THE HUMANIST LIBRARY

ERNST JUENGER
Translated from the German by
Stuart 0. Hood
INTRODUCTION BY LOUIS CLAIR
198
HENRY REGNER Y COMPANY
HINSDALE, ILLINOIS
Copyright 1948 in the United State of Ameica
By Her Regner Company
Production and design by Edit Ic Chicago
AUTHOR'S FOREWORD
THE essay Peace was sketced out in its basic outlines in
the winter of 1941, and was redy in its present form
in the sm er of 1943. In the meantime the situation
has changed drastically, but unchanged are the curative
mens which alone c hel Europ and, byond it,
the world.
It is an obligation for me to thank the reders of the
manuript for the care wit which they kept the sret
-many of them, in spite of all the horrors of impris!
meot. Espially I thin of General von Stilpoagel, that
knightly mao, under whos protetion the essay came
abut.
This work is to b dedicated to my son, Ernst Juenger;
he also had known it. After he had proved himself
almost still a by-in the resisance to the internal tyr
anny and had languished in its prisons, he fell on the
29th of November 1944 at eighteen years for his home
land, in the Marble Mountains ner Carrara. In the same
way have the best of all nations not spared themslves
Their sacrifce and the srrow they left bhind will be
fruitful.
E.J.
INTRODUCTION
It is high time that the moral insnity which gripped
America during and after the war concerning all things
German-that raving frenzy of hatred so assiduously fos
tered by the Emil Ludwigs, the Morgenthaus and Vansit
trts-gives way to a rational atitude toward what is
called, somewhat condesendingly, "the German prob
lem."
Moern man has a fatal propensity for attempting to free
Jimslf of his own feelings of glt, his wn anxieties and
terrors, by projecting them onto some .sapegoat, some
incarnation of absolute evil, which he burdens with all te
sins, all the shortcomings that he cannot face within him
self. Te Jews were made to assume this burden for the
Na; for the addicts to the Stalin myth, the "trotskyites"
are the sapgoat; and for many an otherwise liberal and
"normal" American, this role ls of late been assigned to
9
"the German"-a sort of corporate entity, an amalgama
tion of all that is hatdul and despicable.
Those whose concern is with a more rational ordering
of world afairs and of the body politic, whose concern is
the'aving of individual and collective morality from a
zoological irratonalism which thinks in terms of species
instead of human beings, are under the obligation to tear
down the wall of hatred and distrust that now surrounds
Germany and makes of it a sort of insane asylum and pris
on house combined. We must penetrate behind the
facade whih propagandists have built to discover the in
dividual German, a person, neither "god" nor "bad," but
a human being with both potentialities who will in part
be shaped by the very way we act toward him. Once we
have freed ourselves from a magic thinking which at- ,
tributes reality to metaphors such as "race" or "national
chaacter,'-' we begin to enter the realm of morality. Mo
rality and rational thinking cannot be divorced. The book
which I have the honor to introduce to the American
public can be of immense aid in this endeavor toward un
derstanding.
Ernst Juenger is not one of those "good people" whose
goodness is somewhat boring in its monotony; in his own
life, on the contrary, he has lived through, and even
savored, the whole gamut of multifarious
_
eperiences that
have assailed and tempted the German inte1lecual during
10
the last three decades. Perhaps those who have themselves
descended deeply into the abyss can report more from
their descent than the simple spectator who has never but
walked its edge.
Ernst Juenger never was a Nazi, yet he was in the
ranks of the most extreme German nationalists; he was
one of the prophets of that nsm which has contributed
not a little to the demoralization and the cynical contempt
for values which characterized large parts of the youg
German generation of pre-Hitler days. Yet Juenger, once
he realized the fruits of that nihilistic spirit which he him
self was not innocent of having brought into being, re
volted and turned away in disgust and shame. In 1939,
shortly after the outbreak of the war, he wrote On the
Mrble Clifs, the only great anti-Nazi novel to appear in
Germany during Hitler's reign. A few years later he wrote
THE PEACE.
This short book dates from the last phase of the Nazi
terror when Juenger was acively in contact with the
men of the conservatve opposition that made the attempt
on the tyrant's life on July 20, 1944. These men, who
showed to a world that had not listened to the earlier mute
testimony of illegal resisters who paid for their heroism
with concentration camp and gallows, that there still
existed German men willing to stake their lives in the
cause of freedom, found in Juenger their spokesman and
11
their herald. THE PEACE is the most impressive doument
from within Nai _Germany testifying to the spirit and
the reality of the "other Germany." Juenger's past dos
add rather than detract from this value.
-.t i of almost symblic signifcance that one who once
.sang peans in honor of the warrior, one who rejoiced in
the end of individuality, who praised the advent of a new
total soiety in which things of steel, cold mathematical
formulas, would pitlessly push aside all human and
humane considerations, cotld now write an essay which
stars with a quotation from Spinoza: "The hated, which is
completely conquered by love, becomes love, ad such love
is stronger than it would have been had hatred not pre
ceded it." THE PEACE represents Juenger's defnite break
with the values of his past, a balance shet and a farewell,
as well as a vision of things to come. I do not know any
more poignant denunciation-in Germa or in- any other
language, for that matter-of the evi that was Nazism,
than the frst pages of this bok. These denunciatory pages,
full of tagic bauty and passion, will stand as the most
succinct ad yet most adequate description of what the
barbarias from within had done to a Grmany they had
conquered by force and by cunning. The second part of
the bok, The Fruit, presents a outline of a positive pro
ga to save Germany, more-Europ1 more-Western
civilization.
12
The one-time herald of Grman natonalism now has
understod that i Germany is not to bcome a country
without history, no longer able t contol her own destiny,
she can b saved only thrugh a common Europan efort.
The Europan cltural tadition is by no means homo
geneus, though there est cerain basic and vital common
concept. Juenger knows that the great cutural achieve
ments of Europe are, in part, precisely based on the
variety and diversity of national a, of languages, laws,
and mores; he loves the many hued shades of the Europan
tadition-"there cannot be t many colors on the
palette"-but he also recognizes that Europe wil not
b able to survive i she i not ued economicaly and
technically. The hoarding of resources by each naton, the
customs barriers, the trade quotas and restrictions that
make of each nation an entity jealous of its prerogatives,
, can but led to the collectve suicide of Europ. Economic
autrchy in the age of supranationa planning can but
lead to death from sufoation. Only if Europe bcomes a
unted and unifed economic whole can there be hope for
its future, for even mere survival.
These ideas are not new. They have ben stated bfore
in more elaborate detail, yet they acquire poignancy for
bing epressed by Juenger in 1943, in the midst of war,
at a time when Naism still held the major part of Europ
under its sway. Aredy then Juenger knew what most
13
Aericans slowly are learning only now, that there is no
longer a "German problem" but only a European problem
which, morever, cannot be solved but by cCHqual partic
ipation of Germany in the work of general reconstruction
He knew that: "The re and usages of warfare must fnd
no place, mut not be prpetated in te pace. If such
were the case, it would be a mete illusion of peace, under
which the struggle would continue-at frst invisibly as
civil war and foreign oppression, and then openly in new
blocs of pwer." This insight of 1943 has not lost its
signifcance in 1948; the intervening years of folly only
add to its peculiar topical relevance.
There is much talk at this date of the reconstruction of
Europe, yet one feels only to often that thos who but
recently have been convened to a Europan doctrine have
been impelled by motives other than the concern for the
revival and survival of European culture. Real-pliticians
who but a short while ago dreamed of the pastoralization
of the heart of the contient are now concerned with
.
reviving Grman industry, primarily bcaue they wish
to erect a Euopan bulwark agaist the onh of the
Russian state pwer. Juenger, when he wrote THE PEACE,
didn't think in these categories; he wrote as a European
who with all the fbrs of his being was tied to the re
discovered European hunist traditio, worried lest this
tradition be buried in the maddening rush of compting
14
and quarreling nationalisms, in the irrational hatreds that
the war would leave i its wake. THE PEACE is the frut of
an agonized self-sarch, the passionate reappraisal of
his own and Germany's past, by a man who after the trials
and turmoils and hatreds of Germay's inter-war years ha
arrived at conclusions which baically contradict his earlier
bliefs in the virtues of the national state and the heroic
sacrifce in war. "To have peace, it is not enough not to
wish for war. Tre pace pstulates courage of a higher
order than that which war demands; it is a product of
spirital travail, of spiritual strength. It is attained when
we learn to extinguish the red fres within us and to free
our own heart from hate ad it disruptive pwer."
Thes means which Juenger outlines for the achieve
ment of peace are certinly not sufcient to arrive at that
rational contol of plitics which is in tune with the de
mands of a new international morality. However, those
who will read this little volume will fnd in it an incentive
to overcome those hatreds, thos prejudices, that add so
much to create the atosphere of impending dom under
which e all labor today.
