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into this track of general falsehood and deceit. The very conviction that the non-participation of an individual in the business would in itself change nothing kills every honorable impulse which may rise up in this or that deputy. And finally, moreover, he may tell himself that he personally is far from being the worst among the others, and that the sole effect of his collaboration is perhaps to prevent worse things from happening.
It will be objected, to be sure, that. though the individual deputy possesses no special understanding in this or that matter, his position has been discussed by the fraction which directs the policy of the gentleman in question, and that the fraction has its special committees which are more than adequately enlightened by experts anyway.
At first glance this seems to be true. But then the question arises: Why are five hundred chosen when only a few possess the necessary wisdom to take a position in the most important matters?
And this is the worm in the apple!
It is not the aim of our present-day parliamentarianism to constitute an assembly of wise men, but rather to compose a band of mentally dependent nonentities who are the more easily led in certain directions, the greater is the personal limitation of the individual. That is the only way of carrying on party politics in the malodorous present-day sense. And only in this way is it possible for the real wirepuller to remain carefully in the background and never personally be called to responsibility. For then every decision, regardless how harmful to the nation, will not be set to the account of a scoundrel visible to all, but will be unloaded on the shoulders of a whole fraction.
And thereby every practical responsibility vanishes. For responsibility can lie only in the obligation of an individual and not in a parliamentary bull session.
Such an institution can only please the biggest liars and sneaks of the sort that shun the light of day, because it is inevitably hateful to an honorable, straightforward man who welcomes personal responsibility.
And that is why this type of democracy has become the instrument of that race which in its inner goals must shun the light of day, now and in all ages of the future. Only the Jew can praise an institution which is as dirty and false as he himself.
Juxtaposed to this is the truly Germanic democracy characterized by the free election of a leader and his obligation fully to assume all responsibility for his actions and omissions. In it there is no majority vote on individual questions, but only the decision of an individual who must answer with his fortune and his life for his choice.
If it be objected that under such conditions scarcely anyone would be prepared to dedicate his person to so risky a task, there is but one possible answer:
Thank the Lord, Germanic democracy means just this: that any old climber or moral slacker cannot rise by devious paths to govern his national comrades, but that, by the very greatness of the responsibility to be assumed, incompetents and weaklings are frightened off.
But if, nevertheless, one of these scoundrels should attempt to sneak in, we can find him more easily, and mercilessly challenge him: Out, cowardly scoundrel! Remove your foot, you are besmirching the steps; the front steps of the Pantheon of history are not for sneak-thieves, but for heroes!
I had fought my way to this conclusion after two years attendance at the Vienna parliament.
After that I never went back.
The parliamentary regime shared the chief blame for the weakness, constantly increasing in the past few years, of the Habsburg state. The more its activities broke the predominance of the Germans, the more the country succumbed to a system of playing off the nationalities against one another. In the Reichsrat itself this was always done at the expense of the Germans and thereby, in the last analysis, at the expense of the Empire; for by the turn of the century it must have been apparent even to the simplest that the monarchy's force of attraction would no longer be able to withstand the separatist tendencies of the provinces.
On the contrary.
The more pathetic became the means which the state had to employ for its preservation, the more the general contempt for it increased. Not only in Hungary, but also in the separate Slavic provinces, people began to identify themselves so little with the common monarchy that they did not regard its weakness as their own disgrace. On the contrary, they rejoiced at such symptoms of old age; for they hoped more for the Empire's death than for its recovery.
In parliament, for the moment, total collapse was averted by undignified submissiveness and acquiescence at every extortion, for which the German had to pay in the end; and in the country, by most skillfully playing off the different peoples against each other. But the general line of development was nevertheless directed against the Germans. Especially since Archduke Francis Ferdinand became heir apparent and began to enjoy a certain influence, there began to be some plan and order in the policy of Czechization from above. With all possible means, this future ruler of the dual monarchy tried to encourage a policy of deGermanization, to advance it himself or at least to sanction it. Purely German towns, indirectly through government official dom, were slowly but steadily pushed into the mixed-language danger zones. Even in Lower Austria this process began to make increasingly rapid progress, and many Czechs considered Vienna their largest city.
