rathenau, and his own presenti-
ments of this fate. But what Rathenau could not know, what
nobody could know, was the rapidity with which the sound

260

ISOLATION

forces hidden away beneath this putrefying husk were even
then building up a new Germany.

In December, 1918, Rathenau wrote two open letters, one
cTo all who are not blinded by hate/ and the other to President
Wilson's friend, Colonel House. cHe who visits Germany
twenty years hence,' he said in the first, 'Germany which he
had known as one of Earth's fairest lands, will feel his heart
sinking with grief and shame. . . . The German cities will
not be precisely ruins $ they will be half -dead blocks of stone,
still partly tenanted by wretched, careworn beings. . . . The
countryside will be trodden under foot, the woods hewn down,
the fields scarce showing their miserable crops j harbours, rail-
ways, canals will be in ruin and decay, and everywhere will
stand the mighty buildings of the past, crumbling reminders of
the age of greatness. . . . The German spirit which has sung
and thought for the world will be a thing of the past, and a
people still young and strong today, and created by God for
life, will exist only in a state of living death.' 19

To President Wilson's friend he wrote: 'Never since history
began has so much power been entrusted to any one body of
men as to Wilson, Clemenceau and Lloyd George today.
Never before has the fate of a healthy and unbroken, gifted
and industrious people been dependent on one single decision of
a group of men. Suppose that a hundred years hence the
thriving towns of Germany are deserted and in ruins, its trade
and industry destroyed, the German spirit in science and art
dead, and German men and women in their millions torn and
driven from their homes — will the verdict of history and of
God then be that this people have been treated justly, and that
the three men responsible for this devastation have done
justice? . . .

'Colonel, my work is donej for myself I have nothing more
to hope or fear j my country has no further need of me, and I

19 Printed in Nach der Flut, p. 69 ff.

WALTHER RATHENAU

do not suppose I shall long outlive its downfall. As a humble
member of a people wounded to the heart, struggling simul-
taneously for its new-found freedom and its very existence, I
appeal to you, the representative of the most progressive of all
nations. Four years ago we were apparently your equals; but
only apparently, for in fact we lacked that element which gives
a nation its real strength: internal freedom. Today we stand
on the verge of annihilation 5 a fate which cannot be avoided
if Germany is to be crippled as those who hate us wish. For this
fact must be stated clearly and insistently, so that all may
understand its terrible significance, all nations and their peoples,
the present generation and those to come: what we are threat-
ened with, what the policy of hate proposes, is our annihilation,
the annihilation of German life now and for evermore?20

The impression which this letter made on House revived in
Rathenau a small measure of hope. At the New Year of 1919
he wrote to his friend:

Once again my heartfelt thanks*

Apart from your doubly welcome greeting the New Year
has brought me a piece of good news, which I will confide to
you. Colonel House has let me know through an emissary — a
former member of the American Embassy [MrDreseJ] —
that he was deeply shocked to read my letter, and had given it
to Wilson immediately on his arrival.

Affectionately,

But then came the Peace, a dictate which gave expression,
paragraph by paragraph, to Clemenceau's threat. The German
delegation advised unanimously against signing. Rathenau had
his own solution. In the Zukunft of May 3ist he wrote an

2*Loc. eft., pp. 62-63.

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ISOLATION

article entitled The End: <What is to be done? At Versailles
we must do our utmost to effect some radical improvement in
the Treaty. If we succeed, well and good — then sign it. But if
we do not, what then? In that case neither active nor passive
resistance should be attempted. In that case the negotiator,
Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, must deliver to the enemy govern-
ments the duly executed decree dissolving the National As-
sembly, and the resignation of the President and ministers, and
invite them to take over without delay the sovereign rights of
the German Reich and the whole machinery of government.
Hereby the responsibility for the peace, for the administration,
for all Germany's actions, would fall to the enemy 5 and before
the world, before history, and before their own peoples, they
would be faced with the care of sixty millions. It would be a
case without parallel, the unprecedented downfall of a nation,
but at the same time a course compatible with honour and
conscience. For the rest we must trust to the inalienable right of
mankind — and the clearly predictable march of events.5 As he
says in a letter to a friend, what he expected from this step
was that it would make clear to the Entente that their demands
were exaggerated and could not possibly be carried out. 'The
Entente governments would then be compelled to form a Con-
dominium, which would soon realize the desirability of having
a stable government in Germany that could render the country
capable of discharging its obligations.' (Letter 538 of June
3ni, 1919.) It would be a waste of time to consider what would
have happened if the National Assembly and the Government
had followed Rathenau's advice.

The acceptance of the Peace terms involved among other
things the extradition of the so-called ^war-criminals/ and it
seemed possible that Rathenau's name might be included in the
list. Statements to that effect appeared in the newspapers.
About the middle of June he wrote to his Swedish friend Ernst
Norlind: 'Some papers have published the report that the

263

WALTHER RATHENAU

Entente demands my extradition. Apparently a Franco-
Belgian press campaign is responsible for this. It is persistently
maintained that I occasioned the destruction of the French and
Belgian factories j that in fact a systematic flan Rathenau was
in existence. Now, the destructions only began in the autumn
of 1916, and I had already retired from office in April, 1915.
The $lan is a myth. I tried to deny it in a French paper, but of
course my denial was suppressed. I know that a military court
awaits me behind closed doors. I happened to be in Paris when
the Dreyfus case was going on. However, this worry matters
little compared with the desperate state of the country. It is
more terrible than the war, and again, as in the war, the people
have no suspicion of the truth.' (Letter 553.)

The situation did indeed appear to become ever more hope-
less } externally, because there was no diminution of the hysteri-
cal fear of Germany, which made Clemenceau and his fol-
lowers inexorable, in spite of the annihilation of all her sources
of powerj internally, because the revolutionary impulse, ex-
hausted by its struggle with the Spartadsts, was no longer
capable of that basic reformation of state and society which
Rathenau looked upon as a vital necessity for the German
people. Rathenau felt that he had been defeated in the fight for
his ideas into which he had plunged with so much weight and
vigour.

In his Criticism of the Three-fold' Revolution, published in
August, 1919, he once more stated his demands, epitomizing
them in the word 'Responsibility.' The specific propositions he
set forth were the same as those which he had propounded con-
sistently in all his writings from the early Physiology of Busi-
ness onwards — broadening and completing them, but never
deviating from the straight line that led to The New Economy
and The New State. We have already considered them and
need not recall them here. But Germany's helplessness, the
Peace, and the World Revolution which seemed on the way,

264

ISOLATION

showed them up in a new light. The masses everywhere were
clamouring for redemption. 'Neither the played-out individu-
alism of the West, nor the abstract and doctrinaire orthodoxy
of Russia, will save us from the abyss. This is where Germany
can help. If her help is accepted, then it will be as if the war
had never been. There will be no further question of parcelling
out the world} we shall still have room to live out our destiny 5
we shall no longer be condemned to the bondage of the raw-
materials monopolies, the boycott, and the indemnities} and the
wound in the body of world industry will be healed. Co-opera-
tion instead of conflict will be the life of the peoples. . . .
But if this does not happen, then Germany will become and
will remain a Balkan race among Balkan races, awaiting with
the others salvation from the East.' (Kritik der dreifachen
Revolution, p. 51.)

The National Assembly realized practically none of his de-
mands. He did not admit defeat} but he gave free rein to his
bitterness and disappointment in an article which he wrote for
Helmuth von Gerlach's Welt am Montag on the anniversary
of the Revolution, November nth, 1919. 'It was not a revolu-
tion. It was simply a collapse. The doors were burst asunder,
the warders ran away, and the captive people stood in the court-
yard, dazed and helpless. Had it been a revolution, the forces
and ideas that it engendered would have continued to bear
fruit. A real movement is only maintained by the forces it
engenders. All that the people wanted was rest. . . . The first
year has brought a certain measure of order} which was to be
expected, for we are an orderly people. It has produced bour-
geois measures, an old-fashioned republican constitution and
so forth} ideas and deeds it has not produced. . . . We are
what we were, and remain what we are. For ever? No. For we
are now beginning to experience the pressure that will make us
malleable and adaptable. . . . The next few years will give
UG the chance to come to grips with the problems that face us.

265

WALTHER RATHENAU

Then we shall see whether we are capable of something more
than a mere copy of the bourgeois democracies and economic
systems of the last century. I think the answer will be in the
affirmative.' 21

He did not admit defeat. About the time this article appeared
he wrote to Lore Karrenbrock: <I no longer belong to myself,
I have given myself away. I have nothing left, hardly an hour
of rest, scarcely sleep itself. I am merely a stranger who has
come to give of himself, and I shall live only so long as there
is still something to give.5 (Letter 577.) And four weeks later
he wrote to Ernst Norlind: CI know for certain that in fifty
years' time at the latest our country will have made a complete
recovery. But I know also that for the next five years it is
destined to get worse and worse.' (Letter 593.)

Rathenau now took a further step to the Left by joining the
Sozialwissenschaf flicker Vereiny which was founded by Left
Democrats, Pacifists and Independents. About this time he
wrote to a Swedish friend, Peter Hammer: *I have many points
of contact with the radicals, but several circumstances prevent
my making this contact any closer. . . . In Days to Coma is, I
believe, the most revolutionary book that has appeared for
many years. . . . The New Economy was the forerunner of
the system of communal trading which now forms the central
plank of the Majority Socialist platform as far as industrial
matters are concerned. Thus I should be much less compro-
mised than most socialists, and yet my relationship to socialism,
especially to the left wing, with which I have most in common,
is a very delicate one. . . . What I fear is that there is no real
will to carry into effect a truly constructive policy.' (Letter

543-)

In November, 1920, something happened which profoundly
influenced Rathenau's future. Ludendorff , who stuck at nothing
in his efforts to escape responsibility for the loss of the war,

21 Welt am Montag, November 10, 1919, No. 45.

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ISOLATION

declared before the Reichstag Committee of Enquiry: *I re-
gret that I am compelled to repeat a remark of Walther Rathe-
nau's to the effect that on the day that the Kaiser and his
paladins on their white chargers ride victorious through the
Brandenburger Tor, history will have lost all meaning. Thus
there were currents of opinion in the nation which did not
subscribe to the view of the Supreme Command that we must
fight to a victorious conclusion, and these currents of opinion
must be taken into account.'

Rathenau immediately saw what the effect of this poisonous
distortion of his words would be. In his essay, Shicksalss'piel,
he says: 'This statement of General LudendorfPs before the
Committee of Enquiry can and will be taken to mean that I
helped to undermine the morale of the people, that I worked
against victory, and strove to sabotage the war. I cannot allow
such an imputation to be laid to my charge. I reject it, and will
give my grounds for doing so. My "remark" is to be found in
my essay The Kaiser, which appeared at the beginning of this
year. Had Ludendorff taken the trouble to read this, he would
have understood what it meant, namely that under Germany's
leaders at the beginning of the war (the remark was made in
September, 1914) we could not hope for victory.3 (Was wird
werden? p. 5.) For very many people, especially in young
nationalistic circles, Ludendorff's misinterpretation stamped
Rathenau as a noxious criminal on whom it would be an act of
patriotism to take vengeance. From then on he was a marked
man.

267

CHAPTER X

THE NEW FOREIGN POLICY: THE FIGHT
FOR PEACE

ON JANUARY loth, I92O, the Peace Treaty came into
force. This brought with it as a first result the list of
so-called 'war criminals' to be surrendered to the
Allies in accordance with the terms of the treaty. Rathenau's
name was not among them.

In a letter to his friend on this occasion he writes:

Your letter was perhaps the most beautiful and moving
you have ever sent me. It made me feel all the love you had
breathed into it. I cannot answer it j I can only be grateful
for it. It came at a moment when a burden had just been lifted
from my mind, a burden which I had fully expected to have
to bear, and which I should not have shrunk from bearing.
But though it has weighed on me I cannot say I feel any freer
now that it has gone. It makes me feel all the more deeply
the burden that the others and my country have to bear: I
almost feel I would rather have shared it to the utmost limit.
But perhaps that is morbid. Up to the last moment I was al-
most certain I should find my name on the list; and when I
tell you some day of the exchange of notes with Belgium, which
was — and still is — being conducted on my behalf, you won't
find that surprising.

No clear line seems possible at present, so great is the gen-
eral confusion of ideas on the whole subject. For on the one
hand the nation cannot be expected to surrender the victims
of its own free will. Yet on the other hand they cannot be

268

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

allowed to plunge their country into disaster. Therefore they
must either give themselves up or else seek refuge in flight}
the one thing they must not do is to go about here as if nothing
had happened. I had made all preparations for the first alterna-
tive} but I don't ask that others should do likewise. Every
effort must be made to assist those who wish to flee, but there
must be no staying on here. In Greece, if a man was an inno-
cent or unwitting victim in such a case as this, he left the coun-
try.

But now I am becoming political. Isn't that almost an an-
swer to your question? No, it is not meant to be. Today my
only answer is gratitude.

YourW.

5.2.20

The Kapp Putsch took place on March 13th.1 Soon after
this Rathenau began, at first almost imperceptibly, to regain
political influence. The new government was formed on March
29th, the dictatorship having come to an ignominious end. The
organized working-class, whose passive resistance had been the
means of defeating the Putsch, now demanded socialization.
Hence the government summoned a second Socialization Com-
mission, of which, after the Independents had withdrawn their
veto, Rathenau became a member.

More important for the future was the friendship which
sprang up between him and Dr Wirth, the new Minister of
Finance.2 Their moral earnestness, the Christian conviction that

1 A 'Putsch' is the slang German word for an attempt by a small armed force
to overthrow the constitutional Government.

2Dr Joseph Wirth, born September 9th, 1879, in Baden. Studied mathematics
and economics 5 became a schoolmaster at the Freiburg Realgymnasium. Entered
the Baden Diet in 1913 and the Reichstag in 1914$ became Finance Minister of
the Federal State of Baden in 1918 and German Finance Minister in 1920 after
the Kapp Putsch. Was German Chancellor (Prime Minister) from 1921 to 1923,
and at present holds the post of German Minister for the Occupied Territories.
Editor of the weekly Deutsche Refublik.

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WALTHER RATHENAU

man's soul is what really matters, was a close bond between
them. And over and above this they had scientific interests in
common (Wirth was a mathematician, Rathenau a physicist),
both were interested in philosophy, both were lonely men and
bachelors. This was what they had in common. But in their
differences, too, they complemented each other. Wirth was
impulsive, his mind worked in broad outlines} Rathenau, on
the other hand, was distinguished by his exact knowledge of
detail in all financial and economic questions. Wirth's mental-
ity was simple and intuitive and sometimes mysterious in its
workings, whereas Rathenau's was complex and ever dominated
by his alert intelligence. Thus a friendship grew up between
them, half political, half spiritual. In many ways this friend-
ship resembled that between Walther Rathenau and his father,
who had the same intuitive capacity for arriving at surprising
decisions by obscure processes of thought. Whether Rathenau
was conscious of this resemblance, I do not knowj but although
Wirth was by far the younger man, his attitude to him always
had in it a certain element of tender considerateness— one
might almost say of filial piety. The first result of this mutual
appreciation was that Wirth took Rathenau to Spa with him.

By the conclusion of peace Germany was confronted with two
problems which needed an immediate solution:

1. How was she, being disarmed, to regain her freedom of
action, and a measure — if at first only a small measure— of
self-determination in her dealings with the Allies, these being
armed to the teeth? Obviously the first essential was a New
German Foreign Policy, which would enable her to gab her
ends without the backing of force.

2. What attitude should Germany adopt towards the stu-
pendous material burdens arising out of the Peace Treaty, in
particular her Reconstruction and Reparations obligations, so

270

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

as to prevent them from completely crushing her economic
and financial life?

Up to the present day the whole of Germany's post-war
policy has turned upon the solution of these two questions.
Rathenau realized, virtually at once, that if there was an an-
swer to them, then it could be found only by recognizing dearly
their intimate connection. On the very day of the ratification
of the Peace Treaty by the German National Assembly, July
1 6th, 1919, he wrote to Erzberger, the Minister of Finance:
'In our present desperate situation we must strive to find the
central point from which the whole situation can be unravelled.
This point is to be found in Belgium and North France — that
is to say, in the problem of reconstruction. From this point we
can —

1. Regulate our relations with France}

2. Improve the peace terms 5

3. Change the character of, and effect a reduction in, the in-

demnity;

4. Exert influence on Germany's internal condition;

5. Restore Germany's moral strength.

It is essential that we should make the Reconstruction prob-
lem the keystone of our policy, and not treat it just as an em-
barrassing duty.' (Letter 551.)

On April 26th, 1920, the Allies invited the German Govern-
ment to send delegates to Spa for a discussion of all questions
raised by the Peace Treaty. The Conference began on July 5th.
The German delegation consisted of the Chancellor, Fehren-
bach,8 the Foreign Minister, Dr Simons,4 the ministers con-

8 Constantin Fchrenbach, born January nth, 1852, in Baden. A lawyer by
profession and a leading member of the Catholic Centre Party. Member of the
Reichstag from 1913 to 1918, where he made his mark by a speech against the
Imperial Government in the Zabern affair. President of the German National

271

WALTHER RATHENAU

cerned with economic matters, General von Seeckt,5 and a large
number of experts — also Rathenau, whom Wirth had included
in face of violent opposition and, lastly, as chief representative
of the German industrialists, Hugo Stinnes.6

Stinnes was at the time the most powerful man in Germany,
a sort of secret Kaiser towering above the stricken state on a
pedestal of huge, if rather vague, industrial power. For the
man-in-the-street, both at home and abroad, he had already
become a legendary figure, a wizard, a Klingsor who alone
possessed the secret of conjuring forth magic gardens from the
stony ruins of German industry, a Cagliostro, an alchemist
capable by some sort of sorcery of transmuting paper into gold.
But even at close range he was impressive — one half, to be
sure, only a big uncanny financier, but the other half a prophet,
wont to say his sooth blatantly and bluntly, but yet impene-
trable, and thus mysterious to friend and foe alike. He went

Assembly in Weimar in 1919. Chancellor from 1920 to 1921. Died March 3rd,
1926.

4 Dr Walther Simons, born 1861 in Elberfeld. Studied law, became a judge,
then legal adviser of the German Foreign Office. Secretary-General of the Ger-
man Peace delegation at Versailles, advocated the rejection of the Versailles
Treaty and resigned when it was signed. German Minister for Foreign Affairs
from 1920 to 1921. Later President of the German Supreme Court. After the
death of President Ebert, he became Acting President under the Constitution till
the election of Field-Marshal von Hindenburg.

* General Hans von Seeckt, born April 4th, 1866. During the war, Chief of
Staff to Field-Marshal Mackensen. Organized the great offensive against the
Russians in Galicia in May, 1915, broke their front and smashed the Russian
^team-roller' at the battle of Gorlice-Tarnow. Commander-in-Chief and re-
organizer of the Reichswehr (after the Kapp Putsch) from 1920 to 1926.

6 Hugo Stinnes, born February i2th, 1870, in Mulheim on the Ruhr, of well-
to-do parents. Began life as a clerk in a small business, then worked for some
time as a common labourer in a coal-pit. Went into the coal trade in 1893 and
soon afterwards founded his own firm of "Hugo Stinnes." Became one of the
magnates of the Coal Syndicate in Essen in 1903, went into the Reichstag in
1920 as a member of the <Volkspartei,> acquired immense wealth by speculating
on the fall of the mark and buying up industries all over Germany and Europe
with the proceeds of his speculations, ultimately welding his business together
into the biggest European trust, which, however, collapsed soon after his death
in April, 1924.

272

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

about among German coal merchants and steel magnates, his
colleagues, like a stranger} very dark, looking like a south-
erner, a Frenchman or an Assyrian, with a thick black beard and
eyes that seemed always gazing on some inner vision, moving
in what was left of Society in heavy peasant boots and clothes
that hung about him as if he had just got them back from the
pawnbroker's, always surrounded by a vast family, which he
dragged along behind him wherever he went} a cross between
a patriarch, a commercial traveller and the Flying Dutchman.
Taken all in all he was, perhaps, a man possessed — possessed
by the demon of big business, by an unquenchable thirst for
supreme power through commercial transactions, as Hokusai
was possessed by the demon of painting and drawing. For, at
bottom, he was nothing but just a company promoter, with no
other interest or outlook than finance. Yet, with all that, one
could not call him precisely a reactionary} Stresemann was
able to say of him in his obituary speech, without irony, that
he was 'first and foremost a staunch Republican' — although
it would probably have been nearer the truth to say that he
cared as little about the Hohenzollerns as he did about the
Republic. In a certain sense, he seemed friendly even to labour,
being no less concerned about the 'living inventory,' the work-
ers of his countless undertakings, about their conditions of life,
their health and working capacity, than about the good condi-
tion of his machines} going to the length of promoting common
workmen to leading positions in his companies, not in the in-
terest, to be sure, of the working class (that would have been
Rathenau's reason for doing so), but 'because it is a peculiar
fact that the influence of the parents' wealth on the younger
generation is not precisely favourable. . . . This being so, we
must see to it that the blobs of fat in the great soup tureen of
labour can come to the surface and take the place at present

WALTHER RATHENAU

occupied by the families of the rich.5 7 In the interest of big
business, of course!

The French Premier, M Millerand, opened the Conference
with an address requesting the Germans to account for their
failure to make the requisite coal deliveries. The Supreme
Council had decided that Germany should grant an absolute
priority for Reparations coal over all deliveries for home con-
sumption, and should agree to a rigid control of German coal
distribution. The Allies demanded two million tons monthly,
and threatened, in the words of the invitation to the Confer-
ence, that if this was not carried out 'they would proceed to take
whatever, measures were necessary to secure the fulfilment of
their demands, even if they should involve a further occupa-
tion of German territory.'

On the following day, after Dr Simons had replied, Hugo
Stinnes rose from his seat, and glaring at the Allied delegates,
began as follows: CI make my speech standing, so that I can
look my audience straight between the eyes.' 8 This tone he
kept up all through his address. Dr Bergmann, who was at
Spa as the representative of the German Government on the
Reparations Commission, states that cthe speech created a vio-
lent sensation and did much harm to the German cause at
Spa.5 * Indeed, the tension between the Germans and the Allies
became acute, and gave rise to unpleasant incidents. But it was
hardly less acute within the German delegation itself. Here,
however, it had the advantage of leading to a thorough dis-
cussion of principles, the result of which was decisive, in that it
determined the main lines of future German policy.

The two opposite points of view were represented by Stinnes
and Rathenau. Even outwardly the contrast between them was

T Speech of October 29th, 1920. Quoted by Gaston Raphael, Hugo Stinnes, der
Mensch, sem Werky sein Wirken, p. 27.

8 Speech reprinted in the Deutsche Attgemeine Zeitung of April loth, 1925.

9 Carl Bergmann, Der Weg der Reparation, p. 62.

274

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

very striking: on the one hand, Rathenau, the polished gentle-
man, who spoke as if from a pedestal, in wonderfully com-
plicated periods and a highly ornamental style j and on the
other, Stinnes, clad like a common workman and averse from
fine phrases, who concealed visionary plans behind a thick
veil of 'hard facts,' an impenetrable mask of misleading com-
mon sense.10 Stinnes demanded that the Allied ultimatum
should be rejected. What if this meant an extension of the
occupation and the Bolshevization of the rest of Germany?
Once the Allies felt the Bolshevik menace at their very doors,
they would soon come to reason and be prepared to deal justly
with Germany! His proposal really meant blackmailing the
blackmailer j in which process, however, the German black-
mailer was invited first to commit suicide on the doorstep of
the French — a new and strangely mystical form of the old
Machtyolitik oddly disguised in the semblance of world revo-
lution, though, it is true, this was the only kind of Machtyolitik
Germany could at that time pursue. Doubtless behind all this
Stinnes did not altogether overlook the possibility indicated by
Rathenau in his lecture on 'Democratic Development,' given in
Berlin shortly before Spa: 'We must not be deceived by those
who say to us: "Let things take their course, it will all turn out
right in the end." Among those who say this there are some
who play with the thought: if Germany is divided into three
parts, one of these, the western portion, will then regain its
prosperity and become a sort of German Belgium' (loc. cit*y p.
23). This 'German Belgium' was the scene of Stinnes' prin-
. qpal activities 5 and here there might actually have been a brief
spell of apparent recovery. But if the Allies had occupied the
Ruhr under the conditions which would have developed on
Stinnes' advice being taken, one can hardly doubt that Poin-

10 1 remember a visit which Rathenau paid Stinnes in Mulheim before the
war, and from which he returned disgusted by the lack of culture he had found
there.

275

WALTHER RATHENAU

care would have had an infinitely better chance of achieving
his aim — viz., of detaching the Rhineland from Germany and
bringing it within the political and economic orbit of France.
Thus what was at stake between Stinnes and Rathenau was
really the whole post-war fate and history of Germany and
Europe.

Rathenau vigorously attacked Stinnes' proposal. He pleaded
for an answer that would at least not preclude negotiations.
Negotiations would give an opportunity, as he had expressed
it in his letter to Erzberger, <to unravel the whole situation' —
that is to say, to discuss and perhaps to solve not only the Coal
and Reparations questions, but all the various problems raised
by the Peace Treaty. To support this policy he only needed to
refer to the views he had developed in his New Era article
after the 1907 elections: 'that wars are seldom decisive — that
in the game of foreign policy the protagonists have just so
many counters as their economic power provides, and that a
nation can win and retain just so much weight in foreign affairs
as corresponds to its moral, intellectual and economic resources'
(cf. swpra> pp. 126-127).

