The Forerunners (Romain Rolland)/XXIII

by Romain Rolland

 

 

XXIII

A CALL TO EUROPEANS

 

IN the downfall of imperial Germany, there stand out the great names of a few free spirits of Germany, the names of those who during the last four years have strenuously defended the rights of conscience and reason against the abuses of force. The name of G. F. Nicolai is one of the most illustrious among these. I devoted two articles^[1] to the study of his excellent work, The Biology of War, and have recorded the conditions under which it was written. This distinguished professor of physiology at the university of Berlin, a celebrated physician, appointed at the outbreak of the war as chief of one of the army medical departments, was cashiered because he had expressed his disapproval of the misdeeds committed by the statesmen and the high military commanders of Germany. Suffering humiliation after humiliation, degraded to the rank of private, sentenced to five months’ imprisonment by the Danzig court-martial, he at length fled from Germany in order to escape yet severer punishment. A few months ago we learned from the newspapers of his daring escape in an aeroplane. He has secured asylum in Denmark, and in that country he has just published the first number of a review, to whose historical and human interest I now wish to call attention.

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This periodical is entitled “Das werdende Europa,—Blätter für zukunftsfrohe Menschen,—neutral gegenüber den kriegführenden Ländern,—leidenschaftlich Partei ergreifend für das Recht gegen die Macht.” (The Coming Europe,—a review for men who look joyously towards the future,—neutral as regards the belligerent lands,—but taking sides passionately on behalf of right against might.)^[2]

Looking joyously towards the future! This is one of Nicolai’s most salient characteristics, and I have alluded to it at the close of my critique of his Biology of War. How many in his place would have been disheartened by all that he has seen, heard, and endured in the way of human malice; of cowardice, which is worse; and of folly, which is yet more intolerable—the folly that rules the world! But Nicolai is a man of extraordinary elasticity. “Nicht weinen!” as his little girl of two says to him when he is about to leave her and everything he loves. “Not cry!” Looking joyously towards the future. To uphold him in this joyance he has his wonderful vitality, the inviolable strength of his convictions, his triumphant assurance (meine triumphierende Sicherheit). He displays an apostolic zeal which we should hardly have expected in a scientific observer; but Nicolai, of a sudden, becomes from time to time a seer, an idealist, a prophet, like the religious heroes of old. With all his equipment of modern science, he is a strange instance of reincarnation. The Old Germany of Goethe, Herder, and Kant, speaks to us through his voice. To use his own words, he claims his rights as against the right of Ludendorff and other usurpers to adopt the political methods of the Tatars.

The aim of “Coming Europe” is, he tells us, to “awaken love for our new, our greater fatherland, Europe.… We wish that all the peoples of Europe shall become useful and happy members of this new organism.”—Now the future of Europe mainly depends upon the condition of Germany, a country which, by its brutal disregard of European principles, supports the old policy of armed isolation. The primary aim, therefore, must be the liberation of Germany.

The first issue of the magazine contains an inaugural article by Professor Kristoffer Nyrop, member of the Royal Academy of Denmark. It further includes interesting pages written by Dr. Alfred H. Fried, and by Carl Lindhagen, burgomaster of Stockholm. But the main contribution, filling three-fourths of the number, is a long article by Nicolai, entitled "Warum ich aus Deutschland ging. Offener Brief an denjenigen Unbekannten, der die Macht hat in Deutschland."^[3] These words are the confession of a great spirit, of one whom the oppressors have wished to enslave, but who has broken his chains.

Nicolai opens by explaining what has led him to an act which has cost him dear, the abandonment of his country in the hour of danger. In touching terms he expresses his love for the motherland (which he contrasts with Europe, his fatherland), his love for Germany and for all that he owes it. He tore himself away only because there was no other means of working for the liberation of his country. While he remained in Germany, he could do nothing; for years of tribulation had been the proof. Right was shackled. Germany was no longer a Rechtsstaat. Oppression was universal; and, still worse, it was anonymous. The power of the sword, irresponsible, was supreme. Parliament no longer existed. The press no longer existed. The chancellor, the emperor himself, were subject to the mysterious “Unknown who rules Germany.” Nicolai tells us that he had long waited for others better qualified than himself to speak. He had waited in vain. Fear, corruption, lack of determination, stifled all attempts at revolt. The soul of Germany was dumb.—Even he, Nicolai, would perhaps have held his peace to the end, constrained to silence by the sentiment of chivalrous loyalty which influences everyone in time of war, had he not been driven to extremities, had he not been brought to bay, by the unknown power. After everything had been taken from him, after he had been despoiled of his honours, of his official position, of the comforts and even the necessaries of life, those in authority wished to wrest from him the one thing that still remained, his right to obey, his convictions. This was too much, and he fled. “I was compelled to leave the German empire; I left, because I believe myself to be a good German.”