The central idea of this new Habsburg, whose family had ceased to speak anything but Czech (the Archduke's wife, a former Czech countess, had been morganatically married to the Prince-she came from circles whose anti-German attitude was traditional), was gradually to establish a Slavic state in Central Europe which for defense against Orthodox Russia should be placed on a strictly Catholic basis. Thus, as the Habsburgs had so often done before, religion was once again put into the service of a purely political idea, and what was worse-at least from the German viewpoint-of a catastrophic idea.
The result was more than dismal in many respects. Neither the House of Habsburg nor the Catholic Church received the expected reward.
Habsburg lost the throne, Rome a great state.
For by employing religious forces in the service of its political considerations, the crown aroused a spirit which at the outset it had not considered possible.
In answer to the attempt to exterminate the Germans in the old monarchy by every possible means, there arose the PanGerman movement in Austria.
By the eighties the basic Jewish tendency of Manchester liberalism had reached, if not passed, its high point in the monarchy. The reaction to it, however, as with everything in old Austria, arose primarily from a social, not from a national standpoint. The instinct of self-preservation forced the Germans to adopt the sharpest measures of defense. Only secondarily did economic considerations begin to assume a decisive influence. And so, two party formations grew out of the general political confusion, the one with the more national, the other with the more social, attitude, but both highly interesting and instructive for the future.
After the depressing end of the War of 1866, the House of Habsburg harbored the idea of revenge on the battlefield. Only the death of Emperor Max of Mexico, whose unfortunate expedition was blamed primarily on Napoleon III and whose abandonment by the French aroused general indignation, prevented a closer collaboration with France. Habsburg nevertheless lurked in wait. If the War of 1870-71 had not been so unique a triumph, the Vienna Court would probably have risked a bloody venture to avenge Sadowa. But when the first amazing and scarcely credible, but none the less true, tales of heroism arrived from the battlefields, the 'wisest' of all monarchs recognized that the hour was not propitious and put the best possible face on a bad business.
But the heroic struggle of these years had accomplished an even mightier miracle; for with the Habsburgs a change of position never arose from the urge of the innermost heart, but from the compulsion of circumstances. However, the German people of the old Ostmark were swept along by the Reich's frenzy of victory, and looked on with deep emotion as the dream of their fathers was resurrected to glorious reality.
For make no mistake: the truly German-minded Austrian had, even at Koniggratz, and from this time on, recognized the tragic but necessary prerequisite for the resurrection of a Reich which would no longer be-and actually was not-afflicted with the foul morass of the old Union. Above all, he had come to understand thoroughly, by his own suffering, that the House of Habsburg had at last concluded its historical mission and that the new Reich could choose as Emperor only him whose heroic convictions made him worthy to bear the 'Crown of the Rhine.' But how much more was Fate to be praised for accomplishing this investiture in the scion of a house which in Frederick the Great had given the nation a gleaming and eternal symbol of its resurrection.
But when after the great war the House of Habsburg began with desperate determination slowly but inexorably to exterminate the dangerous German element in the dual monarchy (the inner convictions of this element could not be held in doubt), for such would be the inevitable result of the Slavization policy- the doomed people rose to a resistance such as modern German history had never seen.
For the first time, men of national and patriotic mind became rebels.
Rebels, not against the nation and not against the state as such, but rebels against a kind of government which in their conviction would inevitably lead to the destruction of their own nationality.
For the first time in modern German history, traditional dynastic patriotism parted ways with the national love of fatherland and people.
The Pan-German movement in German-Austria in the nineties is to be praised for demonstrating in clear, unmistakable terms that a state authority is entitled to demand respect and protection only when it meets the interests of a people, or at least does not harm them.
There can be no such thing as state authority as an end in itself, for, if there were, every tyranny in this world would be unassailable and sacred.
If, by the instrument of governmental power, a nationality is led toward its destruction, then rebellion is not only the right of every member of such a people-it is his duty.
And the question-when is this the case?-is decided not by theoretical dissertations, but by force and-results.
Since, as a matter of course, all governmental power claims the duty of preserving state authority-regardless how vicious it is, betraying the interests of a people a thousandfold-the national instinct of self-preservation, in overthrowing such a power and achieving freedom or independence, will have to employ the same weapons by means of which the enemy tries to maintain his power. Consequently, the struggle will be carried on with 'legal' means as long as the power to be overthrown employs such means; but it will not shun illegal means if the oppressor uses them.
