THE KULTUR OF KAISERDOM THE GERMAN SOUL

The older I grow the more it seems to me that all men are alike and that they have been alike at all periods of history, capable of the same development and differing only because of environment.

I do not believe, for example, that any mystery is concealed behind the faces of the peoples of the East. Once I asked Soughimoura, my colleague in Berlin, Ambassador of Japan, whether the Japanese were as much subject to nerves as western peoples. He answered in the affirmative but said they were taught from infancy to control their nerves. I asked him how, and he said the principle of the system was deep abdominal breathing with a slow release of the breath as soon as nervousness came on. Japanese wrestlers practised this, he added, and when a man took deep breaths it was almost impossible to throw him.

Of course, social life and customs change with climate. But education is the most powerful factor of all. The Aztecs of Mexico offered human sacrifices, but the letter of the Aztec mother to her daughter, giving advice and counsel, mentioned by Prescott in his history, might have been written by a New England mother to-day. Somewhere in the world is a savage eating human flesh, persuaded that in so doing he is acting in accordance with the tenets of his religion.

These are the extremes.

But the German or rather the Prussian, has been moulded into the extraordinary person that he is to-day by a slow process of education extending through several generations. At Marienburg, on the Baltic shore of Germany, stands the ancient castle of the Teutonic Knights recently restored by the German Kaiser. The Knights at one time conquered and occupied much of the territory that is now modern Prussia. A military religious order, they attracted adventurers from all lands and their descendants constitute many of the noble families of Prussia. It is this tradition of conquest for gain that still animates the ruling class of Prussia and therefore all Germany.

Later through the middle ages and as the central power of the Emperor grew weaker and weaker, what is to-day Germany became a nest of dukedoms and principalities. Before the French Revolution these numbered hundreds. After the Thirty Years’ War which ravaged Germany from 1615 to 1645 extreme poverty was often conspicuous at these petty courts. War was an industry and the poor German peasants were frequently bartered as slaves to the war-god, as the Hessians were sold by their ruler to the British in our War of the Revolution. The Germans were then the mercenaries of Europe, savages skilled in war, without mercy towards the towns unfortunate enough to be given to their pillage. There is no more horrible event in all history than that of the sack of Rome by the German mercenaries in the year 1527. Under General George von Frundsberg, who joined forces with the recreant constable Bourbon of France and the Spaniards, these lawless Germans invaded the fertile plains of Italy and took Rome by assault.

The most awful outrages were perpetrated. Prelates were tortured after being paraded through the streets of the Eternal City, dressed in their sacred pontificals and mounted on donkeys. Altars were defiled, sacred images broken, vestments and services and works of art taken from the plundered churches and sacred relics insulted, broken and scattered. For nine months the orgy continued, the inhabitants being tortured by these German soldiers in their effort to find hidden treasure. In fact conditions in Belgium to-day had their counterpart centuries ago in the treatment of Roman Catholic Priests and the people of Rome.

The great change in the feeling of the country towards Prussia since the latter’s conquest of the rest of Germany in 1866, is still exemplified by one quotation from Goethe. He said, “The Prussian was born a brute and civilisation will make him ferocious.” We all have seen how prophetic was this sentence. Skilled in chemistry, in science, well educated, made rich by manufacturing and foreign commerce, the Prussians of to-day have shown themselves far more bloody, far more cruel than the German lansquenet of the middle ages who sold himself, his two handed sword, his military experience and his long lance to the highest bidder.

Tacitus tells of how the ancient Germans when drawn up in battle array used to sing a sort of war song to terrify their enemies.

It was Goethe incidentally who remarked “Amerika, du hast es besser.” (America, you are better off.) The poet who died in 1832 foresaw, indeed, the coming power of the free democracy across the seas.

It was interesting to note the psychological development of the Germans during the war. For the very short time while war hung in the balance there was a period almost of rejoicing, among the singing crowds in the streets a universal release of tension after forty years’ preparation for war.

