Causes of the Collapse
pecially because it came at a time when the nation, threatened with a probably critical hour, needed the noblest of heroic spirit more desperately than ever. Germany had to make up its mind that some day it would need to support with the sword its attempts to assure its daily bread by way of “peaceful economic work.”
The rule of money unhappily was sanctioned in the quarter where it should have been most strongly resisted: His Majesty the Kaiser acted unfortunately in bringing the nobility, especially, under the influence of the new finance capitalism. It must be admitted in his defense that even Bismarck unluckily did not recognize the threatening danger in this direction. But it meant that the virtues of idealism had in practice taken second place to the value of money, for it was plain that once it set out on this path the warrior nobility must shortly take a position subordinate to the financial nobility. Financial operations are easier to carry through than battles. Nor was there any longer an attraction for the real hero or statesman in being thrown together with the first stray Jewish banker: the really deserving man could no longer have any interest in the bestowal of cheap decorations, but declined them with thanks. Even as a pure matter of blood this development was a most melancholy one: more and more the nobility lost the racial sine qua non of its existence, and for a great part of it the name “ignobility” would have been far more suitable.
A grave sign of economic decay was the slow disappearance of the personal form of property, and gradual transfer of the entire economic system into the hands of corporations.
Thus at last work had become an object of speculation for conscienceless stock-jobbers; and the expropriation of property from the wage-earner grew out of all bounds. The stock exchange began to triumph, and slowly but surely started to take the life of the nation under its protection and control.
The internationalization of the German economic structure had been started before the war by way of stock issues. A part of German industry did indeed make a determined effort to save itself from this fate. But finally it fell before the united onslaught of greedy finance capital, which fought this battle with the
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