New York Ct'
Mrch 5, 1948
LOUIS CLAIR
PART ONE
THE SEED
"he hatred, whic i completely cn
quered by love, becmes love; ad such
love is then stonger tha if hated had
not preceded it."
Spinoz Ethics, 44t Theore
I
S
URELY never bfore was so geat a respnsibility
laid upn a generaton of men and on its thinkers
and leders as now when the war is drawing to its
end. Certainly ou history has never ben lacking in grave
and momentous decisions. But never did the fate of such a
multitude depend upn them. Each inhabitant of this
planet will be afected by them for weal or for woe, and
not only he but his remote descendants also.
It may safely b said that t wa h ben humanity's
frst joint efort. The peace that ends it must be the second.
The builders who fashion peace out of chaos must not
only test and improve the old structures, but also create
new ones towering abve and uniting them. On these
men it depends whether go spirits will guard the new
house, and whether mankind cn live in it in freedom
and happiness, or whether prisons and cells for matyrs
are again to b hidden in its foundations as souces of
corruption.
19
If then the peace is to bring blessings for all, it must
rest upon simple and common foundation. It cannot b
limited to a political or-ven i the best sense of the
word-to a spiritul product, but must at the same time
be
-
t
he creation of goo and generous forces. Expressed in
terms of logic, it aims at baic principles; in tems of
theology, at a formula of salvation.
What then must be this way of salvaton that is to guide
our thought? This-. that the wa must beafruit for each
of us.
ii
If then the war must bear fruit for all, we must frst
seek the seed from which such a havest n grow. It can
not spring from all the forces of sepaation, from the
persecution, the hated and injustices of our times. That
is the ev
l
l seed which ha been all too freely sown, and
whose last traces must be rooted out.
The true fruit can come forth only from manind's
common fund of god, from it soundest core, from its
noblest, most unselfsh stock. It is to be sought where,
without thought for himself and his ownweal, man lives
and dies for othes and sacrifces himself for them. And
that has happened abundantly; a great treasure of saci
fce has been gathered as a bais for the re-building of
the world.
20
The sacifced this everyone must have felt-lay
in the unreserved efort of the most lowly and simple.
Afairs had taken a driving and evil course to which there
contributed the missed opporunities and errors not of
the living only but of many geneation. They drove on
towards the fre; in fre they wished to be refned and
purifed. Then even those most frmly resolved yet to
direct things to a good end found themselves pushed to the
edge. Now for the unnumbeed and unnamed one thing
alone remained-to shoulde their burden honorably at
the post where fate had placed them.
And in the memory of furthest age this great spec
tacle will remain: how in every land, when the hour had
come, they went out to battle on the fronters, to sea
fghts on the ocens, to deadly encounters of squadrons in
the air. Then in every people and in evey army there
were deeds of wonde and to spare, and long-etablished
. fe i .arms acquired its meed of new laurels. In this
battle of giant each opponent could b proud of the
other; and to the extent that tme tempers enmity the.
secret repect and even the secet love between conqueror
and conquered will grow. The one gains meaning from
the other.
Behind the bloody battle lines, which for the frst time
welded the earth's ball with glowing bands, stretched the
grey lightless depths of the amy of workes. In them the
21
gretest sum of human endeavor was prouced that men
have ever harnesed t one end. In fulnes of gratitde
and of emotion one must remembr thee men and
women, their labrious days in glomy workshops, their
nighdvatches in the darkened towns and their long hours
.
of work with hear flled with cae for brothers, sons
and children. There is no reckoning those who died thus,
worn out with overwork, bwed down with budens and
care, snufed out like nameless lights.
The god seed that was there ground down must not
be lost; it must for long furnish us with bread. That will
come abut only if we grasp the tue and hidden signif
cance of their labr and sacrice. It i not that they
fashioned the instuments of death and destuction, the
weapns for killing, for sinking ships, for destoying city
after city. Deep in their hearts there lived instead a sense
of true generosity, tue sacrice, which fowers and beas
fruit more richly than in the world of hate.
Under a just peace, then, we must unite what has fowed
from separate but pure souces. Through reason we must
give reality to something that existed a a vague force in
the aspirations of unnumbred millions, whatever the land
in which they chanced to be brn- greter and better
rle of peace.
22
III
When we review the sacrice we must not forget those
who were plunged into the depths of pure sorrow, of pue
sufering. The times lay upn the we and innoent
with the weight of iron.
Who knows the hosts of thoe who died from hunger,
disease, exhaustion, from lack of cre and medicments?
And thoe other hots destroyed when the towns were
laid in ruins, who fell beneth the wreage of their
house, who drowne in the cellas, who sufoated or
were consumed by liquid phophorus? The line of women,
children and aged who vanished thus is endless. Untold
numbrs had their days cut short; a many again were
never to know what life is. The young grew up in hells,
in realms ft rather for the habitation of demons than of
men, and the children gained their frst images from a
world of terror. They head the howling of the sirens
before the peal of the bells, and their cadle was nearer
the fre than the light.
We must tn too of those who went down with the
ships, who drowned in the solitude of the s, who froze
in the icy waters or whom death overcame in scalding
steam, in the .are of the explosion, in the rings of burn
ing oil spreading wide round their bts. In those days
daknes lay over the paths of the sea.
23
Yet even the soldier had t b burdens far exceeding
those of his calling aqd those beftting oppnent within
the Christian community. This can. be graped only by
those who conceive of the stuggle not as a trial of arms
btwen poples and states, between nations and races,
but rather as a universal civil war which split the world
'into mysterious, all the more terrible fronts.
This explains why in the couse of these fateful years
engagements were t take place which were far more
terrible than the battles of materiel and fre of the frst
world war. For the man who believes he fght for idea
and ideals is pssessed by greater ruthlessness than he who
merely defends his country's frontiers.
So battles were made possible in which even the
defeated, the unarmed cold not cont on mercy-encirce
ment and captivity which ofered no prospc of escap.
Over wide plains and felds the terrors of the elements
vied with a technology of muder and unshakable cuelty.
There were area where men destoyed each other like
vermin and broad wos in which to hunt men like wolves.
And one saw, ct of from all hop as i on a dead star,
great armies go to their death in the horror chambers of
the pket battles.
Numberless were those who experienced the bitternes
of dying in beleagered outosts where one sees death
approaching inexorably from afar. Happy coud be he
24
who recogned the real enemy in his oppnent and could
fall before doubt awoke in his breat. Yet many, and they
the best, bravest and wisest, saw themselves marked down
for destuction, unable to yield themselves to the magic
of the fags and symbols under whose infuence they were
domed t give their lives. For it wa these who could not
escape the thought that they were in a battle for higher
things than the frontiers of the fatherland-that in this
fratricidal war a new purpoe wa being brn to te erth
and that many of those on the other side, whose approach
ment death, were closer to the higher goal than the com
rades at one's side: yet with them one had to keep faith.
So, above all for the tue and pue of heart, the war
enteed the realms of tagedy and to an upright mind the
contadiction betwen the voices of future and pat, be
tween the world and one's native land, beteen duty
and intution seemed insoluble. There were many to whom
death in the opn .eld in honorable combat, seemed the
ony, the best solution. With them the best, full seed fell
into the ground.
IV
Even more somber become the picture of sufering in
those places where the world was turned into a mere
slaughterhouse, to a fayinghouse whose stench poisoned
the air far and wide.
25
In the forcing-house of war and civil war the great
theories of the past century bore fruit as they were applied
in practice. Now it bcame clea. that irrespctive of
whether they heralded the equality or inequality of man,
they had invented cold-bloed reasning. The yadstick
of theory was applied to individuals, to races, to poples.
As always in such cases the thirst for blo son passed
all measure once the frst victim had fallen.
S in the senseless interplay of force and terror, perse
cution and injustice broke over wide and ever growing
expanses of
.
the globe. Soon the last free voices had to
keep silence, and even the souds of terror died away in
the terrible stillness which surrounded prison and ceme
tery. Only dark rumors hinted at the guesome revels
where plce and torturers feated on the humilation, on
the blod of their victims. For distant ages these will
remain our century's blot of shame; no one will be re
spcted whose heart and eyes were insensible to what
happned there. This is above all true for the military
youth, for the proteaion of the weak and helpless will
always remain the highest fower of knightho No one
can be a hero before the enemy whom this fower dos
not adorn
From the Far East to the Hesprides, from the Suth
to the White Sa we learned what burdens and sorrows
men bore in lands where terror was the highest law. Was
26
brought it in their dak tain no less than civil wars, and
under the domination of classes, parties or foreign amies
only the aims altered, never the unchanging face of tyr
anny. And as in great conagations now one wind and
now another feeds the fames, there were lands where
white and red terror alternated and where the victims fell
now under the blows of natve despts, now under those
of a foreign pwer. So violence raged like a. plague whose
germs continually infame new hate and, spreading by
may routes, stike always at the po r ad weak. And
however the idea may be dsguisd in whose name heads
are called for-the great mass grave ae all the same.