In general it should not be forgotten that the highest aim of human existence is not the preservation of a state, let alone a government, but the preservation of the species.
And if the species itself is in danger of being oppressed or utterly eliminated, the question of legality is reduced to a subordinate role. Then, even if the methods of the ruling power are alleged to be legal a thousand times over, nonetheless the oppressed people's instinct of self-preservation remains the loftiest justification of their struggle with every weapon.
Only through recognition of this principle have wars of liberation against internal and external enslavement of nations on this earth come down to us in such majestic historical examples.
Human law cancels out state law.
And if a people is defeated in its struggle for human rights, this merely means that it has been found too light in the scale of destiny for the happiness of survival on this earth. For when a people is not willing or able to fight for its existence- Providence in its eternal justice has decreed that people's end.
The world is not for cowardly peoples.
How easy it is for a tyranny to cover itself with the cloak of so-called 'legality' is shown most clearly and penetratingly by the example of Austria.
The legal state power in those days was rooted in the antiGerman soil of parliament with its non-German majorities- and in the equally anti-German ruling house. In these two factors the entire state authority was embodied. Any attempt to change the destinies of the German-Austrian people from this position was absurd. Hence, in the opinions of our friends the worshipers of state authority as such and of the 'legal' way, all resistance would have had to be shunned, as incompatible with legal methods. But this, with compelling necessity, would have meant the end of the German people in the monarchy-and in a very short time. And, as a matter of fact, the Germans were saved from this fate only by the collapse of this state.
The bespectacled theoretician, it is true, would still prefer to die for his doctrine than for his people.
Since it is men who make the laws, he believes that they live for the sake of these laws.
The Pan-German movement in Austria had the merit of completely doing away with this nonsense, to the horror of all theoretical pedants and other fetish-worshiping isolationists in the government.
Since the Habsburgs attempted to attack Germanism with all possible means, this party attacked the 'exalted' ruling house itself, and without mercy. For the first time it probed into this rotten state and opened the eyes of hundreds of thousands. To its credit be it said that it released the glorious concept of love of fatherland from the embrace of this sorry dynasty.
In the early days of its appearance, its following was extremely great, threatening to become a veritable avalanche. But the success did not last. When I came to Vienna, the movement had long been overshadowed by the Christian Social Party which had meanwhile attained power-and had indeed been reduced to almost complete insignificance.
This whole process of the growth and passing of the Pan-German movement on the one hand, and the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party on the other, was to assume the deepest significance for me as a classical object of study.
When I came to Vienna, my sympathies were fully and wholly on the side of the Pan-German tendency.
That they mustered the courage to cry 'Loch Hohenzollern' impressed me as much as it pleased me; that they still regarded themselves as an only temporarily severed part of the German Reich, and never let a moment pass without openly attesting this fact, inspired me with joyful confidence; that in all questions regarding Germanism they showed their colors without reserve, and never descended to compromises, seemed to me the one still passable road to the salvation of our people; and I could not understand how after its so magnificent rise the movement should have taken such a sharp decline. Even less could I understand how the Christian Social Party at this same period could achieve such immense power. At that time it had just reached the apogee of its glory.
As I set about comparing these movements, Fate, accelerated by my otherwise sad situation, gave me the best instruction for an understanding of the causes of this riddle.
I shall begin my comparisons with the two men who may be regarded as the leaders and founders of the two parties: Georg von Schonerer and Dr. Karl Lueger.
From a purely human standpoint they both tower far above the scope and stature of so-called parliamentary figures. Amid the morass of general political corruption their whole life remained pure and unassailable. Nevertheless my personal sympathy lay at first on the side of the Pan-German Schonerer, and turned only little by little toward the Christian Social leader as well.
Compared as to abilities, Schonerer seemed to me even then the better and more profound thinker in questions of principle. He foresaw the inevitable end of the Austrian state more clearly and correctly than anyone else. If, especially in the Reich, people had paid more attention to his warnings
against the Habsburg monarchy, the calamity of Germany's World War against all Europe would never have occurred.
But if Schonerer recognized the problems in their innermost essence, he erred when it came to men.
Here, on the other hand, lay Dr. Lueger's strength.