This applied to the Allies no less than to disarmed Germany.
Therefore negotiations must be the aim. Negotiations breed
wishes, and these give opportunities for the expression of
counter-wishes. In the course of this process the weight of in-
tellectual and economic forces on both sides comes into play,
one wheel starts another and the ascent from the depths begins.
Partly to save the Ruhr, but partly also to set going the ma-
chinery of negotiation, Rathenau urged that the coal demands
should be accepted and, moreover, that a definite order for
the discharge of the total Reparations liability should be made
forthwith.11

11 Lord D'Abernon notes in his diary February ist, 1922: 'He [Rathenau] has
taken to international Conferences with passion. He wants diem to go on all the

276

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

The former Colonial Secretary, Dernburg,12 was the first
to accept the point of view so brilliantly expressed and de-
fended by Rathenau, and was of course supported by Dr Wirth,
but also, which was more remarkable, by General von Seeckt
and the majority of the German delegates. As Dr Wirth said
in conversation with me years later: cln this hour the Policy of
Fulfilment was born.5 It is remarkable that the starting-point
of Rathenau's policy — 'Once negotiations are possible, anything
is possible' — had been Talleyrand's guiding principle at the
Congress of Vienna, where he also was the representative of a
country defeated, powerless, and occupied by the enemy.

The Cabinet accepted the Coal ultimatum, but declined,
greatly to the injury of Germany's permanent interests, to
transmit an offer for her total liability. On July i6th cin the
midst' as Bergmann reports (p. 63), cof indescribable excite-
ment,' a coal protocol was signed in which Germany pledged
herself to deliver two million tons of coal monthly for a period
of six months beginning on August ist. As a result of this it
was decided, on Mr Lloyd George's initiative, to discuss the
whole question of Reparations with Germany at a new con-
ference at Geneva.

Hugo Stinnes did not forgive Rathenau his defeat. It was
Stinnes who coined the phrase in Spa about Rathenau's having
the csoul of an alien race,' Stinnes, who himself had Southern
French blood in his veins and looked like a Phoenician sea cap-
tain. And Emile Bure reported in the Eclair that Stinnes' agents
^refcmdent $artout des bruits calomnieux et laissent entendre
notamment que monsieur Loucheur ne songe avec monsieur

time. There cannot be too many. Let them be small in point of numbers, but long
in period of time 5 not too many Powers to attend, but plenty of time to discuss.*
(An Ambassador of Peace, vol. i., p. 255.)

12 Bernhard Demburg, born July iyth, 1865, in Darmstadt, of an old Berlin
family of lawyers. Secretary of State for the Colonies 1907-1910, Member of
the German National Assembly and German Minister of Finance in 1919. He it
was whom Rathenau had accompanied to Bast Africa in 1907 and 1908.

277

WALTHER RATHENAU

Rathenau qu?a ^assurer la direction d'un trust ewro$een de
Vel&ctricite?

Rathenau opposed the whole weight of his personality to
Stinnes' desire to 'Bolshevize' Germany. But relations with
Soviet Russia, on the other hand, formed a logically inevitable
part of his policy of negotiation: the closer the relations, the
more surely and rapidly must the hoped-for results take place.
Even under the Imperial Government in the summer of 1918
negotiations had taken pkce with the aim of transforming the
one-sided Treaty of Brest-Litovsk into a basis for mutual
friendly relations. The negotiations, which took place in Berlin,
at first under von Kuhlmann, when he was Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, and then under his successor, von Hintze,
were conducted on the Russian side by the People's Commis-
sary, Krassin, and the Russian Ambassador, Joffe; on the Ger-
man side by the head of the Eastern Department in the Foreign
Office, Nadolny (now German Ambassador to Turkey), the
head of the Judicial Department of the Foreign Office, Dr
Kriege, by various officers representing the Supreme Command,
by Dr von Prittwitz, the present German Ambassador in Wash-
ington, and myself representing the Chancellor, and, finally,
by the then Member of the Reichstag, Dr Stresemann. The
negotiations were prolonged by the fantastic demands of
Ludendorff and his staff. It was, for instance, a long time be-
fore he could be induced to give up the idea of a Cossack re-
public on the Don under a German protectorate. In the end
any results that had been obtained were brought to nought by
Germany's collapse and the dictated Peace of Versailles.

As soon as the Peace Treaty came into force Rathenau took
up the idea of an understanding with Russia. TSut,' he writes
to a friend in Berlin on January 26th, 1920, cthe present gov-
ernment has not yet reached the standpoint which I represent —
i.e. that we must enter into an economic relationship with Rus-
sia.3 (Letter 609.) And so he took the matter into his own

278

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

hands, and cin the face of considerable difficulty founded with a
few friends a "Commission for the study of Russian affairs." *
(Letter 621.) On March loth, 1920, he wrote to Professor
Hoffmann, Wilhelmshaven: *I am in complete agreement with
you as to the necessity of finding some common ground be-
tween Russia and ourselves. At the present time Bolshevism is
only a fagadej what we are really confronted with is a rigidly
oligarchic agrarian republic, which in spite of all its difficulties
is, I believe, destined to last. True, it will be a long time before
Russia is strong enough to grant us economic compensations.
... It is my hope that the labours of the Commission [re-
ferred to above] will bring about the first and decisive ra$-
twochement in the economic sphere, to be followed, let us
hope, by a corresponding rapprochement in the political sphere.5
(Letter 622.)

Understandings in the West and resumption of relations in
the East thus became the two immediate aims of German
Foreign Policy. They followed necessarily from the views
Rathenau had expressed long before the war on the funda-
mentals of international politics. He now urged the leaders of
Germany to build up a new foreign policy on these funda-
mentals to replace her old policy of Armaments and Power.
That was the background of his speech at Spa and of the Policy
of Fulfilment which it initiated; a policy which Dr Strese-
mann took up again and continued after Rathenau's death
and after the collapse of passive resistance in the Ruhr, and
constantly thereafter. The essence of this policy, which has
become the common property of the vast majority of Ger-
mans, is the effort to counteract the work of Versailles and
the destruction of Germany's military power by a policy
of negotiation and understanding, with the aim of hasten-
ing the return of Germany to that place among the nations
which corresponds to her moral, intellectual and economic re-
sources.

279

WALTHER RATHENAU

It is obvious what part would be played in this scheme by
the League of Nations. Rathenau could not but have welcomed
it, had it become during his lifetime a meeting-place for the
Foreign Ministers of all the nations as it did later when Ger-
many and her former allies were admitted to it. He would
have realized that these regular gatherings of leading states-
men at Geneva were the most effective instrument for putting
into practice his policy of negotiation. But as a guarantee of
peace in the event of serious conflicts between Great Powers he
refused to trust it, at least in its present form of a League of
Sovereign States. He made it quite clear that in his view an
organization which really guaranteed world peace would differ
fundamentally from the present League. It would have to be
a structure held together, he explained, not only by diplomacy,
but also by the everyday work and industry of the world: an
international community of production and exchange organized
on lines ensuring worldwide economic peace, and thereby doing
away with most of the causes which lead to war. In his lecture
on 'The Zenith of Capitalism' he says: cFrom the point of view
of foreign policy the nations are armed competitive commu-
nities, and so long as this is the case every peaceful effort on
the part of individual nations to restrict the competitive method
is doomed to failure. Every effort to exterminate armed war-
fare must be in vain, so long as obstinate commercial warfare
is the main business of the nations.' (Speeches, p. 162.) Thus
in a letter to Professor Victor Riecke, written shortly before
the Armistice, he considers it cnecessary to emphasize the point
that only constant creative labour can make possible true inter-
national co-operation.' (Letter 444.) As a first step towards
a European industrial community he welcomed the idea of a
'European consortium' between Germany and the Western
Powers, which should undertake the reconstruction of Russia.
And this same thought inspired his proposal for the co-opera-

280

THE FJGHT FOR PEACE

tion of German and French labour in the reconstruction of the
devastated areas of North France. The League of Nations
that he had in mind as a real guarantee of peace could be pic-
tured as a glorified extension of this Franco-German rebuild-
ing of destroyed cottages.

When, in January or February, 1919, in order to ascertain
his views, I laid before him my plan, prepared under instruc-
tions from the then Foreign Minister, Count Rantzau, for *a
real League of Nations' based on a bedrock of organized in-
dustry, trade and finance, but providing also for causes of con-
flict arising out of differences of race and civilization, he
agreed with it, though rather coldly, I thought. He also agreed
with the obvious reservation that it would take a long time to
put into practice and to perfect. At the end of 1919, however,
he wrote a letter to a correspondent (published after his death)
in which he outlined very much the same plan: 'Nothing could
be more futile,5 he wrote, *than the usual programme of an
international paradise, where the lion states lie down with the
lamb states for no other reason than that they all have demo-
cratic governments. My ideas on the subject are far more
Utopian than this programme, but at the same time far more
realistic. You will get some idea of them if you read my New
State. Only when the idea of the nationalist competitive state
has become discredited, and when the world has been split up
into communities on a just economic, administrative, cultural
and religious basis — communities which will differ fundamen-
tally from the modern state — only then will it be possible to
eliminate the economic rivalry which is bound to provoke wars
and conflicts even under the most guileless democratic regimes.
This goal is certainly very far off j to reach it we must begin,
not with the others, but with ourselves. We must ourselves pro-
vide the example of the sort of state and economy that I have
described' (Letter 602.)

281

WALTHER RATHENAU

Rathenau's mood on his return from Spa is reflected in the
following letter to his friend:

30.9.20

The autumn flowers you sent me burn like a dark flame in
my room. This is the most mysterious of all the seasons. Al-
though for many years now it has filled me with intense fear
of the approaching winter, I nevertheless feel a certain affinity
with it. But a few weeks more and the endless, sunless, grey
night begins.

I will gladly come to you, but I am afraid I have little to
bring. The summer was an empty one, and the chill of the
long rainy days is slow to leave the limbs.

I am fifty-three years old. I look backwards rather than
forwards, and my work is almost done. It still keeps me going,
but it is no longer a driving force. I have surmounted life's
summit, and yet the peace I looked for has not come. It is not
the broad valley that I see, but range upon range of mountains
and the stars and horizon.

Farewell. I thank you from my heart for this and that, for
everything.

Affectionately,

YourW.

Meanwhile in spite of Spa a section of the Allies persisted in
its tactics of evading negotiations with Germany on questions
arising out of the Peace Treaty, and continued the dictatorial
methods which had so far proved so successful. It clearly shared
Rathenau's view that negotiations were Germany's most dan-
gerous weapon and the most effective instrument for her re-
habilitation. The tactical situation at this time was that Ger-
many went on trying — at first timidly and somewhat ineffec-
tively— to open negotiations, as Rathenau had advised in Spa,
while the Allies, under the influence of France, did all they
could to wreck them. True, Germany was invited to the inter-

282

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

national financial conference at Brussels, which was convoked
by the League of Nations for the end of 19205 but the League
Council under French pressure had already decreed on August
5th that none of the questions outstanding between Germany
and the Allies should be discussed at this meeting. (Bergmann,
p. 66.) Ultimately this conference of responsible statesmen,
arranged as far back as Spa and then consistently postponed
owing to French influence, never materialized} its place was
taken by a preparatory conference on Reparations between the
German and the Allied experts, which began in Brussels on
December i6th. It lasted till the 26th and was then postponed
till January. Though no definite decisions were reached, the
method of negotiation had nevertheless borne fruit. 'Allied and
German delegates met in friendly intercourse both during,
and in the intervals between, the regular sessions. There
seemed every reason to hope that this conference of experts,
free as it was from any sort of political pressure, would show
at last the path that might lead to success. In the intervals of
the conference each particular question was the subject of dis-
cussion between an Allied and a German representative. . . .
For the first time a meeting had taken place between Allied and
German representatives which left a favourable impression on
all concerned and which had a universally good press.' (Berg-
mann, p. 72.)

But at this point the French Government, fearing that this
method would lead to Germany's rapid — too rapid — recovery,
entered the lists once more. On January 24th, 1921, the Su-
preme Council met suddenly and unexpectedly in Paris. It
decided of its own accord, without giving Germany a hearing,
that for the first eleven years Germany should pay from 2 to
5 milliard gold marks, and that for the next thirty-one years
after that she should pay 6 milliard gold marks yearly. (This
decision followed on a speech of Doumer's, the French Min-
ister of Finance, who assessed Germany's total debt at 212

283

WALTHER RATHENAU

milliard gold marks [about $53,000,000,000] and demanded
an annual instalment of 12 milliards.) To accept this Germany
was invited to a conference in London.

Now at last the German Government did in haste and far
too late what it ought to have done in Spa: it set about evolving
a proposal of its own to submit to the Allies. A commission of
experts was called together, to which Rathenau, among others,
submitted a scheme. This was rejected; for the government
prepared a scheme of its own which ran, as Rathenau wrote
later, cdiametrically counter7 to his. This government proposal
estimated the present value of the Allied demands at 53 mil-
liards, and then deducted 2O milliards from this sum in con-
sideration of what Germany had already handed over. This
left 33 milliards, which was scaled down to the round sum of
30 milliards (about $ 7,500,000,000) j of this from 8 to 10
milliards were to be disposed of by means of loans, and a fur-
ther 5 milliards by deliveries in kind, in the course of the next
five years; customs and some excise duties were offered by way
of security. With this scheme in their pockets they proceeded
to the conference.

The first session of the conference took place in London on
March ist, 1921. Apart from Dr Simons and the German
delegation the members were Lloyd George, Briand, the Italian
and Belgian Premiers, the other Allied Ministers concerned,
and a large number of Allied experts. Dr Simons spoke first.18
'Instead/ says Bergmann, cof reading out the terms of the
German offer, he gave a conscientious exposition of the difficul-
ties which had attended its genesis, and then proceeded to an
exhaustive criticism of the Paris decisions, which, he said, were
economically impracticable. The situation at home did, in fact,
preclude the German Government from putting forward any

18 In my description of the London Conference I have followed the excep-
tionally dear and graphic account by Dr Bergmann, who himself played a lead-
ing part in it.

284

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

really definite proposals} but in spite of this they had decided
to try and reach a solution of the Reparations problem with the
least possible delay' (p. 88). Whereupon he proceeded to un-
fold the German counter-proposal outlined above. 'Through-
out the rest of his speech Dr Simons kept returning to the 30-
milliard figure. He explained that of these 30 milliards 8
should, in the first instance, be raised by international loan, and
then went on, amid growing uneasiness, to discuss how he pro-
posed to raise the remaining 22 milliards.

*This method of presenting his argument, which, so to speak,
hammered the tabooed 30 milliards into the heads of his audi-
ence, and under which the total liability seemed to shrink away
into ever-smaller proportions, together with the difficulty of
translating so involved a speech, made a very unfavourable im-
pression on the Allied members of the conference. Thus Dr
Simons saw himself forced to break off in the middle, and pro-
ceeded to read out the formulated proposals, at which point
Lloyd George declared with considerable acerbity that this was
unnecessary. . . . The excitement in the Allied camp was
astonishing. . . . People talked in all seriousness of a German
challenge, and there was an immediate and universal cry for
sanctions' (p. 89).

In the second session, on March 3rd, Lloyd George described
the German proposals as a clear defying of the Treaty of Ver-
sailles. ... It would be merely a waste of time to go into
them. It only remained for the Allies to say that in view of
the repeated breaches of the Treaty of Versailles on the part of
the German Government punitive measures would now have
to be resorted to. Unless Germany accepted the Paris Decisions
by March yth the Allies would proceed to sanctions, including
the occupation of Dtisseldorf, Duisburg and Ruhrort. On
March 4th, 5th and 6th private negotiations took place between
Dr Simons, Dr Bergmann, Briand, Loucheur, Lloyd George
and Lord D'Abernon at Lord Curzon's private house, and at-

285

WALTHER RATHENAU

tempts were made to pour oil- on the troubled waters; but they
did not lead to any practical result. The last session, at which
Lloyd George announced the sanctions, was held on March ythj
and on March 8th Diisseldorf , Duisburg and Ruhrort were oc-
cupied. Owing to the clumsy behaviour of the German Gov-
ernment and Press and the adroitness of a certain section of
the Allies, which preferred anything to negotiations, the policy
of negotiation had been sabotaged once more.

At this point the Reparations Commission was entrusted
with the task of calculating the German liability for Repara-
tions, which, in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles, had
to be determined by May 1st. The Commission concluded their
labours on April 2yth, and decided on a total figure of 132
milliard gold marks. The Supreme Council met again in Lon-
don, drew up a scheme of its own, and then summoned the
Reparations Commission to London from Paris, in order that
it might communicate the completed scheme to Germany as its
own work. This was done on May 5th, and was accompanied
by an ultimatum from the Allied Governments which threat-
ened the occupation of the Ruhr if the whole scheme was not
accepted unconditionally within six days by the German Gov-
ernment.

The consternation in Germany was intense. Many declared
that under no circumstances should one sign an I.CXU. for the
utterly impossible sum of 132 milliards. Even the Govern-
ment took this line, for which, as Bergmann shows con-
clusively, there was no justification. Tor on closer investiga-
tion it became dear that the scheme by no means involved the
payment of 132 milliards. In contrast to the stipulations of the
Treaty of Versailles the total debt was not to be definitely
funded. That is to say, the really important point was not the
nominal total sum, but the amount of the annuity. This was
made up of a fixed instalment of 2 milliards and a sum which
varied in accordance with the amount of Germany's exports.

286

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

At that time this was between 4" and 5 milliards a year, from
which 26 per cent, had to be deducted. This worked out at
something over a milliard, so that the annuity would amount
altogether to a round 3 milliards. That corresponded to 5 per
cent, interest and I per cent, towards a sinking fund on a capital
of 50 milliard gold marks.

'Thus the London ultimatum was no worse than the recent
German offer to the United States. This consisted of a promise
to pay 50 milliards present value and in addition to make de-
liveries in kind on a basis of apparent increasing prosperity.
Hence there was no logical justification for rejecting the ulti-
matum— quite apart from the fact that every effort had to be
made to avoid the occupation of the Ruhr. It was certainly not
easy to see where Germany was going to get the money from;
one just had to rely on the hope that Germany's really earnest
exertions in the matter of Reparations would in time produce
a better understanding of her economic necessities in the minds
of her opponents. This argument was decisive. The Reichstag
declared for acceptance by a small majority, and a new govern-
ment under Dr Wirth's leadership accepted the ultimatum, as
the Allies had stipulated, without condition or reserve.' (Berg-
mann, pp. 104-105.)

The new Chancellor, Wirth, begged Rathenau, in whose
patriotism and expert knowledge he had unlimited confidence,
to take over the Ministry of Reconstruction. And now at last
Rathenau had conquered} at last he was free to put his ideas
into practice. At the same time this meant that he was exposed
to greater personal danger than before. His mother implored
him to refuse, and at the last moment he seems himself to have
hesitated — seems, for inwardly everything moved him to ac-
cept. The negotiations were very protracted. On May 25th he
writes to Gerhart Hauptmann: ^Unfortunately I have not yet
earned your congratulations and confidence, for the negotiations

287

WALTHER RATHENAU

of the last ten days have failed to convince me that I can really
be of use to my country in the present extremely complex
political situation. I have not yet made my decision. My inner
barometer stands far to the left of "variable," near the point
which is designated "rain and snow" or, politically speaking,
"refusal."' (Letter 711.) And on the syth he writes to his
mother: 'Since you went away I have been as busy and worried
as ever, and have had to take part in still further discussions.
Finally, after a long conference on Sunday evening at the Chan-
cellor's between him, Rosen (who had been given the Foreign
Office in the interval) and myself, I refused; but I could not
avoid an appointment to lunch with Rosen, which was of course
taken to mean that the last word had not yet been said. In the
meantime the news had got into the papers, though, as you
know, for twelve days nothing whatsoever had been allowed
to leak through} and now to my astonishment it turned out that
a really large number of people, even in the heavy industries,
had wanted me to take the post — no doubt partly out of Sch&-
denfreudey but partly too for serious reasons. I have made no
effort to deny the thing in the papers; I am assuming that the
rumours will evaporate of their own accord, and hope that the
matter will be finally decided within the next few days, and
then at last there will be an end of all these discussions.'
(Letter 715.)

But then he made his decision. He accepted. And within
twenty-four hours he had severed his connection with industry,
given up his post as president of the A.E.G. and all his director-
ships, and entered the government. On June ist he wrote to his
mother at Carlsbad: <I can't tell you in a letter of all that has
happened in the last few days. Things have followed each
other in bewildering succession. I was appointed on Sunday;
yesterday I took over the office; I have taken part in two cabinet
meetings; tomorrow I shall probably speak in the Reichstag.

288

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

I am very glad you have been spared all this excitement. The
final decision was a very hard one.3 (Letter 716.) And three
days later he writes to President Julius Frey: clt was the most
difficult decision I have ever had to make. . . . And now I am
confronted with an endless range of questions and problems,
some visible, some not yet visible. In the face of this great
complex the individual is as good as helpless. Man after man
will have to jump into the ditch before it can be crossed j but,
equally, it will never be crossed, unless somebody takes the
plunge.' And he writes in the same sense to Privy Councillor
Witting: CI consider my task to consist in smoothing the way
for my successors. The first two or three people can only point
out the roadj the fourth will build it. But a start must be made
somewhere.7 (Letter 724.)

The tone of these remarks is more cheerful than their con-
tent, but it is the tone which counts and which corresponds to
the real state of his feelings. True, the decision was difficult
for him, when he approached it from the intellectual point of
viewj but his patriotism, together with the instinct which really
dominated the whole of his complex personality, his longing
for activity. and power, made it a foregone conclusion. That,
however, was merely his personal concern j what interests us
equally is the political effect his decision had. Did his entry
into the government bring about any real change? It must be
remembered that his policy of negotiation and understanding
had already been accepted at Spa by the government of the
day, and that, since then, it had been followed in principle.
Was, then, the game really worth the candle? And here one is
up against the problem of what part personality plays in history.
Does it exert a decisive influence on the direction and course of
events, or does it merely stir a little eddy, past which the
stream of history flows at majestic and predestined pace? In
the present case I believe one is bound to admit that Rathenau's

289

^WALTHER RATHENAU

entry into the government did make a fundamental difference
to the position of Germany. The difference was that the Policy
of Fulfilment, which had indeed been adopted at Spa, but since
then had been conducted in a half-hearted manner and with a
dreary lack of imagination, now had behind it the driving
power of both will and ideas. The Allies felt for the first time
that it was in the hands of a man who really counted, a man of
firm will and fertile mindj and for the Germans this policy
assumed at last, now that it had become active and intelligent, a
really tangible form — also, to be sure, a vulnerable form, for
henceforth it offered its opponents the target of positive pro-
posals and a man behind them.

Rathenau lost no time. Only a few days after taking office
he arranged a meeting with Loucheur at Wiesbaden, where he
started negotiations for Germany's participation in the recon-
struction of the devastated areas of Northern France by direct
deliveries in kind to those who had suffered. On the evening
of his departure for Wiesbaden he wrote to his friend:

It is better as it is. Do you really believe that I wanted to
drag you into this vortex, when I scarce know myself whether
I shall be able to stand it?

These snow-white carnations and the wonderful letter that
accompanied them are sufficient proof to me that you are at
my side in this hour of my fate.

You don't know at what a moment your letter has reached
me, and what strength it has given me. It is half-past eight on
Saturday evening, and this very night I have to set out on a
course beset with difficulties, taking nothing with me but your
words and your affection. I shall not be able to see you again
tomorrow, but I hope I shall within the next few days. I dare
say you will find me more tired and disappointed than last
time, but yet nearer freedom.

An hour ago, in the thick of my work and surrounded by

290

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

people, I was quite alone. Now, when I want to submerge
myself in my solitary cares I feel your hand and breath upon
me. Can you really doubt where true life is to be found?
In deepest gratitude and affection,

In his first speech to the Reichstag on June 2nd Rathenau
had said: CI have entered a Cabinet of Fulfilment. We must
discover some means of linking ourselves up with the world
again.' The best way of building a bridge over the abyss that
had opened about Germany seemed to him to be the recon-
struction of the devastated areas of Northern France. Why?
Because here the French and German nations could accom-
plish a great work in common. Because it was a necessary work;
'for this wound in the body of Europe persists, and not until
it has closed shall we have peace on earth again.5 (Reichstag
speech of June 2nd, 1921.) Because by means of so tremendous
an achievement Germany would be able to prove her goodwill
(which was questioned) and her unbroken capacity for work.
And, finally, because it was essential in the interests of Ger-
man currency that the payments in gold should be replaced
by deliveries in kind and by work for the Allies. The payment
of the first milliard gold marks on August 3ist had already
sent up the dollar from 60 to 100 marks (the normal rate is,
and was before the war, a little over 4 marks to the dollar).
Further payments in gold on the same scale opened out the
certain prospect of a collapse of the mark.

On the basis of Rathenau's negotiations with Loucheur the
^Wiesbaden Agreement' was signed on October 6th and yth.
This agreement set up a German corporation of a private char-
acter whose business it was to take over control (to the exclu-
sion of both governments) of the deliveries to the French war
victims. Deliveries in kind took the place of part of the gold
payments, and direct relationships between French customers

291

WALTHER RATHENAU

and German producers the place of the old roundabout method
through the two governments. The French war victims were
to receive deliveries in kind up to the value of 7 milliard gold
marks within a period of four and a half years } the German
producers to be compensated by the German government in
German currency. If the scheme proved practicable, it would
greatly accelerate not only reconstruction, but also trade in
general between the two countries 5 it would improve relations
and create the atmosphere for further negotiations and under-
standings, and it might preserve the mark from a further col-
lapse. If, on the other hand, it proved impracticable, owing to
France's being unable or unwilling to absorb so great a quantity
of foreign goods, then this experiment would demonstrate the
fact that the amount of Germany's war indemnity was circum-
scribed not only by Germany's capacity to pay, but also by the
Allies' capacity to receive. Rathenau doubtless expected that
the Wiesbaden Agreement would enable him to kill both birds
with one stone, in that a considerable fraction of the deliveries
in kind arranged for would be absorbed by France, and would
thus further both' reconstruction and trade in general 5 but that a
still larger proportion would be refused by France, and thus she
would have to recognize the impracticability of Allied demands.
In practice the Agreement proved almost wholly unwork-
able. It came to grief on the very comprehensible resistance of
the French industrialists, who at that time found the devastated
areas their most profitable market. In 1922, instead of the
threatened milliards, France demanded and received deliveries
in kind to the value of only 19 million gold marks! This in-
deed showed the impracticability not only of the Wiesbaden
Agreement, but of the London scheme as well, since it did not
lie in Germany's power to furnish the money payments im-
posed j while on the other hand, as was now evident, these could
not be replaced by payments in kind, as the Allies were not in a
position to accept goods on the suggested scale without severe

292

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

injury to their own trade and industries (cf. Bergmann, p.
216).