Such to was the fate of innumerable nameless men
who clung to lost outpstS until thei hour of terror struck.
The domed member of the reistce faced the omni p
tence of the executioner, and the way to the paks of
sufering had many stations. Paticulaly terrifying were
the cold mechanics of persecution, the considered tech
nique of decimation, the tacking and surveillance of the
victims by means of the lists and fles of a police force
which swelled into amies. It seemed as if every metho,
every discovery of the human mind had been transformed
into an instrument of oppression.
Thus years and decads of terror broke upon coundess
famles. House and cottage lay
'
defenseles at the mercy
of class and racial hatred, of unconcealed desptism and
27
'even of naked betiality. And this spreding gloom was
not conned to the.liits of the contnent but penetrated
into lands which for centuries had ben dstinguished by
legal knowledge and the exercise of justcelands where
frdm ancient times freedom had found as good a dwelling
place as it may have among men.
But now the mist came down, bringing with it the
silence of the oppressed, over whose helplessnes the
tyrant tiumphed with wild unbridled glee. Things lost
their cheerful hue and with each new morning came the
question:. Would evening fnd the family united round
the table or torn apart, its members dragged away? And
when at night the light was extingushed, the ea stained
to catch the whispering of the police agents without,
waited for the door to reound with blows as a sign that
the hunters had tacked down their prey.
Tee were years when even the prisons no longer
sufced, and in which multitudes, dragged of illeglly
and without sentence, languished i dungeons where death
was the only kindness. Many were seized on the steps of
the court whch had just acquitted them. Te camps flled,
to, where forced labor cesed only with annihilation
thus achieving its delibrate aim. Anyone who there
wasted away had long been dead to his kin, for the pre
cautions designed by warped minds sa to it that no sign
of life came from the tortre cells.
28
And more obcre, more gruesme than ever before
was the death the executioners prepaed for the innocent
after they had broken up the familie and robbed them
of possesions and liberty. The seecy, the shunning of
the light, the slaughterings in cellars and evil places and
the hasty, unceremonious burial of te victms showed only
too clealy that here was no execution of just sentence,
but mere outage and wanton murder.
The nuber of Golgothas where the disenfranchise
were slaughtered is enormous. Te crime of which the
unfortuate were accsed was merd y that of existing, the
stigma of their birth. They fell because they were sns
of their people, of their fathers, of their race, as hostges,
as' adherent of a disinherited creed, as disseminators of
their faith, which laws invented overnight had deced to
be a mortal taint.
From out of t waste of sufering there rise smberly
te naes of the great seat of murder where in a last and
fnal frenzy they attempted to root out whole peoples,
whole races, whole classes, and where leaden tyranny in
league with technica efciency celebrated endless blody
nuptals. These dens of muder wl haunt man's memory
to the end of tme; they are the tue monuent of this
war a once before were Douaumont or Langemark. But
those were name whch coud mingle pride with sfer
ing; here only sorrow and huliation remain, for te
29
deecation was such that it touched the whole human
race and no man can free himself from complicty. That
was where progress led with its theories and ideas; into
these swamps emptied an all-to-clever, inventive age.
tf ever new pride flls us at the length and bldnes
of our Hight, at our intellectal wings, our pinions of steel,
it should sufce to cure us for a glance to be cst on the
hordes driven like cattle to the graveyrds and crematon
ovens where the exectioners waited. There they were
stripped of their rags and slaughtered like shorn sheep.
They were forced even to dig their ow graves, if their
murderers did not fll quarries and pit-shafts with the
corpses which pUed up to fat. These scenes of horror,
of which dark rumors pased from mouth to mouth, will
be brought to light only when the lost souls who played
the hangan there, together with their superiors, are
forced to break silence before the courts.
Yet when we lol upn these places of martydom let
.us do s frankly and with clear judgment. It was the evil
spirit of the rabble which there in darkness practced its
grisly arts. Then we saw the feigned indignation of other
evil forces which came to the haunts of infamy to exhume
the hastily buried victms and expse the 'wasted corpse,
to mesure, count and reprouce them as served their
ends. They played the accusers only to acquire the right
to still baser vengeance which they sated in siilar orgie.
30
Thus one masace was succeee by another baser
still. But the hand that would help mankind and lead it
out of its follies must be unstine by cime or deeds
of violence.
v
The realm of sufering has a strict hierarchy with ranks,
branches and gradations by which man descends. It is
here that he seeks the sources of lie, and as springs fow
into lakes and thence int s, s sorrows gather in
ever larger volume and in greater purity. Just as for
thought there is cnsciousness, so for suferings there_
are moe in which they beome ratonal and unite to
acqlie a deeper meaning.
Therefore through these years the sufering of the
man of the spiit has been great. Far more than by his
own persection he wa sickened . by the spectacle of
bseness gg the matery. It wa not wars or dangers
that cu hi to fea, but the blind urge which drove
the mas-t frst in wild e:ltation and then in a p
sion of hated and revenge-along unknown paths which
son led to the fae.
He as saw, soner and more dealy, how man's high
sense of duty was perverted, how labr and science turned
to the service of death, how the sword shielded injustice,
how the judge-nder the cde disgue of ceremony-
31
debased justice into a tol of the cout, how the teacer
destroyed the divie image in the children insted of
illuing it and how doaors, mstead of healmg, maimed
the weak and killed the sick.
He sw the machine arise to dominaton in cold stuc
tures which a titanic will forced up over nght as palaces
of destucton and Babylonian .confusion. All to son
theY were to b seen rising like specal skeletons from
the scorched earth to herald the tiumph of death. In the
same way one builds into a bridge the demoliton cham
bers for blowing it up.
He wa5 therefore less afected by the collapse of scaf
foldings and facades than by the loss of old heritge, of
well-formed things handed down and irreplaceable. With
each confagration he saw the world grow porer, and
jewel after jewel fall from its crown and adornment of
mtelleal splendor.
.
He saw the old guilt mfgle with new, justice and
injustice so entwmed that there had to come a purifc
tion by fe. Like a lofty mirror refectng iages and
fgures, his spirit endured and shared in silence the fames
and suferings of the blaing :orld.
Once more, and that in the lowest pit of all, these sor
rows were fnally reproduced in the mothers; in all lands
their sufering was one and the same. Like Niobe they
saw their children die from the keen arrows fate shot out
32
of the unknown. Multitdes had thus to give their mot
beloved, and with each month the great stugle lasted
a lamentation swelled that will not die away for years
and scores of years to come.
VI
The second round of this great stugle, which has it
rot in the rise of a new order, a new unity, was harder,
more demanding, more mercless than the frst Yet that
had seemed uisurpasable in violence and scope. Te cu
i not to be sought in a divergence of the peoples' a
during the brief tuce. On the contary, their goals grew
closer, fusing at the focl pint where a new characer
te shape-the character of work, which set it stamp
upn te peoples and conceals their diferences. There
fore i i no longer national aims which are in question,
but the am of the war itlf. For this reason the sufering
pierced deeper, harrowed the heart more; for to the
horrors of war were added those of fraticdal stife, of
civil war, which are more horrible still, In their tain
come yet greater perils, and here one saw many draw
back who had proved teir valor on de feld of battle.
Therefore the fgure symblizing the second war of
nations will have deeper origns than that of e fst.
Then it was the unknown solder to whom monument
were raised in the heart of every capital as a sign that
33
the great teaue of sufering he had gathered in the fre
shoud henceforth b_e the center of the naton, waming
and shedding light, just as the heath is the center of the
home. And in fact a image did aise for the nations with
pwer to form and unite in a age por in tue vitty.
But this tme the sufering was more widely spread,
more obscure and complex; it reached deeper into the
realms of motherho. It was closer to the great rigious
images. For that reason it will form the base for struc
tures towering higher into the light. Jut as the sacrifce
embdied _ i the unknown soldier inspired the poples,
so the new sacric will shed its infuence and ceatve
pwer far over the frontiers beteen the nations.
Later when the fghtng ha died down, pople will
understand "that rean culd recognize the new ways of
life and stive twards them, but that for their creaton
there was. requied the cmbined efort of pasions, suf
fering and the fre. The cmplexities of the front con
cealed from toe who were actve and those who sufered
the unity of the gret work under whose spell they played
their parts-yetthrough their creative pwer, through the
tansformation into sacrifce it will become evident. Thus
by falling they bcame the god seed which will br
fruit a hundredfold.