Next came the busy period of mobilisation and then, as the German armies swept through Belgium and France, stronghold and fortress falling before them, there came a period of intense exaltation, a period when the most reasonable Germans, the light of success and conquest in their eyes, declared German Kultur would now be imposed on the whole world.

The battle of the Marne ended this period of rejoicing and, through the winter of 1914-1915, when it became apparent that Germany would not win by a sudden assault, the temper of the people began to change to an attitude of depression.

It has been at all times the policy of the German autocracy to keep the people of Germany from amusing themselves. I know of no class in Germany which really enjoys life. The Counts and Junkers have their country estates. Life on these estates, which are administered solely for profit, is not like country life in England or America. The houses are plain and, for the most part, without the conveniences of bath rooms and heating to which we are accustomed in America. Very few automobiles are owned in Germany. There are practically no small country houses or bungalows, although at a few of the sea places rich Jews have villas.

The wealthy merchant takes his vacation in summer at Carlsbad or Kissingen or in some other resort where his physical constitution, disorganised by over-eating and over-drinking, can be regulated somewhat. Many Germans take their families to Switzerland where the German of all ages with knapsack and Alpine stick is a familiar sight.

Earnestness is the watchword. For should the people once get a taste of pleasure they might decide that the earth offered fairer possibilities than life in the barracks or the admiring contemplation of fat and complacent grand dukes and princes.

Much of this sycophancy is due to the poverty of the educated classes. Salaries paid to officials are ridiculously small. The German workingmen both in wages and living are on a lower scale than those of other western nations with the possible exception of Russia, Italy and the Balkan States. The professional and business classes earn very little. The reason for the superiority of the German in the chemical industry is because a chemist, a graduate of the university, can be hired for less than the salary of an American chauffeur.

And this earnestness of life was insisted upon even to a greater degree by the autocracy with the opening of war. The playing of dance music brought a visit from the police. The theatres at first were closed but later opened. Only plays of a serious or patriotic nature were originally permitted. Dancing was tabooed, but in the winter of 1915-16 Reinhardt was allowed to produce a ballet of a severely classical nature and at the opera performances the ponderous ballet girls were permitted to cavort as usual.

I saw no signs of any great religious revival, no greater attendance at the churches. Perhaps this was because I was in the Protestant part of Germany where the church is under the direct control of the government and where the people feel that in attending church they are only attending an extra drill, a drill where they will be told of the glories of the autocracy and the necessity of obedience. In fact, religion may be said to have failed in Germany and many state-paid preachers launched sermons of hate from their state-owned pulpits.

Always fond of the drama and opera I was a constant attendant at theatres in Berlin. The best known manager in Berlin is Reinhardt, who has under his control the Deutsches Theatre with its annex, the Kammerspiel and also the People’s Theatre on the Buelow Platz. I made the acquaintance of Mr. Reinhardt and his charming wife who takes part in many of his productions. I dined with them in their picturesque house on the Kupfer Graben. In the Deutsches Theatre the great revolving stage makes change of scene easy so that Reinhardt is enabled to present Shakespeare, a great favourite in Germany, in a most picturesque manner. He manages to lend even to the most solemn tragedy little touches that add greatly to the interest and keep the attention fixed.

For instance in his production of “Macbeth,” when Lady Macbeth comes in, in the sleep-walking scene, rubbing her hands and saying, “What, will these hands ne’er be clean?” the actress taking this part in Berlin gave a very distinct and loud snore between every three or four words: thus most effectively reminding the audience that she was asleep.

As the war continued the taste of the Germans turned to sombre, tragical and almost sinister plays. Only a death on the stage seemed to bring a ray of animation to the stolid bovine faces of the audience. In my last winter in Berlin the hit of the season was “Erdgeist,” a play by Wedekind, whose “Spring’s Awakening,” given in New York in the spring of 1917, horrified and disgusted the most hardened Broadway theatregoers. The principal female rôle was played by a Servian actress, Maria Orska very much on the type of Nazimova. In this play, presented to crowded audiences, only one of the four acts was without a death.

