Critique on Character of The
German People

(This Critique was written by my father in an analysis of Jon-
athan French Scott’s text ‘‘Patriots in the Making,’’ in 1916, be-
fore America’s entrance into the First World War, at the instance
of D. Appleton and Company, Publishers, New York City—R.A.H.)

THE GERMANS are characterized by:

(1) Race-Consciousness Exaggerated.

(2) A National Glorification.

(3) A National Egotism.

(4) An excessive pride in what they refer to as Kultur, and the
rest of the world as a cold, unreasoning, national brutality,
if the end desired can only be attained by brutality.

THE GERMANS believe that:

(1) Germany is THE CIVILIZED NATION of Europe.

(2) All civilization SOMEWHERE ELSE is due to the presence
of German blood in those peoples.

(3) That all German conquests are justifiable.

THE GERMANS inevitably manage to invoke upon other na-
tions the guilt for the wars she has waged.

Such exaggerated race-consciousness leads to an unwarranted sus-
picion of other countries. It is an obsession.

The German “kaiser-idea” suggests a Germanic Unity of all
peoples.

GERMANS emphasize:

(1) “The supreme duty of sacrificing all individualism to the
state.”

(2) Loyalty to the Ruling House and Devotion to the Father-
Jand are synonyms.

(3) Little tots are taught in their hesebucher to revere the Ruling
House.

(4) The Ruling House is canonized as a race of heroes. Their
sins are condoned.

(5) The German schools place the Kaiser, or whatever Ruling
House may exist, upon a pedestal, crowning his brow with
wreaths of Joyalty and Jove.

CONCLUSIONS: Education in Germany develops a_ national
egoism, with all due failure to make allowances for shortcomings,
disparaging and ignoring all other nations and toying with a vision
of a greater national destiny.