34
PART TWO
THE FRUIT
"Not i the even course of the bourgeois
world, but i the thunder of the Apc
lypse are religions rebor."
Water Shubat, Euopa und die Seele des Ostens
I
W
E have seen the vicims of this war. To their
sombr rans all nations added their contngent.
. All shared the sufering and therefore the pace
must bar fruit for them all. That is, this war must be
won by all.
That is not to say that there will not b conquerors and
conquered. On the contary, it is deirable that there
should be a clear decision by arms and that no corer
should remain unpurged by fre. Once maters have ben
referred to the juisdicton of force a the court of lowest
appeal, they must remain there pnding an unequivocal
decsion. The more clearly, the more mathematcally the
logic of force fd expresion the more deeply it con
vinces those who recgnize no other argument, the more
surely will the foundations of the pace b secred. Weap
ons mut cete an opportnity for a decision to be mde,
for the mind to plan. In that sense it is bter for m
37
to sufer longer than to postpne part of the process ad
retun to the old world. As all those taking part must
have gasped, there is no compromise in the race towads
the ga.
Te peace cannot be a peace of compromise.
II
But just as litle may the peace be one of violence. The
rules and usages of wafare mut fnd no place, mut not
be prpetuated in it. If such were the cse, it would be a
mere illusin of pece, under which the struggle would
continue-at frst invisibly a civil war and foreign op
pression, and then (as the world diintegated) openly in
new blocs of pwer. Therefore it is importnt both for
the vanquished and for the victors that solid and endur
ing ageements shoud be reached, dictated by reaon and
not by passion.
Admitedly that seems difcult after years of total war
which creted enmites of a bitternes unknown before to
peple with old civiliatons. And yet thee years in many
ways made the oppnent more alike. The transformation
of the world, frst evident as a leveling process, made fur
ther progress. As in the frst world wa the monarchies
were conquered by the democacies, so in t S!Ond and
greater struggle the old-fahioned natio1al state will be
vanquished by the imprial powers. As a step towads
38
t, the natonal element in the peoples is being con
sumed by fre- ne of the ultimate sacrifces and one
whic cnnot b repeated.in t form. The positve apect
of t process is that it losens the old fronters and makes
pssible spiritual planning which oversteps their confnes.
Te course of the get evolutionary process, the domi
nant spirit of the age, aims at consolidation. We may hope
that the peace which ends t confict will be more endur
ing and bring greater blesings than that which termiated
the frst world war. For then development was towards
the formation of natonal democacie and thereby
towards the demoliton of whatever old binding stucture
stll remained in Euope. Te new formaton of empire,
on te other hand, tends towards synthesis, towads coali
ton. That is a token that in general we are entering a
period of beter wether with a rising glass.
III
But how is it psible for the wa to be won by all
that is, for it to be lost by none? First the queston aises,
what is the mark of a vicorious war? The aer is t:
victory is thu distngushed, that through it one's native
land becomes greater and mighter.
If from the ahes of t wa al counties must aise
greater and mighter it is obvious hat this is not posible
on the plane on which the war broke out. Gains in terri-
39
tory and pwer by some must not b acquired at the
expense of others.
.
The nations must not, therefore, acquire new territories
at the cost of others: their aggrandizement mut rather
take place with the assent and aid of all concerned. That
is, the old frontiers must b broke down by new alliances,
and new, greater empires must unite the nations. This is
the

ony way in which the fraticidal struggle c be cn

cluded justly and to the advantage of all.
Toay, i ever, the hour for union has come and with
it the hour when Europe, founding itself on the unon of
ii:s peoples, attains soveeignty and constitutonal form.
The desire for unity is older than the cown of Charle
magne, but it was never so buring, so urgent as in our
time. It lived in the dreams of the Caesars and in the
great theories with which man's spirit strove to mould
the future, and yet neither will-pwer nor intellect alone
is destined to give it reality. Ony experience c force
_mankind to take the necessary step.
Certain y the picture presented by the world teaches
even the dullet eyes that new, stonger unity is more
necessary, more important than bread. It also seems
unthinkable to return to the conditions from which we
have come; the peace must be unshakably secured. That
is possible ony by means of treaties of the highest order,
which in their nature resemble the. marriage contrac;
40
unions of by and pssessions whereby the nations
themslves ae dowries for the new dwellig that now
becomes theirs.
Two roads are opening up before the nations. One is
the road of hate and retibution, and it is certai that on
it, after a brief period of exhaustion, the struggle will
fare up ane and more fercely than before, to end in
uversal destuction. The tue road, on the contrary,
leads to uty; the forces which consumed each other in
deadly opposition must unite for the new shape of things,
the ne life. Here alone are the sources of tue peace, of
prosperity, security and stength.
IV
Tat this wa must b won by all signfes, then, that
none must lose it. Even toay it is pssible to foretell
that i it i not won by all, it will be lost by all. The
destnes of the nations have been closly entwied, have
become insepaable, and peace will lead them either to a
highe order or to inceaing detuction.
Therefore whoever emerges from the struggle a vic
tor bears a heavy respnsibility. The logc of pue violence
must come to an end so that the higher logic of alliance
may be reveled. The world wa will reach its conclusion
only when it i cowned with universal peace and thus
gives meanng to the sacrifce. That demands an ascent
41
to other, higher principles, the acent from the fre to
the light.
Here the tansition ofers the greatest difclty-par
ticualy the perio which falls beteen the cpitulation
and the completion of the peace. Then there wil always
be forces which strive t perpet)ate the spirit of dissen
sion .
.
The less e
f
ective such an attempt is, the more
enduring will be the peace.
If this war must be won by all, and that alone leds
to salvation, then vicory in battle must entai responsi
bility: by victory gains ae won which must be shaed
aong all the nations. Therefore to fulfl the great plans
of peace, godwill must tke its place beside the spirit
which in tme of war was inspired by passion. War is
won in opposition; the peace will be won in collaboration.
That s paticularly tue of this war; the stakes were
so great that no compensation can be adequate. The
enemy must be entirely at the mercy of the victor
but that can come abut only with his asent, with
h
is
compliance.
In this sense the geatest conquest is to be found in
alliance.
v
The pattern of the war itself foreshadows unication
It is the seond world war, and more strikingly than i
42
the frst it appers that this is no confia to which a
budary cn be set, but that all nations of the eth
are involved in it and sufer from it. That is no mere
chance; it is a sign that the world is stiving towards a
new patern and a new character as man's common father
land. For the fst te, te erth as a globe, as a planet,
has become a battlefeld, and human history presses on
towards a planetry order. That is being prepared by the
division of the erth into gret territorie.
As sons of the eth we are involved in the civil wa,
in the fraticidal stife. The lands we know are a battle
feld as in the get disorders frqm which the Roman
Empire arose. In tis .sense it is no mere chance that we
live in the hert of the confagration; we are in the midst
of the fusion, the pangs of bith.
Nor is it fortuitou that it is in our lifetime that the
gret stuggle spans the globe. For long our ides and
actions, our most secret thoughts and desires have tended
towads unity. It fnds expression in technical achieve
ment, which is knowledge and desire made concrete. Its
instruents are conceived by an intellect of wide vision,
are adapte to get expanses of territory and are more
over to massive to serve te old-fashioned nations. The
earth's ball, which can b fown over in a few hours and
spanned in secnds by piare, signals and ordes, lies
like an apple i the hand of man.
43
There is no more outstanding sign of the spirit whose
a is unity than that man, in spite of his frontiers and
brriers, is acquiing a new chaacter. One might say
tpat he is being shaped by wonderful processes into a
ctien of new empire. It is a phenomenon whose cuses
le deep. It is the great tansformation of our age, its
inner process, which dictates all external forms. It will
fuse elements from the most varied sources even if the
will resist.
VI
The reaons why the formation of great empires must
come are spiritual by na
n
re and are baed on the prin
ciples of the age. They are apparent in the details of ou
lfe, and fst and foremost in negative, unwholesome
aspect, in want. The old garb has grown tight for the
movements of the new bdy.
As far as the symptoms are concerned, they have long
been faliar. They are particlarly evident in the fact
that technical equipment of the various states, as inherited
by u, has become inadequate. The incease in population
ad in energy presses the old fraework to the bursting
point. As means of production gow, industries cash;
amies of workless alternate with armie of amaent
workers. Thus we see men and machines fully employed
only when the aim is destuction. Trade canot distribute
4
eveny the goods industy prouces; at one place machines
stand still and hands lie idle for lack of work, while in
other pats of the world the barns are bursting under the
weight of the harvest and the surplus is thrown into the
sea or fed to the fre.