^ Nevertheless, Rathenau was greeted with a. storm of opposi-
tion in Germany, on the ground that the deliveries in kind
promised in the Agreement actually exceeded what was due
to France from the London ultimatum. Von Rheinbaben, a
<Volkspartei> Member of the Reichstag, says in his book Von
Versailles zur Freiheit that 'in retrospect one "cannot but ex-
press amazement at this storm j indeed, it was largely a matter
of party politics^ (loc. cit.y p. 47). In reality the opposition was
fanned by certain industrialists who, as Rathenau's assistant,
H. F. Simon, says, 'strove against being paid for Reparations
deliveries with the declining mark instead of with reliable
securities.' (H. F. Simon, Reparation und, Wieder&u,fbmy p.
128.) But it was a misfortune for both countries, for Germany
as well as for France, that so little came of the Agreement 5 it
would have averted several disasters: amongst others the Ruhr
invasion, the collapse of the mark and the franc, and the ruin
of the French and German middle classes.

On October 2Oth, 1921, a fortnight after the signing of the
Wiesbaden Agreement, the League of Nations Council assigned
the most valuable portion of Upper Silesia to Poland on the
strength of a highly questionable interpretation of the Treaty
of Versailles. As a protest the Democratic Party withdrew their
ministers from the Cabinet. Thus against his wish and without
any visible advantage to Germany Rathenau had to retire.

According to the London scheme of payments further in-
stalments of gold were due from Germany on January I5th
and February I5th. It had already become dear by the autumn
that there was no hope of producing the full sum. The attempt
to raise a loan of a milliard gold marks ($250,000,000) in
London met with no success. The Governor of the Bank of
England replied to the request of the German Government that
in view of Germany's far-reaching obligations under the Lon-

293

WALTHER RATHENAU

don scheme of payments it would be impossible to raise 'either
a long-term German loan or a short-term bank credit.' (Berg-
mann, p. 133.) Whereupon, on December I4th, 1921, the
Chancellor notified the Reparations Commission that there
could be no question of Germany's being able to produce the
payments due on January ijth and February 1 5th: at the very
utmost between 150 and 200 millions would be available.
Hence Germany would be compelled to ask for a moratorium.
To this the Reparations Commission replied very curtly that
the contents of the Chancellor's note had surprised them, and
that they could not take into consideration the proposal for a
moratorium so long as no detailed reasons for it were given.
In their embarrassment the German Government asked
Rathenau to go to London to try to bring Lloyd George and
the City financiers to some understanding of Germany's posi-
tion.

Whether Rathenau's journey was politically advisable as far
as its immediate aim, the moratorium, was concerned may seem
doubtful. Bergmann criticizes it 5 in his view Rathenau over-
looked the fact that 'negotiations with one of the Allied Powers
would only occasion all the more violent protests from the
others, and would thus prove definitely harmful to German
interests.3 (Bergmann, p. 134.) That is certainly true if one
has in mind only the moratorium. And it is also true that Ger-
man post-war policy has been only too apt to run after the
will-o'-the-wisp of being able to play off England against
France in an acute crisis. This was, in Rathenau's time, partly
due to the personality of the British Ambassador in Berlin,
Lord D'Abernon, who had no French counterpart of the same
calibre, or with anything like the same knowledge of the world,
resource, initiative and imagination; and partly also to a con-
fused idea of the fundamentals of Anglo-French relations. In
every acute crisis France had behind her her geographical posi-
tion, the greatest army and air force in the world, and, in addi-

294

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

tion, English public opinion, which was still in the grip of war
feelingj whereas England's sole weapons against France were
the pressure of the English money market on French currency
and of English demands in the matter of war debts on French
finances — both of which were slow in action and thus useless to
compel a quick decision. In the struggle over the Ruhr Eng-
land availed herself of this pressure, because her own interests
were threatened and public opinion had swung round against
France} and in this instance it did prove effective and con-
tributed materially to the frustration of Poincare's Rhine
policy, because the struggle was long drawn out an4 gave the
City time to prepare the attack.14

But a moratorium for Germany in December, 1922, was of
no vital interest to England. Moreover, if it was going to re-
ceive the assent of France at all, then it had to do so within
the shortest possible time. Hence Rathenau himself can scarcely
have hoped for success in trying to extort it from France under
pressure from England. But he thought that the opportunity
of enlightening English statesmen and financiers at first hand
as to Germany's real situation and intentions might enable him
to make a breach in the wall of hatred and distrust that en-
circled Germany} and this opportunity he seized, even though
he was conscious, presumably, of the considerations that Berg-
mann mentions.

For the first aim of Rathenau's foreign policy was neces-
sarily a persistent effort to break through this befogging at-
mosphere of hatred and suspicion, and thus open the way for
negotiations on a business basis, from which, as he had ex-

14 The last shred of doubt about Poincare's intention to confront England
with a situation which would have threatened its most vital economic and
political interests was dispelled by the publication by an English journalist in
the Manchester Guardian of a 'Secret note of May a8th, 1922, from the French
Senator Dariac to Poincare,' on the ways and means of detaching the Rhineland
and Ruhr from Germany and annexing them to France. In this light France's
financial support of the Separatist movement took on a new and sinister mean*
ing in English eyes*

295

WALTHER RATHENAU

plained at Spa, he felt the recovery of Germany, by virtue
of her natural position and importance, would inevitably
follow. He recognized that the only weapon left to Ger-
many after her collapse was the industry and intelligence of
the German people, and from this he drew the logical con-
clusion by undertaking to build up a policy which should de-
pend on these alone. To this plan of campaign he was ready
to sacrifice tactical successes even in the case of important and
tangible advantages, because he knew that they were bound to
come his way again once his chief goal was within reach. How
truly he aimed and with what skill he laid his plans has been
abundantly proved by subsequent events. Every step taken to-
wards the improvement of Germany's position has been along
the road that Rathenau marked out, the road which has dimin-
ished, step by step, the hatred and distrust of Germany's op-
ponents, and thus created an atmosphere in which purely busi-
ness conversations at last became possible.

But this policy of Rathenau's stood in open conflict with
the policy of Poincare, who for his part was anxious to utilize
to the full all remaining signs of war feeling, in order to secure
by their aid those aims in which he had been thwarted at Ver-
sailles by President Wilson — namely, a paramount influence
for Fiance in the Rhineland and the destruction of German
unity. Possibly M Poincare was not the author of this plan
himself, but being embarrassed and doubtful about the right
course for France to follow, merely adopted it from the head
of the political department of the French Foreign Office, the
former French Ambassador in Petersburg, M Maurice Paleo-
logue. Also it would be both unjust and inaccurate to call this
the 'French* plan, without further qualification, for ever since
Versailles it had been opposed by large and influential circles
in France, who had as their spokesmen not merely pacifists and
socialists, but also men like Loucheur, Briand, Frangois-Poncet
and Professor Haguenin, the distinguished representative on

296

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

the Committee of Guarantee in Berlin. Nevertheless, French
official policy remained firmly bound to this conception until
after the collapse of the Ruhr adventure, and hence did all it
could, whether openly or secretly, to sabotage Rathenau's en-
deavours to the end of his life. It finally met its doom at
Locarno, defeated only by the greater political weight of
Rathenau's pacifist conception, which Stresemann took over
and carried on.

Rathenau's conversations with Mr Lloyd George and the
City financiers led to a promise from the former that he would
support a reduction of the German payments in gold for 1922
to 500 million marks. And it also led to a scheme for the re-
habilitation of Russia by means of a so-called Consortium, in
which both Germany and Russia and the Western Powers
should be represented} and further to plans for the cancella-
tion of inter-allied war debts in Europe, and for the drawing
up of a great peace pact, in relation to the Rhine frontier, be-
tween England, Belgium and France, with a view to the even-
tual inclusion of Germany — the first appearance of the Locarno
idea. (H. F. Simon, p. 119.)

In connection with Rathenau's visit Anglo-French conversa-
tions took place at Chequers on December i8th, 1921, where
it was decided to hold a conference at Cannes, which should in
its turn lead on to a pan-European economic congress. The five
principal Allied Powers immediately agreed to both these con-
ferences j the economic conference was to be held at Genoa in
the following spring.

In fulfilment of this agreement, the Supreme Council met
at Cannes in the first half of January. On Lloyd George's in-
itiative Germany was invited to come to Cannes as a guest and
to take part in the discussions on Reparations. CA small Ger-
man delegation/ Bergmann relates (p. 146 #.)> 'with Dr
Rathenau at its head, arrived at Cannes on January nth, 1922.

297

WALTHER RATHENAU

Dr Rathenau and I were summoned forthwith to a confidential
discussion at the Villa des Broussailles in the neighbourhood of
Cannes, where we met M Loucheur and Sir Robert Home.
They both impressed on us the seriousness of the position. The
political situation in France was a very delicate one. If the
Cabinet were to meet Germany halfway in the spirit of the
London conversations it would be exposed to very grave
danger. But the atmosphere at Cannes was favourable to Ger-
many, if only we could make up our minds to immediate ac-
ceptance. There seemed a possibility of granting a moratorium
for one year. The cash payments for 1922 were, it is true, to
be reduced not to 500, but only to 720 million gold marks.
Moreover, we should be committed to deliveries in kind to the
value of 1,450 million gold marks, of which 950 million were
to go to France. Any delay on our part in accepting these terms
was dangerous; the French Cabinet might fall tomorrow.

'Immediately after this,' continues Bergmann, 'the Germans
were summoned to the Reparations Commission, which had
likewise been called to Cannes by the Supreme Council. Here
Rathenau took the opportunity to expatiate in a long speech on
Germany's position and on her capacity to pay. In the course
of this speech a member of the Reparations Commission pushed
a note over to me, on which stood the words: "Accept quickly,
the conditions are 720 million gold marks and 1,450 million
in deliveries in kind."

*But Dr Rathenau did not feel justified in acting on these
repeated hints. He preferred not to make an agreement with
the Reparations Commission, who, like him, were at Cannes
merely in the position of guests, but to wait upon the decision
of the Supreme Council, hoping at the same time to get the
cash payments for 1922 reduced to the 5OO-million figure. On
the following day, January I2th, a very fully attended session
of the Supreme Council took place, at which Dr Rathenau de-
livered an important speech lasting more than an hour. Dr

298

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

Rathenau was still in the middle of his speech when the news
suddenly came that Briand's Cabinet had fallen.'

The news of Briand's resignation occasioned an interval of
half an hour. Lloyd George made it clear at once that now
the support of the French Government had been withdrawn, a
new situation had arisen and the Supreme Council was no longer
competent to take decisions. However, he invited Rathenau to
proceed with his address. This Rathenau did, emphasizing once
more in conclusion Germany's willingness not only *to go to
the limits of her capacity,' but also 'to help together with the
Western Powers and Russia in the reconstruction of Eastern
and Central Europe.'

On the same evening Rathenau had an hour's interview with
Lloyd George, on the latter's invitation, at the Villa Valletta.
Lloyd George took the situation more seriously than he had
done at midday, and explained the impossibility of continuing
the deliberations of the Supreme Council. The Conference at
Genoa, on the other hand, would still take place. And then he
turned to Sir Robert Home and commissioned him to get the
Italian Prime Minister, Bonomi, to invite Germany to Genoa.

As a result of the breakdown of the meeting of the Supreme
Council the Reparations Commission again became the proper
authority to deal with the German moratorium. On January
1 3th it conceded a postponement of the current cash payments
due on January I5th and February I5thj during this respite,
however, Germany was to pay 31 million gold marks every
ten days.

Bergmann makes it quite clear that he did not approve of
Rathenau's behaviour at Cannes in not accepting the offer of
the Reparations Commission at once, but insisting instead on
first making his great speech before the Supreme Council. In
practice not much harm was done; for on March 22nd the
Reparations Commission fixed Germany's obligations at pre-
cisely the same figures as the offer which Rathenau had passed

299

WALTHER RATHENAU

over: 720 million gold marks and 1,450 million in deliveries
in kind for 1922. (Bergmann, p. 153.) And any harm done
was more than made good by Rathenau's success in convincing
a section of the Allies of the German Cabinet's honest desire
for fulfilment, and by his own increased prestige, which in
its turn redounded to Germany's credit. For the first time since
the war a German statesman had forced the world to take him
seriously and to glimpse behind the picture of Germany dis-
torted by war and post-war propaganda another Germany, in-
dustrious, honest, peaceful, and ready to fulfil her obligations.
In the first round of the duel between Poincare and Rathenau,
Poincare had certainly won, by turning out Briand and break-
ing up the Cannes Conference} but Rathenau had succeeded in
putting German policy on the path that led to her reinstate-
ment as a Great Power at Genoa, to the interment at Locarno
of Poincare's Rhine policy, and to Poincare's own conversion
to Rathenau's policy of understanding at Carcassonne.15

A few days after Rathenau's return Dr Rosen, the German
Foreign Minister, resigned. He was an authority on Persian
poetry, a shrewd diplomat of the old school, and one of the
few who had shown courage as civilians during the war$ but
he was no longer able to stand the strain of repeated encounters
with the Allied Military Commissions.16 Stinnes, on being
asked to suggest a successor, proposed von Rosenberg, the Ger-
man Minister in Vienna.17 Wirth, however, turned to Rathenau,

15 In his famous speech there on April ist, 1928.

16 Dr Rosen began his career as a dragoman to the German Embassy in Con-
stantinople, held a large number of diplomatic posts, including Morocco at the
time when the Kaiser made his sensational landing at Tangiers, then Persia, and
later The Hague during the war. Published a number of admirable German
translations of Persian poets.

17 Von Rosenberg, born December i2th, 1874. One of the German delegates
to the Peace Conference with the Soviet at Brest-Litovsk, in 1917-1918. Be-
came Minister to Austria after the war and Minister of Foreign Affairs after
Rathenau was assassinated, remaining at the Foreign Office all through the
Ruhr conflict. Resigned when the Cuno Cabinet fell and Dr Stresemann became
Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs.

300

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

who seemed the most suitable, because he was the originator
of the policy of fulfilment, because of his personal relations
with Lloyd George, Loucheur and other leading Allied states-
men, and finally, because of the European prestige he had won
at Cannes. Once again Rathenau hesitated} again his mother
implored him to refuse. Yet finally he accepted, as he had ac-
cepted his first ministerial post, with a clear recognition of the
personal danger involved, but driven irresistibly by the same
motives which had proved decisive the time before. He tried
to hide his decision from his mother for as long as possible.
She learnt of it, as Etta Federn-Kohlhaas has related, from the
newspapers: 'Rafhenau lunched as usual with his mother j they
sat opposite one another, toying about with their food, until
finally his mother asked him: <cWalther, why have you done
this to me?" And he replied: "I really had to, mama, because
they couldn't find any one else" ' (loc. tit., p. 233).

On the evening before this he had written to his friend:

31.1.1922

It is late at night, and I am thinking of you with a heavy
heart. You will have heard from F. of the decision I had to
make this evening. I stand before this task in deep and earnest
doubt. What can a single individual do in the face of this
torpid world, with enemies at his back, and conscious of his own
limitations and weaknesses? I will do the best I can, and if
that is not enough, then I know you at least will not forsake
me like the others.

YourW.

The way in which Rathenau had been appointed suddenly
and secretly overnight against the wish of influential industrial
circles aroused deep resentment. The industrial magnates hated
him, his nationalist and anti-Semitic enemies overwhelmed him
with insulting and threatening letters, and even some of his

301

WALTHER RATHENAU

closest political friends thought him the wrong man for the
post. The anxieties of the situation told on him. He aged no-
ticeably in these weeks before Genoa. The courage and novelty
of his foreign policy was understood only by a dwindling
minority in Germany, of whom, it is true, the Chancellor, Dr
Wirth, was one. Nevertheless, he set to work to remodel Ger-
man foreign policy in accordance with his ideas. 'It is a ques-
tion,' he said to me, 'of giving a new turn to the whole ma-
chinery of the Foreign Office, and that is a truly superhuman
task. After German foreign policy has been completely passive
for eight years, we have got to get it under way again little by
little 5 every day we must thrust another iron into the fire.*

The most formidable obstacle he had to contend with was,
as he said, 'the antagonism which every attempt at a reasonable
foreign policy calls forth in German opinion.5 Poincare, who
had succeeded Briand as French Premier, did all he could to
magnify this obstacle by exasperating German public opinion
through a continuous series of calculated insults and new de-
mands 5 that was part of his plan of operations. General Nollet,
the head of the Inter-Allied Military Commissions, who had so
far always gloried in being 'a pacifist/ now had to reform his
ways and employ even harsher methods than hitherto. 'The
effects of Poincare's policy,' said Rathenau in a speech in the
Reichstag at the end of March, 'were first made manifest in the
hail of notes which the Inter-Allied Military Commissions be-
gan showering down on our heads. I have calculated that in the
course of some two months we have had to reply to a hundred
of these notes. You can see for yourselves that the work of the
office is virtually paralyzed, when the officials have to spend all
their days and nights in answering this stuff.' (S^e6chesy p.

378.)

At the same time Poincare entered into relations with Stinnes,
presumably in the hope of being able to turn to account the
antagonism between him and Rathenau. He even sought to

302

WALTHER RATHENAU'S MOTHER

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE '

establish relations with Radek — to him the arch-fiend himself
— in order to prevent a rapprochement between Russia and
Germany. Towards French adherents of the policy of under-
standing he maintained a mysterious silence, or else behaved as
though he were pursuing this particular policy merely out of
fear, and would be quite willing to change it for another if
the danger were removed. One of these French opponents of
Poincare's policy of bullying Germany, who held high office,
said to me with tragi-comic exasperation, after visiting him
shortly before Genoa: 'Poincare knows that force is not going
to get him anywhere, but he is un monstre de lachete* Mean-
while the French people had grown more and more accus-
tomed, under artificial stimulus, to the idea of using force
against Germany, and this fact was utilized in its turn to exacer-
bate the state of public opinion in Germany. On March 2ist
the Reparations Commission replied to the German request
for a moratorium in a note whose tone and content were de-
liberately insulting. The Wirth-Rathenau Cabinet gave a nega-
tive reply, and things came to such a pitch that even Rathenau
began to lose his nerve. His Reichstag speech on the subject of
the note shows his barely concealed exasperation and disap-
pointment.18

On the evening before his departure for Genoa he wrote
to his friend, who was ill:

I am writing this late at night, dead tired by these last days'
work and distressed by your letter. Do you mean to say you

18 Lord D'Abernon sets down in his diary: ^rlin, March 14, 1922, Rathenau
came to luncheon today in a state of some nervous excitement. He said he was
driven wild by the perpetual notes of the French Embassy regarding this and
that supposed default of the German Government. ... He would send me the
number of the French notes he had received. I should see that life was impos-
sible under these conditions, as the whole time of the Foreign Office was taken
up answering more or less futile accusations' (p. 279). I may add that Rathenau
spoke to me at the time almost exactly as he did to Lord D'Abernon, showing
a degree of exasperation and nervous tension quite unusual in him,

303

WALTHER RATHENAU

really believed I was not suffering with you just because I tried
to distract you from your suffering for those few minutes!
Perhaps the reason I wasn't successful was because I myself
was, and still am, suffering. This period which you call the
highest of my life is certainly the most difficult} it is simply
a farewell, for I know that what I have to undertake, whether
I will or not, means the breaking of a life. For he who bows
beneath this burden even for an instant is crushed to atoms. I
shall return only to be overwhelmed in the abyss. . . „

At such a time, before and during such a journey as this,
my thoughts have always turned in calm and peace to you, and
from time to time I have written you a few lines in token and
greeting. Now I do this once more, and no less tenderly, though
with heavier heart than usual.

I felt your suffering too deeply — and not only the visible
suffering. I know and understand that this time it was out of
your power to ease my path. You would have done it if you
could; and perhaps I should do more to try and ease this hour,
which is not a farewell, for you. May you feel that I think of
you this night in love and troth.

These were the auspices under which the Genoa Conference
met. Italy, where after a short period of chaos the last liberal
and constitutional governments before the dictatorship had
firmly re-established order, and which had been the first of the
combatant nations to rid itself of war feeling, was anxious,
both in its position of host and for reasons of prestige, to avoid
a breakdown at all costs. But Poincare had dealt the Conference
its death-blow before it ever started by threatening that France
would refuse to take part unless he was assured that the Repara-
tions question would not be raised in any form} a condition to

304

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

which Lloyd George had eventually agreed at his meeting with
Poincare at Boulogne on February 25th. In spite of this, Poin-
care regarded Lloyd George and Loucheur and their doings
with the utmost suspicion, as though all they did and planned
was a conspiracy to subvert his Rhine policy, the foundations
of which their schemes did indeed threaten. Consequently he
did not attend the Conference in person. For if things should
not turn out to his liking in spite of Boulogne, it would be
easier, he felt, to wreck it from afar by a telegram, acting as
a sort of deus ex machina; he sent in his stead his Minister of
Justice, M Barthou, with a delegation which he left in the dark
about his real intentions, and whose activity he thus seriously
crippled.

Lloyd George, on the other hand, felt that the success of the
Conference was a vital necessity for his own prestige as well as
for British currency and trade. Besides, he thoroughly disap-
proved of Poincare's ambitions on the Rhine, and was bent on
appearing as the sponsor of the rehabilitation of Russia. This
was to be effected by a sort of pan-European receivership or
'Consortium/ such as he had outlined to Rathenau in London
before Cannes.19 He was all the more anxious for some such
accession of prestige, as things were going badly for him in
the East, where the Greeks, whom he was supporting against
Kemal Pasha, were getting beaten, and he had fallen out with
the French, who had taken up the cause of the Turks. His
chief difficulty, however, was that an important section of
English public opinion blindly supported Poincare, being un-
aware of his real intentions. Hence one of Lloyd George's

19 Mr Winston Churchill, in a letter to Lord Curzon written during- the
Genoa Conference (April z6th, 1922), says: 'The great objective of the
Prime Minister's policy has been Moscow, to make Great Britain the nation in
the closest possible relations with the Bolshevists, and to be their protectors and
sponsors before Europe.' (Quoted by him in The World Crisis: The Aftermath,
P- 4-I5-)

305

WALTHER RATHENAU

principal aims at Genoa was to force Poincare to show his hand
and thus to gain freedom of action to dissolve the Entente if
he thought fit.

Thus from the very beginning the Conference was influenced
and moulded by the fact of the deep and unbridgeable gulf
between the official French and English policies, a gulf which
paralleled, rather than coincided with, the antagonism between
the policies of Rathenau and Poincare.

The two other leading figures, Germany and Russia, had
to play their parts in the setting of this antagonism. The Rus-
sians wanted three things not easily compatible: to get a loan
for their government, to lessen the external pressure on their
country, and to use Genoa as a platform for their world-revolu-
tionary propaganda. Germany, on the other hand, was in Genoa
to protect the Rhine frontier from the encroachments of Poin-
care, and to win back her rightful place at the side of the other
Great Powers $ at the same time she wanted a thorough cleans-
ing of the European atmosphere and the economic rehabilita-
tion of Europe, including Russia, as the pre-condition for her
own economic and political recovery. For Rathenau, moreover,
the Genoa Conference provided the first serious test of whether
and how his new foreign policy would fit into the network of
European relations and prove a protection against the am-
bitions of Poincare.

Thus the cards were dealt 5 the game could begin. The Con-
ference opened on April 10th. Such a gathering had not been
seen since Bismarck called the Congress of Berlin. Under the
chairmanship of Signor Facta, the last constitutional Prime
Minister of Italy, all the leading statesmen of Europe had
assembled together, nominally in order to heal the wounds of
world trade — but, in fact, to end the war. The Central Powers,
the Allies, Russians, Neutrals, all were there } only Poincare,
like the witch in 'The Sleeping Beauty/ had chosen to ab-
stain. The most important bankers and industrialists, the most

306

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

influential trades-union leaders, the ablest journalists from
every quarter of the globe were in attendance, either as ex-
perts or observers j Wall Street and Fleet Street, Downing
Street and the Wilhelmstrasse had poured their officials, finan-
ciers, leader-writers, busybodies into the deep gully of the Via
Garibaldi, frowned on by the towering palaces of Genoa. It
was an GEcumenical Council, comparable to those the med-
iaeval Church used to summon for the salvation of Christen-
dom. And, as in the Middle Ages, a terror overhung the gather-
ing that failure might portend catastrophe to European civi-
lization.

