A GERMAN TRUTH TELLER.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 4, Issue 93, 8 October 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

A GERMAN TRUTH TELLER.

GERMANY'S AIMS EXPOSED

JOURNALIST WHO DEFIED THE KAISER. The whole world outside of Germany has discovered in the first year of war what German domination means. The Allies fighting against the ideals of Prussian militarism know now that tho6© ideals are based on cruel materialism, the worship of force, horrible lust, and a callous repudiation of the humanity and civilisation of the rast of the world. The idea of human brotherhood does not exist for the Prussian military leaders, whose one idea is that Germany's greatness, and her influence on the world, depend on the extent of her military conquests. And it is now thoroughly understood that Prussian militarism is approved .and upheld by the whole German people, who, throughout the war, have shown themselves as vain, ignorant, callous and cruel as their perverted leaders. With such a nation and such a people it requires a considerable amount of courage and force of character on the part of any individual German who does not see eye-to-eye with his deluded fellow countrymen to say so openly. The last tiling Germans desire to hear is the truth about the war or themselves. Indeed, the German authorities have taken all possible precautions to prevent anv vestige of the truth leaking out. The German press is under official domination; in no sense of the word is it a free press. When Germany mobilised her armies for fighting in the field she mobilised every German pen at home to keep the deluded German people in a militaristic state ot mind by writing and shouting in superlatives of Germany's greatness, goodness and military .power.,.

~ Aricr nearly a your of warfare a man lws arisen in Germany to tell this nation ol monstrous egotists the plain truth. That man is Nlaximilian Harden, the notorious editor of the vitriolic German journal "Die Zukunft." Harden and his newspaper have an international reputation for fearlessness and outspokenness. By birth a Polish Jew —his real name is Witkowski — Harden started life as a strolling player, then became a kind of political adventurer, and finally established a fiery reputation for himself as a reverberating writer and hard-hitting journalist. He came into international prominence some seven years ago by exposing the Eulenburg scandal, in which many highly placed personages of the German court figured as sexual perverts. Unaided, his pen broke up the notorious Eulenburg clique, which had been responsible for many of tho most unsavoury features of Germany's domestic and foreign policy. He was prosecuted and imprisoned, but eventually he established his case. The Kaiser restored him to favour when he proved the truth of his allegations, and since then Harden has been one of the dominating journalistic personalities of Germany. Since the war began Harden has from time to time shown, by more or less trenchant comments in his journal, lhat he does not approve of the war policy of his adopted country, but he wrote with such unusual restraint that his criticisms were for the most part suffered to pass in silence. But now he has apparently come to the conclusion that tne restraint he has imposed upon himself is harmful to German interests, and that the time lias come to warn the fatuous German nation that it has embarked on a policy of destruction. The result has been a series of articles in "Die Zukunft," which have incurred for their fearless writer the severe displeasure of the Kaiser and the execration of a considerable portion of the German people, who have branded him as an infamous traitor because he has performed for them the unpleasant task of opening their eyes to the actual position of Germany to day. One of these articles referred to Germany's loss of South-West Africa. In the course of it Harden bitterly warned the German people to learn the real lesson of German colonial policy for the last fifteen years, which, lie said, had been a failure and a "wild delusion." He ridiculed the whole effort of Germany at the time of the South African war, and wrote as follows about its origin : —" The Boers would never have begun the war at all if they had not reason to hope for a strong protector. Had not William 11. called the German Empire a friendly power, to whose help they might appeal? They could not measure England's strength and England's riches, but the utterance of the Kaiser led them astray into the belief that, if the worst came to the worst, they would not fight alone." He then proceeded to the actual course of events and the consequent disappointment of "Europe." He observed that the Germans until the very end of the war lied about the situation, and rejected all warnings. Their idea was that "the Boers had to conquer or die," and "Europe" was quite prepared " to send the heroes of their dreams, as the Romaics used to send gjadiators, to their death," He snecringly referred to the reception of Botha, I)e Wet and De la lley in Berlin, "just as if Germany's saviours had after a hard won victory come home at last to the delivered land." He also pointed cut with what care the Emperor William congratulated the British pn their victories, and expressed his joy to Queen Victoria and King Edward. He said that the explanation of those manoeuvres given by the well informed in Berlin was tJiat "tile Germans were too weak, and must keep up the pretence of friendship with England until they had a large navy."