To enable us to understand his decision, he describes for us the four years of daily struggle which had been his lot in Germany before he made up his mind to leave.—Notwithstanding his views on the war, when it actually broke out he put himself at the disposal of the military authorities, but only as a civilian medical man (vertraglich verpflichteter Zivilarzt). He was appointed principal medical officer in the new Tempelhof hospital, a post which permitted him to continue his public lectures at the university of Berlin. But in October, 1914, in conjunction with Professor W. Foerster, Professor A. Einstein, and Dr. Buek, he issued a protest, couched in very strong terms, against the notorious manifesto of the 93. Punishment did not tarry. He was at once relieved of his post, and was appointed medical assistant at the isolation hospital in the little fortress of Graudenz. Being under no illusions as to the reasons for this arbitrary and absurd measure, he devoted his spare time to the preparation of his book, The Biology of War. Now came the sinking of the Lusitania, which was a terrible shock to Nicolai, affecting him as if he had been struck with a whip. At dinner with a few of his comrades, he declared that the violation of Belgian neutrality, the use of poison gas, and the torpedoing of merchantmen, were not merely immoral actions, but were acts of incredible stupidity, which would sooner or later ruin the German empire. One of those present, his colleague Dr. Knoll, could find nothing better to do than to inform against him. Anew dismissed from his post, Nicolai was sent in disgrace to one of the most out-of-the-way corners of Germany. He protested in the name of justice. He appealed to the emperor. The latter, he was given to understand, wrote on the margin of the report of his case: “Der Mann ist ein Idealist, man soll ihn gewähren lassen!” (The man is an idealist. Let him alone!)

He was sent back to Berlin in the winter of 1915–16, with instructions to be on his good behaviour. Ignoring these instructions, immediately after his return to the university he began a course of lectures upon “War as an evolutionary Factor in human History.” The lectures were promptly prohibited, and Nicolai was sent to Danzig, where he was strictly forbidden to speak or write on political topics. Nicolai took exception to this order, on the ground that he was a civilian. Thereupon an attempt was made to administer to him the oath of loyalty and obedience. He refused. Summoned before a court-martial, and warned of the consequences of refusal, he persisted. He was thereupon reduced to the ranks, and for two and a half years was engaged in futile clerical work as a private in the army medical corps. Nevertheless, he finished his book, and it went to press in Germany. The first two hundred pages had been set up when an information against it was lodged by the chief clerk of a great submarine dockyard, who said indignantly, “We earn our money arduously in the war, and this fellow is writing in favour of peace!” Nicolai was arrested and his manuscript was seized. After a lengthy trial, he was sentenced to five months’ imprisonment. The newspapers were forbidden to mention his name. The “Danziger Zeitung” was suspended for having published an account of the trial. His troubles began afresh immediately he came out of prison. The commandant of Eilenburg wished to force Nicolai to accept combatant service. Nicolai refused, and was given twenty-four hours to think the matter over. He thought of Socrates, and of the Greek philosopher’s obedience to his country’s laws, bad though they were. But he thought also of Luther, who fled to the Wartburg to finish his work. And Nicolai left that night. Not even yet, however, did he quit Germany, for he wished to make a last appeal to the justice of his country. He wrote to the minister for war, relating the infractions of law to which he had been exposed, and asking for protection against the arbitrary proceedings of the military authorities. While awaiting an answer, he took refuge with friends, first in Munich, then in Grunewald near Berlin. But no answer was received. He had, therefore, to expatriate himself. We know how he crossed the frontier, “in an aeroplane, two miles above the earth amid clouds formed by bursting shrapnel.”^[4] At dawn after Saint John’s night, he saw the distant gleam of the sea of freedom. He reached Copenhagen. For the last time he addressed himself to the German government, offering to return upon guarantees that his rights should be respected, and that he should be reinstated. After eight weeks, he was declared to be a deserter. A raid was made upon his house in Berlin, and upon the houses of some of his friends. His goods were sequestrated. A demand was made for his extradition, upon the charge of stealing an aeroplane.—Then it was that, resuming freedom of speech, Nicolai wrote his “Open Letter” to the “Unknown” despot.

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What particularly strikes me in this narrative is, in the first place, the man’s invincible tenacity, the way in which he stands upon his right as upon a fortress—“eine feste Burg.” … But I am also greatly impressed by the secret aid which was furnished him by so many of his compatriots.