He had a rare knowledge of men and in particular took good care not to consider people better than they are. Consequently, he reckoned more with the real possibilities of life while Schonerer had but little understanding for them. Theoretically speaking, all the Pan-German's thoughts were correct, but since he lacked the force and astuteness to transmit his theoretical knowledge to the masses-that is, to put it in a form suited to the receptivity of the broad masses, which is and remains exceedingly limited-all his knowledge was visionary wisdom, and could never become practical reality.
And this lack of actual knowledge of men led in the course of time to an error in estimating the strength of whole movements as well as age-old institutions.
Finally, Schonerer realized, to be sure, that questions of basic philosophy were involved, but he did not understand that only the broad masses of a people are primarily able to uphold such well-nigh religious convictions.
Unfortunately, he saw only to a limited extent the extra-ordinary limitation of the will to fight in so-called 'bourgeois' circles, due, if nothing else, to their economic position which makes the individual fear to lose too much and thereby holds him in check.
And yet, on the whole, a philosophy can hope for victory only if the broad masses adhere to the new doctrine and declare their readiness to undertake the necessary struggle.
From this deficient understanding of the importance of the lower strata of the people arose a completely inadequate con-ception of the social question.
In all this Dr. Lueger was the opposite of Schonerer.
His thorough knowledge of men enabled him to judge the possible forces correctly, at the same time preserving him from underestimating existing institutions, and perhaps for this very reason taught him to make use of these institutions as instruments for the achievement of his purposes.
He understood only too well that the political fighting power of the upper bourgeoisie at the present time was but slight and inadequate for achieving the victory of a great movement. He therefore laid the greatest stress in his political activity on winning over the classes whose existence was threatened and therefore tended to spur rather than paralyze the will to fight. Likewise he was inclined to make use of all existing implements of power, to incline mighty existing institutions in his favor, drawing from these old sources of power the greatest possible profit for his own movement.
Thus he adjusted his new party primarily to the middle class menaced with destruction, and thereby assured himself of a following that was difficult to shake, whose spirit of sacrifice was as great as its fighting power. His policy toward the Catholic Church, fashioned with infinite shrewdness, in a short time won over the younger clergy to such an extent that the old Clerical Party was forced either to abandon the field, or, more wisely, to join the new party, in order slowly to recover position after position.
To take this alone as the characteristic essence of the man would be to do him a grave injustice. For in addition to being an astute tactician, he had the qualities of a truly great and brilliant reformer: though here, too, he observed the limits set by a precise knowledge of the existing possibilities as well as his own personal abilities.
It was an infinitely practical goal that this truly significant man had set himself. He wanted to conquer Vienna. Vienna was the heart of the monarchy; from this city the last flush of life flowed out into the sickly, old body of the crumbling empire. The healthier the heart became, the more the rest of the body was bound to revive: an idea, correct in principle, but which could be applied only for a certain limited time.
And herein lay this man's weakness.
What he had done as mayor of Vienna is immortal in the best sense of the word; but he could no longer save the monarchy, it was too late.
His opponent, Schonerer, had seen this more clearly
All Dr. Lueger's practical efforts were amazingly successfulthe hopes he based on them were not realized.
Schonerer's efforts were not successful, but his most terrible fears came true.
Thus neither man realized his ultimate goal. Lueger could no longer save Austria, and Schonerer could no longer save the German people from ruin.
It is infinitely instructive for our present day to study the causes for the failure of both parties. This is particularly useful for my friends, since in many points conditions today are similar to then and errors can thereby be avoided which at that time caused the end of the one movement and the sterility of the other.
To my mind, there were three causes for the collapse of the Pan-German movement in Austria.
In the first place, its unclear conception of the significance of the social problem, especially for a new and essentially revolutionary party.
Since Schonerer and his followers addressed themselves principally to bourgeois circles, the result was bound to be very feeble and tame.
Though some people fail to suspect it, the German bourgeoisie, especially in its upper circles, is pacifistic to the point of positive self-abnegation, where internal affairs of the nation or state are concerned. In good times that is, in this case, in times of good government such an attitude makes these classes extremely valuable to the state; but in times of an inferior regime it is positively ruinous. To make possible the waging of any really serious struggle, the Pan-German movement should above all have dedicated itself to winning the masses. That it failed to do so deprived it in advance of the elemental impetus which a wave of its kind simply must have if it is not in a short time to ebb away.