From this point Harden works up to the present war, and solemnly warns the Germans against interpreting the military and political situation merely Recording to their wishes. He e.dds : "Notwithstanding the good tilling whieh come from the Eastern fronts, we must not yield to any airy delusions. And we ought not to do so, even if Warsaw, Brerit-Tjitov.sk and Riga were to fall."

"And what about Franco!-'" he proceeds to ask. He answers the question by quoting at length a recent speech of M. roineare's, adding:—"ls it right to ridicule the speaker and his hearers! - ' Tn the twelfth month of war, they have once again disclosed their purpose. The attempt to divert- them from it by loud words would be an in. Milt. It would also be useless. Let one ijpntence of the speech stick : - 'Only moral strength and endurance assure the vi< tory.' " In another characteristic outburst, Hard, ■u has the temerity to defend the English people, and makes ironical comments on some oi the cr.ticMiis levelled at the German Empiie by his officially subordinate German brethren of the pen. "It is puerile," lie writes, "to declare that the Englishman is a slave to sport. His sport, to which lie devotes almost as much time as the German does to his beer, hardens his body, and is therefore a direct- gain to bis country. Take a glance at the girls, the old ladies in the West End of Eondon, at the working men and their children on the immense playing fields, and compare them with the anaemic, fat, flaccid, deformed specimens of humanity one meets at every step in any Continental town."

"The Englishman is healthier, handsomer and braver. In lii.s island, beaten against, bv the waves, he speedily grasped the idea that only the vigorous could conquer the earth, and

straightway ho set about creating for himself the indispensible hygienic conditions of a nation that refuses to grow degenerate. The result of his agedong training is that the Englishman has become a reasonable being; he knows how to obey without humiliating himself, and to force obedience without recourse to capricious or tyrannical legislation. In India a commissioner with a handful of whites at his command controls millions of natives, who dare not lift their eyes at him. In London, when disorder threatens, duke 6 and shopkeepers unite and organise themselves into a constabulary service. Every man, be he a millionaire or a wage-earning clerk, instinctively knows and does his duty—in short, he plays the man. And if the British Empire is passing through a grave crisis which threatens its existence, from every corner of the earth will rise men of AngloSaxon blood who will hurry to her aid and demonstrate to the world the invincible might of this people." "Germany must be ready for the hardest fato that ever struck her. We do not know whether we shall win. We are appallingly far from our goal, and wo never had as many enemies around us as at the evo of the coming year." In another article he writes" Now we know what the war is for. Not for French, Polish, Ruthenian, Esthonian, Lettish territories, nor for billions of money: not in order to drive headlong after the war into the pool of emotions and then allow the chilled body to rust in the twilight dusk of the Deliverer of Races. No! To hoist the storm flag of the Empire on the narrow channel that opens and locks tho road into the ocean."

Finally, Harden brought himself into dire disgrace by commending Italy for attacking her arch enemy, Austria, and explaining why in uncomfortably convincing terms. He also pointed out that Russia's interests lay ill the direction of continued. proseci'iticP. of wpr I'.'.vd lie hinted that German intrigues at Petrograd to induce the Czar to conclude a separate peace had resulted in a fiasco. A writer .so indiscreet as to proclaim to the worid Mich damning facts as these became intolerable to a Government which is seeking by every means in its power to conceal the truth from the German nation, and the Kaiser, in his wrath, exiled Harden from his dominions. Although the German authorities have since denied the report of Harden's exile, it appears to be a fact that he has gone to Northern Seandanavia for an extended "holiday." But the man who was Bismarck's pupil and intimate is too powerful to be cast into obscurity. More will be heard of him before the war is over.