People are astonished to-day at the sudden collapse of the German colossus. A hundred different reasons are given. We are told that the army is ravaged by epidemic disease; that the morale of the Germans has been undermined by bolshevist propaganda; and so on. These influences have played their part. But another cause has been forgotten. It is that the entire edifice, despite its imposing front, has been mined. Behind the façade of passive obedience, widespread disillusionment prevails. Nothing is more striking in Nicolai’s story (notwithstanding all his precautions lest anything he may say should betray his friends to the vengeance of the authorities) than the way in which he has again and again been supported and encouraged by the devotion or by the tacit complicity of those with whom he came into contact. “Men of science, working men, rankers, and officers,” he writes, “begged me to say what they did not dare to utter themselves.” When he was arrested and when his book was seized, the manuscript was rescued and was smuggled into Switzerland. By whom? By an official German courier!—When, having fled from his post, he wished to leave Germany, and when, in the first instance, he thought of getting out of the country on foot, he was arrested a hundred yards short of the frontier and was taken before an elderly captain. “When he asked me my name, and I said, ‘I am Professor Nicolai,’ he looked at me long and quizzically. I am doubtful whether he knew that I was being hunted, but I have the impression that he did know.… He advised me, in friendly fashion, not again to attempt crossing the frontier by night, for the frontier patrols were accompanied by bloodhounds—then he let me go.”—Seeing no other way of escape than by the air route, Nicolai turned—to whom? To an officer in the flying corps, asking the loan of an aeroplane, for a journey to Holland or Switzerland. The officer, without turning a hair, replied that the thing could be done, and that if Nicolai should decide to make his way to Denmark (which would be much easier) they could start with a whole air-squadron. In the end, as we know, there was no squadron; but two aeroplanes and a number of officers participated in the flight from Neurippin to Copenhagen.—Many similar incidents, though perhaps less striking than those quoted, serve to show the dissolution of the bonds between the citizens and the state. The publication of Nicolai's book in Switzerland, and the subsequent clandestine circulation in Germany of one hundred copies, brought him into relationships with persons belonging to all parties in Germany, and enabled him to realise how deep and passionate was the feeling of hatred diffused throughout all strata of the population. He adds: “I am convinced that Germany and the world would be liberated to-morrow, if only all the Germans were to say to-day without reserve that which, at the bottom of their hearts, they wish and ardently desire.”

Herein lies the force of his protest. It is not the protest of one individual, but that of an entire nation. Nicolai is merely the spokesman.

Thus, having told his tale, he turns to the people, he turns to those who inspired him to speak. By a sudden transformation, the "Unknown" to whom he addresses his “Open Letter”—derjenige Unbekannte, der die Macht hat—is no longer the military authority. Sovereign power seems already to have passed into the hands of the real master, the German people. He invites the German people to enter into a union with the other peoples. In the tone of an inspired evangelist, he reminds the German people of its true destiny, its spiritual mission, a thousandfold more important than any empty victory. To all the peoples of Europe, he points out the duty of the hour, the pressing task: to achieve the unity of Europe and the organisation of the world.

“Come, then, kindred spirits! … I am a free man, freed from everything in the world, free from the state [staatenlos], ein deutscher Weltbürger [a German citizen of the world].… I have peace! [Ich habe Frieden].… Come! Cry aloud what you already know and feel! … We do not wish to make peace; we simply wish to realise that we have peace.…”

Reiterating his cry of October, 1914, the Call to Europeans^[5] which he, in conjunction with his friends Albert Einstein, Wilhelm Foerster, and Otto Buek, issued as a counterblast to the insane utterances of the 93, he reaffirms his act of faith in the spirit of Europe, one and brotherly; and he launches his appeal to all the free spirits, to those whom Goethe long ago termed: "Good Europeans."

October 20, 1918.

"Wissen und Leben," Zurich, November, 1918.

1. A Great European, G. F. Nicolai (“demain,” October and November, 1917).—See Chapter XX above.
2. Steen Hasselbach, Copenhagen. First issue, October 1, 1918.
3. Why I left Germany. An open letter to the Unknown who rules Germany.—The German article has been republished in pamphlet form by A. G. Benteli, Bümpliz-Bern, Switzerland, 1918.
4. In telling this part of the story, Nicolai conceals most of the details of his flight. Too many are implicated, and they would suffer if he were explicit. Already, he tells us, an innocent person, the betrothed of one of his companions, has been imprisoned.—Some day he will write a memoir of his military experiences.
5. This Aufruf an die Europäer is reprinted, in the first issue of “Das werdende Europa” immediately after the article I have just been analysing, and Nicolai appeals to all readers who sympathise with it to send him their signatures.