Unless this principle is borne in mind and carried out from the very start, the new party loses all possibility of later making up for what has been lost. For, by the admission of numerous moderate bourgeois elements, the basic attitude of the movement will always be governed by them and thus lose any further prospect of winning appreciable forces from the broad masses. As a result, such a movement will not rise above mere grumbling and criticizing. The faith bordering more or less on religion, combined with a similar spirit of sacrifice, will cease to exist; in its place will arise an effort gradually to grind off the edges of struggle by means of 'positive' collaboration; that is, in this case, by acceptance of the existing order, thus ultimately leading to a putrid peace.
And this is what happened to the Pan-German movement because it had not from the outset laid its chief stress on winning supporters from the circles of the great masses. It achieved 'bourgeois respectability and a muffled radicalism.'
From this error arose the second cause of its rapid decline.
At the time of the emergence of the Pan-German movement the situation of the Germans in Austria was already desperate. From year to year the parliament had increasingly become an institution for the slow destruction of the German people. Any attempt at salvation in the eleventh hour could offer even the slightest hope of success only if this institution were eliminated.
Thus the movement was faced with a question of basic importance:
Should its members, to destroy parliament, go into parliament, in order, as people used to say, 'to bore from within,' or should they carry on the struggle from outside by an attack on this institution as such?
They went in and they came out defeated.
To be sure, they couldn't help but go in.
To carry on the struggle against such a power from outside means to arm with unflinching courage and to be prepared for endless sacrifices. You seize the bull by the horns, you suffer many heavy blows, you are sometimes thrown to the earth, sometimes you get up with broken limbs, and only after the hardest contest does victory reward the bold assailant. Only the greatness of the sacrifices will win new fighters for the cause, until at last tenacity is rewarded by success.
But for this the sons of the broad masses are required.
They alone are determined and tough enough to carry through the fight to its bloody end.
And the Pan-German movement did not possess these broad masses; thus no course remained open but to go into parliament
It would be a mistake to believe that this decision was the result of long soul torments, or even meditations; no, no other idea entered their heads. Participation in this absurdity was only the
sediment resulting from general, unclear conceptions regarding the significance and effect of such a participation in an institution which had in principle been recognized as false. In general, the
party hoped that this would facilitate the enlightenment of the broad masses, since it would now have an opportunity to speak before the 'forum of the whole nation.' Besides, it seemed plausible that attacking the root of the evil was bound to be more successful than storming it from outside. They thought the security of the individual fighter was increased by the protection of parliamentary immunity, and that this could only enhance the force of the attack.
In reality, it must be said, things turned out very differently.
The forum before which the Pan-German deputies spoke had not become greater but smaller; for each man speaks only to the circle which can hear him, or which obtains an account of his words in the newspapers.
And, not the halls of parliament, but the great public meeting, represents the largest direct forum of listeners.
For, in the latter, there are thousands of people who have come only to hear what the speaker has to say to them, while in the halls of parliament there are only a few hundreds, and most of these are present only to collect their attendance fees, and cer-tainly not to be illuminated by the wisdom of this or that fellow 'representative of the people.'
And above all:
This is always the same public, which will never learn anything new, since, aside from the intelligence, it is lacking in the very rudiments of will.
Never will one of these representatives of the people honor a superior truth of his own accord, and place himself in its service.
No, this is something that not a single one of them will do unless he has reason to hope that by such a shift he may save his mandate for one more session. Only when it is in the air that the party in power will come off badly in a coming election, will these ornaments of virility shift to a party or tendency which they presume will come out better, though you may be confident that this change of position usually occurs amidst a cloudburst of moral justifications. Consequently, when an existing party appears to be falling beneath the disfavor of the people to such an extent that the probability of an annihilating defeat threatens, such a great shift will always begin: then the parliamentary rats leave the party ship.
All this has nothing to do with better knowledge or intentions, but only with that prophetic gift which warns these parliamentary bedbugs at the right moment and causes them to drop, again and again, into another warm party bed.
But to speak to such a 'forum' is really to cast pearls before the well-known domestic beasts. It is truly not worth while. The result can be nothing but zero.
And that is just what it was.
The Pan-German deputies could talk their throats hoarse: the effect was practically nil.
