Hence there is no need to stress that a change of the present army organisation, wholly apart from the present internal political situation as well as for reasons of foreign policy, cannot materialise as long as purely German interests and German viewpoints alone speak for such a change.
It lay in the nature of the World War and in the intention of Germany’s main enemies, to carry out the liquidation of this greatest battle action of the Earth in such a way that as many States as possible would be interested in its perpetuation. This was achieved through a system of distribution of territories, in which even States with otherwise divergent desires and aims were held together in a solid antagonism by the fear that they could in that case suffer losses through a Germany once more become strong.
For, if ten years after the World War it is still possible, against all the experience of world history, to maintain a kind of coalition of the victor States, the reason lies only in the fact, glorious for Germany, of the recollection of that struggle in which our Fatherland had stood up to twenty six States all together.
Thus it will also last as long as the fear of suffering losses through a resurrected German power Reich is greater than the difficulties between these States. And it is further obvious that it will last as long as no will exists anywhere to allow the German Folk a rearmament which can be viewed as a threat by these victor States. On the basis of the knowledge that, first, a real representation of German vital interests in the future cannot take place through an inadequate German Defence Force but rather only through a German National Army, that, second, the formation of a German National Army is impossible for as long as the present foreign policy strangulation of Germany does not slacken, third, that a change of foreign policy obstacles to the organisation of a National Army appears possible only if such a new formation is not in general felt as a threat, the following fact emerges with respect to a German foreign policy possible at this time: Under no circumstances must presentday Germany see her foreign policy in terms of a formal border policy.
Once the principle of the restoration of the borders of the year 1914 is laid down as the set goal of foreign policy, Germany will face a closed phalanx of her former enemies. Then any possibility is excluded of setting up another Army which serves our interests more, as against the one whose definite form was determined by the peace treaty. Hence the foreign policy slogan of restoration of the borders has become a mere phrase, because it can never be realised for the lack of the necessary strength for this.
It is characteristic that precisely the so called German bourgeoisie, again headed by the patriotic leagues, has made its way to this most stupid foreign policy aim. They know that Germany is powerless. They know further that, wholly apart from our internal decline, military means would be required for the restoration of our borders, and they know further that we do not possess these means as a result of the peace treaty, and also that we cannot acquire them in consequence of the solid front of our enemies. But nevertheless they proclaim a foreign policy slogan which precisely because of its essential character forever removes the possibility of achieving those means of power which would be necessary in order to carry out the slogan.
This is what is called bourgeois statesmanship, and in its fruits that we see before us it exhibits the incomparable spirit that dominates it.
The Prussia of that time required only seven years, from 1806 to 1813, for her resurgence. In the same time bourgeois statesmanship, in union with Marxism, has led Germany up to Locarno. Which is a great success in the eyes of the present bourgeois Bismarck, Herr Stresemann, because it offers the possible, which even the above mentioned Herr Stresemann could achieve. And politics is the art of the possible. If Bismarck had ever imagined that fate would have damned him to endorse with this utterance the statesmanlike qualities of Herr Stresemann, he would have surely omitted the utterance, or in a very small note he would have denied Herr Stresemann the right to refer to it.
Thus the slogan of the restoration of the German borders as an aim for the future is doubly stupid and dangerous, because, in reality, it in no way encompasses any useful aim worth striving for.
The German borders of the year 1914 were borders which presented something incomplete in exactly the same way as the borders of all nations are at all times incomplete. The territorial distribution of the world at any time is the momentary result of a struggle and a development which by no means is concluded, but one which clearly continues further. It is stupid to take the border of any sample year in a nation’s history, and, offhand, to represent it as a political aim. We can, of course, present the border of the year 1648, or that of 1312, and so on, just as well as the border of the year 1914. This all the more so as indeed the border of the year 1914 was not satisfactory in a national, military or geopolitical sense. It was only the momentary situation in our Folk’s struggle for existence which has been going on for centuries. And even if the World War had not occurred, this struggle would not have had its end in 1914.
If the German Folk had in fact achieved the restoration of the borders of the year 1914, the sacrifices of the World War would have been no less in vain. But also, there would not be the slightest gain for our Folk’s future in such a restoration. This purely formal border policy of our national bourgeoisie is just as unsatisfactory in its possible end result as it is intolerably dangerous. Indeed it need not even be covered by the dictum of the art of the possible, for this is, above all, only a theoretical phrase, which nevertheless seems suitable to destroy every practical possibility.
As a matter of fact, such a foreign policy aim also cannot stand up to a real critical examination. Hence attempts are made to motivate it less on logical grounds than on grounds of national honour.
National honour requires that we restore the borders of the year 1914. This is the tenor of the discussions at the beer evenings which the representatives of national honour hold on all sides.
First of all, national honour has nothing to do with the obligation to conduct a stupid and impossible foreign policy. For the result of a bad foreign policy can be the loss of a Folk’s freedom, whose consequence is slavery, and which certainly cannot be viewed as a condition of national honour. To be sure a certain degree of national dignity and honour can still be preserved under oppression, but then this is not a question of shouting or national phrases, and so on, but, on the contrary, the expression which is to be found in the decorum with which a Folk bears its fate.
Let there be no talk in presentday Germany, above all, of national honour, let no one try to make himself conspicuous, as though one could preserve the national honour outwardly by any kind of rhetorical barking. No, this cannot be done, and for the reason that it is no longer there. And by no means is it no longer there because we lost the War, or because the French occupied Alsace-Lorraine, or the Poles stole Upper Silesia, or the Italians took the Southern Tyrol. No, the national honour is no longer there because the German Folk, in the most difficult time of its struggle for existence, exposed to the light of day a lack of character, an unabashed servility, a dog like crawling fawning that can only be called shameless. For the reason that we subjected ourselves miserably without being forced to do so, indeed because the leaders of this Folk, against eternal historical truth and our own knowledge, themselves assumed the war guilt, and indeed burdened our whole Folk with it, because there was no oppression by the enemy which would have not found thousands of creatures as willing helpers among our Folk. Because, conversely, there were those who shamelessly reviled the time of the great deeds of our Folk, spat upon the most glorious flag of all times, indeed defiled it with dirt, tore the cockades from home coming soldiers before whom the world had trembled, pelted the flag with mud balls, ripped off ribbons and badges of honour, and degraded a thousandfold even the memory of Germany’s greatest period. No enemy had so reviled the German Army as it was defiled by the representatives of the November crime. No enemy had disputed the greatness of the Commanders of the German Army as much as they were calumniated by the scoundrelly representatives of the new idea of government. And which was more certain dishonour for our Folk: the occupation of German areas by the enemy, or the cowardice with which our bourgeoisie surrendered the German Reich to an organisation of pimps, pickpockets, deserters, black marketeers and hack journalists? Let not the gentlemen prattle now about German honour, as long as they bow under the rule of dishonour. They have no right to want to conduct a foreign policy in the name of national honour, if the domestic policy is one characterised by the most antinationalist shamelessness which has ever afflicted a great nation.