Another favourite during war-time, played at Reinhardt’s theatre, was “Maria Magdalena.” The characters were the father, mother, son and daughter of a German family in a small town and two young men in love with the daughter. In the first act the police arrest the son for theft, giving the mother such a shock that she dies of apoplexy on the stage. In the second act, the two lovers have a duel and one is killed. In the third act, the surviving lover commits suicide, and, in the fourth act, the daughter jumps down the well. The curtain descends leaving only the old man and the cat alive and the impression is given that if the curtain were ten seconds later either the cat would get the old man or the old man would get the cat!

The mysterious play of Peer Gynt was given in two theatres during each winter of the war. All of Ibsen’s dramas played to crowded houses. Reinhardt, during the last winter I was in Berlin, produced Strindberg’s “Ghost Sonata,” in quite a wonderful way. The play was horrible and grewsome enough, but as produced by him, it gave a strong man nightmare for days afterwards.

The German soul, indeed, seems to turn not towards light and gay and graceful things, but towards bloodshed and grewsomeness, ghosts and mystery effect doubtless of the long, dark, bitter nights and gray days that overshadow these northern lands.

I think the only time I lost my temper in Germany was when a seemingly reasonable and polite gentleman from the Foreign Office sitting by my desk one day, in 1916, remarked how splendid it was that Germany had nearly two million prisoners of war and that these would go back to their homes imbued with an intense admiration of German Kultur.

I said that I believed that the two million prisoners of war who had been insulted and underfed and beaten and forced to work as slaves in factories and mines and on farms would go back to their homes with such a hatred of all things German that it would not be safe for Germans to travel in countries from which these prisoners came, that other nations had their own Kultur with which they were perfectly satisfied and which they did not wish to change for any made-in-Germany brand!

Certain Germans have prated much of German “Kultur,” have boasted of imposing this “Kultur” on the world by force of arms. What is this German “Kultur”? A certain efficiency of government obtained by keeping the majority of the people out of all voice in governmental affairs, a certain low cost of manufactured products or of carrying charges in the shipping trades made possible by enslaving the workmen who toil long hours for small wages a certain superiority in chemical production because trained chemists, willing to work at one semi-mechanical task, can be hired for less than a Fifth Avenue butler is paid in America, and a certain pre-eminence in military affairs reached by subjecting the mass of the people to the brutal, boorish, non-commissioned officers and the galling yoke of a militaristic system.

Subtract the German Jews and in the lines of real culture there would be little of the real thing left in Germany. Gutmann, Bleichroeder, von Swabach, Friedlander-Fuld, Rathenau, Simon, Warburg in finance; Borchardt and others in surgery, and almost the whole medical profession; the Meyers, the Ehrlichs, Bamberger, Hugo Schiff, Newburger, Bertheim, Paul Jacobson, in chemistry and research; Mendelssohn, and others, in music; Harden, Theodor Wolf, Georg Bernhard and Professor Stein in journalism.

But why continue about the only men not Jews prominent in the intellectual, artistic, financial, or commercial life of Germany are the pastors of the Lutheran Churches. And the Jews have won their way to the front in almost a generation. Still refused commissions in the standing army (except for about 114 since the war), still compelled to renounce their religion before being eligible for nobility or a court function, still practically excluded from university professorships, considered socially inferior, the Jews of Germany until a few years ago lived under disabilities that had survived from the Middle Ages. They were not allowed to bear Christian names. The marriages of Jews and Christians were forbidden. Jews could not own houses and lands. They were not permitted to engage in agriculture and could not become members of the guilds or unions of handicraftsmen. When a Jew travelled he was compelled to pay a tax in each province through which he passed. Jews attending the fair at Frankfort on the Oder were compelled to pay a head tax, and were admitted to Leipzig and Dresden on condition that they might be expelled at any time. Berlin Jews were compelled to buy annually a certain quantity of porcelain, derisively called “Jew’s porcelain” from the Royal manufactory and to sell it abroad. When a Jew married he had to get permission and an annual impost was paid on each member of the family, while only one son could remain at home, and the others were forced to seek their fortune abroad. The Jews could worship in their own way, in some states, provided they used only two small rooms and made no noise.