The press either killed them with silence or mutilated their speeches in such a way that any coherence, and often even the sense, was twisted or entirely lost, and public opinion received a very poor picture of the aims of the new movement. What the various gentlemen said was quite unimportant; the important thing was what people read about them. And this was an extract from their speeches, so disjointed that it could-as intended- only seem absurd. The only forum to which they really spoke consisted of five hundred parliamentarians, and that is enough said.
But the worst was the following:
The Pan-German movement could count on success only if it realized from the very first day that what was required was not a new party, but a new philosophy. Only the latter could produce the inward power to fight this gigantic struggle to its end. And for this, only the very best and courageous minds can serve as leaders.
If the struggle for a philosophy is not lead by heroes prepared to make sacrifices, there will, in a short time, cease to be any warriors willing to die. The man who is fighting for his own existence cannot have much left over for the community.
In order to maintain this requirement, every man must know that the new movement can offer the present nothing but honor and fame in posterity. The more easily attainable posts and offices a movement has to hand out, the more inferior stuff it will attract, and in the end these political hangers-on overwhelm a successful party in such number that the honest fighter of former days no longer recognizes the old movement and the new arrivals definitely reject him as an unwelcome intruder. When this happens, the 'mission' of such a movement is done for.
As soon as the Pan-German movement sold its soul to parlia-ment, it attracted 'parliamentarians' instead of leaders and fighters.
Thus it sank to the level of the ordinary political parties of the day and lost the strength to oppose a catastrophic destiny with the defiance of martyrdom. Instead of fighting, it now learned to
make speeches and 'negotiate.' And in a short time the new parliamentarian found it a more attractive, because less dangerous, duty to fight for the new philosophy with the 'spiritual' weapons of parliamentary eloquence, than to risk his own life, if necessary, by throwing himself into a struggle whose issue was uncertain and which in any case could bring him no profit.
Once they had members in parliament, the supporters outside began to hope and wait for miracles which, of course, did not occur and could not occur. For this reason they soon became impatient, for even what they heard from their own deputies was by no means up to the expectations of the voters. This was perfectly natural, since the hostile press took good care not to give the people any faithful picture of the work of the Pan-German deputies.
The more the new representatives of the people developed a taste for the somewhat gentler variety of 'revolutionary' struggle in parliament and the provincial diets, the less prepared they were to return to the more dangerous work of enlightening the broad masses of the people. The mass meeting, the only way to exert a truly effective, because personal, influence on large sections of the people and thus possibly to win them, was thrust more and more into the background.
Once the platform of parliament was definitely substituted for the beer table of the meeting hall, and from this forum speeches were poured, not into the people, but on the heads of their so called 'elect,' the Pan-German movement ceased to be a movement of the people and in a short time dwindled into an academic discussion club to be taken more or less seriously.
Consequently, the bad impression transmitted by the press was in no way corrected by personal agitation at meetings by the individual gentlemen, with the result that finally the word 'PanGerman' began to have a very bad sound in the ears of the broad masses.
For let it be said to all our present-day fops and knights of the pen: the greatest revolutions in this world have never been directed by a goose-quill!
No, to the pen it has always been reserved to provide their theoretical foundations.
But the power which has always started the greatest religious and political avalanches in history rolling has from time immemorial been the magic power of the spoken word, and that alone.
Particularly the broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech. And all great movements are popular movements, volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotional sentiments, stirred either by the cruel Goddess of Distress or by the firebrand of the word hurled among the masses; they are not the lemonade-like outpourings of literary aesthetes and drawingroom heroes.
Only a storm of hot passion can turn the destinies of peoples, and he alone can arouse passion who bears it within himself.
It alone gives its chosen one the words which like hammer blows can open the gates to the heart of a people.
But the man whom passion fails and whose lips are sealed- he has not been chosen by Heaven to proclaim its will.
Therefore, let the writer remain by his ink-well, engaging in 'theoretical' activity, if his intelligence and ability are equal to it; for leadership he is neither born nor chosen.
A movement with great aims must therefore be anxiously on its guard not to lose contact with the broad masses.
It must examine every question primarily from this standpoint and make its decisions accordingly.
It must, furthermore, avoid everything which might diminish or even weaken its ability to move the masses, not for 'demagogic' reasons, but in the simple knowledge that without the mighty force of the mass of a people, no great idea, however lofty and noble it may seem, can be realized.
