There is a part of Germany that longs for freedom; but that is not the Prussian part. The soul of Germany is not entirely killed by her mortal sins of money and land-lust; and Raemaekers here paints the remorseful soul, crowned with the blurred cross. Germany turns her back to the sky; she prefers to look at the dark ground of her dungeon rather than to face that light. She is chained by her own will, and yet her inmost soul revolts. Let us not imagine that there are two Germanys. Before the war the Social Democrat was the official hater of the despotism of the Hohenzollerns. The war came, he ceased to be a Social Democrat when he became a Prussian. Before the war, the Centrum defended the rights of conscience against the Hegelian dogma of the absolute supremacy of the State. The Kaiser rushed from Norway, war was declared, and the recalcitrant Centrum,—the creature of the indomitable Windhorst, whom even Bismarck could not terrify,—becomes subservient! The Emperor does not say, "The State is I." He says.—"Germany over all, and the German God must rule." Germany has chained herself. For more than ten years, I have lived geographically in Germany,—for Denmark, though one of the freest nations of the world, is a few miles from Berlin,—and I have seen the Old Germany growing into the New, materialized Germany. Bismarck helped this process with blood and iron. The New Germany has a soul, but she has chained it to avarice and pride and power.
MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, American Minister to Denmark.
May 28, 1918.
