The Pittsburgh Press (April 4, 1943)
United Press man forecast another war 24 years ago
Three months after armistice, Germans were unchastened and claimed that no military defeat had been suffered
By Frank J. Taylor
Are the German people, or just their Nazi rulers, chiefly to blame for the war and the wanton cruelty with which it has been waged?
This has been a frequent subject of discussion. Various polls have shown that there is an inclination among many people to feel that there is a wide difference between the Germans and their present rulers – that the German people as such should not be treated as severely as the Nazi leaders.
Interesting light on this subject is furnished by a story which we have just dug out of old files – a dispatch written by Frank J. Taylor of the United Press in February 1919 – ONLY THREE MONTHS after the World War I armistice.
The story was printed under a headline reading:
UNBEATEN HUNS STILL TALKING OF ANOTHER WAR.
Amidst all the discussion of post-war aims and conditions it is interesting to read this story printed 24 years ago. It follows:
Berlin, Germany – (Feb. 26, 1919, by mail)
Three months’ careful study of Germany, following the signing of the armistice, forces the conviction that neither war from without nor revolution from within has worked any psychological metamorphosis of Germany as a nation, or of Germans as individuals. Neither the strength nor the weakness of the German people evidences any transformation. The minds which accept and apply the terms of peace will differ but little from those which steered the successful course of the German Empire up to August 1914.
The revolution has changed the form of government. It has not changed the governed. The war has brought to Germany defeat, disaster and destitution. It has not brought despair nor humiliation. A half-dozen speakers at the National Assembly in Weimar voiced the general feeling of the people when they said, in effect:
Won’t admit defeat
We have not been defeated militarily. Hunger and the revolution forced us to quit. We accepted President Wilson’s 14 points and demobilized voluntarily, according to the provisions of the armistice.
The Foreign Office’s policies and the attitude of its individual secretaries are unchanged; its personnel are practically the same as before the revolution, though the officials will profess to be democrats. Now they claim they oppose the war, especially employment of “frightfulness.”
Count Bernstorff is considered by many well-informed Germans to be the man who is really running the Foreign Office, with his cousin, Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, chief in name only. The Germans feel that Brockdorff-Rantzau’s speech outlining the nation’s foreign policy marked the new era in diplomacy because he stated frankly what the Germans consider modest. This included retention of the German colonies, a plebiscite for Alsace-Lorraine, repatriation of German war prisoners and reparation for damages only.
Censorship continues
Ostensibly, the censorship was removed with establishment of the present government. Yet priority of news dissemination is still preserved as an exclusive and monopolistic privilege of the Wolff Bureau, which was the semi-official propaganda agency under the old regime. Foreign newspaper correspondents’ dispatches are held up six hours after the same information is obtained by Wolff. This guarantees to that organization the opportunity of giving the world its first, and therefore its strongest, impression of any internal German situation.
No German making the first pretense at frankness will attempt to create the impression that the disastrous results of 1914-1918 have created any deep-seated aversion to militarism among the German people. Men and women, both in and out of government circles, talk very casually of another war of revenge against France if Alsace-Lorraine is taken from Germany. They refer to this possibility as though it is to be accepted by everyone as a logical matter of fact.
Bismarckism defended
Imperialistic, even monarchistic, utterances during the National Assembly meetings have stirred up no opposition from the delegates, except the radicals. For instance, Count Posadowsky, conservative leader, defended Bismarckism. He advocated reestablishing the old regime, which he called the most benevolent and advanced government in the world. The delegates, save a few radicals, listened blandly while Posadowsky declared that a monarchy is the best form of government.
In addition to the Wolff Bureau’s influence on foreign propaganda, there is now a new government department which is daily furnishing the people with inspired opinion through the press. The theme of this propaganda is:
There has been no revolution in Germany – just a new form of government.
With the exception of government organs, the press refuses to take the National Assembly very seriously.
Real revolution expected
A number of younger employees who joined the government through idealistic motives are switching to the radicals, believing that a real revolution is coming when the industrial workers and soldiers’ councils decide that their expectations are not to be fulfilled. These elements are thoroughly organized and refuse to relinquish an iota of their power, though a representative republic has been established, because they apparently mistrust the motives of the coalition leaders.
The situation in Germany, without doubt, is critical as regards food, industry and finance, but this does not seem to have effected any radical change in the psychology of the general public. Public opinion throughout the country does not fix the guilt for the war upon Germany, nor upon the ousted ruling class. It does not acknowledge German military defeat. Germans believe they are in their present position because – as their propaganda tells them – their idealism led them to lay down their arms and trust Wilson.