Hard reality alone must determine the road to the goal; unwillingness to travel unpleasant roads only too often in this world means to renounce the goal; which may or may not be what you want.
As soon as the Pan-German movement by its parliamentary attitude had shifted the weight of its activity to parliament instead of the people, it lost the future and instead won cheap successes of the moment.
It chose the easier struggle and thereby became unworthy of ultimate victory.
Even in Vienna I pondered this very question with the greatest care, and in the failure to recognize it saw one of the main causes of the collapse of the movement which in those days, in my opinion, was predestined to undertake the leadership of the German element.
The first two mistakes which caused the Pan-German movement to founder were related to each other. Insufficient knowledge of the inner driving forces of great revolutions led to an insufficient estimation of the importance of the broad masses of the people; from this resulted its insufficient interest in the social question, its deficient and inadequate efforts to win the soul of the lower classes of the nation, as well as its over-favorable attitude toward parliament.
If they had recognized the tremendous power which at all times must be attributed to the masses as the repository of revolutionary resistance, they would have worked differently in social and propagandist matters. Then the movement's center of gravity would not have been shifted to parliament, but to the workshop and the street.
Likewise the third error finds its ultimate germ in failure to recognize the value of the masses, which, it is true, need superior minds to set them in motion in a given direction, but which then, like a flywheel, lend the force of the attack momentum and uniform persistence.
The hard struggle which the Pan-germans fought with the Catholic Church can be accounted for only by their insufficient understanding of the spiritual nature of the people.
The causes for the new party's violent attack on Rome were as follows:
As soon as the House of Habsburg had definitely made up its mind to reshape Austria into a Slavic state, it seized upon every means which seemed in any way suited to this tendency. Even religious institutions were, without the
slightest qualms, harnessed to the service of the new ' state idea ' by
this unscrupulous ruling house.
The use of Czech pastorates and their spiritual shepherds was but one of the many means of attaining this goal, a general Slavization of Austria.
The process took approximately the following form:
Czech pastors were appointed to German communities; slowly but surely they began to set the interests of the Czech people above the interests of the churches, becoming germ-cells of the de-Germanization process.
The German clergy did practically nothing to counter these methods. Not only were they completely useless for carrying on this struggle in a positive German sense; they were even unable to oppose the necessary resistance to the attacks of the adversary. Indirectly, by the misuse of religion on the one hand, and owing to insufficient defense on the other, Germanism was slowly but steadily forced back.
If in small matters the situation was as described, in big things, unfortunately, it was not far different.
Here, too, the anti-German efforts of the Habsburgs did not encounter the resistance they should have, especially on the part of the high clergy, while the defense of German interests sank completely into the background.
The general impression could only be that the Catholic clergy as such was grossly infringing on German rights.
Thus the Church did not seem to feel with the German people, but to side unjustly with the enemy. The root of the whole evil lay, particularly in Schonerer's opinion, in the fact that the di-recting body of the Catholic Church was not in Germany, and that for this very reason alone it was hostile to the interests of our nationality.
The so-called cultural problems, in this as in virtually every other connection in Austria at that time, were relegated almost entirely to the background. The attitude of the Pan-German movement toward the Catholic Church was determined far less by its position on science, etc., than by its inadequacy in the championing of German rights and, conversely, its continued aid and comfort to Slavic arrogance and greed.
Georg Schonerer was not the man to do things by halves. He took up the struggle toward the Church in the conviction that by it alone he could save the German people. The 'AwayfromRome' movement seemed the most powerful, though, to be sure, the most difficult, mode of attack, which would inevitably shatter the hostile citadel. If it was successful, the tragic church schism in Germany would be healed, and it was possible that the inner strength of the Empire and the German nation would gain enormously by such a victory.
But neither the premise nor the inference of this struggle was correct.
Without doubt the national force of resistance of the Catholic clergy of German nationality, in all questions connected with Germanism, was less than that of their non-German, particularly Czech, brethren.
Likewise only an ignoramus could fail to see that an offensive in favor of German interests was something that practically never occurred to the German clergyman.
And anyone who was not blind was forced equally to admit that this was due primarily to a circumstance under which all of us Germans have to suffer severely: that is, the objectivity of our attitude toward our nationality as well as everything else.
