Strangely enough, all the really seamy sides of old Germany attracted attention only when the inner solidarity of the nation would inevitably suffer thereby. Yes, indeed, in such cases the unpleasant truths were positively bellowed to the broad masses, while otherwise the same people preferred modestly to conceal many things and in part simply to deny them. This was the case when the open discussion of a question might have led to an improvement. At the same time, the government offices in charge knew next to nothing of the value and nature of propaganda. The fact that by clever and persevering use of propaganda even heaven can be represented as hell to the people, and conversely the most wretched life as paradise, was known only to the Jew, who acted accordingly; the German, or rather his government, hadn't the faintest idea of this.
During the War we were to suffer most gravely for all this.
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Along with all the evils of German life before the War here indicated, and many more, there were also many advantages. In a fair examination, we must even recognize that most of our weaknesses were largely shared by other countries and peoples, and in some, indeed, we were put completely in the shade, while they did not possess many of our own actual advantages.
At the head of these advantages we can, among other things, set the fact that, of nearly all European peoples, the German people still made the greatest attempt to preserve the national character of its economy and despite certain evil omens was least subject to international financial control. A dangerous advantage, to be sure, which later became the greatest instigator of the World War. But aside from this and many other things, we must, from the vast number of healthy sources of national strength, pick three institutions which in their kind were exemplary and in part unequaled.
First, the state form as such and the special stamp which it had received in modern Germany.
Here we may really disregard the individual monarchs who as men are subject to all the weaknesses which are customarily visited upon this earth and its children; if we were not lenient in this, we would have to despair of the present altogether, for are not the representatives of the present régime, considered as personalities, intellectually and morally of the most modest proportions that we can conceive of even racking our brains for a long time? Anyone who measures the 'value' of the German revolution by the value and stature of the personalities which it has given the German people since November, 1919, will have to hide his head for shame before the judgment of future generations, whose tongue it will no longer be possible to stop by protective laws, etc., and which therefore will say what today all of us know to be true, to wit, that brains and virtue in our modern German leaders are inversely proportionate to their vices and the size of their mouths.
To be sure, the monarchy had grown alien to many, to the broad masses above all. This was the consequence of the fact that the monarchs were not always surrounded by the brightest - to put it mildly - and above all not by the sincerest minds. Unfortunately, a number of them liked flatterers better than straightforward natures, and consequently it was the flatterers who 'instructed' them. A very grave evil at a time when many of the world's old opinions had undergone a great change, spreading naturally to the estimation in which many old-established traditions of the courts were held.
Thus, at the turn of the century the common man in the street could no longer find any special admiration for the princess who rode along the front in uniform. Apparently those in authority were incapable of correctly judging the effect of such a parade in the eyes of the people, for if they had, such unfortunate performances would doubtless not have occurred. Moreover, the humanitarian bilge - not always entirely sincere - that these circles went in for repelled more than it attracted. If, for example, Princess X condescended to taste a sample of food in a people's kitchen, in former days it might have looked well, but now the result was the opposite. We may be justified in assuming that Her Highness really had no idea that the food on the day she sampled it was a little different from what it usually was; but it was quite enough that the people knew it.
Thus, what may possibly have been the best intention became ridiculous, if not actually irritating.
Stories about the monarch's proverbial frugality, his much too early rising and his slaving away until late into the night, amid the permanent peril of threatening undernourishment, aroused very dubious comments. People did not ask to know what food and how much of it the monarch deigned to consume; they did not begrudge him a 'square' meal; nor were they out to deprive him of the sleep he needed; they were satisfied if in other things, as a man and character, he was an honor to the name of his house and to the nation, and if he fulfilled his duties as a ruler. Telling fairy tales helped little, but did all the more harm.
This and many similar things were mere trifles, however. What had a worse effect on sections of the nation, that were unfortunately very large, was the mounting conviction that people were ruled from the top no matter what happened, and that, therefore, the individual had no need to bother about anything. As long as the government was really good, or at least had the best intentions, this was bearable. But woe betide if the old government whose intentions were after all good were replaced by a new one which was not so decent; then spineless compliance and childlike faith were the gravest calamity that could be conceived of.
But along with these and many other weaknesses, there were unquestionable assets.
For one thing, the stability of the entire state leadership, brought about by the monarchic form of state and the removal of the highest state posts from the welter of speculation by ambitious politicians. Furthermore, the dignity of the institution as such and the authority which this alone created: likewise the raising of the civil service and particularly the army above the level of party obligations. One more advantage was the personal embodiment of the state's summit in the monarch as a person, and the example of responsibility which is bound to be stronger in a monarch than in the accidental rabble of a parliamentary majority - the proverbial incorruptibility of the German administration could primarily be attributed to this. Finally, the cultural value of the monarchy for the German people was high and could very well compensate for other drawbacks. The German court cities were still the refuge of an artistic state of mind, which is increasingly threatening to die out in our materialistic times. What the German princes did for art and science, particularly in the nineteenth century, was exemplary. The present period in any case cannot be compared with it.
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