The German Emperor as Shown in His Public UtterancesWilliam II, German Emperor
History
The German Emperor as Shown in His Public Utterances
William II, German Emperor
Germany -- History -- William II, 1888-1918 -- Sources; Germany -- Politics And Government -- 1871-1918
WE GERMANS FEAR GOD, NOTHING ELSE
HAMBURG, JUNE 23, 1914
The following speech is, we believe, the last one delivered by the
Emperor before the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (June
28), which precipitated the war. True to his custom, the Emperor is
again at Hamburg at the regatta which usually marks the beginning
of his summer holiday. This year his yacht _Meteor_ was to win
the Hamburg prize. The banquet at which he ordinarily delivered
his address was to be held on board the _Victoria Luise_, and the
president of the association, Doctor Schröder, who made the address
preceding the Emperor's, alluded to the disaster to the Z-1 and
the destruction of that boat off Heligoland. He followed it with a
discussion of Germany's progress in naval and aerial development.
The Emperor answers with his usual compliments to Hamburg. His
naval policy and his policy of expansion had profited the seaport
towns particularly, and he was always a welcome guest. In the year
of his jubilee, 1913, the Hamburg-American Line had done him the
honor to name one of their boats the _Imperator_, and this year
they had launched the great thirty-thousand-ton _Bismarck_. If
his speech on this occasion shows nothing particularly new, one
thing at least is interesting from the change which he introduces
in Bismarck's famous statement. The Emperor himself has quoted it
previously (April 24, 1901): "We Germans fear God, nothing else in
the world." Here it seems to have in it a little more of defiance
and possibly of challenge: "We Germans fear God and absolutely
nobody and nothing else in the world."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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