Deutsche Zeitschrift in 1901, Kurt von Strautz declared that "It is impossible that outposts of Germanism like the Netherlands, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria remain permanently outside the boundaries of Germany."
At the same time another German asserted that Germany would do well to secure possession of the Dutch colonies so as to acquire naval bases and additional overseas trade routes, while another suggested that the Dutch colonies were threatened by England, the United States and Japan, and therefore must be "protected" by Germany!
Though the League did manage to succeed in stirring up a great deal of mischief and agitation in Holland, Germanism was unable to achieve any marked success in that land so noted for its great intellectual freedom, a freedom which did not exist even among the highest class of Germans who, at the time, were labeling the Dutch, "Low Germans."26
The Dutch wished to remain Dutch. They felt too strong and independent in their own freedom to need or desire the gangster-like protection of the brutish, uncivilized German.
—71—