The very first session revealed the rift between the British
and French points of view and the isolation of the French.
The function was staged in a dim crypt-like mediaeval hall
near the harbour, which, notwithstanding the brilliant southern
sunshine, had to be lit by artificial light 5 and at first, being
surrounded with much pomp and circumstance, secular and re-
ligious, and a rich display of flowers and greenhouse shrubs, it
somewhat resembled a funeral service. The three Prime Minis-
ters in ceremonial black, Signor Facta, Mr Lloyd George and
Dr Wirth, and Poincare's representative, M Barthou, opened
the proceedings by reading out set speeches prepared for them
by their secretariats and stuffed with the ordinary platitudes.
These the audience received with perfunctory applause while
it sat waiting for some sensational event to occur. And indeed,
no sooner had M Barthou, the last of the allied statesmen, read
his speech, than Chicherin, the Soviet Commissary for foreign
affairs, rose from his seat in front of a prelate gorgeously robed
in scarlet, and set himself to the task of enlivening the rather
sepulchral proceedings with a brilliantly entertaining political
comedy. Chicherin also read his speech, and as his French ac-
cent is a very individual one, his audience took some time to
find out that he was not speaking Russian. But soon isolated
words became intelligible and then whole sentences. He was

307

WALTHER RATHENAU

proclaiming, one understood, Russia's earnest desire to co-
operate in the rehabilitation of the world. He hoped that Genoa
might be only the first of a whole series of European economic
conferences. He expected that not only European assemblies,
but some day a universal congress, in which all the nations of
the earth would take part, would be necessary to complete the
task which his distinguished colleagues were tackling at Genoa.
And then, in a sentence which he pronounced distinctly and
with surprisingly little accent, he launched the word disarma-
ment: Russia, he said, was ready to disband the Red Army as
soon as the other nations disarmed. The Russian Government,
he added, wished this to be understood as a solemn pledge.

It had been rumoured for some time that Lloyd George was
egging on the Russians to raise the question of disarmament
at Genoa. A week before, a high British official, a personal
friend of Lloyd George, had told me that the latter expected
much from some such move. Nevertheless, Chicherin's an-
nouncement came as a surprise and made part of the audience
shiver 5 it seemed quite possible that his bomb would wreck the
Conference. He, however, having finished the French version
of his speech and appearing quite unmoved by the agitation of
his audience, proceeded to read his document a second time in
English: giving particular emphasis again to the passage about
disarmament. International commonplaces and amenities were
immediately cast to the winds. No sooner had the Russian Com-
missary ceased reading than M Barthou sprang to his feet} with
well-feigned excitement and with the artificial indignation and
rhetoric of an old stager of the Paris Bar he proceeded to lodge
a protest — a protest, he said, against any discussion of disarma-
ment in Genoa cin his own name, in the name of the French
delegation, in the name of France!' But his pathos fell flat} the
greater part of the assembly remained visibly unconcerned.
And hardly had he finished when Chicherin was on his legs
again, replying in very intelligible French and with evident

308

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

relish that the Russian Government had been moved to make
its pledge to disarm under certain conditions by a speech of
M Briand's in Washington, in which he had described the Red
Army as the chief obstacle to French disarmament 5 it had
therefore flattered itself that it would be performing a service
for France, to say nothing of mankind in general, if it removed
the obstacle mentioned by M Briand by means of a binding
declaration here and now. But, of course, the Russian delega-
tion would bow to the decision of the Conference, should it
desire to exclude disarmament.

There was a little subdued tittering and some applause, and
then Lloyd George rose to speak. Although he was known to
be in sympathy with the Russian proposal, he now proceeded
with remarkable unconcern to drop it and pour the oil of
humour on the troubled waters, stating, however, that in his
view the Conference would be a failure unless it led to dis-
armament. Everybody knew, he added, that the League of
Nations was at present occupied with the disarmament prob-
lem, and he felt sure M Barthou would be the last person to
place any obstacle in the League of Nations' path. But in the
circumstances he begged M Chicherin to leave disarmament
aside for the moment, in order not to sink the already top-
heavy vessel of the Genoa Conference. For if this vessel were
to founder, M Chicherin might well be one of those lost in
the wreck.20

Lloyd George's words completed the discomfiture of the
French; but they were spoken so softly, with such artistic de-
tachment, that the speaker might have been seated by his fire-
side chatting pleasantly with two old friends and patting them
both on the back. A storm of applause rang through the hall;
delegates, experts, journalists, spectators, rose to their feet and
clapped for minutes on end; the French alone remained seated

20 It is curious to note that of all the Foreign Ministers assembled at Genoa
the only one who has not been murdered or lost office up to date is M Chicherin.

309

WALTHER RATHENAU

in painfully conspicuous isolation, hopelessly outmanoeuvred
and exposed. After a moment, however, M Barthou, who was
now evidently in a genuine rage, sprang up and tried to speak
again; but the President of the Conference, Signor Facta, in-
terrupted him, then sharply called him to order, and while he
continued beating the air with his arms, finally almost forcibly
made him sit down. Thus the first day of Genoa ended with
the marked isolation of the French and a triumph for Lloyd
George, who henceforth became the centre and, as it were,
the benevolent despot of the Conference.

On the f ollowing day the French measured forces again
with the British on a question which concerned both the Ger-
mans and the Russians. Sub-commissions were being formed.
The five 'inviting Powers' — i.e. the four Great Powers and
Belgium— claimed their right to a seat and vote in every sub-
commission. Great Britain, supported by Italy, proposed to
extend the same right to Germany and Russia. This was op-
posed by France, who wished to put them on the same footing
as the smaller states, who had to submit to election for each
commission, instead of being members as a matter of course.
When it was put to the vote, France proved to be almost alone
in her attitude, even the Poles joining the British and Italians.
Barthou, however, did not admit defeat On the following day
he made yet another attempt, on Poincare's telegraphic instruc-
tions, to carry the French point of view, by basing it on the
German Government's negative answer of April lOth to the
note of the Reparations Commission of March 2istj only
once more to be rebuffed. In common fairness, however, it must
be admitted that Poincare's resistance was logical from his
point of view, for the decision was of great, in fact, of funda-
mental, importance: it reinstated Germany and Russia as de
facto Great Powers in the Concert of Europe, and created a
precedent, as was pointed out at the time, for making both
countries, when they joined the League of Nations, permanent

310

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

members of its Council. It was, perhaps, the most valuable
moral gain that Germany brought back with her from Genoa,
a gain due in great measure, without doubt, to the international
prestige won by Wirth and Rathenau.

In spite of Poincare and his brutally open hostility to Ger-
many, Rathenau did not give up the hope of entering into
closer relations with France. On the very first day of the Con-
ference he commissioned me to arrange a meeting as soon as
possible between Dr Bergmann and M Seydoux, the head of
the department of trade in the French Foreign Office. Rathenau
himself wanted to keep as much as possible in the background
at first. Seydoux belonged to the not inconsiderable number of
Frenchmen in high position who were working behind the Poin-
caristic fagade for an understanding with Germanyj and de-
spite severe physical suffering he worked with great tenacity
and contributed many good suggestions towards this end. In
this way Rathenau hoped to find a means of getting the
Reparations question discussed at Genoa in spite of the Bou-
logne agreement — not within the official limits of the Confer-
ence, but parallel with it} and Seydoux did not prove averse.
Bergmann says b his book (p. 159): cAn unimpeachable op-
portunity presented itself. On April 4th, 1922, the Repara-
tions Commission had decided to call together a Committee of
Experts to determine the conditions under which the German
Government might raise loans abroad, whose proceeds should
be applied to the partial redemption of the German Repara-
tions liability.3 Bergmann seized the opportunity provided for
him, and the first conversation took place on April I2th. The
plan he put before Seydoux was to raise a loan of four milliard
gold marks, with which to pay off four Reparation annuities
straight away, so that in the four years' respite which this gave
Germany a really final solution of the Reparations problem
might be reached. This scheme met with the approval of Sey-
doux and other influential Frenchmen in Genoa, with the

WALTHER RATHENAU

reservation, it is true, that they could not answer for Poin-
care's attitude in the matter. Philippe Millet, the editor of the
Petit Parisien, who was anxious to promote a pact on this basis
between Germany, France and England, and was apprised of
the scheme, held, and held rightly, that these conversations be-
tween Bergmann and Seydoux were more important than all
the official Conference negotiations put togetherj because they
did succeed in coming to real grips with the problem of the
rehabilitation of Europe, which the Conference itself could
only discuss theoretically in consequence of the Boulogne
agreement. They were proceeding favourably, when the Treaty
of Rapallo put an end to them.

From the very first the Rapallo Treaty has been shrouded
in legend. People have tried to read into it a Russo-German
military alliance, and the fact that it was signed at Genoa has
been interpreted as a deliberate challenge to the Allies. Both
views are false. Neither on paper nor in conversation did its
contents go beyond the innocuous and immediately published
text. That Rathenau of all people, Rathenau who put no faith
whatever in armaments, should have concluded a secret military
convention was a peculiarly futile, in fact ridiculous, sugges-
tion. The treaty was nothing more than it professed to be: a
'peace treaty y the first treaty since the war which aimed at re-
establishing a real state of peace between two peoples mutually
estranged by the war. Perhaps for this very reason it was bound
to look suspicious to people still dominated by war feeling.
For the rest, it may or may not have been wise to sign it at
Genoa, but its conclusion was certainly not prompted by any
wish to bang the fist on the table j it was an almost inevitable
result of circumstances for which the major responsibility lay
with the Allies.

Some readjustment of Russo-German relations was already
long overdue. Since Versailles, which had annulled the Treaty
of Brest-Litovsk, there had been no regular relations between

312

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

the two countries, and this readjustment, as we have shown
formed one of the main items in Rathenau's programme.
Under his instructions Baron von Maltzan, the head of the
Eastern department of the Foreign Office,21 had already
entered on preliminary negotiations with the Russians in Berlin.
A treaty had been drawn up, and would have been signed, had
it not been for Rathenau's scruples about presenting the Allies
just before Genoa with a fait accompli which might have
awakened their suspicions. Also he was influenced by his dis-
cussions with Lloyd George on the subject of a pan-European
'Consortium,5 which was to take in hand the problem of the
relations between Russia and the rest of Europe, and so set
going a pan-European relief scheme for Russia.

When Rathenau came to Genoa he was extremely anxious
to co-operate with Lloyd George and the Allies in working out
a scheme for the rehabilitation of Russia and to effect the re-
adjustment of Russo-German relations within the framework
of this scheme. The first shock to his faith in Lloyd George's
desire to co-operate with Germany loyally and on an equal
footing came at the first session of the so-called ^Political Sub-
Commission' on April nth, when the British handed in a
memorandum to serve as a basis for the negotiations with Rus-
sia* Now Article 6 of this memorandum was found expressly
to confirm Russia's right to war compensation from Germany
on the ground of Article 116 of the Versailles Treaty, while
two further articles of the memorandum precluded any Ger-
man claim against Russia.22 This proposal meant the increase of

21 Baron Ago von Maltzan, afterwards Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
under Dr Stresemann during the Ruhr conflict, and subsequently German Am-
bassador to the United States. Killed in a flying accident on September 23rd, 1927.

22 By Article 1 1 6 of the Peace Treaty 'Germany accepts definitely the abroga-
tion of the Brest-Litovsk Treaties and of all other treaties, conventions and
agreements entered into by her with the Maximalist Government in Russia.'
From this it followed that Russia, who by these treaties had renounced her rights
to compensation for war damages or Reparations from Germany, automatically
got them back} and Article 6 of the British Memorandum expressly interpreted
Article 116 in this sense.

313

WALTHER RATHENAU

German Reparations by an unknown quantity and was bound
to seem to the Germans very much like the spider's invitation
to the flyj no responsible German statesman could possibly
have entertained it. The Russians themselves were taken aback.
They cautiously replied that this was the first they had heard
of the memorandum} that it had been compiled by the inter-
ested Allied Powers without their knowledge or participation}
and that thus they were not in a position to express an opinion
on it forthwith and must request that the meeting be adjourned
till Thursday, the I3th. This motion for adjournment was
seconded by the Powers responsible for the memorandum and
accepted by all.

On the same evening (April nth) Maltzan, in conversation
with the head of the Russian Department of the British For-
eign Office, Mr Gregory,28 pointed out that the German posi-
tion with regard to the British memorandum was rendered
very difficult by Article 6 and two other articles of the British
Memorandum,24 and explained to him why this was so.
Gregory expressed great surprise, said that he had not at-
tached this significance to the article himself, but had to admit
Maltzan's contention that it was justified by the text It was
obvious that Germany could not be asked to commit suicide.

On Wednesday, April I2th, Gregory invited Maltzan and
the German Foreign Office expert for British affairs, Herr
Dufour-Feronce, to tea at the Hotel Miramare. There the
Germans met Mr E. F. Wise,25 the head of a department of the
British Board of Trade, who was supposed to be Lloyd George's
confidant and did most of the negotiating between the British

28 Mr John Duncan Gregory, born 1878. Assistant Under-secretary of State,
Foreign Office, 1925-8.

24 Article 6 of the Memorandum and Articles n and 15 of Annex 2 of the
Memorandum in conjunction with Article 116 of the Peace Treaty.

25 Mr Edward Frank Wise, C.B., born 1885. British representative on the
Permanent Committee of the Inter-Allied Supreme Economic Council during
the war, economic adviser to the Ail-Russian Central Union of Co-operative
Societies (Centrosoyons).

314

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

and the Russians. Maltzan again stressed the fact that the in-
clusion of Article 116 of the Versailles Treaty in the British
memorandum forced Germany to proceed with the utmost cau-
tion. He had, he said, pointed out to Lord D'Abernon in Ber-
lin what disastrous effects this article of the Peace Treaty might
have on Germany if the Russians chose to make use of it. He
now hinted that its inclusion in the memorandum might force
Germany to renew her private conversations with the Russians
here in Genoa. The British tried to dismiss the whole affair as
trivial. They would communicate with the Germans again as
soon as possible; and anyhow these would have an opportunity
of giving formal expression to their objections in the forth-
coming discussions in the sub-commission.

It being obviously absurd to expect the friendly co-operation
of Germany in a scheme which might double her Reparations
debt, it must seem doubtful whether Lloyd George had grasped
the significance of the British Memorandum any better than
Gregory, or whether he had even read it 5 but Barthou cer-
tainly had, and he saw his opportunity. If it was intended not
to co-operate with Germany, but to coerce her into paying
Reparations to Russia, it was clearly necessary first to persuade
the Russians to claim them. They were by no means eager to
do this, because whatever they got from Germany would merely
accrue to France as compensation for her pre-war loans to
Russia, and because Reparations might prove a stumbling-
block in Russia's way to a general understanding with Ger-
many, from whom she was promised economic assistance which
would not be tapped by France. Barthou, being still sore about
the inclusion of Germany in the official sub-commissions, and
his policy being one of coercion, suggested to Lloyd George
that private conversations should be arranged between the
Allies and the Russians without the participation of the Ger-
mans at Lloyd George's private quarters, the Villa de Albertis.
His aim in suggesting this was, of course, in the first place to

315

WALTHER RATHENAU

secure in German Reparations to Russia a source from which
France might derive compensation for her pre-war loans to
Russia; but also, incidentally, to bring Russia into line with
Poincare's policy of coercion against Germany. And from the
Poincare-Barthou point of view the 'private conversations' had
the further advantage of being a trap for Lloyd George by
which he might be ensnared into wrecking with his own hands
the Conference which he had forced on Poincare. Lloyd
George, who rather surprisingly overlooked the trap and may
have thought it desirable to apply some soothing balm to Bar-
thou's wounds, complied with the suggestion to his own un-
doing.

On Thursday, April I3th, the day originally fixed for the
discussion of the memorandum in the sub-commission, the first
'private discussion' of the London Memorandum with the Rus-
sians (but, of course, without the Germans) took place at the
Villa de Albertisj the session of the sub-commission fixed for
that morning was first postponed till the afternoon and then
adjourned sine die. The Germans were thus deprived of the
opportunity Gregory had held out to Maltzan of bringing for-
ward their objections in the sub-commission. Rathenau, alarmed
by the turn things were taking, begged Lloyd George for an
interview, twice by letter and once by telephone, but all three
requests were refused.26

On Friday, April i4th, it was persistently rumoured that the
French were using Article 116 and the German Reparations

2e<Lord D'Abernon gives as the reason for these refusals Lloyd George's
wounded vanity at the fact that in a speech in the Reichstag, Rathenau had
spoken of *Lloyd George's declining star.' (D'Abernon, p. 309.) However Lloyd
George may have resented these or other words of Rathenau at the time, in a
message to the German Government after Rathenau's death he paid him a tribute
which certainly does not sound like a merely conventional expression of sympathy:
*I have learned with deep regret of Dr Rathenau's death, and I wish to express
my sorrow at the abominable crime which has deprived the German people of
one of its most distinguished representatives. The whole world must honour
those who incur the risk of public hatred, as he did, from devotion to their
country's good. Please convey my profound sympathy to his family.'

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THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

burdens arising out of it as a pawn to bargain with the Russians.
If Russia were to acknowledge the pre-war debts, her claims
on Germany arising out of Article 116 of the Peace Treaty
would serve as securities, and effect would be given to these
securities by deducting a certain amount from all goods ex-
ported from Germany into Russia. Late in the evening, at 1 1
p.m., the Commendatore Gianini appeared unexpectedly at Dr
Wirth's on behalf of Signor Schanzer. He had come, he said,
to inform the Chancellor that the conversations between the
'inviting Powers' and the Russians were progressing favour-
ably. The 'inviting Powers' were convinced that the German
Government would, as he expressed it, lend their approval to
the matter. When Gianini began to enter into details the Chan-
cellor begged him to accompany him to Rathenau's rooms,
where they continued the conversation for an hour with
Rathenau, Maltzan, and another official of the German For-
eign Office, von Simson. Gianini explained that in the course of
the discussions on Thursday and Friday between the Russians
and the 'inviting Powers' at Lloyd George's villa it had been
agreed that Russia's war debt should be balanced against her
claims on the Entente in connection with the Denikin, Koltchak
and Yudenitch ventures, but that on the other hand Russian
<pre-war debts should stand, and that bonds should be issued in
respect of them, about the redemption, interest and duration
of which agreement would certainly be reached. At this
Rathenau asked whether this proposal was to be taken by itself
or in connection with the London Memorandum (and Article
116 of the Peace Treaty), to which Gianini replied: 'In con-
nection with the London Memorandum, of course.' Whereupon
Rathenau thanked Gianini most courteously for his visit, but
explained that in the drcumstances Germany could not be ex-
pected to take any interest in the proceedings. When Gianini
expressed surprise at this, Rathenau replied: 'The agreement
with Russia has been made without consulting us. You have

317

WALTHER RATHENAU

arranged a nice dinner-party to which we have not been invited,
and now you ask us how we like the menu.' He repeated this
remark several times, to which Gianini's only reply was: 'C'etait
settlement 'prepare four nous? Rathenau said that so long as
the liabilities from Article 116 remained we could not express
agreement with the memorandum. Gianini gave no sort of in-
dication that there was any possibility of the memorandum's
being altered. At which Rathenau gave him to understand that
we should then have to look round for other means of obtain-
ing security. To this Gianini said: *I am not authorized to make
any other sort of statement. I was commissioned solely to
inform the German delegation of what I have already said/
From this conversation the German delegation deduced:

1. That the negotiations between the Western Powers and
Russia were nearly concluded,

2. That the impending understanding would do nothing to
remove the serious disadvantages in which the London Memo-
randum involved Germany on three separate points, and

3. That the information conveyed by Gianini amounted to
an invitation to Germany to assent to an agreement on which
she could have no further influence.

On Saturday, April I5th, Maltzan met Joffe and Rakovsky
at 10 o'clock in the Palazzo Reale, as had been previously ar-
ranged. He discussed with them the events of the last few
days, and obtained an exact account of the negotiations at Lloyd
George's villa. They mentioned that in spite of certain diffi-
culties these secret negotiations were proceeding favourably.
Apparently it was the aim of the 'inviting Powers' to come to
an understanding with the Russians before appearing again
before the sub-commission. Maltzan cautiously sounded the
Russians about the possible resumption of the Berlin discus-
sions, and pointed out that if the negotiations at Lloyd George's
villa were to lead to a separate understanding, Germany would
hardly be in a position to lend Russia economic support as

318

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

hitherto. He held out hopes$ however, of renewed support on
the basis of the negotiations in progress between the Russians
and German industrialists, but asked in return that Germany
should be allowed to share in the most-favoured-nation terms
which the Allies had secured for themselves in the negotiations
at Lloyd George's villa, and that the Russians should grant
Germany guarantees against the liabilities that might result
from Article 116. Joffe and Rakovsky emphasized the fact
that despite the separate negotiations with Lloyd George they
laid the greatest store on co-operation with Germany, and that
the best way to attain the guarantees desired by Maltzan was
to sign the Russo-German treaty which had been prepared in
Berlin.

While this discussion was taking place quite openly on the
veranda of the Palazzo Reale, Herr Duf our was waiting out-
side for Maltzan to accompany him to the Hotel Miramare in
order to enlighten the British about the German demarche with
the Russians. As they were not in, letters were left for Wise
and Gregory, saying that Maltzan was particularly anxious to
see them. Wise came to the Hotel Eden about 4.30, and had a
two hours' conversation with Maltzan in the garden of the
hoteL Afterwards Maltzan introduced Wise to Dr Hilf erding
(the present German Minister of Finance, who took part in
the Genoa Conference as a financial adviser of the German
delegation) and asked him to tea. He explained everything to
Wise once more and informed him of the previous day's con-
versation with Signor Gianini, as a result of which the German
delegation had lost all hope of the London Memorandum's
being altered in accordance with their wishes. He made it per-
fectly clear that Rathenau had told Gianini that we would now
have to make our own arrangements. He also told him quite
openly that he had approached the Russians that very day on
the basis of the Russo-German Berlin conversations in order to
secure most-favoured-nation terms and some guarantee from

319

WALTHER RATHENAU

them with respect to Article 116. The German delegation, he
said, had intended to voice their objections officially in one of
the sessions of the sub-commission, but were prevented from
doing so by the fact that the latter now sat in Lloyd George's
private villa, to which apparently Germany was denied access.
To this Wise replied: The question has been brought before
the Prime Minister, but you know . . . !' and he shrugged
his shoulders, as if to hint at the f ruitlessness of his endeavours.
He expressed no surprise at Maltzan's move with the Russians,
and honestly admitted the difficulty of the German position.
On Maltzan's explicitly asking him, he confirmed the fact that
the negotiations with the Russians were being continued and
were apparently going on well.

After Wise's departure about 6.30 it was reported on all
sides that an understanding had been reached in the course of
the evening between the 'inviting Powers' and the Russians.
The following seemed to the German delegation especially
significant:

(0) In the official communications of the Italian chief of the
Press to the foreign journalists it was admitted that for some
days separate discussions had been taking place between the
'inviting Powers' and Russia at Lloyd George's villa, and that
they appeared to have led to a provisional understanding that
very evening.

(£) The correspondent of the Vossische Zeitung, Herr
Reiner, informed Rathenau and the Chancellor that he had
good grounds for believing that 'this evening' the Russians
had come to an agreement with the Allies.

27 Louis Hagen, banker and head of the firm of A. Levy in Cologne. One
of the chief industrial magnates of the Rhineland, exerting great economic and
political influence there.

320

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

informed on the strength of an authentic remark by the Czecho-
slovak Foreign Minister, Dr Benes, that agreement between
the Russians and the Allies had at last been reached.

(J) This was confirmed by one of the guests, the Dutch
banker van Vlissingen, from neutral sources.

When he heard this, Herr Hermes, the German Finance
Minister,28 expressed to von Simson and Maltzan his deep
concern and disappointment at the conclusion of the agreement,
which meant that Germany was now completely cut off com-
mercially and politically on the east as well as on the west, and
he besought Maltzan on the ground of his good relations with
the Russians to try and arrange something with them before it
was too latej we must avoid being cut off on the east, he said,
at all costs.

The German delegates went back to their quarters in very
low spirits. Maltzan, Rathenau and Hagen, and, for some of
the time, Wirth, sat together mournfully in the hotel lounge.
About ii p.m. Wise rang up Maltzan to ask for exact par-
ticulars of the offending articles of the British Memorandum.
When Maltzan mentioned Article 260 of the Versailles Treaty
as well as Article 1 16, Wise replied that in his view this former
article did not come into question, as the rights it conferred
on the Entente had expired. But not even now did he give
Maltzan any sort of assurance that Article 116 would not be
used against Germany. Maltzan informed the others of what
had passed.

Later, when all had retired for the night, at 1.15 a.m. on
Easter Sunday, April i6th, Joffe rang up Maltzan to say that
the Russians were ready to renew negotiations with the Ger-
man delegation, and would be grateful if they would meet

28 Dr Andreas Hermes, member of the Reichstag, chairman of the 'Vereinigung
Deutscher Bauernvereine' (Association of German peasant unions) and Vice-
President of the International Commission on Agriculture in Paris. Born July
x6th, 1878, at Cologne.

321

WALTHER RATHENAU

them in Rapallo for this purpose at n o'clock that (Sunday)
morning. The truth was that the private negotiations between
the Russians and the Allies had come to a deadlock} and Joffe
and Chicherin were in a hurry to resume negotiations with the
Germans, because they feared that the Allies might now come
to terms with the Germans over Article 116 and that they
would thus find themselves left out in the cold and faced with
a united front of Allies and Germans. There can be no doubt
that they were right, and that Wise's call was the forerunner
of the attempt Lloyd George made next day to get into touch
again with the Germans.

Maltzan had apparently been informed of the deadlock,,
but had not informed Rathenau, probably thinking that the
hitch might be only temporary. In this opinion he was now con-
firmed by Joffe, who, when Maltzan questioned him about the
state of the negotiations, evasively replied that though no defi-
nite agreement with the Allies had yet been concluded, one
was expected, and that negotiations were to be resumed on
Easter Monday or Tuesday. Whereupon Maltzan, feeling
justified in not mentioning the deadlock, woke Rathenau and
informed him of Joffe's invitation only. *It was then,' Maltzan
told Lord D'Abernon later, 'about 2.30 a.m. Rathenau was
pacing up and down his room in mauve pyjamas, with haggard
looks and eyes starting out of his head. When Maltzan came
in, he said: "I suppose you bring me the death warrant?''
Maltzan replied: "No; news of quite a different character."
When told of Joffe's telephone call and invitation, Rathenau
said: "Now that I realize the true situation, I will go to Lloyd
George and tell him the whole position, and come to terms with
him." Maltzan replied: "That would be quite dishonourable.
If you do that, I will at once resign my post and retire into
private life. It would be behaving monstrously to Chicherin,
and I can be no party to such action." Eventually, Rathenau
was converted to the Maltzan point of view.' (D'Abernon, p.

