And thus, it becomes understandable that the same time-span,
which from 1806 to 1813 sufficed to imbue a totally collapsed
Prussia with new vital energy and determination for struggle, today
has not only elapsed unused, but, on the contrary, has led to an
ever-greater weakening of our state.
Seven years after November, 1918, the Treaty of Locarno was
signed.
The course of events was that indicated above: Once the disgraceful
armistice had been signed, neither the energy nor the courage could
be summoned suddenly to oppose resistance to our foes' repressive
measures, which subsequently were repeated over and over. Our
enemies were too shrewd to demand too much at once. They always
limit their extortions to the amount which, in their opinion - and
that of the German leadership - would at the moment be bearable
enough so that an explosion or popular feeling need not be feared.
But the more of these individual dictates had been signed, the less
justified it seemed, because of a single additional extortion or
exacted humiliation, to do the thing that had not been done because
of so many others: to offer resistance. For this is the 'drop of
poison' of which Clausewitz speaks: the spinelessness which once
begun must increase more and more and which gradually becomes the
foulest heritage, burdening every future decision. It can become a
terrible lead weight, a weight which a nation is not likely to
shake off, but which finally drags it down into the existence of a
slave race.
Thus, in Germany edicts of disarmament alternated with edicts of
enslavement, political emasculation with economic pillage, and
finally created that moral spirit which can regard the Dawes Plan
as a stroke of good fortune and the Treaty of Locarno as a success.
Viewing all this from a higher vantage-point, we can speak of one
single piece of good fortune in all this misery, which is that,
though men can be befuddled, the heavens cannot be bribed. For
their blessing remained absent: since then hardship and care have
been the constant companions of our people, and our one faithful
ally has been misery. Destiny made no exception in this case, but
gave us what we deserved. Since we no longer know how to value
honor, it teaches us at least to appreciate freedom in the matter
of bread. By now people have learned to cry out for bread, but one
of these days they will pray for freedom.
Bitter as was the collapse of our nation in the years after 1918,
and obvious at that very time, every man who dared prophesy even
then what later always materialized was violently and resolutely
persecuted. Wretched and bad as the leaders of our nation were,
they were equally arrogant, and especially when it came to ridding
themselves of undesired, because unpleasant, prophets. We were
treated to the spectacle (as we still are today!) of the greatest
parliamentary thick-heads, regular saddlers and glovemakers - and
not only by profession, which in itself means nothing - suddenly
setting themselves on the pedestal of statesmen, from which they
could lecture down at plain ordinary mortals. It had and has
nothing to do with the case that such a 'statesman' by the sixth
month of his activity is shown up as the most incompetent windbag,
the butt of everyone's ridicule and contempt, that he doesn't know
which way to turn and has provided unmistakable proof of his total
incapacity! No, that makes no difference, on the contrary: the more
lacking the parliamentary statesmen of this Republic are in real
accomplishment, the more furiously they persecute those who expect
accomplishments from them, who have the audacity to point out the
failure of their previous activity and predict the failure of their
future moves. But if once you finally pin down one of these
parliamentary honorables, and this political showman really cannot
deny the collapse of his whole activity and its results any longer,
they find thousands and thousands of grounds for excusing their
lack of success, and there is only one that they will not admit,
namely, that they themselves are the main cause of all evil.