The Revolution
had actually become “indispensable.” The spider was slowly beginning to suck the blood through the people’s pores. In the war corporations an instrument had been found with which gradually to sweep away the national, free economy.
The necessity of unrestricted centralization was emphasized. And in fact by 1916–1917 almost all production was under the control of financial Jewry.
But at whom did the people now direct its hatred?
At that time I was horrified to see a doom approaching which, if not averted in time, was bound to lead to a collapse.
While the Jew was plundering the whole nation and thrusting it under his domination, people were agitating against the “Prussians.” As at the front, so at home nothing was done from above against this poisonous propaganda. Nobody seemed to dream that the collapse of Prussia was far from meaning a boom in Bavaria, and that on the contrary the fall of the one must inevitably drag the other with it into the abyss.
This behavior caused me infinite pain. In it I could see nothing but the Jew’s most inspired trick to distract general attention from himself to others. While Bavarians and Prussians were quarreling, he sneaked the livelihood from under the nose of both; while the Bavarians were damning the Prussians, the Jew organized the Revolution, and shattered Prussia and Bavaria together.
I could not stand this accursed feud among the German clans, and was glad to get back to the front, to which I asked to be transferred immediately after my arrival in Munich. And by the beginning of March, 1917, I was back with my regiment again.
Toward the end of 1917 the deepest point of the army’s depression semed to be past. After the Russian collapse, the whole army took fresh hope and fresh courage. The conviction that the struggle would yet end with a German victory began to grow on the troops more and more. Singing was to be heard again, and croakers were fewer. People believed again in the future of the Fatherland.
193