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

321.) They then both called the Chancellor, and after he had
been informed of the situation the three, the Chancellor in
his night-dress, Maltzan in a black silk dressing-gown and
Rathenau in his mauve pyjamas, took the momentous decision
that Rathenau and Maltzan should go to Rapallo next morn-
ing and, if they came to an agreement with the Russians, sign
the treaty.

Maltzan was instructed to inform Wise of this by telephone
early in the morning.

At 7.30 a.m. on Sunday, therefore, Maltzan rang up Wise,
but was told that he was still asleep. When Maltzan asked that
he should be awakened, he was told that Wise himself would
telephone to him as soon as he got up. As no call had come
through by 9.30, Maltzan again rang up Wise between 9.30
and 10, and was told that cthe gentlemen were out.' 29 Where-
upon Rathenau, Simson, Gaus (the legal adviser of the Ger-
man Foreign Office) and Maltzan proceeded to Rapallo, which
they reached about 12. Rathenau discussed the situation with
Chicherin, and proposed that they should re-examine the text
of the treaty, with the special object of making it perfectly
clear that Germany would be granted the same treatment as
the other states in case of compensation for damages due to
socialization. The Germans then lunched alone at the Hotel
Central. After lunch Gaus and Maltzan met Litvinoff, as ar-
ranged, to discuss with him the text of the treaty and the in-
creased German demand for security against damages due to
socialization j while Rathenau went to visit Baron von Mumm,
the former German Ambassador to Japan, who lived some
miles away near Portofino.

Hardly had Rathenau left, when Maltzan was informed by
telephone from Genoa that Lloyd George had just rung up to
say that he would like to speak to the Chancellor and Dr

29 It is to be presumed that Wise, greatly embarrassed, was waiting for in-
structions from Lloyd George.

3*3

WALTHER RATHENAU

Rathenau at once. Evidently, he, too, wished for the imme-
diate resumption of negotiations with the Germans, now that
the 'private conversations' with the Russians had come to a
deadlock. Chicherin's and Joffe's suspicion that this would be
his next move was thus justified 5 but they had forestalled him
by ringing up in the small hours of the morning. It proved
impossible now to get into touch with Rathenau because Baron
von Mumm's residence had no telephone. When Rathenau
returned to Rapallo, Maltzan, who was very much upset,
thinking that Rathenau might change his mind and decide to
see Lloyd George before signing the treaty, rather tremulously
informed him of the call. Rathenau paced up and down the
room once or twice, then turned to Maltzan and said: <Le vin
est tire, il jaut le boire? stepped into his car and drove off, with
Maltzan still pale with emotion on the front seat, to sign the
treaty. At 6.30 he and Chicherin set their names to the draft
prepared by Maltzan and Gaus.

Thus was enacted the last scene of what was indeed a comedy
of errors and intrigue. How things would have developed if
Barthou had not suggested cprivate conversations,' if Lloyd
George had got up earlier on Easter Sunday, or if Rathenau
had been informed of all that was going on, it is, of course,
impossible to say with certainty. But even if Rathenau had been
to see Lloyd George early on Easter morning, it does not seem
very likely that the French, with their huge pre-war claims
against Russia, and with Poincare looking out for allies in his
policy of coercion against Germany, would have agreed to any
treaty cancelling Germany's liability, based on Article 1 1 6 of
the Peace Treaty, to pay Reparations to Russia. And if they
had not, it is difficult to believe that Lloyd George would really
have dared or had the power to break up the Entente by sign-
ing a separate treaty with Germany and Russia. French policy
being what it was at the time, Lloyd George's policy was fated
to be wrecked, if on nothing else, then on Article 1165

324

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

sooner or later, after a great deal of useless parleying and
protracted intriguing between the French and English, Rus-
sian and German delegations, Germany and Russia would any-
how have had to resort to a separate treaty, and most likely
to a separate treaty at Genoa. For once the question of Article
1 1 6 had been raised and a general agreement on it had finally
proved impossible, Germany could not have been content to
put off settling it till later; and Russia was permanently eager
to seize any opportunity of running a wedge into what she con-
sidered the united front of Capitalism. Rapallo was therefore
but a short-cut to something that was probably inevitable. As
to the charge of bad faith brought against Rathenau, it will
not bear examination. He made several attempts to see Lloyd
George personally, in order to explain to him the dilemma in
which he was placed. Besides this he gave Signor Gianini clearly
to understand on Good Friday that in certain circumstances he
would be compelled to take separate action. And Wise, who
was supposed to be Lloyd George's specialist on Russian affairs,
was warned repeatedly in the same sense by Maltzan. Wise
himself is said to have remarked, when he heard of the treaty,
*I am not at all surprised.' 80

80 Lord D'Abernon (p. 298/0 prints some 'German Notes on the Events
leading up to the signing of the German-Russian Treaty* which give a chronicle
of the Russo-German negotiations almost identical with the above. I should like
to state, however, that Lord D'Abernon had no knowledge of my book^when
he wrote his Memoirs $ neither had I any opportunity of using his, as it was
published several months after mine. I am not aware of who wrote Lord
D'Abernon's 'Notes' j but internal evidence points to Maltzan, and I can testify
to their accuracy. On one point, however, I venture to differ from Lord
I^Abernon. Personal vanity, to which he attributes <a considerable part' in the
signing of the Russo-German pact at Genoa (p. 308), did not, I think, con-
tribute anything to the final result so far as Rathenau was concerned. Rathenau
knew for certain that the signing of the treaty would be offensive to President
Ebert, whose constitutional rights it infringed, as there was no time to ask his
consent 5 and that it would be far from popular not only in Government and
home circles, but also in his own delegation at Genoa, who were^much more
anxious for an agreement with France and England than with Russia. If proof
were needed that Rathenau was not out for a personal triumph, it could be
found in a long confidential letter which he wrote to President Ebert on Good

325

WALTHER RATHENAU

After Rathenau's return to Genoa from Rapallo, in the eve-
ning, Sir Basil Blackett (Director of Finance of the British
Treasury) called, and Rathenau informed him immediately
of the Russo-German agreement. Sir Basil received the news
calmly and seemed in no way surprised.

Late that evening Rathenau wrote to his friend:

16.4.1922

Warmest greetings. Today, Easter Sunday, I have been in
Rapallo and signed something there.

And a fortnight kter:

(GENOA) 28.4.1922

Your trust and confidence has done me good} it came just
at the right moment. This feeling of being confronted by a taut
and rigid world ready to pounce on the first sign of weakness —
it is like something physical, and wears down the nerves. And
what difficulties in one's own camp: F. . . . has been a real
help to me and I'm sorry that he's going. He will tell you all
the news.

I am convinced that we have acted as we should. Of course,
it was bound to cause trouble, and the storm is not yet over.
Even Nature refuses to be kind. I am looking down on a huge
green garden full of half-blossoming red and white chestnut
trees with a line of mountains beyond, and everything is draped
with grey rain-laden wisps of cloud. The damp cold goes right
through one's limbs to the very tips of one's fingers.

That you let H. ... come, just now, when he is doing
everything in his power to discredit my work, doesn't put me
out, but I strive to find some clear and genuine feeling, which

Friday, and which the President received on Easter Sunday, the very day of the
signing of the treaty; in this letter Rathenau does not even mention the possibility
of a separate agreement with Russia, a circumstance which particularly angered
the President. The real motives and circumstances which led to the signing of
the treaty I have endeavoured to explain above.

326

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

can explain your doing this. I should like to feel you were
somewhere where the sun was really shining and spring not
chary of her favours. This winter clings to everything like the
war, and is still capable of evil. But summer will come at last
and make you well again.

While I have been writing this letter, not a single person
has come in — a marvel! And so in the midst of this cold and
conflict I have had a whole quarter of an hour with you alone.

Affectionately yours,

Early on Monday, April lyth, Maltzan informed Wise by
letter of the conclusion of the treaty, enclosing the only avail-
able copy of it which he possessed. Wise acknowledged the
receipt of this letter between 8 and 9 p.m.81 Later it was re-
ported that an American who dined with Lloyd George on
Sunday had got the distinct impression that the Prime Minister
had been fully aware of the Russo-German negotiations.

But for a day or two it certainly looked as though the treaty
would break up the Conference. Feeling in the Allied delega-
tions ran high and ranged from anger to panic. With some, in
the first flush of excitement, it assumed grotesque forms. M
Barthou issued a note in which he accused Dr Wirth of 'al-
legations mensongeres? The French delegation ostentatiously
packed their trunks in the Hotel Savoy. In Paris people got
ready to go back to the trenches. A luncheon party which I hap-

81 In a letter quoted by Lord D'Abernon (p. 310) Wise states that con the
Monday morning after the treaty was signed he received personally a note from
Baron Maltzan enclosing what was in fact an incomplete copy of the treaty —
the signatory clause and date had been torn off — in which it was indicated, not
that the treaty had been signed, but that it was under consideration.' Of course,
nobody could doubt Mr Wise's good faith j but perhaps his memory is at fault,
as there could have been no motive for Maltzan to mislead him on Easter
Monday, when the whole of Genoa was in a turmoil of excitement over the
signature of the treaty, and Rathenau himself had informed Sir Basil Blackett on
the night before of the facts. Perhaps Mr Wise has kept Maltzan's letter and
could publish it.

327

WALTHER RATHENAU

pened to be giving on Monday with one of the permanent
officials from the German Foreign Office was partly wrecked
at the last moment because the French delegates we had invited
were strictly forbidden to attend by Barthou. Poincare suspected
that Germany had sought and found Russian military support
against his Rhine plans.

Lloyd George at first raged picturesquely, but not very con-
vincingly, demanded the unconditional withdrawal of the
treaty, which was refused with equal energy by both Germany
and Russia, and then suddenly on April igth granted the in-
terview which Rathenau had so long sought in vain. In the
meanwhile he may have found the rumours of a Russo-Ger-
man military convention at the back of the treaty not altogether
unwelcome; the suspicion that such an agreement perhaps
existed might act as a check on Poincare's ambitions on the
Rhine, which Lloyd George was bent on frustrating. At any
rate the interview between him, Wirth and Rathenau went off
without any dramatic incidents and the Germans found it quite
satisfactory. When Maltzan, who was in attendance, pointed
out that he had warned Mr Wise of what was going on, Lloyd
George replied: <But who is Mr Wise? *2 Why did you not
come to me?y To which Maltzan replied very appositely: 'You
wouldn't receive Dr Rathenau whom you did know, so how
could I expect you to receive me whom you did not know?'
Lloyd George gave Wirth and Rathenau the choice of re-
linquishing either the treaty or else their participation in the
negotiations with Russia in the sub-commission. The Chan-
cellor and Rathenau referred the matter to the German dele-
gation, who were divided in their views. However, the Italian
Foreign Minister, Signor Schanzer, intervened j and as the re-
sult of his interview with Rathenau on the morning of the 20th

82 Lord D'Abernon says that 'the German delegation did not realize the
purely rhetorical character of this question, being unaware that, in the Welsh
vernacular, imprecations and expletives frequently assume an interrogative form*
(p. 3**)-

328

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

it was agreed that in their reply to the protest of the Allies,
the Germans, after clearly emphasizing their point of view
and rebutting the charge of disloyalty brought against the
Chancellor by Barthou, should voluntarily renounce taking
part in the negotiations with the Russians in the sub-commis-
sion when the memorandum of the Allies was under considera-
tion. But whenever other questions, particularly those touching
on the economic rehabilitation of Russia, came up for discussion
the Germans were to resume both their seats and their vote.

Immediately after Signor Schanzer and Rathenau had come
to terms, and even before the written German reply had been
despatched, Lloyd George summoned all the journalists in
great haste to the mediaeval hall of the Palazzo San Giorgio,
the scene of his triumph on the first day of the Conference,
and there and then declared that all was forgotten and forgiven
and the treaty incident closed. He was so boyish and playful
and appeared to find such pleasure in giving the proceedings
the popular and democratic appearance of a variety enter-
tainment, moving up and down behind a table and answering
any written question handed up to him like a music-hall me-
dium, that one could not help feeling he must have some secret
source of enjoyment} presumably he was thinking of Poin-
care, whom he had outwitted and forestalled by the lightning
rapidity with which he was clearing up the mess. And, in fact, a
few days later, Maltzan, who had at first been cut dead by
some of the English delegates, was seen dancing at the Hotel
Miramare with Miss Megan Lloyd George.

Meanwhile the 'gentleman in Paris/ as Lloyd George had
dubbed Poincare, was belabouring his representative in Genoa
with telegrams at the rate of one about every twenty minutes
urging him to take forceful action; and when this merely re-
sulted in the unfortunate Barthou's lodging a belated and vain
protest against Germany's only partial exclusion from the sub-

329

WALTHER RATHENAU

commission, he hastened to deliver an inflammatory speech of
unparalleled violence at Bar-le-Duc on April 24th. He said
that if France could not get her principles accepted he would
withdraw his delegation from the Conference* He accused
Germany and Russia of concealing a military convention be-
hind the outwardly innocuous paragraphs of the Rapallo
Treaty, said that the treaty constituted a direct menace to
France, and threatened that if Germany did not fulfil the ob-
ligations laid upon her by the decision of the Reparations Com-
mission of April 10th Trance would take measures to force her,
even if she had to do so alone, as she was entitled to by the Ver-
sailles Treaty*: thus revealing his ambitions on the Rhine.

The effect of this speech on the Conference was hardly less
sensational than had been that of the Russo-German treaty.
Battle was now joined openly between Poincar6 and Lloyd
George, who forced Barthou to transmit to his chief an invita-
tion to come to San Remo so that they might discuss orally
the sanctions Poincare was contemplating. At the same time he
announced his intention of submitting the question of whether
an individual Allied power could resort to sanctions of its own
accord to the signatories of the Versailles Treaty; and allowed
it to leak out into the newspapers that he was thinking of re-
vising his attitude to the Entente and would certainly do so if
he had to choose between the Entente and Peace. Partisans and
journalists on both sides joined in the fray. Mr Garvin, who
was in Genoa, wrote a vigorous article in the Observer en-
titled: France versus Europe: a failure m Genoa means War!
The French, on the other hand, maintained that Lloyd George
wanted to force the French delegation to withdraw and break
up the Conference in order to expose to the world France's
moral isolation. Even the ever-peaceful and Anglophile
Philippe Millet, the correspondent of the Petit Parisien> was
stung to the remark: Europe will only get peace 'quand elle
aura vomi Lloyd George.' Finally Barthou, utterly bewildered

330

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

and overwhelmed by a deluge of despatches, announced his
intention of going to Paris himself to speak with his chief.

The effect of this conflict on the position of the German
delegation was remarkable. Rathenau had been convinced from
the start that the English could accomplish nothing in the
face of French opposition j and so, when the storm broke, he
kept deliberately in the background. But both sides now began
to try to win the good graces of the German delegation. A
permanent link between the French and German delegations
had been arranged for in Berlin before the Conference met
through the person of Professor Hesnard, one of the members
of the French delegation 5 but although I saw him daily, in
fulfilment of this agreement, the results of our interviews were
nil, because from the very first Barthou, doubtless on Poin-
care's instructions, refused to meet Rathenau or Wirth pri-
vately. Now suddenly Barthou himself, only a week after he
had publicly accused the Chancellor of 'lying allegations,' asked
Professor Hesnard to arrange an interview. When I trans-
mitted the invitation to Rathenau, he replied that he and the
Chancellor would not object to meeting Barthou socially, but
that a purely business discussion was no longer desirable, be-
cause it would not now get them any further. The interview,
therefore, did not take place. Nor is it likely that it would have
done anything to alter the attitude of Poincare, who was
firmly set on his separatist Rhine policy j88 and it might have
seemed suspicious to the British delegation. For as a result of
the Rapallo Treaty, the Germans were gradually drawn into
the position of confidential intermediaries between the British
and the Russians.

But even if there ever had been a chance of success, it was
too late now to rescue the Conference or to save Europe from

88 Senator Dariac -was just then busy preparing his secret report to M Poin-
car£ on the ways and means of separating1 the Rhineland from Germany which
the Manchester Guardian disclosed some years later.

331

WALTHER RATHENAU

the disastrous consequences of failure. Things had come to the
point at which Poincare was at last offered the opportunity he
had sought of stabbing the Conference in the back. In the
course of their negotiations with the Russians the Allies had
decided to hand them a new memorandum embodying their
conditions for re-establishing diplomatic and economic rela-
tions with Russia. In Cannes, in January, all the Allies had
signed a binding agreement embodying the principles which
were to govern their negotiations with Russia at Genoa. By
Article I of this agreement they recognized that 'nations can-
not claim the right to dictate to each other the principles upon
which they may organize their property rights, their industry
and their government. Every country must be entitled to choose
for itself the system it favours in this respect.' By Article 2,
however, it was laid down that 'it would be possible to give
economic assistance to a country only if the foreigners who
supplied the necessary capital were sure that their possessions
and rights would be respected and the rights accruing to them
out of their undertakings were assured them.' From these
principles it followed necessarily that the Soviet Government
could not be denied the right of confiscating alien property, if
it undertook to compensate the owners. This right was there-
fore acknowledged by Article 6 of the new memorandum}
which further proposed that in case the former owner and the
Soviet Government disagreed about the amount he could
daim as compensation, the sum should be fixed by an Inter-
national Tribunal. As the Belgians had signed the Cannes
agreement, they could not with any show of reason refuse their
assent to this article. But when it came up for discussion on May
ist in the Inter-allied sub-commission, the Belgian Prime
Minister, M Jaspar, unexpectedly declared that he could not
agree to this article, and therefore would refuse to sign the
memorandum. Whereupon Lloyd George remarked: Well
then, the Belgians had better withdraw.' M Barthou, who had

33*

THE FIQHT FOR PEACE

already given his consent to the article in question, intervened,
saying, cm a voice quivering with emotion': 'I respectfully
implore Mr Lloyd George not to inflict this humiliation on
litde Belgium,5 whereupon M Jaspar all of a tremble stood
up and said: 'No one can humiliate Belgium, not even Eng-
land!' and Mr Lloyd George retorted: <Who ever thought of
humiliating anybody? At an election, when one is beaten, one is
not humiliated. . . . Well, we are here to cast our votes.*

M Jean de Pierrefeu, a French journalist in close touch with
the French delegation at Genoa, from whom I have borrowed
the details of this melodrama,84 suggests that M Jaspar's op-
position was concerted behind poor M Barthou's back with
Poincare, who had lost all patience with the 'weakness' and lack
of success of his representative. Whether this surprising sug-
gestion is true or not, at any rate Poincare seized the opportu-
nity offered him by M Jaspar. He summoned Barthou to come
to Paris immediately; and in the meantime entrusted the
French delegation to the care of the French Ambassador in
Rome, M Barrere, who had all along taken a view closely akin
to Poincare's. The first thing that Barrere did on Poincare's
instructions was to declare that the French could not uphold
the consent Barthou had given to the memorandum in their
name unless the Belgians also agreed to it. That was the stab
in the back which could be trusted to kill the Conference; for
it extinguished all hope of a general agreement with Russia
in Genoa. This was on May 2nd.

Lloyd George was now fighting with his back to the wall.
He decided that the memorandum must be handed to the Rus-
sians then and there, without the signature of the Belgians and
with the French signature invalidated by the declaration of
M Barrere. And then, on May 4th, at his request a long con-

84 Jean de Pierrefeu, La Satson diplomatique, p. 169 /. I have given M de
Pierref eu's version, but accounts still more highly coloured were freely circulated
in Genoa at the time.

333

WALTHER RATHENAU

versation took place in the morning between him, the German
Chancellor and Rathenau at the Villa de Albertis. All the cur-
rent questions, including the memorandum, were discussed,
but nothing definite was agreed on between the three statesmen.
Lloyd George, however, expressed the wish that these con-
versations should be continued. It was on the evening before
that Miss Megan Lloyd George had danced with Maltzan at
the Miramare. The long private interview between Lloyd
George and the German Ministers created uneasiness in the
French delegation, and was, of course, intended to do so and
to serve as a danger-signal. In the afternoon the French chief
of the Press asked me to dine with him. In the course of dinner
he said that Poincare had by no means given up the idea of
military sanctions} that he was more than a match for Lloyd
George, and that nobody could say with certainty which of the
two would win in the end. A friendly warning which sounded
very much like a threat

From the very first Rumour had played a considerable part
in the doings of the Conference. Its hub was the 'Casa della
Stampa* which the Italian Government had established in a
stiff eighteenth-century palazzo in the Piazza della Zecca and
lavishly fitted up with every device for collecting and broad-
casting news — a very beehive, in and out of which buzzed hun-
dreds of journalists and busybodies gossiping and intriguing,
scandalmongering and endeavouring to spy on each other's in-
formation. The atmosphere issuing from this hotbed of half-
truths and suspicions settled down on Genoa like a fog and
thickened as the Conference and the various quarrels between
delegations proceeded. It was partly responsible for the sign-
ing of the Rapallo Treaty, by the suspicions it fostered about
the 'private conversations' at the Villa de Albertis. And, of
course, each delegation tried to make use of it for its own pur-
poses. On May 5th a number of English journalists began
spreading the news that the rupture of the Entente was im-

334

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

minentj that Lloyd George did not really want to part from
France, but that British opinion might very soon force him to
do so ; that his growing intimacy with Wirth and Rathenau must
be looked upon as a grave symptom, and that unless Poincare
mended his ways and the French delegation put its signature to
the Russian Memorandum the break might become inevitable.
On Saturday, May 6th, towards midday, Barthou returned
from Paris and immediately went to see M Jaspar j in the eve-
ning he visited Lloyd George. M de Pierrefeu records, on
what authority he does not state, that Lloyd George's face
*wore an expression of deep melancholy/ but that he was calm,
although when he spoke his voice betrayed bitter disillusion-
ment. When Barthou told him of the resolve of the French
Government to support M Jaspar, he said: CI congratulate you,
M Barthou, you who have always been helpf id here at Genoa^
on not bearing on your shoulders the weight of this heavy re-
sponsibility.' M de Pierrefeu affirms that these were Lloyd
George's very words. We may well believe it; for Lloyd
George can hardly have missed the touch of subtle and rather
cruel irony that lay in stressing the helpfulness of M Barthou,
who had been helpful principally in exposing the isolation of
France. Were the melancholy, the stoicism and the disillusion-
ment of Lloyd George only half sincere and just a piece of
consummate acting, as the French journalist suggests? At any
rate, Lloyd George, lion-hearted in defeat and convinced that
he was conducting a great offensive for the restoration of
prosperity to England and of peace to Europe, would not yet
admit to himself that he was beaten. So next clay, Sunday the
7th, he summoned M Philippe Millet, the correspondent,
whose newspaper, the Petit Parisian, commanded the widest
circulation in France, and inspired him to write an article which
was, in fact, a desperate appeal over the head of Poincare to
the French people. He told the French journalist that English-
men were sick of the Entente and that, unless something un-

335

WALTHER RATHENAU

expected happened, its end was at hand. So far as the British
Empire was concerned, after dissolving its partnership with
France, it would for a time withdraw from Europe ; but later
on it might quite possibly conclude arrangements with certain
other Continental Powers. The significance of the conversations
with Rathenau and Wirth was more than hinted at. Lloyd
George evidently hoped that his threat to end the Entente
would create a wave of panic in France and that Poincare
would either be swept away or have to give in over the memo-
randum.

But then something happened. Millet, greatly alarmed,
warned the correspondent of the Echo de Paris, 'Pertinax'
(M Geraud), with the object of inducing him to stay the vio-
lent campaign he. was conducting against Lloyd George in his
newspaper. Instead, Pertinax, who had already been informed
more or less exactly of the grave words that Lloyd George was
rumoured to have spoken to Barthou, forthwith saw Mr Wick-
ham Steed,85 the Times correspondent and delegate of Lord
Northcliffe (whose personal vendetta against Lloyd George
had become a factor in European politics and whose papers
were doing their utmost to counter the policy of the British
Government and support Poincare). Mr Wickham Steed im-
mediately despatched a report of the conversation between
Lloyd George and Barthou to the Times. Thus on Monday
morning, May 8th, Paris woke up to read in the Petit Parisian
the article inspired by Lloyd George, and London to learn with
a shock that Lloyd George had officially inf ormed M Barthou
that 'England and France had reached a parting of the ways.'
The reaction to the Times despatch was such as Mr Wickham
Steed had expected. Notwithstanding a great deal of bickering
and discontent, British opinion was not ready to support a rup-

88 Henry Wickham Steed, born 1871. Studied in France and Germany, where
he was a pupil of the philosopher Paulsen in Berlin. Times correspondent at
Berlin in 1896, Rome 1897-1902, Vienna 1902-135 foreign editor 1914-19 and
editor 1919-22. Editor of The Review of Reviews.

336

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

ture with France. There were questions in the House of Com-
mons and the beginnings of a Stock Exchange panic in the
City, telegrams began pouring in at Genoa asking for explana-
tions, and Lloyd George, hard pressed by his Government,
suddenly put in an appearance at the headquarters of the British
journalists late at night, and indignantly denied Mr Steed's
allegations. But, worse still, he had to implore Barthou to issue
a denial. After prolonged negotiations Barthou, late in the
evening, complied. The denial was a reprieve for Lloyd George
and his Government; but the Conference was, for all practical
purposes, dead.86

For a short time, while its testament was being drawn up
by the technical sub-commissions, it lingered on, saved from
its death-bed mainly by Lloyd George's hope that in spite of
all something might turn up, and by the desperate need of the
Russians for a loan. In these circumstances, whatever was left
of it of course centered around negotiations between Lloyd
George and the Russians. The Germans continued lending their
assistance. Dr Wirth impressed on Chicherin and Litvinoff
Lloyd George's request that they should go and see him be-
fore they answered the memorandum.87 Rathenau discussed
privately with Lloyd George the size of a Russian loan that
might possibly be floated in England, and I had long conversa-
tions every day with Mr Wise on the same subject. When the
Russians failed to understand certain financial details of the
.memorandum, Lloyd George asked that a German expert (Dr

86 It is a pity that Mr Wickham Steed, in the two or three rather jejune pages
which he allows Genoa in his Memoirs, has not thought fit to give a more
detailed account of this incident, which ultimately had a far-reaching influence,
not only on Lloyd George's and his own fortunes, but also on post-war Euro-
pean history. (Wickham Steed, Through Thirty Years, p. 383 /.)