Nor ae communications less ready for wider develop
ment. In their methos and routes, spatial thinking and
determination to rch beyond all frontiers fnd their chief
expression. What the steam-engine, coal, railways, and
telegraphy were for the development and unifcaton of
the nationa state, electical scence, the combustion engie,
fight, radio, and the forces steaming out of the atom are,
in their trn and at new levels, in other sphere. It follows
that complaints are being renewed that the old world has
become too small. Frontiers, variations in political and
economic forms which hinder the exchange of. men and
goos, deny free pasage t the many mens of communi
cation.
That is particlarly tue of Europe, which is rich in
old heritge, and in its manifold divisions bears the mak
of history's suferings and eperience. Thus it becomes
understandable that from its cent the geat wars have
fared out to lay waste the world; it is at the wekest part
of the boy, which is, however, also its heart and vitl
point, that its suferings become apparent. For that re
son this is aso where healing must begin.
45
Europe must beome a partner in the geat empires
which are forming on this planet, and are stiving towards
their fnal form. It must share in the higher freedom
won in the face o an inheritnce of resticed space.
Admtedly Euop's delaration of independence entils
a spiritual ac. The continent must simultneously free
itelf of much that has become fosilized, particularly in
moes of thought and old hatred-for that very reason
the vicory will bear fruit for all.
The earth wil share in it.
VII
The human spirit has long felt that change was neces
sary. But such is man's nature that for h to tke the
necessary action more than insight is reuired-abve all,
it is experience that teaches.
Therefore theoretcal stivings to prouce-ven spa
tally and in terms of territory-the unity which the spirit
recognized and demanded, were inadequate. That is re
feced in the development of the principles of 1798,
which won spfital vicory but were a militay failure.
The armies which then marched out caried with them a
more than national duty, which was thoroughly under
stood and shed favor on their route.
For this reason secret shrines in honor of Napoleon
have been maintained in all lands-for in that prince
46
the old drea of one geat monarchy had seemed to be
realized. Yet in the course of his wars, of his meteoric
career, there was more sowing of new seed than reaping
of it cops-and young sttes blossomed out of the shat
tered e. After h, rigidity set in and the Congess
of Vienna confrmed the fronters in terms of the old
legtimacy.
The second geat opprit to weld Euope was of
fered by the Peace of Versailles. But ufortately instead
of leading 'to new ordered ways of life it inceased the
source of confic. It remained-considered stucally
-an imperfec work and can hardly be said to have
brought the war to a conclusion. The First and Second
World Wars ae conneced like to fery contnent,
linked rather than sepaated by a chain of volcanoes.
That par of the peace teat which was devoted. to gen
eral maters renained partly rhetorical facade, partly
empty theory.
The concept of the League of Natons, although ob
scuely formulated, coud have been fruitul for all peoples
if it dominat idea had been applied to-individual ques
tons. Admitedly that would have pstulated the ceaton
of a supree bdy with wide pwers bth in legislaton
and government. Instead there arose a phantom boy
suited primarily for legal abitaton, a mere shadow, a
pwerless forum for disputes which throve apacefor
47
while the stcre of the peace laced fertile cells it
contained an astonishing number of details which ingen-
. iouly defned te new fronters, t burdns laid upon
t cnquered and the guarantees exaced. Thus t
.,
peace shared the lot of all products in which heart h
too little scope and reason to much; it shed no blessing
and even the vicr after a brief periOd of rejoicing had
llttle pleasure in it.
It had, to, an unhealthy poisonng infuence on the
internal politics of those Stats which it treated as of
secondary rank; it fed the lowest emotions-. revenge and
blo hated-and brought grist to the mills of demagogy.
Loking back we see how slight wa any bneft conferred
by t pece compared to the harm it cused t all. Thu
the source from which the second world war fared up
was Dnzig and it ownership-wns of this rank were
later to be buned down in a single night.
The Peace of Vesailles had merely made the frontiers
more obvious. The disloton of economy, crency and
tade, no less than re-armament, which after a brief repite,
was more threatening than before, all pint to the col
lapse of the continentl policy, which was splittng more
and more into its component stats. Then unmistakably
the signs of the second .war appered bringing fear to
men, but forcing them on, to, under a fatl spell toward
that war.
48
Even at this stage an event could have ocurred which
would have been comparable to the convocation of the
Estates in 1798; ad for the Americn Preident it will
always remain a tde to honor that he gave utterance t
t ide Admittedly such a conference might have post
pned the ordeal by fre, but not averted it. Alteratons
of the kind reuired here needed more than a reforma
ton-they demanded revolution. They pushed the parties
on to fnal clarifcation, t the purifcation by fre. As
always in such cases, the dark compelling forces and not
the voices of reason were decisive.
VIII
When wepons eventually took up the agument, there
was still in 1940 an opportunity to avert the worst con
sequences. Great portions of the earth were as yet undis
turbed; others had been set free from the cha of
Versailles and the road thus cleaed for further develop
ment. Moreover-if not de jure then certainly d facto
-the fronters had fallen throughout a great pr of
Europe and the pople ts for se_city. At this pint
a just solution could have been found whereby the illu
sion of unity which force had prouced would be replaced
by unity based on free will.
To prouce such a constitutonal change, there would
have had to be neither conqueror nor conquered; for this
49
war was by nature not one of conquest but of unity. On
the contrary, all -onquess were puely fortutous in char
acter, and it wa the victor's misfortune that he did not
se this.
' Thus Germany repated the errors of Versailles. As
once pople had spken of the League of Nations, so
they now spke of the New Europe, which was basically
merely the imprial disguis of a militant national state,
but not a league based on the equal rights and dutie of
all. Therefore Germany had to bar alone the burden ot
the struggle and seek supprt by employing force, which
propaganda cloaked with increaing adroitnes but with
diminishing efect
It was particularly depresing that relations btween
Germany and France deteriorated; here immediately after
the armistice . there was a prio when it was recogned
and acknowledged to what extent the to lands are made
to supplement each other, and how much they were
dispsd at hear to enter a new order.
The meager resistance which the armies had ofered
compared with the fghters of Douamont bre witess that
the confict was no longer conceived as a fght to the
death. France, considered as a national state, had exhaused
itself in the tremendous sacrifce of the First World War.
On the other hand, unlike Englanq it drew no power to
invigorate its thoughts and actions from realms of empire.
50
In Germany, on the contrary, the element of national
ism wa not yet exhaused Therein lies the reason why
the sruggle was renewed and now seemed to b assum
ing it fnal form; the reson bing that Germany had to
lose the war of conquest which she waged as a national
state- nd correspndingly one sw the forces of resist
ance grow in proprtion a her efort increased Now it
is imprant that along with the others she should win
the war i so far as it is a war of uty.
Yet the spedy concluion of the war i France spared
much for mankind. Thus the destruction of Paris that
irreplaceable materpiece, wa avoided May it after the
deluge lke an ark laden deep with things of age and
buty, make landfal at a new haven for the delght of
future generations!
It will b recognizd too that the ocuption, in spite
of al the suferings it brought als left se of friend
ship. It . tue that alost everything which was atempted
bteen the sate a such was a faille for lack of free
dom, which is the source of concqrd Nor were there
lacking infringement of rights distortions of justice,
deeds of violence of all kinds. It is imprtant for bth
that tey shoud be atoned
Yet the bst of the poples came to know each other,
for such fateful time ever ofer ocasion for help. Respct,
friendship, and love to, spin a web of fne threads which
5 1
will endure for more than many a trety btween the
nations.
IX
In te meantime, terrible lessons showed man the way
to an ordered life. If this dos not fnd expression in a
new league, in a new life lved in unity and in accord
ance with higher laws; if, instead, passions trouble the
peace, then the dama through which we live will be
repeated in a more violent form.
Man must never forget that the images which now
terrify him are drawn from hi hert. The world afame,
the burnt-out houss, the ruined towns, the trails of de
struction are like leprosy whoe germs had long multplied
within before it broke out on the surface. Such have long
ben e images in the beans and mnds of men. It is the
innermost stuf of man's bing which is refected in the
world around us, just as inner compsure is revealed by
externa calms. Therefore spiritual salvation must come
frst, and only that peace can bring a blessing which h
been preceded by the taming of the pasions in these hearts
and minds of men.
This must b botne in mind when it comes to punish
ing the guilty. It will be those who are frm of purpose
but weak in judgment who will push themslve forwad
a judges. Therefore it i impnant that here rean and
5 2
knowledge of the whole problem should hold sway, but
not blind party vengeance which adds new injustice to old.
You must know that in such conficts there is a large
element of destiny; like whirlpols they draw men in and
lead them to new goals. Yet man is always required to
dguish btween justice and injutice and to resist
crime, even at his own pril. Evil cannot be excused b
cause it wa enforced or bcause the times called for it
To such instances the words of St. Matthew apply:
"For it must needs be that ofenses come, but wo to
the man by whom the ofense cometh."
