mans incurred the responsibility for everything that exists today—the sickliness and stupidity that opposes culture, the neurosis called Nationalism, from which Europe suffers . . . the Germans have robbed Europe itself of meaning and intelligence and have led it into a blind ally . . . In the history of knowledge Germans are represented only by doubtful names, they have produced only "unconscious swindlers." "German intellect" is bad air, a psychological uncleanliness that has now become instinctive—an uncleanliness which in every word and gesture betrays the German. And if a man is not clean how can he be deep? You can never fathom their (the German) depths, they have none; and that ends it . . . The German soul is small and base."
There is nothing to add to these words. The myth of German intellect and culture explodes under the hand of their outstanding product. German-proclaimed culture is not worth its, or any, cost.
However, is there yet some fine point about the Germans that we do not understand? Over a generation ago, the late American historian,
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