87 All along the French had bitterly resented Lloyd George's attitude of being
above paying visits, or even receiving them when they displeased him. While
M Barthou had to move about visiting delegates, Lloyd George just *sent for* his
colleagues when he wished to speak to them, 'like a Sovereign,9 as a disgusted
Frenchman said at the time.

337

WALTHER RATHENAU

Hilf erding) should explain their significance to them.88 All the
time Hilf erding and Maltzan acted as willing intermediaries
with the Russians. Rathenau, although more sceptical, remained
particularly anxious for an understanding, because he clung
to his aim of fitting the Rapallo Treaty into something more
European, a treaty between all the Western Powers and Rus-
sia, or at least one between Great Britain and Russia.

Having realized at last that the sums they needed were not
to be extracted from the Allies except on terms which they could
not grant, the Russians handed in their answer on May I ith.
After criticizing the Allied memorandum with an acid irony
that was unmistakably Chicherin's and commenting bitterly on
the indisputable fact that the Allies in Genoa chad spoken to
Russia the language of a victor to the vanquished, although
Russia was not vanquished/ they pointed out that the financial
questions pending between the Allies and Russia needed a more
thorough investigation, and proposed that this task should be
entrusted to a mixed committee of experts on whose date and
pkce of meeting Russia and the Allies should agree. The
memorandum being the only subject left for discussion at
Genoa, the Russian answer amounted to a motion for the ad-
journment of the Conference. Of course, the French and Bel-
gians were delighted j and even Lloyd George found the pro-
posal acceptable, because it allowed him to place the blame for
the failure of the Conference on the Russians. All parties there-

88 Dr Rudolf Hilf erding, born 1877, in Vienna, joined the Social Democratic
party and wrote Das Firumzkaptaly which has become a standard work of
Marxian economics. Editor of the Berlin Vorwarts 1906-1915. Was an army
doctor with the Austrian army on the Italian front from 1915 to 1918. In
1918 returned to Berlin and edited the organ of the 'Independent* Social Demo-
crats, the Freikeit. Was one of those principally instrumental in detaching1 the
'Independents' from the Spartacists (Communists), and in bringing about their
reunion with the old Social Democratic party. Entered the Reichstag and be-
came German Minister of Finance (for the first time) in the Stresemann Cabinet
which stopped passive resistance in the Ruhr in 19235 prepared the rehabilitation
of the mark, which was later carried through by Dr Luther and Dr Schacht.
Minister of Finance in the present German Cabinet since 1928.

338

THE FIGHT FOR PEACE

fore agreed to hold a meeting of Allied and Russian experts at
The Hague in June to discuss the memorandum. And then the
Conference was buried with becoming pomp in a last grand
ceremonial plenary session held in the same sombre mediaeval
hall which had seen its opening.

Limelight and laurels there had been, in triumph and de-
feat, more than enough for Lloyd George 5 but British opinion
had abandoned him in the crisis, and his prestige, both at home
and abroad, had suffered severely. The problems which he had
at heart, that of Reparations and that of the restoration of
prosperity to Europe, were as far from a solution as ever; while
his attempt to bridge the gulf between Russia and the Western
Powers had failed disastrously. The achievements of the Con-
ference, apart from a few excellent technical reports, seemed
more than disappointing.

And yet, on looking backwards, one cannot help seeing that
Genoa marked the turning of the tide in post-war history. To
begin with, Poincare, who appeared as the victor, had really
ruined the foundations of his policy of coercing and disrupting
Germany, both by f ordng the Russians to side with his victim
and by taking up a position which called the attention of the
world to his aims and ambitions. For little as Russia's support
may have weighed materially, psychologically it was one of
those 'imponderables,' as Bismarck called them, which some-
times play a decisive part in history; and the disclosure of
Poincare's plans for establishing French influence on a perma-
nent basis in the Rhineland ended, in spite of war memories,
by undermining English acquiescence in French policy. Ger-
many, on the other hand, had regained her status as a Great
Power. Besides this she was bringing home, in the teeth of
French opposition, her treaty with Russia; and Rathenau had
prepared the ground for a further advance on the path of
negotiation and understanding by establishing relations of mu-
tual confidence with some at least of the Allied statesmen.

339

WALTHER RATHENAU

After Genoa, Germany was no longer an outcast. In the terrible
years which were still in store for her, her new position helped
decisively to bring about the collapse of the French ambitions
on the Rhine. Had Russia been drawn back into a ring with
the Allies against Germany, as Poincare plotted, and had not
British politicians begun to trust her more than they did France,
the Separatist movement in the Rhineland in 1923-24 might
possibly have been successful and the disruption of Germany
have become, for a time at least, one of those political faits
accomptis which it requires both years and a genius to reverse.
It was the intellectual force and steadiness of Rathenau which
convinced some of Germany's former enemies that his 'policy
of fulfilment' was honest, thus averting these dangers and pre-
paring the way for Germany's slow rise from the abyss.

To him and his character the Conference, as its ultimate
sign of life, paid a spontaneous tribute, when it responded to
his last words at the last plenary session with an ovation similar
to that which had greeted Lloyd George's performance at the
opening session. In the peroration of his speech he had said:
'The history of Italy is more ancient than that of most Euro-
pean nations. More than one great world movement has orig-
inated in this soil. Once more, and, let us hope, not in vain, the
peoples of the earth have lifted up their eyes and their hearts
to Italy out of the depths of that feeling which has been ex-
pressed for all time in Petrarch's words: lo w gridando: Pace,
Pacey Pace! (I go calling: Peace, Peace, Peace! ).' Again, the
sophisticated audience of elder statesmen and diplomats was
swept off its feet. But what gripped it now, more than the
words, was the man. While Lloyd George's speech had been
applauded for its dexterity, its wit, its nimbleness, its charm, in
short for being of the same stuff as perfect comedy, here was
tragedy speaking. And indeed the words were even more pa-
thetic than they seemed; they were Rathenau's swan song, and
the verse from Petrarch summed up in a symbol his life-work.

340

CHAPTER XI
THERE IS NO DEATH

FROM the moment that he became Foreign Minister the
police began warning Rathenau almost daily of plots
against his life. When I entered his office in the Wil-
helmstrasse for the first time after his appointment, and greeted
him with the usual 'Good-morning, how do you do?' he replied,
pulling a pistol out of his trouser pocket: 'This is how I do!
Things have got to such a pitch that I cannot go about without
this little instrument.'

Genoa gave him a breathing space. The perfect order main-
tained by the Facta Government all over Italy and the care
that was taken to protect every single delegate to the Confer-
ence gave him back that feeling of security which he had so
long missed. We wandered for hours, alone and apparently
unguarded, through the streets of Genoa. He knew every nook
and cranny (as a young man he had superintended the build-
ing of the electric trams there), and nothing pleased him better
than to point out some vestige of the Middle Ages or Renais-
sance not mentioned in Baedeker. His last letter from Genoa to
his friend reflects that halcyon calm akin to happiness which
sometimes comes to those doomed, a short breathing space
before their death.

17.5.22 Sunday night

What is the meaning of this? You write me a letter full of
pain and sorrow and send me all manner of bitter-sweet things
which are much too good to perish on my writing-table between
meditations and daydreams.1

1 This evidently alludes to a project of publishing in some form or other at
least a part of this correspondence. Unfortunately his friend's letters were all
burnt after Rathenau's death.

341

WALTHER RATHENAU

Why trouble to ponder over it all? When we look back over
these years, hasn't everything that happened and had to happen
been for the best?

I often think, and it is my greatest comfort: What a wretched
sort of life is that which merely runs its even course untrou-
bled! The wonderful thing is that all true sorrow is beautiful.
Only the stupidly awry and the arbitrarily distorted is ugly.
In our life everything has been Law; thus were the facts, and
thus their predestined course. Nothing has been in vain, noth-
ing can now be thought away or given up.

And if you honestly reflect you will find that even what
seemed to be Chance was really Necessity. And is Chance
going to have his own way now? My life has run too far along
its course for that to be possible.

Now at last I am free of my fellow-men. Not in the sense
that I could ever be indifferent to them. On the contrary, the
freer I am the nearer and dearer — despite all — they are to me;
and I joyfully recognize that I exist for them, not they for
me.

The one person who exists for me, freely and consciously,
without need of support, help or even thanks, and who shares
completely my inmost life— that person is you, and I thank
you for it.

Certainly there is not much more that I can do. The flame
burns low. But you know it is my destiny to be ready to lift
from others the burden that oppresses them and to remain my-
self without desire. Whatever I still keep back or guard in
«ecret, that is yours.

Affectionately,

After his return to Berlin at the end of May there were in-
creasing signs that his life was in real danger. From all sides
warnings poured in. Dr Wirth writes to me about one of them

342

THERE IS NO DEATH

which was particularly impressive: 'In those dark days of Ger-
man history, at a time when we were deeply anxious about the
preservation of the unity of our country, and when disruption
and civil war seemed at hand, a Catholic priest came to see me
at the Chancellery and informed me simply and soberly in a
few sentences, but with great earnestness, that Rathenau's life
was in danger. I could not question him; the interview took
place in absolute privacy between the Catholic priest and my-
self. I immediately understood how serious was the warning,
and myself passed on the information to my officials. Then
Rathenau himself was called in. I implored him with all my
might to give up his resistance to increased police protection
for his person. In his well-known manner, with which many
of his friends were familiar, he stubbornly refused. Thereupon
I informed him of what had happened, and asked him whether
he did not see that the step taken by the Catholic priest was a
very serious affair. My words impressed Rathenau deeply. He
stood motionless and pale for about two minutes. None of us
dared break the silence or speak a single word. Rathenau
seemed to be gazing on some distant land. He was visibly
struggling with his own feelings. Suddenly his face and his
eyes took on an expression of infinite benevolence and gentle-
ness. With a calm such as I had never witnessed in him, al-
though I had gauged the measure of his self-control in many
a discussion on difficult political and personal questions, he
stepped up to me, and putting both his hands on my shoulders
said: "Dear friend, it is nothing. Who would do me any
harm?" Our conversation, however, was not at an end. After
I had once more laid stress on the seriousness of the informa-
tion and on the absolute necessity for police protection, he left
the room with an expression of incomprehensible security on
his face. Unfortunately, Rathenau, as I heard later on, once
more expressly protested against special protection/

Unfortunately} for there could no longer be any doubt that

343

WALTHER RATHENAU

the agitation against him, which had now been going on for
years, was beginning at last to bear dangerous fruit. Political
murder had at that time become one of the commonplaces of
German public life to a degree hardly credible. In his pam-
phlet Four Years of Political Murder > Herr Gumbel 2 gives
the names and exact circumstances of the assassination of more
than three hundred republicans and radicals, who (quite apart
from those killed in actual civil war or street fighting) were
murdered in cold blood by Nationalists between 1918 and 1922.
The 'Feme3 murder trials have since disclosed that in the
'Black' Reichswehr and similar organizations assassination had
been elevated into a regular system, and that the assassins be-
longing to them performed their job as a mere matter of rou-
tine.8 With public morality at this low ebb and murder practised
as a fine art by a horde of fanatics, and almost honoured as a
legitimate form of political activity by a quite considerable
fraction of the German people, the Nationalists, far from feel-
ing that they were in common decency bound to moderate their
agitation against Rathenau, strained every nerve to extend and
intensify it. The responsibility for this reckless campaign rested
with their leader, the former Imperial Vice-Chancellor, Karl
Helfferich, an ex-professor who had attained to high office
thanks to the war, and in whom, after he fell from power,
statistics and chicanery had whetted one another into dagger-

2 Lecturer on statistics at the University of Heidelberg. The title of the
pamphlet is Vier Jahre foUtischer Mord, published by Verlag der Neuen Gesell-
schaft, Berlin — Fichtenau, 1922.

8 The 'Black' (or illegal) Reichswehr was organized secretly, nominally to
defend the eastern provinces of Prussia against a Polish invasion during the
Ruhr occupation} practically it was an armed force at the disposal of the Na-
tionalists, who wanted to overthrow the Republic. After the Ruhr was evacuated,
it was disbanded. An appalling number of illegal executions of members of
the Black Reichswehr by their comrades for 'treason* was revealed later on,
when those who were responsible for them were tried and condemned for mur-
der. The illegal executions were called 'Feme* murders, after the name of the
German mediaeval secret tribunals, which disposed of those condemned by them
in a similar illegal and* secret manner.

344

THERE IS NO DEATH

like instruments of deadly precision.4 His pamphlets and in-
vectives were in great measure responsible for the assassination
of Erzberger.5 Since Erzberger's death he had concentrated on
Rathenau. The Nationalists, who were armed, at a time when
all but a few big industrialists and landowners were destitute,
with an immense party fund whose sources have never been
disclosed, made a regular system of denouncing Rathenau.
Day by day speeches in the Reichstag and the various Diets,
leading articles, vast popular meetings, pilloried him as the
Jew responsible for the depths of shame to which Germany had
been brought and for the ruin of the German middle classes.
In the imagination of millions of impoverished and famished
Germans, Rathenau became a sort of arch-traitor, in league
with the Jews, the Bolshevists, and the Entente to give the

4 Karl Theodor Helfferich, born July 22nd, 1872, in Neustadt in the Palatinate.
Studied law and economics, specially statistics, of which he became Professor
in Berlin in 1901. Was commissioned by the Deutsche Bank to look after its in-
terests in Anatolia in 1906, where he remained till 1908. Became Secretary of
State of the Treasury in 1915, was promoted Minister of the Interior in 1916,
and retained this post and the Vice-Chancellorship from 1916 till the Revolution.
In the meanwhile he had been for a short time Ambassador to Russia, after the
assassination of Count Mirbach in Moscow. Became a member of the Reichstag
in 1920. Was killed in a railway accident near Bellinzona on April 23rd, 1924.

5 Mathias Erzberger, member of the Reichstag and one of the leaders of the
Centre (Catholic) party in the Reichstag. Born September 2oth, 1879. Began
life as an elementary school teacher. First contributed articles to the Catholic
Press in 1896. Entered the Reichstag at the age of twenty-four in 1903, and be-
came a sort of parliamentary secretary to Prince Franz Arenberg, one of the
most influential Catholic leaders, who was at the same time an intimate friend
of the Chancellor, Prince Bulow, and thus formed an important link between the
Chancellor and one of the Government parties. It was in drudging for Prince
Arenberg that Erzberger, then quite a young man, first won his spurs. Never-
theless, he violently opposed the Government colonial policy, and brought about
the dissolution of the Reichstag on this question in 1906. At the beginning of
the war he took up an imperialist attitude; but later on, in 1917, got a Peace
resolution passed by the Reichstag. Became Imperial Secretary of State in October,
1918, negotiated the Armistice with Foch, and became Minister of Finance after
the Revolution. The Nationalists held him responsible for the terms of the
Armistice and the humiliation of Germany) and he was assassinated by two
Nationalist fanatics on August 2$th, 1921, while walking with a friend in a
wood near Griesbach in Baden*

345

WALTHER RATHENAU

death-blow to Germany. We get an idea of the depths of hate
which this agitation produced, when we hear that the members
of the Upper Silesian Selbstschutz 6 when tramping the roads
were wont to sing a song of which the chorus went:

cGod damn Walther Rathenau.
Shoot him down, the dirty Jew.'

The police urged Rathenau to take the necessary precautions.
At first he acquiesced. Later, however, he refused uncom-
promisingly; for he believed in Fate, and he did not really
believe in Death. In The Mechanism of the Mind he asks:
*Is it possible to conceive mortality?' and answers: 'It is only
when we contemplate the part instead of the whole that we
become aware of death. The ancients compared the end of a
man's life to the fall of the leaf; the leaf dies, but the tree
goes on living. If the tree falls in its turn, the wood will still
go on, and if the wood should die, then the earth, which feeds
and warms and absorbs its creatures, will still sprout green and
fresh. And if the planet itself grows cold, there will be a thou-
sand other planets to rejoice in the rays of yet other suns.
Nothing organic can die. Everything is perpetually being re-
born, and to the God who watches .from afar the centuries
reveal ever the same picture and the same life.

'In the whole visible world we know nothing mortal. For
what is mortal could not be born. True, everything that strives
towards a goal, everything that frets and struggles, consumes
itself away; and thus a materially organic world is only con-
ceivable on the assumption of the eternal change of substance,
from the mechanism of the body to the mechanism of the
atom. But this change is no more like dying than the growth
of the individual plant, which would be impossible without
change of substance. The conception of dying arises from false

6 A semi-military organization formed in Upper Silesia in 1920-21 to protect
the country against the ruthless terrorism of bands of Polish Nationalists.

346

THERE IS NO DEATH

observation, through the eye being fixed on the part instead of
the whole. Nothing real in the world is mortal. We may still,
if we wish, use the word "death" as a metaphor for the power
that sets limits to the phenomena in the world of appearances;
but this power we must salute as a glorious spirit, as the warden
of life, the lord of transfiguration, and the witness to the
truth5 (p. 177). Goethe has expressed the same view in one of
his most profound poems:

*Denn alle Kraft dringt vorwarts in die Weite,
Zu leben und zu wirken hier und dort;
Dagegen engt und hemmt von jeder Seite
Der Strom der Welt und reisst uns mit sich fort:
In diesem innern Sturm und aussern Streiten
Vernimmt der Geist em schwer verstanden Wort:
Von der Gewalt, die alle Wesen bindet,
Bef reit der Mensch sich, der sich iiberwindet.*

In April, a seventeen-year-old schoolboy, Hans Stubenrauch,
confided to a certain student, one Giinther, his intention of
murdering Rathenau. This Stubenrauch was the son of a gen-
eral, and despite his years already a member of the Bund der
Aufrechten; 7 he was vain and precocious, but still half a child.
Giinther had been previously convicted for desertion, and was,
as the medical evidence at his trial showed, a pathological liar
and braggart.8 Stubenrauch gave as the grounds for his decision
the passage in Rathenau's pamphlet Der Kaiser, interpreting
it as Ludendorff had done: 'That day will never come on which
the Kaiser will ride victorious through the Brandenburger Tor.
On that day history would have lost all meaning.* According
to Gunther*s evidence at the trial, this passage was what decided

7 <League of the Upright,* one of those small semi-secret Monarchist associa-
tions, numbers of -which shot up like mushrooms overnight immediately after
the Revolution.

8 His own co-conspirators attempted to poison him during the trial, suspect-
ing him of having betrayed them.

347

WALTHER RATHENAU

Stubenrauch, for it 'was taken to be a proof that Rathenau had
not wished for victory.'

After Rathenau's return from Genoa to Berlin at the end of
May, Gunther put Stubenrauch into touch with an ex-naval
officer named Kern, a fair-haired, blue-eyed young man of
twenty-five, the very type, Nordic and blond, tragic to relate,
which Rathenau trusted most completely. Kern came to Berlin
with a friend, Fischer, who was also twenty-five and fair-
haired. Both were members of the Organization Consul, a
terrorist society which had been formed out of the Ehrhardt
Brigade after the Kapp Putsch.9 Kern saw Stubenrauch, but
found him too young, and unsuitable in other respects also.
Nevertheless he enlisted his services along with Fischer's, and
then got into contact with Ernst Werner Techow, the Berlin
agent of the Organization Consul. Techow was only twenty-
one, the son of a deceased Berlin magistrate, and a grandson of
one of the heroes of the Revolution of 1848. He was some-
what decadent, a 'rather effeminate boy,' according to his
uncle's evidence, and, as one of the other conspirators, Tilles-
sen, explained at the trial, was taken on by Kern merely as a
'handy tool, who would do as he was told and ask no questions.'
Techow brought along with him his sixteen-year-old brother
Gerd, who had joined the Organization Consul at the age of
fifteen.

And so the conspiracy came into being: the typical conspiracy,

9 Captain Ehrhardt, an officer of the Imperial Navy, after the Revolution
received the command of a brigade of the Reichswehr, and in March, 1920, with
the help of this brigade and the connivance of former high imperial officials
and generals, attempted to upset the Republican Government of President Ebert
and to set up in its place a dictatorship under a certain Kapp. This was what
was called the <Kapp Putsch.' It collapsed ignominiously within a few days,
because not only the trades unions, but also practically all the acting officials of
the different Government offices declared a general strike. After this, Ehrhardt,
who had been dismissed from the service, formed the Organization Consul, which
was responsible for the murder of Erzberger and a number of other Republicans.
It was officially dissolved after the assassination of Rathenau, though doubts
were entertained whether it did not go on existing as a secret society.

348

THERE IS NO DEATH

as it has existed in all the troubled ages of history, just such
a one as Otway pictures in his Venice Preserved. Kern, its
leader, handsome, narrow-minded, easily deceived, rash, ob-
stinate, the born fanatic, fanned by Nationalist agitation into a
fervour of hatred against Jews and the Republicj apart from
this, not devoid of charm, a young Hotspur, who exercised a
mysterious and irresistible attraction on men younger than him-
self. In these years after the war, when the older generation
had lost all its authority, such gatherings of small groups of
boys and youths about some one only a little older than them-
selves were by no means uncommon. Bruno Lemke, the editor
of the Freideutsche Jugend (Free German Youth), shortly
after Rathenau's assassination wrote an essay on The Ethics of
the German Youth Movement, in which he says of the per-
sonal relationships in the Youth groups and secret societies:
'One finds here a very delicate, but at the same time rather
noble, appreciation of the relationship between two men. . . .
The friendships between different members of the group fre-
quently reach a degree of intimacy that can easily be mistaken
for eroticism.' (Vossische Zeitungy October 1 5th, 1922.)

Kern became the centre and the moving spirit of the little
group of conspirators; the others he made into his willing
tools. Much light is thrown on the nature of this personal
ascendancy by two remarks made in the course of the trial of
the assassins before the Supreme Court of Justice. Firstly, Ernst
Werner Techow's replies to the President of the Court's ques-
tion as to why he had given Kern his word of honour on the
preceding evening to join in the crime, although he professed
to disapprove of it:

TCern held out his hand and said: "Come on." I had to do it
whether I wanted to or not. Kern would have shot me down;
it was a question of life or death.'

PRESIDENT: 'So you were afraid of him?'

349

WALTHER RATHENAU

TECHOW (sobbing): *Yes. Kern said to me: "If you refuse
I'll shoot you. " 10

And secondly, the ex-naval officer Tillessen's answer to the
question why he had not informed the police of the projected
murder when he was anxious, so he said, to prevent it: 'As I
was very fond of Kern, I don't think the idea ever occurred to
me,7 We get some idea of the moral qualities of this group of
conspirators from the fact that one of them — his name is neither
here nor there — put the police on the murderers' tracks (after
the crime, it is true) in return for cash.
• On June i8th Giinther, Gerd Techow, Kern, and Fischer
met at the house of Frau Techow (the Techows* widowed
mother) and worked out the plan according to which Rath-
enau's murder did actually take place — i.e. they decided to
pursue his car in a car of their own and shoot from car to car.
On June 20th they met again in the Steglitzer Ratskeller
(Town Hall Cellar Restaurant) and elaborated their plans.11
Kern, however, began to have doubts as to whether one could
be sure of one's mark with an ordinary revolver in shooting
from one car to the other in rapid transit. And in order to clear
up this point, Gunther, Ernst Werner Techow, Fischer, and
Kern met next day at the Lutzow-Platz, whence they pro-
ceeded in a big six-seater car (they had borrowed it for the
murder from one Kiichenmeister, an engineer) to the Griine-
wald, where they had some shooting practice. As a result of this
Kern came to the conclusion that an ordinary revolver could not
be depended on for their purpose, and that what they needed

10 After the murder, when Kern and Fischer were surrounded by police in an
old tower near Kosen in Thuringia, Kern first shot Fischer and then himself.
Ernst Werner Techow fled to a place owned by his uncle, a big landed pro-
prietor near Berlin, and implored him to hide and save him; but his uncle gave
him up to the police.

11 Steglitz is a suburb of Berlin.

350

THERE IS NO DEATH

was an automatic pistol. So he set off with Techbw and Fischer
to Schwerin in Mecklenburg to fetch one, which he had left in
the keeping of a certain Ilsemann, an ex-naval cadet and mem-
ber of the Ehrhardt Brigade. Having got this, the three re-
turned to Berlin. How these impecunious young men managed
to get the money for all this remains a mystery to this day, in
spite of 'searching enquiries' at the trial.

The conspirators spent the evening before the event — i.e. the
evening of June 23rd— together. They drank considerable
quantities of beer, cognac, and wine, and went once more over
the reasons why Rathenau had to be put out of the way. Kern
told Ernst Werner Techow that Rathenau was a supporter of
the surreptitious type of Bolshevism — that is to say, a Bol-
shevism which sought to gain its ends without a Terror; he had
signed the Rapallo Treaty and, so Kern said, married off his
sister to Radek.12 He had got the Foreign Office by sending
a twenty-four-hour ultimatum to President Ebert. Moreover
he wanted to bring Germany under the influence of the Jewsj
he had made a secret agreement with the Entente which would
be to the advantage of the latter; and finally, his policy of
fulfilment was treachery to Germany.

