THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



549 



premacy has inspired the conduct of the 

 German Government or that it existed 

 in the. minds of the German people. I 

 wish sincerely that it were so, for it 

 would make the problems of the future 

 far more easy of solution. But the nu- 

 merous utterances of German thinkers 

 and writers belie these defenders of Ger- 

 many's purity of motive. 



AN 



AMBITION TO BE "SUPERMEN" 



It is hardly open to debate, in the light 

 of subsequent events, that the philosophi- 

 cal and political ideas which have been 

 taught for years from the university plat- 

 forms, from the pulpits, and through 

 the printed word to young and old in 

 Germany excited in them an insolent 

 pride of blood and infused into their na- 

 tional being an all-absorbing ambition to 

 prove themselves "supermen," chosen by 

 natural superiority and by divine man- 

 date to be rulers of the earth. 



Not only in Germany but among those 

 of German descent in other lands has 

 this pernicious belief spread, linking Ger- 

 mans everywhere to the "Fatherland" in 

 the hope that they would be considered 

 worthy to share in the future glory of 

 the masters of the world. 



A few examples of the teachings 

 which have so molded German charac- 

 ter and implanted in the German mind 

 false conceptions of life will suffice to 

 show their nature and the evil influences 

 which they exerted on a people pecu- 

 liarly susceptible to flattery and possessed 

 by a selfishness which blunted their sense 

 of honor and of moral obligation. 



Professor Theuden, imbued with an 

 astounding vanity, which is character- 

 istically German, declared, as the great 

 war began: "Germany, as the prepon- 

 derant power in a Pan-German League, 

 will with this war attain world suprem- 

 acy." And Poehlmann, in considering 

 the good to Germany which would result 

 from the conflict, wrote to his fellow- 

 countrymen, "We shall be an unconquer- 

 able people capable of ruling the world." 



A SINISTER GERMAN CONFESSION 



These words but described those visions 

 which the German philosophers, acting 

 possibly under the direction, and cer- 



tainly with the approval, of their govern- 

 ment, had so constantly conjured up to 

 allure and tempt the German people. 

 They were uttered before the greatPrus- 

 sian war machine had failed in its first 

 endeavor to plough its way through to 

 Paris and in proving itself to possess the 

 irresistible force in which its builders 

 believed. 



A decade before the war Reiner, in- 

 spired with the imperialism of Prussia, 

 announced: "It is precisely our craving 

 for expansion which drives us into the 

 paths of conquest, in view of which all 

 chatter about peace and humanity can 

 and must remain nothing but chatter." 



Not less ominous to liberty are the 

 words of Professor Meinecke: "We want 

 to become a wqrld people. Let us remind 

 ourselves that the belief in our mission 

 as a world people has arisen from our 

 originally purely spiritual impulse to ab- 

 sorb the world into ourselves." 



Observe that extraordinary phrase: 

 "To absorb the world into ourselves." 

 To conceive such a national destiny is to 

 resurrect the dead ambitions of an Alex- 

 der or a Caesar; to teach it as a right to 

 young men is to sow in their minds an 

 egotism which breeds distorted concep- 

 tions of individual honor and justice and 

 gives to them an utterly false standard of 

 national life. 



THE PRUSSIAN DOCTRINE 

 WIEIv it!" 



AS WE 



Not alone from the lecturer and the 

 essayist came this idea that the Germans 

 are a superior race, set apart to rule the 

 world. It was preached in the pulpits as 

 a divine truth by those who even had the 

 effrontery to support their assertions by 

 references to the Holy Scriptures. Lis- 

 ten to some of the thoughts proclaimed 

 by ordained ministers of Christ to their 

 German congregations : 



"It may sound proud, my friends, but 

 we are conscious that it is also in all hum- 

 bleness that we say it : the German soul 

 is God's soul; it shall and will rule over 

 mankind." 



May we be spared the consequences 

 of German "humbleness," which fairly 

 struts and swaggers and which finds fur- 

 ther expression in the words of another 

 doctor of divinity, when he declares: 