Yet revenge, passion must on no accout play the
leading role. Avenging the victims is much - less impr
tant than the restoration of justice and in panicular of
the sens of justice which over wide stretches of the
earth ha ben dulled and suppresed. The determination
to create jutice must have order and healing as its aim.
There must b no more pans of the eanh where fear
reigns and men lve exposd without jst sentence to
assault on their prsons and on their lives on thei ps
sesions and their freedom. In this respct, juce is like
a light pnetratig far into the surrounding dark.
For this reason it i udeniably imprtant that justice
should be meted out. The sense of justice dos not die
utterly in any pople, and revive mightily when it is
demonstated that injustice cannot endue, and that criie
53
fnds condign punishment, whatever the tyranny under
whch it was committed. For this to bcome fully appar
ent, neither parties nor nations should sit in judgment
6n their oppnents. The plaintif cannot also b judge.
It is to b foresen that the terrible gufs which violence
has opned will not close without outbusts of vengence
on the part of the oppressed. Yet justice cannot be achieved
in that way; the evil deeds can b expiated only where
hatred dos not dictate the verdict. Only then can it b
distinguished who is to be considered as soldier and who
as hangman, who as warrior and who as murderer, and
which of the oppnents in the war of nations is worthy
of respct as a fo or of the gallows as a shedder of inno
cent blo. But if partisans make the distinction, then
they convert crimals ito martyrs and national heros.
That is not to say that justice must not be thorough.
There is to much. stupid, snsles tyranny and oppres
sion of the defenSeless, to many exectioners and their
assistants, to many torters great and small, for the gu
to close bfore jutice has ben meaured out in full.
But it is imprtant that the crimes should stand revealed
for all time; and tat will be pssible only by justice, never
through revenge. Justice is by _natue like a light which
intensies the shadows. The less justice draws its inspira
tion from the passions, the more ded y the crime stands
out in it ugliness.
54
X
Expiation is one of the preuppsitions of the new
league; purifcation precedes uncation.
The pace itself, however, must b entirely dedicated to
the future. In it must b realizd the aims inherent in the
war as a whole. Through it the earth presses on to new
forms in which all pwers co-oprate. Therefore in each
party,
even i hidden under the dros of violence, there
lies hid a god claim to justice. The tak is t bring it to
the surface and relize it in a loftier form.
If we conider dispassionately the aims which are being
fought for, we will fnd that almost all the problems
which exercise the human race are playing their part.
Three questions of prime imprtance can, however, b
distingushed; to thee the pace must be expected to fnd
a solution. The frst is the question of living space, for
there are certain pwers which are .ghting for space
those which are als caled the totaltarian states. The
fact that they are on the move is a sign that the division
of the e, a developd historiCaly, requires to b
altered. Therefore no pace promises to be of long dura
tion which dos not allay this Wet in a just manner.
Yet these demands, which are based on natural justice,
must be satisfed on a higher plane- not by conquest but
by alliance The earth must provide bread for alL

55
The second gre3t quetion is that of justice- in s far
a cenain other pwers claim to b fghtg for justice.
Undoubtedy the curtailment of rights which the total
ta.ian state have imposed upn men is not their internal
afair alone. On the contrary, ech encroachment upn
freedom is seen abroad a a glaring thret. If the claim
to panicipate justly in the territory and produce of the
arth is well founded, so is the claim that the rights, lib
erties and dignity of man must be respected in all coun
tries without exception. No other pace can last except
that made beteen free poples.
The third quetion, fnally, is how the new way of life
is to b achieved-that is, what shape the life of the
workingman shall take. In this repect the natons have
come to resemble each other closely and are bcoming
daily more alke; for the same great rhythm inspires the
total mobilization on which they have embarked. This
is not merely a question of armaments but of fa-reaching
transformation. That the proucts of this labr proess
are delvered to the fronts is only one apct of it; the
other, invisible but no les efective, is at work within
the nations themslves. Thus no nation will be demobi
lized in the same form a that in which it entered the
war. War is the great forger of nations as it is of hearts.
The objct of the peace is to reconcile these the great
aims-they form the elements of its constructon. The
56
elements must supprt each other-thus it wil be seen
that the solution of the territorial question is intimately
coneted with the reform of justice. Solution of the one
entails solution of the other. To cure the sicknes of the
land-hungry poples is to give them the chance of reform
ing the laws, and thus the element of danger is removed.
The forces which are released from making armaments
will prouce for all.
Again, to settle the questions of justice and territory
correctly, things must be given a new signifcance; ths
can be impared ony by the new man, the worker-the
man who has already drawn up great projcts, and who
alone is endowed with the audacity and the vision to plan
universal pace. He alone can already think in terms of
continents; his concepts and symbls alone are compre
hensible on a planetary scale. Therefore he will also be
the ferment of unity.
The pace will have achieved its aims when the force
which are given over to totl mobilization are freed for
creation Then the heroic age of the worker will have
reached it fuflment-the age which was als the age
of revolutions. The angry torrent has holowed out the
bed in which paceful waters will run. At the same time
the fgure of the worker, losing its titanic cast, will reveal
new asp of itsll-then it will be seen what relaton
it bars to tradton, creation happiness and religion
57
XI
In al continents the territorial question wil require
to be sttled. But the heart of the problem lies in Euop,

from which as from the epicenter of a great earhquake
the l three wars have radiated. Here, therefore, space
to breathe is the frst requirement.
Now each country will with justice endevor not to
become living space for others. Territorial adjustment
can therefore not be achieved by force or by dictated
terms, and no territory is gained by taking it from one
to give to another.
The true slution lie in the trety alone, in the legue
of pace, in the poling of territory in accordance with
new conceptions. Only this can obviate the ccle of horde
of armament-workers followed by armies of unemployed,
which every regime after the old moel threatens to repro
duce. The nations wil bring whatever territory they pss
as dowry. It will bcome evident that on this basis it is
possible to live better, more richly, and-abve all
more safely than bfore.
Europ must be creted out of it separate membrs;
then will come new life, frer breth, a more spacious
era Man is confronted by a Promethen task. Yet fore-
runners and precedents are not lacking. Among them is
the creation of the unifed state by Bismarck and Cvou.
58
A the nations were born out of the dynastie and frag
ment of old empires, s toay they in tun must coalesce
to form an impeium. There is no lack of patterns or
moels: the world knows states where the most diverse
nations, races and tongue are united. Among them are
Switerland, the United States the Sviet Union and the
Britsh Empire. In tese struaue a mass of plitical
expriece ha crystallized. To it we can have reourse.
To set up a Europn state mens, therefore, to give
geographical and plitical unity to territory which his
torical development was alredy shaping. The great dif
culty lies in the long tradition, the pr ways of life
which have grown up in its nations. This is what Gothe
mt when he said in his day that America was more
fortnate than our continent. The time has come how
ever, when the forms have become fuid and redy for
reasting. It is a tak which may now renably b set;
the hop of the nations rest upn it
XII
land hunger will be releved by te unication of the
natons: nor is there any more just solution. How they
are to lve together in their new home will be laid down
in the constitution.
In t connection there is no point in going into
deils. Ye there are two supreme principles which must
59
fnd expresion in the constitution, irrespctive of how
they may b incorprated in it. These two principles ae
those of unity and of dversity. The new dominion must
be a union of all its membrs, but must respct their
individuality.
In this combination the two main trends which demo
racy has asumed in ou time must be reconciled-that
of the authoritarian and that of the libral state. There
is goo resn for bth; but life cannot be either entirely
disiplined nor completely dominated by free will. It is
rather a question of distinguishing the levels appropriate
to each.
The forms of the authoritarian state apply where men
and things can b organized technically. On the other hand,
freedom must have control where more organic proeses
are the rule. It is thus that nature fashions shellfsh, with
a hard, gleaming embs d shell and a delicate interior
in which the parls are hidden. In this diferentiation les
the welfare of states and the happines of individuals.
There should be uniformty of organization in what
ever concers techncal matters, industry, commerce, com
munications, trade, weights and measures, and defense.
These departments are like the great roads and railways
which run gleaming across an empire and are the same
in all its provinces whatever the nature of the country or
its pople. Man is a child of his time, and as a civilized
60
bing can move along them without striking barriers and
will everywhere fnd himlf at home.
Libeny, on the other hand, dominates in diversity
wherever nations a men difer. That applies t their
history, their spech and race, to their customs and habits,
their art and their religion. Here there cannot be to
many colors on the palette.
Thus the Euopan constitution mut skilfully distin
guish the cltural plane from that of material civilizton,
formng them into picture and frame so a to unite their
bnefts for the human race. It must create territorial and
pltical unity while presrving historical diversity. That
implies at the same time dguishing btween the tech
nical and the organic world. The state as supreme symbl
of technical achievement takes the -nations in its toils, yet
they live in freedom under its protection. Then history
wil take a hand and give new contents to old forms.