The reproach that the Jew is not a producer, but is a mere middleman, taking a profit as goods pass from hand to hand, is handed down from the time when Jews were forbidden by law to become producers and, therefore, were compelled to become traders and middlemen, barred from the guilds and from engaging in the cultivation of the soil.

The German newspaper in size is much smaller than ours. If you take an ordinary American newspaper and fold it in half, the fold appearing horizontally across the middle of the page and then turn it so that the longer sides are upright, you get an idea of the size. There are no editorials in German newspapers, but articles, usually only one a day, on some political or scientific subject, one contributed by a professor or some one else supposedly not connected with the newspaper.

The editor of the German newspaper in his desire to poison and colour the news to suit his own views does not rely upon an editorial, but inserts little paragraphs and sentences in the news columns. For instance, a note of President Wilson’s might be printed and after a paragraph of that, a statement something like this will be inserted in parentheses. “This statement comes well from the old hyprocrite whose country has been supplying arms and ammunition to the enemies of Germany. The Editor.” A few sentences more or a paragraph of the note and another interlineation of this kind. Small newspapers have a news service furnished free by the government, thus enabling the latter to colour the news to suit itself. It is characteristic of Germany and shows how void of amusement the life of an average citizen is and how the country is divided into castes, that there is no so-called society or personal news in the columns of the daily newspaper.

You never see in a German newspaper accounts common even to our small town newspapers, of how Mrs. Snooks gave a tea or how Mrs. Jones, of Toledo, is visiting Mrs. Judge Bascom for Thanksgiving. If a prince or duke comes to a German town a simple statement is printed that he is staying at such and such a hotel.

German newspapers, as a rule, are very pronounced in their views, either distinctly Conservative or Liberal or Socialist or Roman Catholic. The Berliner Tageblatt is nearest our idea of a great independent, metropolitan, daily newspaper. Other newspapers represent a class and many of them are owned by particular interests such as the Krupps and other manufacturers or munition makers.

There is little that is sensational in the German newspaper. I remember on one occasion that two women murderers were beheaded in accordance with German law. Imagine how such an occurrence would have been “played up” in the American newspapers, with pictures, perhaps, of the executioner and his sword, with articles from poets and women’s organisations, with appeals for pardon and talk of brainstorms and the other hysterical concomitants of murder trials in the United States. But in the German newspapers a little paragraph, not exceeding ten lines, simply related the fact that these two women, condemned for murdering such and such a person, had been executed in the strangely medieval manner their heads cut off on the scaffold by a public executioner.

The German newspapers in reporting police court and other judicial proceedings often omit names and it is possible in Berlin for a man to prosecute a blackmailer without having his own name in print.

When a German victory was announced flags were displayed, but as the war progressed so many victories announced turned out to be nothing wonderful or decisive that little attention was paid to the vain-glorious flaunting of German triumphs. Following an old custom ten or fifteen trumpeters climbed the tower of Rathhaus or City Hall and there quite characteristically blew to the four quarters of Heaven; but again as these official and brazen blowings were not always followed by the confirmation in fact, trumpetings were gradually discontinued.

The Germans cleverly kept back the announcement of certain successes in order to offset reverses. For instance, on a day when it was necessary to tell the people of a German retreat the newspapers would have great headlines across the front of the first page announcing the sinking of a British cruiser (sunk, perhaps, a month before) and then hidden in a corner would be a minimised announcement of a German defeat.

To us in Germany there was at the time no battle of the Marne. So gradually was the news of the retreat of the German forces broken to the people that to-day the masses do not realise that the fate of the world was settled at the Marne!