The Land of Deepening Shadow: Germany-at-WarCurtin, D. Thomas (Daniel Thomas)
History
The Land of Deepening Shadow: Germany-at-War
Curtin, D. Thomas (Daniel Thomas)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Years before the war the Government corralled him for its own. It
gave him social status, in return for which he would do his part to
make the citizen an unquestioning, faithful and obedient servant of
the State. As soon as he enters on his duties he becomes a civil
servant, since the universities are State institutions. He takes
an oath in which it is stipulated that he will not write or preach
or do anything questioning the ways of the State. His only way to
make progress in life, then, is to serve the State, to preach what
it wishes preached, to teach history as it wishes history taught.
The history of Prussia is the history of the House of Hohenzollern,
and the members of the House, generation after generation, must all
be portrayed a& heroes. There was a striking illustration of this
in 1913 when the Kaiser had Hauptmann's historical play suppressed
because it represented Frederick William III. in true light, as
putty in the hands of Napoleon.
There is a small group of German professors interested solely in
scientific research, such as Professor Roentgen and the late
Professor Ehrlich, which we exclude from the "puppet professors."
Such men succeed through sheer ability and their results are their
diplomas before the world. Neither shoulder-knots nor medals
pinned in rows across their breasts would contribute one iota to
their success, nor make that success the more glittering once it is
achieved.
One of these, a Bavarian of the old school, a thoughtful, liberal
man who had travelled widely, told me that he deplored the depths
of mental slavery to which the mass of the German professors had
sunk. "They are living on the reputation made by us scientists,"
he declared. "They write volumes and they go about preaching
through the land, but they contribute nothing, absolutely nothing,
to the uplifting of humanity and of the country." He told me of
how Government spies before the war and during it watch professors
who are suspected of having independent ways of thought, and for
the slightest "offence" such as being in the audience of a Social
Democratic lecture (this before the war, of course; such meetings
are forbidden now) they are put on the official black-list and
promotion is closed to them for ever.
In warring Germany I found professors vying with one another to sow
hatred among the people, to show that Germany is always right, and
that she is fighting a war of defence, which she tried to avoid by
every means in her power, and that any methods employed to crush
Great Britain, the real instigator of the attack on Germany, are
good methods.
With the pastors, they spread the idea that "Germany is the rock
selected by Almighty God upon which to build His Empire." J. P.
Bang, the able Danish Professor of Theology at the University of
Copenhagen, writes clearly on this point. He says, when describing
Emanuel Geibel:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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