While the Czech clergyman was subjective in his attitude toward his people and objective only toward the Church, the German pastor was subjectively devoted to the Church and remained objective toward the nation. A phenomenon which, to our misfortune, we can observe equally well in thousands of other cases.
This is by no means a special legacy of Catholicism, but with us it quickly corrodes almost every institution, whether it be governmental or ideal.
Just compare the position which our civil servants, for example, take toward the attempts at a national awakening with the position which in such a case the civil servants of another people would take. Or does anyone believe that an officers' corps anywhere else in the world would subordinate the interests of the nation amid mouthings about 'state authority,' in the way that has been taken for granted in our country for the last five years, in fact, has been viewed as especially meritorious? In the Jewish question, for example, do not both denominations today take a standpoint which corresponds neither to the requirements of the nation nor to the real needs of religion? Compare the attitude of a Jewish rabbi in all questions of even the slightest importance for the Jews as a race with the attitude of by far the greatest part of our clergy-of both denominations, if you please!
We always find this phenomenon when it is a question of defending an abstract idea as such.
'State authority,' 'democracy,' 'pacifism,' 'international solidarity,' etc., are all concepts which with us nearly always become so rigid and purely doctrinaire that subsequently all purely national vital necessities are judged exclusively from their standpoint.
This catastrophic way of considering all matters from the angle of a preconceived opinion kills every possibility of thinking oneself subjectively into a matter which is objectively opposed to one's own doctrine, and finally leads to a total reversal of means and ends. People will reject any attempt at a national uprising if it can take place only after the elimination of a bad, ruinous regime, since this would be an offense against 'state authority,' and ' state authority ' is not a means to an end, but in the eyes of such a fanatical objectivist rather represents the aim itself, which is sufficient to fill out his whole lamentable life. Thus, for example, they would indignantly oppose any attempt at a dictatorship, even if it was represented by a Frederick the Great and the momentary political comedians of a parliamentary majority were incapable dwarfs or really inferior characters, just because the law
of democracy seems holier to such a principle-monger than the welfare of a nation. The one will therefore defend the worst tyranny, a tyranny which is ruining the people, since at the moment it embodies 'state authority,' while the other rejects even the most beneficial government as soon as it fails to satisfy his conception of 'democracy.'
In exactly the same way, our German pacifist will accept in silence the bloodiest rape of our nation at-the hands of the most vicious military powers if a change in this state of affairs can be achieved only by resistance-that is, force-for this would be contrary to the spirit of his peace society. Let the international German Socialist be plundered in solidarity by the rest of the world, he will accept it with brotherly affection and no thought of retribution or even defense, just because he is-a German.
This may be a sad state of affairs, but to change a thing means to recognize it first.
The same is true of the weak defense of German interests by a part of the clergy.
It is neither malicious ill will in itself, nor is it caused, let us say, by commands from 'above'; no, in such a lack of national determination we see merely the result of an inadequate education in Germanism from childhood up and, on the other hand, an unlimited submission to an idea which has become an idol.
Education in democracy, in socialism of the international variety, in pacifism, etc., is a thing so rigid and exclusive, so purely subjective from these points of view, that the general picture of the remaining world is colored by this dogmatic conception, while the attitude toward Germanism has remained exceedingly objective from early youth. Thus, the pacifist, by giving himself subjectively and entirely to his idea, will, in the presence of any menace to his people, be it ever so grave and unjust, always (in so far as he is a German) seek after the objective right and never from pure instinct of self-preservation join the ranks of his herd and fight with them.
To what extent this is also true of the different religions is shown by the following:
Protestantism as such is a better defender of the interests of Germanism, in so far as this is grounded in its genesis and later tradition: it fails, however, in the moment when this defense of national interests must take place in a province which is either absent from the general line of its ideological world and traditional development, or is for some reason rejected.
Thus, Protestantism will always stand up for the advancement of all Germanism as such, as long as matters of inner purity or national deepening as well as German freedom are involved since all these things have a firm foundation in its own being; but it combats with the greatest hostility any attempt to rescue the nation from the embrace of its most mortal enemy, since its attitude toward the Jews just happens to be more or less dogmatically established. Yet here we are facing the question without whose solution all other attempts at a German reawakening or resurrection are and remain absolutely senseless and impossible.
