Page:Germany Must Perish!.djvu/46

 character that Treitschke, like Hitler, soon captured the intellectuals as well as the masses of his day. His doctrines were spread throughout Germany by his many pupils until, eventually, practically every educated German of that day fell under his influence. Conceivably, he could not have inspired such a profound belief in such monstrous doctrines unless, in substance, they embraced aims and ideas already very definitely existing as inherent in the German character and innate in his soul. Many of those beliefs explain much of Germany's present actions.

According to Treitschke9 the individual has no right of his own, but exists only for the State which has the exclusive right to use him as it wills. There is no other force except the will of the State, and war is the only and best way in which that will might be employed by it. A Germany so constituted can recognize no earthly power and "might makes right" only when a German wields the sword! There is no such thing to the German as "sacredness of human life" and war is sublime to him because in it he can "murder without passion." War is the best way in which Germany can enforce its will —41—