While the conspiracy was maturing, about June 20th or 2ist,
Rathenau took a surprising but very characteristic step. In this
desperate situation he trusted to the power of his intellect, if
only he could get a quiet hearing, and asked Helfferich and his
chief lieutenant Dr Hergt 18 to dine with him alone in strict
privacy at his home in the Griinewald, with the purpose of
going over the whole ground of their differences and lifting
them out of the heated atmosphere of public meetings into the

12 This was, of course, nonsense. Rathenau's only sister was the wife of the
Berlin banker Andreae.

18Oskar Hergt, born on October 22nd, 1869. Prussian Minister of Finance
from 1917 to 1918. One of the founders of the Nationalist Party. German
Minister of Justice in the Marx Cabinet from 1927 to 1928.

351

WALTHER RATHENAU

cooler regions of a business discussion.1* Helfferich and Hergt
accepted, the dinner took place, and the conversation lasted
into the small hours of the morning. Of course, the two Na-
tionalist leaders could not agree with Rathenauj that would
have been a miracle. But they promised him that, while think-
ing his methods quite wrong and continuing strenuously to op-
pose them, yet they would do so in a manner that would not
hamper him unduly in conducting Germany's foreign policy.
The discussion was lively but quite friendly, and at parting the
two Nationalists and Rathenau agreed that they would renew
the experiment shortly.

Nevertheless, on the afternoon of June 23rd — the day on
which the conspirators met to perfect their arrangements for
the murder — Helfferich delivered in the Reichstag an on-
slaught on Rathenau in which he once more launched against
him the charge of utterly ruining Germany and the German
people in subservience to the Entente, the very charge which
Kern was to use a few hours later in the Steglitzer Ratskeller to
convince the other conspirators that the assassination of Rath-
enau was justified and necessary.

Helfferich's speech was an answer to a speech of Rathenau's
replying to questions put to him in the Reichstag by Dr Strese-
mann and Dr Marx, the leader of the Centre Party and future
Chancellor. He had told Stresemann, who had questioned
him on the subject of a supposed Anglo-French scheme for the
'neutralization' of the Rhineland: 'In the name of the Govern-
ment of the Reich I have to state that in no circumstances
whatever will it consent to surrender the Rhineland in whole
or in part — that Rhineland which has so often during the pe-
riod of occupation testified its firm determination to remain
part of the Fatherland.' la answering Dr Marx, who had ques-

14 Helfferich, when a young man, had been befriended by Rathenau's father
and mother, and it seems that Walther Rathenau and Helfferich had never <Juite
broken off their personal relations.

35*

THERE IS NO DEATH

tioned him on conditions in the Saar, he said: <On June i6th,
1919, our former enemies expressed their complete confidence
that the inhabitants of the Saar area would have no reason to
look upon the new administration as being less concerned with
their interests than with those of Berlin or Munich. If anything
has been contradicted by the actual facts, it is this sentence! It is
true that the Government Commission actually sits in the Saar
area itself, but as a matter of fact the gulf between it and the
population is greater than if it were stationed in another con-
tinent. The picture of conditions in the Saar Basin which I have
taken the liberty of disclosing to you in the preceding remarks
is not a pleasant one. But as Germans we can point with pride
to the fact that in these difficult years of alien domination, of
which only a few have passed as yet, the population of the Saar
area have held together as never before, in order to preserve
that which they regard as their most precious possession, their
German nationality and culture.'

To this Helfferich replied on the 23rd: CI know that God
has given the diplomat the gift of speech (after Talleyrand's
well-known remark) in order to hide his thoughts. But there
are moments when even a Foreign Minister should refrain
from using this gift. The day before yesterday was such a mo-
ment. Therefore, I can find no justification — there is no per-
sonal animus in what I say — f or what I can only call the more
than calculated style of the Minister's exposition of the state
of affairs — this state of affairs which positively cries out to
Heaven for redress. The Minister introduced the last part of
his exposition with the words: "The picture which I have taken
the liberty of disclosing to you is not a pleasant one. . . ." "I
have taken the liberty," forsooth! ... By God, the lemon-
ade is flat! Is it not the case that in the present state of things
in the Saar the population cannot help feeling both deserted
and betrayed when once more the Government refers to them

353

WALTHER RATHENAU

in such feeble terms as these? ... I repeat: is there not a
danger that these feeble words, betraying, as they do, hardly
the faintest trace of indignation, will give the inhabitants of
the Saar area the impression that they were uttered more out
of regard for French susceptibilities than from any real sym-
pathy with their own sufferings? And then, right honourable
gentlemen, when Herr Dr Rathenau holds out as solitary com-
fort, so to speak, the hope of a better understanding of the posi-
tion on the part of the League Council, surely they have noth-
ing left, with the precedent of the Upper Silesian decision be-
fore them, but absolute despair. Indeed, must not the whole
world, as well as the Saar area, have the feeling that here we
have a Government which is willing to entrust all and every-
thing to the League Council? To sum up, the policy of fulfil-
ment has brought in its train the appalling depredation of Ger-
man currency, it has utterly crushed the middle classes, it has
brought poverty and misery on countless families, it has driven
countless people to suicide and despair, it has sent abroad large
and valuable portions of our national capital, and it has shaken
our industrial and social order to its very foundations!' (De-
bates of the Reichstag. Shorthand report, p. 1988 f. Berlin,
1922.) Whether the assassins had or had not read Helfferich's
speech, which was indeed published in an evening paper, does
not much matter, as Helfferich merely repeated what was being
said up and down the country day and night by his adherents.
Instead of pouring oil on the troubled waters of Nationalist
agitation, as Rathenau was entitled to expect after their con-
fidential pact, he once more stirred them up to their very
depths. The words of his peroration could have been used by
Kern himself to persuade his still hesitating companions.

That same evening Rathenau was the guest of the American
Ambassador, Mr Houghton, at a dinner at the American Em-
bassy in honour of Colonel Logan, who was the semi-official
American observer on the Reparations Commission. Rathenau

354

THERE IS NO DEATH

arrived late, and was obviously upset by Helfferich's attack.
During dinner the conversation turned on certain Reparations
coal deliveries, and Rathenau suggested, half ironically, that
the Ambassador should invite Hugo Stinnes to take part in
the discussion. The Ambassador agreed, and Rathenau sent a
telephone message to Stinnes, who replied that he would come
as soon as he had finished his own dinner. He arrived about
ten o'clock, and after a purely technical discussion of the coal
question began to attack Rathenau's policy in general. This
developed into a lively political debate, which went on till long
past midnight, and which was continued, after they had left
the Embassy, at the Esplanade Hotel till almost four o'clock in
the morning. The Ambassador got the impression from this
discussion that the two were not so far apart, politically speak-
ing, as was commonly supposed.15

Next morning, June 24th, Rathenau was a few minutes late
in leaving his house in the Griinewald for the Foreign Office.
He usually arrived between ten and eleven, but this morning
it was nearly eleven before he set out in his old and rather slow
open car.16 The conspirators had decided to lie in wait for
him at the corner of the Wallotstrasse, where the Konigsallee
takes a double turn and where the cars would therefore have
to slow down. It had been decided that Ernst Werner Techow
should drive the car, that Kern was to fire with the automatic
pistol, and that Fischer was to throw a hand grenade into
Rathenau's car. At this particular spot in the Konigsallee some
labourers were working on a new building, and one Krischbin,
a mason, gave to the Vossis che Zeitiwg immediately after the
crime a very vivid account of what happened:

15 1 owe this account of Rathenau's last evening to some notes of Mr Hough-
ton, which he has kindly placed at my disposal. «. / * «

16 Dr Weismann, the Commissary of State for Public Order and chief of tne
Prussian police, told me a few hours after the murder that he had warned
Rathenau the day before that if he persisted in driving to his office from to
residence on the outskirts of Berlin in a slow open car, no police in the world
could guarantee his safety.

355

WALTHER RATHENAU

'About 10.45 t™° czts came down the Konigsallee from the
direction of Hundekehle. The first one, the slower of the two,
kept more or less to the middle of the road and had one gentle-
man in the back seat. One could see exactly what he was like, as
the car was quite open and the hood was not up. The second,
which was equally open, was a high-powered six-seated touring-
car, dark field-grey in colour, and contained two gentlemen in
long, brand-new leather coats with caps to match which covered
all but their actual faces. One could see that neither of them had
beards, and they didn't wear goggles. The Konigsallfce is al-
ways crowded with cars, so that one naturally doesn't notice
every car that passes. But we all noticed this one because of
the smart leather things the occupants were wearing. The large
car overtook the smaller one, which had slowed down almost
on the tram lines in order to take the double bend, on the right
— i.e. the inner side, and made its swerve right out to the left,
almost on to our side of the street. When the large car was
about half a length past it, the single occupant of the other
car looked over to the right to see if there was going to be a
collision, and at that moment one of the gentlemen in the smart
leather coats [Kern] leant forward, pulled out a long pistol,
the butt of which he rested in his armpit, and opened fire on
the gentleman in the other car. There was no need for him
to aim even, it was such close range. I saw him, so to speak,
straight in the face. It was a healthy, open face, the sort of
face we call an officer's face. I took cover, because the shots
might easily have got us too. They rang out in quick succession
like a machine gun. When he had finished shooting, the other
man [Fischer] stood up, swung his weapon — it was a hand
grenade — and threw it into the other car, which he drove right
up alongside. The gentleman had already sunk down into his
seat and lay on his side. At this point the chauffeur stopped the
car, just by the Erdenerstrasse, where there was a dustheap,
and shouted out, "Help, help!". Then the big car sprang for-

356

THERE IS NO DEATH

ward with the engine full on and tore away down the Wallot-
strasse. Meanwhile the other car had come to rest by the pave-
ment. At the same moment there was a bang and the hand
grenade exploded. The impact raised the gentleman in the
back some way off his seat, and even the car gave a slight jerk
forward. We all ran to the spot, and found nine cartridge cases
and the fuse of the hand grenade lying on the road. Bits of
the woodwork had splintered off. Then the chauffeur started
up again, a young girl got into the car and supported the gen-
tleman, who was unconscious if not already dead, and the car
dashed off the way it had come along the Konigsallee back to
the police station, which is some thirty metres further on at the
end of the Konigsallee towards Hundekehle.' (Vossische
Zeitung, Sunday, June 25th, 1922.)

The young girl who so bravely sprang into the car was a
nurse, Helene Kaiser. She said at the trial: <Rathenau, who was
bleeding hard, was still alive and looked up at me. But he
seemed to be already unconscious.5 The chauffeur drove the
dying man straight back to his house from the police station,
where he was carried into his study and laid down on the floor.
When his servant tried to make him comfortable, he opened
his eyes once more. But the doctor, who arrived immediately
afterwards, was too kte to do anything but certify death. The
body had been hit in five places; the spine and lower jaw were
smashed to pieces. Next day, Sunday, June 25th, he lay on the
same spot in an open coffin, his head bent back slightly to the
right; he wore a very peaceful expression, and yet there was
immeasurable tragedy in the deeply furrowed, dead, wounded
face. A handkerchief covered the lower broken part; only the
short grey crumpled moustache was visible.

Meanwhile by noon on the day of the murder the news had
spread, and the workers began swarming from the factories
and shops to form countless processions. These soon merged
into one and moved solemnly and irresistibly through the

357

WALTHER RATHENAU

streets of the middle- and upper-class West, Four deep they
marched in their hundred thousands, beneath their mourning
banners, the red of Socialism and the black-red-gold of the
Republic, in one endless disciplined procession, passing like a
portent silently along the great thoroughfares lined by im-
mense crowds, wave after wave, from the early afternoon till
late into the June sunset. The Nationalists had speculated on a
rising which they hoped would have to be suppressed by force,
and thus prepare public opinion for a dictatorship; the silent
display of their power was the answer of the workers. It gave
the German people a striking and unforgettable vision of the
real forces governing its political constitution and of what had
up to then been but an abstract conception, the birth of the Ger-
man Republic.

The Reichstag met at three o'clock. Helfferich's appearance
was greeted with shouts of 'Murderer! Murderer! Out with
the murderers! * The tumult subsided only when Helfferich
had disappeared. Later in the day Wirth spoke. 'Ever since we
first began to serve this new state under the flag of the Re-
public, millions have been spent in pouring a deadly poison into
the body of our people. From Konigsberg to Constance the
campaign of murder has menaced this country of ours, to whose
service we have devoted all our powers of body and mind. In
return we are told that what we are doing is a crime against the
German people, and that we deserve to be brought to justice
[cries of 'No, Helfferich, Helfferich!5 from the Left]j and
then people are surprised when mere deluded boys resort to
murder.' Next day, which was Sunday, there was a special ses-
sion of the Reichstag. Wirth did not intend to speak. But when
he entered the House it was almost empty, most of the mem-
bers being in the lobbies discussing the situation. He turned to
me and whispered that as there seemed to be nothing in par-
ticular going on he would seize the opportunity of saying a few

358

THERE IS NO DEATH

worcls in memory of our poor friend Walther Rathenau. As
soon as he began speaking members flocked in, and then he
launched his indictment against the Nationalists. When a
statesman of the rank of Dr Helfferich speaks here as he did,
what must be the effect on the brains of youths who have com-
bined in secret or semi-secret Chauvinist, Nationalist, anti-Semi-
tic and Monarchist organizations? It is evident that the result
is a sort of "Feme". . . . The real enemies of our country are
those who instill this poison into our people. We know where
we have to seek them. The Enemy stands on the Rightl* he
exclaimed, pointing at the empty benches of the Nationalists,
only a few of whom had dared retain their seats, sitting there
ill at ease and pale as death, while three-quarters of the House
rose and faced them. The effect was tremendous.

Rathenau's funeral took place on Tuesday, June 27th. The
coffin lay in state in the Reichstag, draped under an enormous
Republican flag where the Speaker's chair usually stands. For-
eign Office attaches kept guard. In the Kaiser's box sat Rath-
enau's mother, deadly pale and as if turned to stone, never
moving her eyes from the coffin beneath. President Ebert de-
livered the funeral oration. The atrocious crime has struck not
only at Rathenau the man,' he said, <but at the whole German
people.*

Not since the assassination of Abraham Lincoln has the death
of a statesman so shaken a whole nation. The trades unions had
decreed a general holiday throughout the Reich from midday
Tuesday to early Wednesday morning. Stupendous processions,
such as Germany had never witnessed, inarched in order under
the Republican flag through all the cities of the land. Over a
million took part in Berlin, a hundred and fifty thousand in
Munich and Chemnitz, a hundred thousand in Hamburg,
Breslau, Elberf eld, Essen. Never before had a German citizen
been so honoured. The response which had been denied to

359

WALTHER RATHENAU

Rathenau's life and thought was now accorded to his death.

And rightly. For through its effects the human tragedy be-
came a national tragedy. At the very moment that Poincare
was preparing to strike a death-blow at German unity his most
serious obstacle was suddenly removed 5 that is to say, the meas-
ure of confidence and trust which Rathenau as the director of
Germany's foreign policy had won for himself and his coun-
try. One blow cleared the way for a renewal of the prejudices
which had made possible the Treaty of Versailles and the
London Ultimatum. Poincare had to thank those responsible
for the assassination of Rathenau when he found himself at
liberty to occupy the Ruhr without encountering any serious
opposition from French or British opinion. For in Rathenau
the symbol of the policy of understanding had gone from the
scene, and in its stead German Nationalism, red-handed,
loomed large before the world, and could be plausibly repre-
sented as justifying any measure of foreign intervention to
safeguard the peace of Europe. Thus the bullets which killed
Rathenau came very close to destroying Bismarck's life-work,
German unity. It was only the German people itself, its stub-
born will to live, its patience and thrift, which after a period of
frightful suffering averted the danger and reconquered the
position that had been lost through Rathenau's assassination.

But the last word on the human side of the tragedy was
spoken by Rathenau's mother. At first her only thought was
revenge. Her one desire was to write and tell Helfferich he
was the murderer of her son, and then to die herself. But after-
wards she thought better of it, as her son would have done, and
wrote the following letter to the mother of the one survivor
of the murderers, Ernst Werner Techow:

In grief unspeakable I give you my hand, you, of all women
the most pitiable. Say to your son that in the name and spirit
of him he has murdered, I forgive, even as God may forgive,

360

THERE IS NO DEATH

if before an earthly judge he make a full and frank confession
of his guilt and before a heavenly one repent. Had he known
my son, the noblest man earth bore, he had rather turned the
weapon on himself than on him. May these words give peace
to your soul.

MATHILDE RATHENAU.

361

APPENDIX

MPOiNCARi has raised objections to the amount I
have given of his Rhine policy in my Life of
Walther Rathenau, and thereby initiated a corre-
spondence which I reprint here for the light it throws on his
political methods. Especially illuminating in this connection is
his secretary's letter (No. Ill), in which — after carefully dis-
claiming responsibility for the first letter of the series, which
might therefore, for all he writes, be a forgery — the French
Premier (with all respect for his political eminence, be it said)
takes upon himself the part of Pontius Pilate in this great his-
torical crisis. I am unable to see however that this correspond-
ence has done anything to invalidate my account of his policy,
which was in its essential aims the traditional one of Richelieu,
Louis XIV, and Napoleon.

The first letter of the series appeared in the Pacifist weekly
Menschheit for July 22nd, 1928, signed by the former Rhine-
land Separatist leader, J. F. Matthes (No. I):

In the interests of Franco-German friendship and historical ac-
curacy I should be grateful if you would publish the following letter

of M Poincare's.

J . F. MATTHES

PR&IDENCE DU CONSEIL R^PUBLIQUE FRAN§AISE

CABINET My loth, 1928

DEAR SIR,

In your letter of June s6th of this year you very kindly drew my
attention to Count Harry Kessler's book, entitled Walther Rathenau,
His Life and Work. .

In one passage of this work Herr Kessler states that it was the aim
of the French Government at the time of the Occupation of the Ruhr
to annex the Rhineland to France. This statement is entirely without

365

WALTHER RATHENAU

foundation; the French Government has never aimed at annexing the
Rhineland.

I remain, etc.,

(Signed) POINGARB

In reply to this I wrote to M Poincare (No. II) :

BAD HOMBURG V.D. HOHE

July nthy 1928
MONSIEUR LE PRESIDENT,

In Professor Foerster's Menschheit for July 22nd, I find a transla-
tion of a letter which purports to have 'been addressed by you to the
former Separatist leader J. F. Matthes in connection with my biog-
raphy of Walther Rathenau. You must permit me to state that M
Matthes has abused your good faith. Nowhere in my book did I say
that it had been your intention to annex the Rhineland; on the con-
trary, I agree entirely with your statement that the annexation of the
Rhineland in the political and juridical sense of the word has never
in the post-war period been one of the aims of the French Govern-
ment. But what I did say, and must still maintain, was that your policy
aimed at separating the Rhineland from the Reich by creating an
'autonomous* Rhine state, which, politically speaking, would have be-
longed neither to the Reich nor indeed to France, but which, occupied
for an indefinite period by mainly French troops, and attached to
France by powerful economic ties (devised and set out in detail by
Senator Dariac in his report of May 28th, 1922), would have passed
inevitably under the preponderating influence of France. In effect it
was not at all a question of 'annexation* but of 'association' (Anglieder-
ung) of the Rhineland with France, a relationship analogous to that
existing between France and Tunisia, England and Egypt, and the
United States and Cuba.

I do not see. Monsieur le President, what other significance you
yourself can attach to the facilities afforded by the French Occupa-
tion authorities to the Separatist Movement — a movement which aimed
quite openly at establishing an autonomous Rhine state under the
guarantee and protection of France.

Yours, etc.,

(Signed) COUNT KESSLER

366

APPENDIX

M Poincare replied to this through his secretary as follows
(No. Ill):

PRESIDENCE DU CONSEH, P-ARIS

July 30*&, 192?

The President has received your letter of July 24th relating to the
translation of a letter which purports to have been addressed to M
Matthes in connection with your biography of Walther Rathenau.
M Poincare instructs me to inform you that it has never been the wish
of the French Government, so far as he was concerned, to foster
(favoriser) a Separatist Movement; at the same time, he holds that it
was not his business to forbid the spontaneous demonstrations of a sec-
tion of the population. As for the report of the deputy Dariac, it never
professed to be anything but an expression of personal opinion.

[Yours, etc.,

(Signed) GUIGNON

I replied to M Poincare through my secretary as follows
(No. IV):

BERLIN
Sm^ August 20th, 1928

Count Kessler, who is on holiday, has instructed me to thank you
for your secretary's letter of July 30th, which unfortunately reached
him, through your courier, only after several weeks* delay. He has
noted your statement that the French Government, so far as you are
concerned, has never fostered the Separatist Movement in the Rhine-
land, but simply desired to allow a spontaneous rising of the population
to take its course. Count Kessler does not wish to cast doubts upon the
honest belief — however mistaken — of the then French Government
in the existence of a spontaneous movement in the Rhineland, but he
is convinced that the lasting friendly co-operation of the French and
German peoples is only possible if both peoples are ready to acknowl-
edge actual facts without fear of destroying their mutual good rela-
tions. Thus he feels that it can do no harm to draw your attention to
circumstances which played a decisive part in the Separatist Movement,
but which may possibly have escaped your memory. So with all respect
for your high authority and subsequent efforts towards friendlier rela-
tions between the two peoples, he has no hesitation in recalling certain
facts which can be attested either by French official documents or by
countless people in the Rhineland itself: that according to his Report

367

WALTHER RATHENAU

of April 1 6th, 1923, to the French High Commissioner in Coblenz,
M Tirard (Document 42 LW/23), the French district delegate in
Wiesbaden, the Marquis de Lillers, had been officially entrusted since
May, 1921, with the task of fostering relations with Herr Dorten, the
head of the Separatists; that according to this same Report, 'the High
Commissioner had gone to the utmost limits to make Dorten's task as
easy as possible/ and to this end had supplied him with considerable
sums of money, so that the High Commissioner had actually felt justi-
fied in reproaching Dorten with his insufficiently energetic leadership
of the Separatist Movement; and, further, that the French railway
authorities conveyed Separatists to Separatist meetings by special trains^
that the French Occupation authorities permitted the Separatists to
carry arms and even to carry out military manoeuvres, both of which
were, of course, forbidden to the loyal section of the population under
threat of the severest penalties; that in the chief towns of the Rhine-
land, such as Dusseldorf , Bonn, Treves, Mainz, Wiesbaden, and evew
in Coblenz, the headquarters of the French High Commissioner — in
his presence and, so to speak, under his very eyes — everything was done
by the French civil and military Occupation authorities to ensure the
success of the Putsches, which the proclamation of the 'Rhenish Re-
public' aimed at bringing about: first, by disarming the German police
shortly before the Putsch was to take place; secondly, by military and
police protection of the Separatists during the Putsch; and, thirdly, by
the immediate recognition after the Putsch of the new revolutionary
so-called 'Rhenish' Government on the part of the French civil and
military authorities in the Rhineland, in contrast to the usual attitude
of reserve adopted towards all new revolutionary governments, and
also by the proclamation of the state of siege in many places.

These facts, which were of enormous assistance to the Separatists
in carrying out their plans, are well established and universally recog-
nized, and, as said before, can be attested by countless eye-witnesses in
the Rhineland.

Count Kessler is very ready to admit that the occupation of part of
an alien state almost inevitably leads the authorities of the occupying
Power, even against the will of their Government, to foster separatist
movements in the occupied territoriesr But as one has never heard of
any action being taken against the French authorities in the Rhineland,
who would appear to have so flagrantly violated the intentions and in-
structions of the French Government and in particular its supreme
head, Count Kessler feels that it is difficult to absolve the then French

368

APPENDIX

Government from the moral responsibility for the attitude of these
authorities. On the other hand, Count Kessler believes that all who,
like himself, have striven from the first for a Franco-German under-
standing will hear with satisfaction that, whatever may have been the
aims of French policy in the years 1922-1924, today undertakings such
as these (which would have constituted, had they been successful, an
invincible obstacle to Franco-German reconciliation and a permanent
menace to the peace of the world) would find no support with the
French Government as it exists under your leadership today.

Yours, etc.,

(Signed) FRITZ GUSECK
Secretary

This letter remained unanswered It therefore suffices to say
that the Report of the Marquis de Lillers, quoted above in
No. IV, was first printed in the London Observer of June 24th,
1923, and that the reputed authorship of the then French dis-
trict delegate in Wiesbaden, the Marquis de Lillers, has never
received either official or semi-official denial. Further, that the
document is reprinted without abridgment in LQsloswngslestre-
btmgen am Rhem 1918-1924, a book based on official docu-
ments by Professor Max Springer of Heidelberg, where it can
easily be examined and where it helps, along with a mass of
other relevant material, to throw a vivid light on the quite un-
equivocal character of French policy on the Rhine at that time.

369

INDEX

RATHENAU's WORKS REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT

NOTE. All page references in the text are to the German edition, except for
In Days to Come, the translation of which (by Eden and Cedar Paul) has been
used by kind permission of the publishers, Messrs George Allen and Unwin, Ltd*

A. BOOKS

1912. The Criticism of the Age (Zur Knuk der Zeit)> 91-99, 103,

107-8, 128, 132, 143, 158.

1913. The Mechanism of the Mind (Zur Mechanik des Geistes), 76,

88-89, 91, 93, 109-13, 132, 158, 183, 212, 227, 346.

1917. In Days to Come (Von kommenden Dingen)> 91, 105-7, I29>

179-95, 206-10, 212-13, 222, 234, 266.
Problems of the Peace and Industry (Problems der Fnedens-

wirtschaft) , 234.

Polemic on Belief (Streitschrift vom Glauben), 51, 226.
Stocks and Shares (Von A ktienwesen) , 192, 234.

1918. The New Economy (Die Neue Wirtschaft), 179, 183, 185,

192, 195-206, 212, 234, 254, 264, 266.
To the Youth of Germany (An Deutschlands Jugend), 46, 80,
239-44.

