The Pacifistic Trend in Modern German Literature

Abstract

MANY of us Americans have thought of Germany primarily in terms of war. How many of us ever think about the contribution Germany has recently been making to peace? Or how many of us know of the many interesting novels and dramas of pacifistic tendency that have been written in Germany before and after the world war? In the year 1912 there was published novel entitled Das Menschenschlachthaus or in the English translation Human Slaughterhouse. At the time of its appearance it created sensation. Over 100,000 copies were sold within three months and before year had passed it had been translated into eight languages. Wilhelm Lamszus, the author, who was master in one of the great public schools of Germany, suddenly awoke to find himself famousor infamous, according to the point of view-in his own country. The conservative press showered upon him such epithets as a peril to the public safety, a hysterical neuropath, a socialistanarchic revolutionary; the free city of Hamburg, where the work first appeared, interdicted its sale; the author was relieved of his teaching position, but was later reinstated; and the Commission on Instruction and Education for the Nineteenth Universal Peace Conference wrote officially to congratulate him on having placed weapon of the greatest importance in the hands of the pacifists. The surprising thing about the work is that in the year 1912 before the faintest war-cloud could be observed on the farthest horizon, it describes with marvelous accuracy scenes that two years later actually occurred on the fields of France and Belgium. Those of you who have read this book will recall that it begins with the mobilization. Before the soldiers entrain for the front they are led to church where the clergyman in the name of God, the Merciful, pronounces benediction over them and their rifles and their guns on their patent recoilless carriages and their precious cartridges prepared to butcher their fellow men. Until the figure of Christ on the altar no longer seemed to be the Jesus of Nazareth but took on the appearance of the great mongol warrior Djengis Khan who swept across all Asia and burst into Europe butchering whole cities and piling up mountains of human skulls. 37