First World War – Hindenburg and Ludendorff: Two men in civilian

So that ruled in Germany for four years! So for four years that stated and commanded and suppressed and suppressed and made it. So these were the heroes of a people who worshiped themselves in them! So they were! The? You dear God.

On eighteenth November 1919, in the morning at a quarter of eleven o’clock, Hindenburg and Ludendorff appear in the brown, little solemn hall. The old one in the chicken skirt, the square head has something Mongolian, but figure, mustache and baked bone-a national hero that painted on wheat beer glasses. Ludendorff, wood-stiff, very applied and very insecure, in black jacket suit; around the nostrils an evil pull … a sergeant in civilian and a higher administrative officer. You sit down.

The interrogation begins. An interrogation that would not be possible in any private insult to the Berlin-Mitte district court: The witnesses do not even think about answering the questions asked, they read from fully available documents, what they have to read constantly, they only address what is convenient for them. There is no obligation to testify, they say. And the committee cuddles.

A world gets up. What a world! When Bethmann says: “Qui Tacet Consentire Videtur,” I feel: Schulpforta, philosophy, university. And if I don’t know all of this either, I feel that this is one of ours, that is one who somehow has something to do with spirit, he likes it weak, he may have been dependent – after all, he is a man in our world. But these two there?

It was the greatest disappointment of my life. They were both not there. No personalities, no heads – nothing. Two old cadets that have become gray.

Hindenburg, the larger one of both. The man beats a heart in the chest; If he is in the patient, he feels something – it is not our sensations, but he feels, his blood flows. The other ice cold. Not that gruesome type of smooth -shaved stage officers, as they stand around in civilian things – but of the same emotional cold as they, unshakable, unbelievable, self -unconscious rawness.

The world view that unroll itself is shocking. None of experience, none of human knowledge, none of Goethe or Dostojewski. They thought with the biceps and wrote with the fists. If Ludendorff says he and Bernstorff have different worldviews, it is not right. They only have one together. And Bernstorff has it.

The general defends himself against the farthest things. He had been accused of never smiling on four -and -ninth photographs – now that he could not smile because of sheer responsibility. Oh, we would like to believe him the severity of this responsibility – but he not only would have felt it that he should also have been guided by her. He could have smile.

Ludendorff said, the auditorium breathed: Yes! And the officers who were sitting there felt: our empire should come back! Our empire in which we were happy and influence in which we had more food than the others in which our husbands and friends could command without having to obey themselves – our empire! Our realm! That’s what it went, and that was the question.

Two worlds collide. But the one, the old, the worse, makes a merciless, an disarming impression. As the journalists will get to the right, “open up” this moment world -historically – it has to be hard work.

For four years they have forgotten any interference in their work with the reference to great responsibility. Now she is there, the opportunity to answer – now keep stick! And now they pinch. You don’t touch them either. Did you, General Ludendorff, have read the reports that spoke against the submarine war and which were written by good experts as carefully as those who spoke for him-yes or no? Were the individual stages of the Wilson campaign known to you-yes or no? Have you had valid reasons to assume that England can really be killed – yes or no?

And Ludendorff reads and reads. And a committee is waiting for an answer.

“I only had to negotiate with the Chancellor – the statements of Count Bernstorff were not on business for me,” says the general. This is my Germany.

The senseless drive, not for the sake of the purpose of organizing the organization, finally paralyzed the forces of everyone. You didn’t see anything. The question of a reason was a heretical company – everything was divided. The German can only do his best if he is dictatorial. Entry corporate work is almost impossible for him – he then gets stuck in the apparatus, in shareholders, in forms, in itself. Even if Ludendorff had been a whole guy, he could not have prevailed in this bunch of confusion. He would have got stuck. A degenerate militarism has beaten up every free worker from the Germans.

Department of patriotism and instance train – here they are in pure culture. The complete inability of this brain to understand that it does not depend on the files, but only and only on success, exclusively on simply grasping everything, even if it does not arise from the supervisor – it disarms you. Quid dicam, quod? You didn’t learn it better.

The readings are going on. The old one reads his, rough, unogy and an amazingly moderate level. The air in the Saale is overwhelming – there is a break in which the committee advises.

Heroes? Heroes? What do these two have to create with the hero concept? The Landser was a hero, and the poor company leader was one who ran out in the dirt stak and his people, and the vice fawn outside was one and the man on the ship’s pipe. But this one? Administrative officers, well -fed, always out of danger and always – like Ludendorff in November eighteen – on the go. Here too Hindenburg, which continued to do his duty and only swung up to a certain size, more valuable than the other.

But does not beat the heart of the people for the two? Well, not the whole people. But how do I recognize my Germans again? Otherwise you are not so knightly, so tender, so infinitely tactful – and that with two unsuccessful? The brain does not speak here – only the heart speaks here.

And if these two had committed a hideous homicide: half a nation and took care of them. They do not love the people in these men: they love the representatives of a loved one, which gave everyone their own and the opportunity to step around on the other. That is the same reason that makes the emperor almost taboo in public discussions, not the human pity and not grandmcture.

These were the leaders that the spoiler. The gigantic danger that is in militarism has not yet been recognized. The entire bourgeoisie considers him to be a virtue, only regrets that this war has been lost, and at best attacks these two. Incorrect. They were the best representatives of the worst system. And when I saw the two sitting here, far from all the spirituality, far from all of this, what we are used to see as valuable, I understood again and stronger than ever: militarism is a mind constitution. Or rather: the mental Manko.

The session is closed. A primitive, stubborn obstruction of the heroes begins. The committee cuddles. And adjourishes for an indefinite period. You can hear Ludendorff’s sharp, chopped voice. The men leave the restaurant under the roaring hurray of the trellis mob. You must have lost a war to be celebrated.