1919. Apology (Afologie), 7, u, 28, 58, I34-I37* 247, 253.
The Kaiser (Der Kaiser) > 46-51, 247, 267, 347.
The New State (Der Neue Stoat), 210, 247, 264, 281.

A Criticism of the Threefold Revolution (Kriuk der drei-

fachen Revolution), 247, 264-5.

The New Society (Die Neue Gesellschaft) y 247, 256-8.
Autonomous Industry (Autonome Wirtschaft), 181, 247*

B. ARTICLES, ETC

1897. 'Hear O Israel!* (Zukunft), 36-39.

1901. 'The Physiology of Business' (Zukunft), 36, 39-42, 54, 59-

60, 120, 179, 264.

1902. Aphorisms, 25.

371

WALTHER RATHENAU

1904. 'Weakness, Fear and Purpose* (Zukunft), 25, 55, 57.

1907. 'Unwritten Works/ 60, 62, 114.

1908. Reflections (Reflexionen, reprinted from Zukunft), 131-2.
'The New Era' (Hannoverscher Courier), 1 2 1, 139, 208, 276.
'England's Present Position' (Memorandum to Bulow), 126.

1909. Article in the Neue Freie Presse) 117.

1911. 'The State and the Jews/ 27-8, 127, 138, 226.

'Politics, Humour and Disarmament* (Neue Freie Presse), 139,

1912. 'England and Ourselves: A Philippic* (Neue Freie Presse),

I42-3-

'Political Selection' (Neue Freie Presse), 143.
'Festal Song for the Centenary of 1813' (Zukunft), 144.

1913. 'The Sacrifice to the Eumenides' (Neue Freie Presse), 155-7.
'German Dangers and New Aims' (Neue Freie Presse)y 158.

1914. 'On the Situation' (Berliner Tageblatt), 169.

1915. 'The Organization of Germany's Raw Materials' (Address to

the Deutsche Gesellschaft), 171-2.

1917. 'Safeguards' (Frankfurter Zeitung), 233.

1918. 'A Black Day' (Vossische Zeitung), 245.
'Staat und Vaterland,' 247-8.

Open Letter 'To all who are not blinded by hate,' 261.
Open Letter to Colonel House, 261-2.

1919. 'The End' (Zukunft), 262-3.
Article in Welt am Montag, 265-6.

'Schicksalsspiel' (The Game of Fate) (Berliner Tageblatt),
232, 267.

1920. Lecture on 'Democratic Development,' 275.
Lecture on 'The Zenith of Capitalism/ 280.

NOTE. Most of these were reprinted in the Collected Works (5 volumes) or
in one of the collections Zeitliches, Nack der Fluty Was <ujird Werdenf, and
Speeches.

372

INDEX

Abeken, Mme [Widow of Heinrich
Abeken, one of the collaborators of
Bismarck. A well-known Berlin so-
ciety leader in Bismarck's time.
Born 1829, died April, 1919], 45-6

Adam, the brothers, 68

A.E.G., 13-14, 15, 43, 58, 117-9, 131,
173, 229, 246, 254, 288

Agadir crisis, 137-41

Algebras, 121

Allied Military Commissions, 300, 302

Andrassy, Count, 231

Apponyi, Count, 231

Arenberg, Prince, 345 n.

Arnim, Bettina yon, [Born April 4th,
1785, at Frankfurt. Daughter of
Goethe's friend Maximiliane La-
roche and sister of the romanticist
poet Clemens Brentano. Was inti-
mately acquainted with Goethe, and
after his death published her corre-
spondence with him (Goethe's Brief"
weeks el mit einem Kinde). A very
romantic and eccentric personality
and the center of a literary and ar-
tistic circle in Berlin in die forties
and fifties. Died January 2Oth, 1859],
6, 46

Aschkenasi, Rabbi, 116

Asquith, H. H., 163, 16411.

Augusta, Empress, 48

Baal-shem-tov, 82

Ballin, Albert, 120

Balzac, 240

Barrere, 333

Barres, Maurice, 88 jr.

Barthou, Louis, 305, 307 #., 327 ff.

Basserman, 125, 138, 230-1

Baudissin, Count, 45-6

Bauer, Otto, 218

Benes, Dr, 321

Bergmann, Dr Carl, 274, 277, 283,

284-6, 293-5, 297-300, 3XX-2
Bergson, Henri, 62
Bernhard, Georg [Editor of the Berlin

Vossische Zeituno, one of the lead-
ing democratic newspapers, and
since 1928 a member of the Reichs-
tag], 231

Bethmann-Hollweg, Theodor von, 49,
137-9, 164, 222-3

Bismarck, 8, 48, 306, 339, 360

Blackett, Sir Basil, 326, 327 n.

Blanche Trocard, 30^., 64

Bodenhausen, Eberhard von, 120

Boehme, Jacob, 86

Bolshevism, 200, 241, 259, 275, 278

Bonomi, 299

Boothby, Robert, 2x5

Boulogne agreement, 305, 311, 3x2

Brest-Litovsk Treaty, 278, 312

Breviarium Mysticum, 74 ff.

Briand, Aristide, 284-5, 296, 299, 300,
302, 309

Britain's Industrial Future, x8o»v 207

Brockdorff-Rantzau, Count [Born May
29th, 1869, in Schleswig. German
minister to Denmark during the
war, and the first Republican For-
eign Minister after the Revolution.
Led the German delegation at Ver-
sailles, but refused to sign the Ver-
sailles Treaty, and retired when the
National Assembly in Weimar de-
cided to accept the Allied ultimatum.
Ambassador to Russia 1922. Died
1928], 2x2, 263, 281

Brunner, Professor Constantin, 66

Brussels Conference, 283

Buber, Dr Martin, 82

Buddha, 86

Bulow, Prince, 49, 122, 125-6, 137, 140,
170, 345 ^

Billow, Princess, 48

Bund der Aufrechten, 347

Bur£, Emile, 277

Business, large scale (see also ration-
alization), 14-17, 39-42, 119-21, 192-3

Caillaux, Mme, 162
Cambon, Jules, 137

373

WALTHER RATHENAU

Cannes meeting, 297-300, 33*

Capek, Karel, 99

Capitalism, 94 j., x8ojf.

Carcassonne ^meeting, 300

Caruso, Enrico, 154

Chaliapin, Feodor, 163

Chamfort, 34

Chequers meeting, 297

Chicherin, 307-9, 333-5, 337, 338

Churchill, Lady Randolph, 163

Churchill, Winston S., 142, 164, 30511.

Clemenceau, Georges, 260-4.

Coal industry, 214-5

Cole, G. D. H., 217, 218 n.

Consortium, 297, 305, 313

Cuno cabinet, 300*1.

Curzon of Kedleston, Lord, 285, 305 n.

D'Abernon, Lord, 133, 276-7 n., 285,
^94, 303 *•> 3'5, 3*6*-, 3*2, 32571.,
327 n., 328 n.

D'Annunzio, Gabriele, 141

Dariac, Senator, 295 n., 331 n., 366-7

Daubler, Theodor [One of the most
prominent living German poets.
Born August 17, 1876, at Trieste.
Was influenced by D'Annunzio.
Wrote odes and an epic poem in
three volumes, Das Nordlicht], zoo

David, Eduard, 230

Debussy, Claude, 163

Dehmel, Richard, 53, 78

Denikin, 3x7

Dernburg, Bernhard, 225, 126

Deutsche Gesellschaft 1914, 172, 230

Dickens, Charles, 18

Dilthey, Professor, 22

Disarmament, 308

Disraeli, Benjamin, 44

Domela, Harry, 47

DSnniges, Helene von (see also Las-
sal le, Ferdinand), 6, 65

Dorten, 368

Doumer, Paul, 283

Dresel, 262

Dreyfus, Alfred, 264

Dufour-FSronce, 314, 319

Duguit, Professor Le"on, 210

Dumas, Alexandre (the younger), 31

Duncker, Lina, 65

Duxkheim, Professor, 88 n.

Ebert; Fritz, 252, 272 n.t 325 »., 351,
bart, Meister, 8$

Edison, Thomas, 13, 14, 16

Edward VII, 127

Ehrhardt, Captain, 348 n.

Ekke, 165

Elsler, 45

Erzberger, 222, 260, 271, 276, 280, 345

Eschenburg, Theodor, 125

Facta, 306, 307, 310, 341

Falkenhayn, General, 173

Fidern-Kohlhaas, Etta, xx, 19, 23, 301

Fehrenbach, Constantin, 271

Felton, 119

Feme trials, 344, 359

Ferdinand of Bulgaria, 125

Feuchtwanger, Lion, 115-6

Fichte, J. G., 83, 84-90, 105, 142, 248

Fischer, Hermann, 348-51, 356

Fischer, S., 220

Flachsenhaar, Franz, 99

Foerster, Professor, 366

Fordj Henry, 16, 17

Foreign policy, i2xjfv *37#^ 222-4,

232-4, 243-7, 261-4, 270 ff., 351-5,

360

Fransois-Poncet, 296
Frazer, Sir James, 251
Frederick, Empress, 48
Frederick William II, 144
Frederick William IV, 41
Frey, Julius, 289
Furstenberg, Carl, xo, 120

Gandhi, 116

Garvin, J. L., 330

Gaus, Dr, 323-4

Geitner, Hugo, 29, 1x7

Geneva Conference, 277

Genoa Conference, 299, 300, 303 ff.

Gentz, Friedrich von, 45

Geraud, 336

Gerlach, Helmuth von, 265

Gianini, Commendatore, 3x7-8, 3x9,

3»S

Gierke, Otto, 193, 209

Gilly, 135 .

Giolitti, Giovanni, 141

Goethe, 6, 8, 20, 65, 150, 347

Gottlieb, Ernst, 2x3 «.

Government, system of, 127 ff., 143-4,
208 ff., 240-1, 251-2 and «.

Gregory, J. D., 314-6, 319 ff.

Gronvold, Frau Minka, 26 n.

Grpsz, George [One of the most effec-
tive German political caricaturists,
•well known for his merciless expos*

37?

INDEX

ure of the new rich. His best-known
drawings have been collected in a
book, Das Gesicht der herrschenden
Klasse], 260

Guignon, 367

Guild socialism, 209, 216-20

Guilleaume, F. von, 119, 120

Gumbel, Dr E. J., 344

Giinther, Wilhelm, 347-51

Guseck, Fritz, 369

Hagen, Dr, 120, 320, 321

Haguenin, Professor, 296

Haldane, Lord, 141-2, 154-5

Hammer, Peter, 266

Hansabund, 134

Harden, Maximilian (see also Zu-
kunft) [The most celebrated politi-
cal pamphleteer of his period. Began
publishing a violently pro-Bismarck-
lan and anti-governmental weekly,
Die Zukunft, in 1892, and kept it
up till after the Revolution, Fre-
quently attacked the Kaiser, and
was several times imprisoned for
lese-majeste. Was a friend and pa*
tron of the whole post-Bismarckian
generation of young German poets,
writers, and artists. A number of
his best essays on contemporary
politicians and writers have been
republished under the title Kopfe.
Died October soth, 1927], 36, 52, 53,
55, 66, 123, 127, 144-5, 146, 148

Harrach, Countess, 48

Hassidism, 82, 84-6 [287

Hauptmann, Gerhart, 30, 53, 148, 165,

Haussmann, Conrad, 170, 175

Hegel, 142

Heine, Dr Wolfgang, 230

Helfferich, Karl, 344, 345, 351-5, 358-9,
360

Helmholtz, Professor, 22

Henckel-Donnersmarck, Prince Guido,
117, 120, 231

Henckel-Donnersmarck, Princess, 48

Herder, J. G., 88

Hergt, Dr Oscar, 351, 352

Hermes, Dr Andreas, 322

Hesnard, Professor, 331

Hilferding, Rudolf, 218-9, 256, 3x9,
337-8

Hindenburg, Field-Marshal von, 232,
246, 253

Hindenburg, Herbert von, 44

Hindenburg, Frau von, 48, 51, 169

Hintze, von, 278

Hirsch, Julius, 206

Hobson, S. G., 2x8 n.

Hoetzsch, Professor Otto, 231

Hoffmann, Professor, 279

Hofmann, Professor, 22

Hofmannsthal, Hugo von [Poet, dra-
matist, and essayist Born February
ist, 1874, died July x6th, 1929.
Wrote, when still a boy, some of the
most perfect lyrical poems in the
German language, and later on a
number of librettos for Richard
Strauss— amongst others the Rosen-
kavalier and The Legend of Joseph
in collaboration with the author of
this book], 25, 53

Home, Sir Robert, 298, 299

Houghton, A. B., 354, 355 and n.

House, Colonel, 261-2

Hugenberg, Alfred, 231

Humboldt, 8

Ibsen, Henrik, 30
Ilsemann, 351
Inheritance/ xxo, 185-6, x88

Jaspar, 332-5

Joffe, 278, 318-9, 321-4

Jogisches, Leo, 260

Kaiser, Helene, 357

Kaiser, the (William II), 271*., 43,

46, 49 ff., *22jf.t 141-2, 164, 166-7,

208, 231, 247, 267
Kalckreuth, Countess, 45
Kapp Putsch, 256, 269, 348
Karrenbrock, Lore, 65, 266
Kautsky, Karl, 2x9, 256
Kemal Pasha, 305

Kern, Erwin, 348-51, 352, 354, 355-6
Keynes, J. M.f 207
Kiderlen-Wachter, 137
Klingenberg, Professor, 173
Klockner, 120
Kluck, General, 231
Koeth, Lieutenant-Colonel, 175
Koltchak, 3x7
Krassin, Leonid, 278
Kriege, Dr, 278
Krischbin, 355-6
Kropotkin, 182
Krupp (the elder), 8, 41
Krupp von Bohlen, 120
Kuchenmeister, 350

37*

WALTHER RATHENAU

KuczyrisH, Dr R., 256
Kuhlmann, R. von, 278
Kunstler, Fanny, 165, 166, 170, 175,
229, 232

La Bruyere, 34, 220
Laforgue, Jules, 48
Lahmeyer, 119

Lassalle, Ferdinand [One of the
founders of German socialism, the
brilliant rival of Karl Marx. Born
April nth, 1825, of Jewish parents.
Balled in a duel on August sisfc
1864. His first book was a profound
study of the philosophy of Herak-
leitos, Die Philosophic Herakleitos
des Dunklen, in two volumes, 1858.
He followed this up with a work
which became one of the classics of
German socialist literature, Das
System der erworbenen Rechte,
x86x. Laid the foundations of the
German social-democratic party by
starting the 'General League of
German Workmen* in May, 1864.
Was one of the most eloquent and
brilliant orators Germany has pro-
duced. Achieved an international
reputation as the advocate of
Countess Hatzfeldt in her sensa-
tional lawsuits against her family
and through his speeches when he
himself was prosecuted for high
treason. In the meantime he became
involved in an affair with the beau*
tiful daughter of an Austrian diplo-
mat; Helene von Donniges, whose
betrothed, a Roumanian Boyar, Ra-
cowitza, shot him in a duel. Mere-
dith's Traffic Comedians is founded
on this love affair], 6, 65

Lao-tse, 62, 86

La Rochefoucauld, 34

League of Nations, 2x2, 242, 280-1,
283, 293, 309-10, 354

Lederer, 2x9, 256

Lemke, Bruno, 349

Lenin, 257

Lewis, Sinclair, 18

Lichnowsky, Prince, 163

Lichtenberg, G. C., 34

Liebermann, Max [Rathenau's cousin.
A celebrated German impression-
ist painter. Born July 20th, 1847,
in Berlin. President of the Prus-

sian Academy of Fine Arts], 6,

Liebknecht, Karl [Born on August
I3th, 1871. Assassinated by reaction-
ary officers during the Spartacist
rising in Berlin on January isth,
1919. He was the son of one of the
founders of German social-democ-
racy, Wilhelm Liebknecht Towards
the end of the war tried to organize
an anti-war demonstration in Berlin,
was arrested, and condemned for
high treason. Was released immedi-
ately after the Revolution and joined
the Spartacists (Communists) whose
rising in January, 1919, he led, with
Rosa Luxemburg as his associate],
250, 260

Lillers, Marquis de, 368-9
Lincoln, Abraham, 359
Liszt, Franz, 6
Litvinoff, 3*3, 337

Lloyd George, David, 260-1, 277, 284-
6, 294, 297-301, 305 ff.; on Rathenau,
31671.

Lloyd George, Megan, 329, 334
Locarno, 297, 300
Logan, Colonel, 354
London Conference, 284-7, 294
London Memorandum, 313^.
Loucheur, 277, 285, 290, 291, 296, 298,

301, 305

Louis Philippe, 41
Ludendorff, General, 23 x#., 244, 246,

266-7, »78, 347
Ludwig, Emil, 91, 225
Luther, Dr, 33811.

Luxemburg, Rosa [Born on December
25th, 1870, in Russia. Propagandist
of socialism in Russia, then came to
Germany and worked there as a
socialist agitator and writer. A
woman of uncommon intellectual
power and one of the most daring
and profound theoricians of Marx-
ism. Towards the end of the war
she founded the Spartacist anti-war
group in the German social-demo-
cratic party. Was imprisoned and
remained in prison till the Revolu-
tion. Immediately after her release
she founded, together with Karl
Liebknecht, a separate Communist
(Spartacist) party in Germany. Was
assassinated by reactionary officers

37*

INDEX

on the same night as Liebknecht,
January xsth, 1919. After her death
remarkably beautiful letters of hers,
written to Karl Liebknecht's wife
from prison, were published and
gained for her numerous admirers],
260

McDougall, Professor William, 88 n.

Machtpolitik, 275

Maltzan, Baron Ago von, 313, SHjjf.,

338

Marx, Dr, 352

Marx, Karl, 103-4, 106, 182, 257
Matthes, J. F., 365-7
Max of Baden, Prince, 245-6
Mechanization, 91 ff.f 179 ff.f 257-8
Mendelssohn, Franz von, 120
Meyer, Conrad Ferdinand, 136
Meyerbeer, 7

Millerand, Alexandra, 154, 274
Millet, Philippe, 312, 330, 335
Mirbach, Count, 345 n.
Mitropanoff, Professor, 163
Mittvoochs-Gesellschaft, 231, 234
Mollendorff, Wichard von, 173, 255
Moltke, Field-Marshal yon, 162, 164,

231

Montefiore, Sir Moses, 41
Moratorium, 294, 295, 298, 299, 303
Moritz, Karl Philipp, 1507*.
Morris, William, 217
Muffling, Captain von, 129
Muller, Eugen, 253
Mumm, Baron von, 323-4
Munch, Edvard, 53
Musset, Alfred de, 31, 141
Mutius, Gerhard von, 222

Nadolny, 278

Napoleon I, 14, 18, 84 n., 144 «* 3$5

Nationalism, 100-3

Naumann, Friedrich, 171, 250

Neumann-Hofer, Dr, 253

Nicholas, Grand Duke, 154

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 60-1, 80, 85, 1x3-

4, 134, 2x8, 235
Nijinski, 138, 154
Nitrate shortage, 175-6
Nollet, General, 302
Norlind, Ernst, 66, 263, 266
Northcliffe, Lord, 336

Olfers, Marie, 45
Orage, A. R., 2x8 n.
Organization Consul, 348 and ».

Otway, 349

Owen, Robert, i8o»., 2x7

Pallologue, Maurice, 296

Pams, 154

Panther, 140

Paul, St, 8x

Penty, Arthur J., 2x8 ».

Perfall, Baron, 13

Pertinax, 336

Petrarch, 340

Pierrefeu, Jean de, 333 and n., 335

Plato, 82, 86, x8o

Plotinus, 86

Poincar&, Raymond, 154, 222, 275-6,

*95> 296, 300, 302-3, 304, 305-6, 3x0-1,

3x6, 324 #-,360, 365 f-
Porto-Riche, 31
Preuss, Professor Hugo, 251
Prittwitz, Dr von, 278
Proletariat, 103-6, x8oj(f., 256-8
Proudhon, 187
Pullman, 41

Radek, 303, 351

Radziwill, Princess Marie, 48

Rakovsky, 3x8-9

Rapallo Treaty, 312 ff.

Raphael, Gaston, 27411.

Rasputin, 163

Rathenau, Emil, sff-> 58-60, ur, 1x7,

145, 227, 228, 229
Rathenau, Erich, 24, 58
Rathenau. Frau Mathilde [Walther's

mother], 11-12, 19, 23, 227-8, 287-8,

30i> 359> 3&«

Rathenau, Frau [Walther's grand-
mother], 5-6

Rationalization, 87-89, 176-8, 196 jf.,
2x5-6, 242-3

Raw materials control, 171 J7.

Reichswchr, 2720.

Rcichswehr, the Black, 344^

Reiner, 320

Reinhardt, Max, 52

Reparations Commission, 286, 294,
298, 299, 303, 3io, 3«, 354

Rheinbaben, Baron von, 293

Rhineland, 276, 295-6, 305-6, 328,
330-1, 339-40, 352, 365 ff.

Richter, Frau Cernelie, 48-9

Richter, Gustav, 49

Riecke, Professor Victor, 280

Riedler, Professor, 8-9, xo, i3-i4> *7

Rivarol, 34

377

WALTHER RATHENAU

Roche, Jules, 163

Rodin, Augusts, 163

Rosen, Dr, 288, 300

Rosenberg, von, 300

Ruhr, 276, 279, 286, 293, *95» *97.

338 »., 3^0
Ruskin, John, 217
Russell, Bertrand, 217, 218 «.
Russia (see also Bolshevism), 112, 123,

162, 169, 278-9, 280, 297, 299, 303,

305 ff.

Saar, 353-4

Sanctions, 285-6

Saenger, Professor, 24

Salomonsohn, Dr A., 120

Salter, Sir J. Arthur, 177-8, 234.

Sarajevo, 163

Schacht^ Dr, 338 n.

Schanzer, 317, 328-9

Scheuch, Heinrich [General. Born
June 2ist, 1864, at Schlettstadt in
Alsace. Became Prussian War Min-
ister in October, 1918. Retired after
the Revolution], 171-2, 246

Schleinitz, Frau von, 48

Schwabach, Paul von, 120

Schwaner, Wilhelm, 66, 226, 228, 230,
234

Seeckt, General von, 272, 277

Selbsts chute, 346

Separatism. See Rhineland.

Seydoux, 3x1-2

Sheraton, Thomas, 68

Siemens, Werner, 16

Silesius, Angelus, 86

Simmel, Georg [Professor of Philos-
ophy and Sociology in Berlin and
afterwards in Strassburg. Born in
Berlin March xst, 1858. Died Sep-
tember 27th, 1918. His most impor-
tant book was a Philosophic des
G fides (Philosophy of Monty)], 26

Simon, H. F., 293, 297

Simons, Dr, 212, 271, 272, 274, 284-5

Simson, von, 3x7, 321, 323

Solidarity, 111-3, **3, X92

Sombart, Werner [Professor of Eco-
nomics in Berlin. Born January ipth,
1863. His most important book is
Der Moderne Kapitalismus, which
he began publishing in 1902 and has
since continued in a number of vol-
umes], 92

Sonntag, Hennette, 45-6

Spa Conference, 270-1, 284

Spartacist rising^ 241, 259, 264

Spinoza, 83-8, 113

Springer, Professor Max, 369

Steed, Wickham, 336 and n.

Stein, Charlotte von, 150

Stein, Professor Ludwig, 230

Steiner, Rudolf, 165

Stendhal, 18, 44, 240

Stinnes, Hugo, 120, 231, 272-6, 300,

3°3> 355
Stocker, 250
Strauss, Richard, 163
Stravinski, Igor, 163
Stresemann, Dr, 125, 231, 273, 278,

379, ^97, 300 «., 352
Stubenrauch, Hans, 347-8
Sudekum, Dr, 230, 247
Sudermann, Hermann, 30
Sukhomlinofr, General, 162

Talleyrand, 138, 277, 353

Techow, Ernst Werner, 34^-51, 355i

360-1

Techow, Frau, 350, 3$°
Techow, Gerd, 348
Tieck, Ludwig, 45, 46
Tillessen, Karl, 348, 350
Tirard, 368

Tirpitz, Admiral von, 141
Tittoni, 140
Tolstoi, xx 6, 137
Tsar, the (Nicholas II), 222

Unruh, Fritz von, 165, 242

Van de Velde, Professor Henry,

Van Gogh, Vincent, 68

Van Vlissingen, 321

Varnhagen, Karl August, 45

Varnhagen, Rahel, 45

Vauvenargues, 34

Versailles Treaty, 260, 261, 262, 268 ff .,

278, 279, 2«5, 396>
Vildrac, Charles, 31
Vollmoller, Dr Karl, 230
Voss, 45

Wagner, Richard, 48
Weber, Professor Max, 250
Wedekind, Frank, 53, 57
Wedgwood, Josiah, 68
Weismann, Dr, 35571,

378

INDEX

Wcstarp, Count, 231

Wiesbaden Agreement, 291-3

Wilde, Oscar, 30, 34, 217

Wildenbruch, Ernst von, 45

William II. See Kaiser

Wilson, President, 223, 242, 246, 260-3,

296

Winterfeldts, 164
Wirth, Dr Josef, 269, 270, 272, 277,

287, 300, 302-3, 307, 311, 317, 320 ff.,

3*7ff-> 343-3, 35«
Wise, E. F., 314, 319^ 337
Wissell, Rudolph [One of the leaders

of die German social-democratic

party in the Reichstag. Born March

i8th, 1869, in Gdttingen. Secretary
of State of the German Minister of
Economics from February to July,
1919. Minister of Labour in the
present German Cabinet], 254*5

Witting, 280

Wordsworth, William, 86

Yudenitch, 317
Yusupoff, Prince, 163

Ziegler, Leopold, 258
Zukunft, 36, and »., 39, 46, 52, 55,
90, 131, 144, 254, 262

379

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