Europ can bcome a fatherland, yet many homelands
wil remain within its territories.
Within this fraework the nations large and small will
fouish more strongly than bfore. As the rivalry of the
national states dies away, the Alsatian, for instance, will be
able to live a German or a Frenchman without compul
sion from one or the other. BJt abve all he will be able to
live as an Alsatian, a he wishes. This regained freedom
will dawn even for racial minorities, for septs and towns.
61
In the new home it will b possible to b Breton, Wend,
Basque, Cretan or Siclian-d that with greater free
dom than in the old.
. .. XI I I
The peace must not be founded solely on human
reson. It cannot endure i limited in its nature to a legal
pact formed btween men, if it dos not also exist as a
holy covenant.
Yet only thus is the deepest source of evil to be reached,
that which springs from nihilism. What do teaties avail
if there is to be no alteration here? We have seen empire
adored with lofty buildings and daing structures, which
toay are turned into heaps of rubble. Once again it i
evident that no blessing rests upon Babylonian works.
It is no mere chance that nsm was depicted phio
sophicaly by Nietche and in the novel by Dtoievsky;
for i it h be to schol in all countries it was in Ger
many and Rus i
t
hat it tok up its abe. Therefore it
was here that the change were most far-reching. And
therefore it was bteen thee to pople that the war
assumed its purest form.
That is all the more surprising since experience showed
how much bth nations are adapted to intercourse and
what a blesing for bth friendshp brings. On them the
peace of the world can rest as if
o
n the
s
houlders of
62
Atla. Yet as technical thought found expresion in human
form the wave of fear that bat to and fro between them
grew stronger. They surged btween East and West like
an echo which amplifes voices and renders them inhuman.
The Russians bgan in ern.et at a point where in Europe
things were kept in the germ, in theory, or where anti
dotes disovered in the cous of history had checked the
.
l
monstous growth. Then the fear radiating from the East
gave to the niism which for generations had been
matring in Germany practical reality. It horrifed not
only the rest of the world but even thoe who knew their
native land itimately.
I t case the only posible salvation was that which
lies hidden in sufering. That is the rean why the new
order coud not be creted by renable negotiations and
by trety-making, although the wounds of the First World
War still bled. Those who dreamt of power and domina
tion were led on by the path which go down to de
struction, the path which is decribed in Psalm 7 3.
Thus in spite of all tribunals and treaties we will plunge
deeper into detruction if the transformation remains
purely humanitarian and is not accompanied by a theo
logical one. Yet there i hop of great change. For
instance, the Russian reolution stands on the brink of
developing new phenomea, and there are may ind
cations that having bgun as a technical and poltical
63
transformation it will fnd its fnal accomplishment in
metaphysics. Ths detiny has not only been descibd in
. detail by the great writers of that coutry, but can also
obviously be divined from the Russian himself, whom
technical developments have afeced as suprfcialy a
they have the surface of his eanh He has yet to reap the
harvests. In the. course of this trasformation, secuity will
radiate from him as once did fear.
Similaly the German still has strong reserves in the
background. They will reveal themselves when the tech
nocrats. abdicate, Then it will be apparent what spirit,
nobility, truth and goness lve in that pople. Then,
to, it will be. seen what courage was required to remain
German in these yers-ourage which had to exceed by
far that shown at the front in its oppsition to the pwers
of destruction of whose secret terrors the world has as
yet no conception. In East and Wet the fae of martyrs
will shine out, whose names are still hidden in the herts
of the pople.
The nations wil recognie each other in their true
form when tle spcters of hate have vanished which evil
requres for its rule. Thus it will be obvious what share
France must have in any unifcation. For long the spirit
of that county ha been striving towards greater unity i
which its labors too will be crowned. For the French, the
step of becoming a good European will be the least pain-
64
ful of all, will entail the least chage, for in this respct
they are the most advanced bth spiritualy and in their
way of life. Their store of controlled energy correspnds
to the Germans' eces of ucontrolled pwer, and bth
fa exceed their own requirements. Adittedly here to
It will b difclt to banish the shadow of the war. To
accomplish the neessary taks will require the best brains
and correspnding courage.
A for as the retn to practical afairs after weapns
have given their decision is concerned the Briton pssesses
the most fonuate temprament, as Wahington. Irving
so excellendy showed in his sketch-bok uder the head
ing "John Bull." Therefore where col commonsense and
soud judgment are required, there is much to be hopd for
from that country. For it is set upn long peaceful devel
opment and therefore only a uifying pace can be of
advantage to it. Then, too, its traditional plicy will alter
or have a diferent stess in so far a from now on it is
directed towards the unity of the Euopan nations insted
of on their dif erences; for world order is no longer main
tained by the balance of pwers, but of continents d
empires.
At te moment when Euop raises itself to the status
of a continent, the gravitational pull of America will be
come more prceptible. With the deStruction of ou towns,
Gothe's saying has ceased to apply to this extent, that
65
America now pssesses the tradition of construction which
we require. Naplen prophesied that in our day the
world would bcome republican or Cossack. If he had
foree n our sitation in detail he would have said "Ameri-

can or Russian," as Toqueville, too, long ago foretold.
Although America, like Russi will exert a pwerful in
fuence on Euope, neither of these two pssibilities will
be realized. Against them is the immense gravitatonal
force of history, the tresure of old heritage, which ha
not only been formed by the spirit or art but still lves in
men. Considered thus, the great empires of the past were
something in the nature of ptentialities which Europ
realized from itslf, vital motive from its spirit and blo
That will b particularly marked in the gret changes that
will take place--just as it was apprent in the iuence
of America on the declaration of human rights. And so
to Europ stands in ned of another Lafayette to advise
on the great territorial and constitutional questions that
accompany the union of its states.
XI V
If the strggle against nsm i s to succeed, it must
be fought out in the heart of ech one of u. Everyone
shared in the guilt, and there is no one who dd not stand
i need of the healing pwers whch are to b foud i
the realms of sufering.
66
To this end, it is neesary that in the life of the indi
vidual as in the constittion technical knowledge should
b kept in its place. The moes and methos of techical
tg must not encroch where. human happiness, love
and wel-bing should fourish. The intellectual, the titanic
powers must b seprated from the human and the divine
and subrdinated to them.
Tat i possible only if men strengthen themselves
metaphysically in proprtion to the growh of techncal
sience. And here bgin the wide, virgin felds of the new
theo.logy; it is the frst among the sciences, for it is knowl:
edge of the deepest causes and of the highest law whch
shapd the world.
Since the time of Coprnics, a wider vision of the
univers has opned out, and with It have opned the
prtals to realms of evil, to purely mechanical insec-life
and to murderous anarchy, such as wa foresen by Bsh
and h schol Tat these prtal will dose is fore
shadowe in tose sciences which round of and defe
mental horizons. Those who toay blong to the elite
-b it as phloophers, artists, or scientists.. re nearest
to the mysteries, to the pint where prception must give
way to revelation.
At the same te, the danger has bcome so great that
each one of us must be asked to take a decision, that i,
to make a confesion of faith. We have reched the pint
67
where, if not belief, at least piety, an efort to live jusdy
in the highest sense of the word, can be demanded of
mankind. Tolerance must have limits to this extent, that
the leadership of men cannot be granted to the nihilists,

to the pure technicians or to thos who despise all moral

obligations. Whover place his trust in man and human
wisom alone

cannot spak a judge, nor can he expund

as teacher, heal as dotor or srve the state as ofcial.
Thes are moes of life that end with hangmen in the
sat of the mighty.
The state therefore acts in its own interests i it not
only advances the great dotrines of salvation, but places
it trust in those of its citizens who confess to belief in
an intelligence transcending man's. To the extent that
this comes about we will see nihilism decline, the desrt
shrink-just as prsecution on grounds of faith fourished
when nihilism was strongest.
The state must ever lok to faith if it i not quickly to
fall in ruin or b destroyed by fre. Thus we have seen it
exact homage to strange idols-to theorie which were
the stok in. trade of country scholmasters ffty years ago,
t materialistic philosophies and to the sribblings of
pufed, empty heads, to its machines and to its geat
engineering works : in short t spiritual fetishe of all
kinds. And one saw propaganda uptiringly busy pathing
up this motley raiment which the healthy mind unavelled
68
like Penelope's weft. Dreams have more substace tha
t wind.
Mankind is willing and it will b well worth while to
turn him from folly to the truth.
XV
The view i stil widely held that to re-stablish order
it would sufce to return to the liberal state. But that
woUld merely mea retuning to ou pint of departure.
