The Days of a Man 1913 



organs were hot for war and with increasing prospect 

 of having their way. Of course other countries had 

 some chauvinists as violent as those of Germany, 

 but nowhere else were they so numerous, so well 

 organized, and, except perhaps in Russia, half so near 

 the center of power. 



During the war Nippold became professor at 

 warnings Zurich, f rO m which vantage ground he addressed 

 plain-spoken appeals to his countrymen. Two of 

 these, "Das Erwachen des deutschen Folkes und die 

 Rolle der Schweiz" 1 and " Par Ions franchement 

 d' Alsace-Lorraine, " 2 were especially effective. In the 

 first the author asks: 



When the awakening comes, what will it show to the German 

 people? How will the stern reality appear when the dream has 

 come to an end ? That is the bitter thought. Every dream has an 

 end, every sleep its awakening. . . . Has not the German 

 press done its utmost to keep alive the fires of hatred? I speak of 

 course of the hatred directed against other nations, 3 innocent of 

 all these things, not of hatred for the real enemy who dwells in 

 Germany, in the very heart of the German people. . . . The 

 real enemies of Germany are not the French and the English, but 

 the men who have brought the soul of Germany to the condition 

 in which it is today. 



From Nippold's second essay, published in Paris 

 June 29, 1918, I translate a few paragraphs: 



... If Alsace-Lorraine had not been annexed in 1871, it 

 is probable that the world would not be at war today. . . . 



^'The Awakening of the German People and the Role of Switzerland." 



2 "Let Us Speak Frankly of Alsace-Lorraine." 



8 1 am here reminded of a little story told me once by a German of the 

 Rheinland. During a trip he made as a youth into France, he saw some French 

 conscripts gathered fn box cars bound for the drill-grounds. But to his amaze- 

 ment one fellow reached down and kissed his aged mother standing on the 

 platform of the station. This evidence of filial love, he said, gave the lie to 

 Prussian teaching, which was that all Frenchmen were beasts without family 

 affection or human virtues of any kind. 



c 520 n 



