New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 1, No. 1: From the Beginning to March, 1915, With IndexVarious
History
New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 1, No. 1: From the Beginning to March, 1915, With Index
Various
World War, 1914-1918
In this direction much had already been done before the war began. The
dfferent nations had already met in peaceful emulation and were to meet
again at Berlin for the Olympian games. It is only necessary to recall
the aeronautic races, the boat races, the horse races, and the
beneficial international influence of the arts and sciences, and the
great super-national Nobel Prizes. The barbarian Germany has, as is well
known, led the way among the other nations with her great institutions
for social reform. A victory would oblige us to go forward on this path
and to make the blessings of such institutions general. Our victory
would, furthermore, secure the future existence of the Teutonic race for
the welfare of the world. During the last decade, for example, how
fruitful has the Scandinavian literature been for the German, and vice
versa, the German for the Scandinavian. How many Swedes, Norwegians, and
Danes have lately, without feeling conscious of a drop of foreign blood,
shaken hands with German brothers in Stockholm, Christiania, Copenhagen,
Munich, Vienna, and Berlin. How much homely good-fellowship has grown up
around the noble names of Ibsen, Björnsen, and Strindberg.
*Faust and Rifles.*
I hear that abroad an enormous number of lying tales are being
fabricated to the detriment of our honor, our culture, and our strength.
Well, those who create these idle tales should reflect that the
momentous hour is not favorable for fiction. On three frontiers our own
blood bears witness. I myself have sent out two of my sons. All our
intrepid German soldiers know why they are going to war. There are no
analphabets to be found among them; all the more, however, of those who,
besides their rifle, have their Goethe's "Faust," their "Zarathustra," a
work of Schopenhauer's, the Bible, or their Homer in their knapsacks.
And even those who have no book in the knapsack know that they are
fighting for a hearth at which every guest is welcome.
On the frontier stands our blood testimony; the Socialist side by side
with the bourgeois, the peasant beside the man of learning, the Prince
beside the workman; and they all fight for German freedom, for German
domestic life, for German art, German science, German progress; they
fight with the full, clear consciousness of a noble and rich national
possession, for internal and external goods, all of which serve for the
general progress and development of mankind.
*To Americans From a German Friend*
*By Ludwig Fulda.*
_Like most of the champions of Germany in the literary field,
Ludwig Fulda is a Doctor of Philosophy. He is also author of many
famous poetical and prose works of fiction._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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