In the plemics which the old Liberals st agaist
the ns they bhave like fathers bwailing their m
guided children without seing that the real fault lies in
inadequate education. Just a useless is the criticism of
those who watched the terrible contest from the safety
of the gallery.
The t co.quest of nihilism and the attaiment of
pace will be pssible only with the help of the churches.
Just a the tustworthiness of a man in the new state will .
depend not on his internatonality, but on his nationality,
s his education must aim at adherence to a faith and not
at indiference. He must know his native land on eanh
and in the ite, in time ad in eternity. This education
for a full life must have its rots in loftier cenaintie tha
the state ca establish with its schools and uti versities.
In addition the churche, to, stand in need of a revival,
in the sense that implies return to fudamentals; for tue
69
. '
recovery, new life must go back to the souce. Admitedly
that is pssible. only under a tempral guise and so it i
through new forms that theology ha to work upn
mankind .
Modern man is determined t blieve; that he has
demonstrated by the very strength with which he has
clutched at absuditie, at feeting phantams of the mind.
Yet he is a rational bing who must b brought to salva
tion in a rational manner. If it i to be equal to the task,
thelog must no longer b a second class subject in the
curicuum. Rather must thelog as the prince of sciences
attract not only the beSt heans, but the bst minds to,
the puet intellecs-those which fnd no satisfaction in
the discipline of the individual sciences nor even in phi
losophy, but which are comensurate with the totality of
things, with
.
the uiverse.
Then it will no longer be a quetion of refuting the
results of the various science, but of evaluating them, of
transending them after the manner of Pascal. Only then
will the -sciences bar fruit not in terms of the spirit but
actually in .terms of economics; then they will be insued
against the strange loss which, in spite of
.
incress in
technical efciency, ha more and more robbd man of
his gains. It is a if man were puring water into a jug
without seeing that it lie in fragments. Such a state of
afairs can be set right only by intellects which are at
70
home in the whole of cretion; only there is overfow
ing plenty.
This explains why the state must give theology preed
ence abve all reearch and stud-for it i resarch of
the utmost validity. The state, like all works fashioned
by the hand of man, must take its mesure against the
mighty strucure of cretion.
XVI
Diversity of poples, races and nations-bide these
Europ can also pssess a diversity of churche, no mater
wi
t
h what rites and symbols they worship. None must be
prevented from adhering to the faith of his fathers or to
that t which he ha ben converted. Even if it should
b demaded of a man that he have a transcendental idea,
he must b fre to chose the maner in which he elevates
himself to lt
In Europ, however, the state church can only be the
Cristian church. Its claim is supported by the fact that
in it is to be found the stronget of the old tie which
have survived the era of national _ separatism. Within it
is preerved the greatet sum of faith that yet survive.
Amidst the universal confagration and in the maelstrom
of nsm it reveled itself a a pwer which stil pro
tected the weal of numberless prsons, not only from its
pupit and a
l
tars, but in the cathedrals of the intellect,
7 1
in its dotrine and in the aura which surrounds the faith
ful and do not forske them even in the hour of deth.
New martyrs bore witnes for it.
Mankind had to learn that in the midst of the cata
. , trophe none of the subtle systems and none of his tech
ings and writings could give him counsel-or at leat only
for ill. They all lead to murder and the cult of pwer. On
the other hand in the whirlwinds of destuction, the truth
of the great images of Holy Sripture became ever clearer
--f its commandments, promises and revelations. In the
symbols of the divine origin of the world, of the cretion,
of man's fall, in the images of Cain and Abel, of the
fo, of Sdom and Gomorrah and of the tower of Bab
e
l,
in the psalms and in the prophets, and in the trth of the
New Tetament which transcends the base laws of the
realm of te,ror-in all thee is manifeted to us the eter
nal framework which is the foundation of human history
and human geography. Hence it is on t bok that all
oaths of alliance must be sworn as the men of Pitcairn
island swore, survivors of shipwrek on a Pacifc isle.
They hunted each other there like wolves, until their
higher nature fnally brought them to peace.
On that island it was recognized that a return to
fundamentals wa a moral necessity and on them they
founded their sial order. That is indicated in our cae
als. The pople must be brought back to Christian morals,
72
without which they are rendered as defenseles prey to
destrction. There lies mankind's path-imitation of man's
great prototype; but the path will be useless uness at the
sae time, high above mere moral law, a way is found
to the divine image. That is a pt which only the elite
may ted.
XVI I
For these reasns the peace treaty cannot merely take
the shap of a constitution in accordance with national
and interational law-a constitution in which questions
of justice, territory and precedence are sttled; it must
also b fruit in a religious covenant.
The unity of the West, realized for the frst time since
the empire of Charlemagne, must not be confned to the
asimilation of countries, pples and ct, but must
come to life again in the church. The reformation ha
need of the church a the church has of reformation.
Strems which have fowed in seprate channels must
b again united.
That i the high goal; merel: to recognize it and to
have it in view is no small thing. This the churche had
alread: done, for they, made common cause in the fght
against nihilism, and this fellowship must be crowned
for all to see when the complex organism on which they
live unites its members in a single by.
73
XVI I I
I t i the mark of a just pace that i t give full expre
sion to the spirit of the times. That spirit it must make
nanifest in plitics, in things of the spirit, in the do
trine and rite of religion-and that irrepctive of whether
this or that group of pwers has emerged victorious, irre
spctive of whether the fght is fought out to the end or
whether subtle diplomacy contrives to spare the peoples
part of the ordeal.
Yet it is bter to fght longer and suf er longer than
to return to the old world. Let the towns be laid low if
they know neither justice nor fredom, let the cathedrals
crash in ruin if there is no reverence in them. Peace is
deirable only i it embraces whatever works of man still
have some worh and dignity.
But. shoud the fa word be with mere commonsense
acting in accordance with technical principles, then the
conclusion of the war will be only apparent. It will turn
to civil war, to pure butchery. Tyranny and with it fear
will grow and darkness spread further abroad; then after
an even shorer interal than bfore new fronts and new
confics will ripn.
It should be brne in mind that the technique for
developing the pwers imprisoned in the elements is still
progressing. And thereby the pssibilities of detruction
74
will also incre. Toay they attempt to strike at the,
masses of the ppulation, a fact which has become par
ticularly evident by the attacks on the cities. But already
there are signs of the desire to go beyond that, to achieve
total annihilation-that is, to destroy life altogether. So
toay dreams of exterminating whole coutries and whole
groups of poples already form part of the nihilist's
idelogy.
That is the prospct which nihlism has to ofer-the
gret triumph of death after which it yearns. It is a spirit
which you may recognize by its diablical lusts-which
the majrity applaud-lusts after hatred, disunity and
destruction.
XI X
The question remains: What can the individual con
tibute to the pece? It is all the more ugent since toay
the idividual tends to underetimate the imprtance of
the role assigned to him.
The rage of the elements makes h depair of h
pwer; he lets his hands drop in ace of the confagra
tion. By renouncing h free will he renders himself help
less and thereby subjct to fer and the pwerful forces
of evil whose might lies in the interplay of hate and
terror. They t to make man their instrument and are
waitng only for the kind of wild exultation with whch
75
he shall asue full respnsibilty. Thus he adopt a psi
tion in which he loses the pwer to diferentiate btween
go and evil and bcomes only a plaything of h
passions .
. ..
The answer to t is that the respnsibilty of the
individual is tremendous
,
and that no one can relieve
him of it. The world must answer bfore his cout and
he is judge of right and wrong.
Therefore toay more than ever bfore he can do go.
The world is full of violence, of men prscuted, impris
oned and sufering. How easily and with what scanty
means can one bring comfort, assuage the sufering and
give protetion! Even the least of u has the opprtunty,
and the service rendered grows in proprtion to the lmited
pwers at one's dispsal. True pwer is to be recognized
by. the protection it afords.

Abve all the individual must reognize that pace
cannot grow out of lassitude. Fe, to, contributes to
war and its prolongation. Only thus can one explain the
outbreak of the Scond World War so son after the
frst To have pace it is not enough not to wish for war.
True pace pstulate couage of a higher order than that
which war demands; it is a prouct of spiitual travail, of
spiritual stength. It is attained when we lern to extin
guish the red fres within us and to free our own hearts
from hate and its disruptive pwer.
76
Thus each one of us is like a light which as it grows
overcomes the surouding glom. A little light is greater,
has more pwer than thick darknes.
That is true also of thos who are destined to fall
They pass in goly felowship through lofty prtals into
eternity. The real struggle in which we are involved is
more and more clerly that btween the pwers of destrc
tion and the pwers of life. In that fght the fghters for
justice stand shoulder to shoulder lke the chivalry of old.
The more fuly this fnds expression the more enduing
will b the pce.
77