It Cannot be Stormed

by Ernst von Salomon

  A curious assembly, he thought, and as he sat with his chin pulled back into his collar he summed up every single individual as in some degree suspect. Apart from the two Indians, who appeared not to be able to bear the sight of each other—a Hindu and a Mohammedan probably, he thought to himself, but they were only a Northern and a Southern Indian—there was a youngish man who, while airing his opinions on various items of news with wrinkled brow, lapsed into remarkably, shall we say, colloquial phraseology, and whom at first he took to be a Communist Party agitator, and then decided must be the editor of a weekly paper very much of the Right, but who turned out in the end to be a Social-Democratic Trades Union Secretary. Again, Brodermann would never have taken the fair youth, with an old blackened pipe, who flung himself down on the sofa and every now and again gave a grunt, for one of the city editors of the Berliner Tageblatt; and he couldn’t help thinking it very strange to observe that by far the best dressed person there was a gentleman with amazingly aristocratic features and sensitive, winning manners, whom he recognised as an influential official of the Russian Legation, whereas the name of the sloppily dressed individual with bad manners, who kept interpolating into the discussion a selection of more or less parrot-like Communistic catchphrases, pointed to his being the heir of one of the best known noble families of Germany. Nor could he ever have guessed that the gentleman who spoke so eloquently in favour of the proposed large-scale small holdings policy in the East was an important property owner; nor that the gentleman who defended with such delightful enthusiasm the wages policy of the Trades Unions was an authoritative representative of the engineering industry; and yet it was so. But this curious discrepancy between impression and appearance on the one hand and facts and opinions on the other, aroused, by its persistent obtrusion of paradox, a most violent antagonism in Brodermann, whose mind was always striving for clarity. Anything that could not be verified upset him, and he entrenched himself in a stronghold of opposition as though he were facing a siege.

  He might have dismissed all these people, who were making themselves out to be so important, with a shrug of his shoulders, but he had to admit to himself the danger of such an attitude; for there was no getting away from the fact that the subjects and opinions that were being dealt with here were obviously being dealt with seriously; the whole discussion was on a level that allowed of no doubt that this was not a gathering of irresponsible literati, but of men who were perhaps interfering where they had no right, but in doing so were establishing a claim to be heard and heeded when the time was ripe. It was not the general and extremely frank criticism of existing conditions, of which Brodermann would have felt himself to be a representative even if he had not come in uniform, that angered him and made him uneasy; it was the demonstrable fact that this criticism was levelled concentrically so that there was reason for believing that the gentlemen who were carrying on the debate with such an air of reasonableness, when the moment came for them to take over the responsibility for reforming the object of their censure, might disperse eccentrically. Brodermann, quite rightly, had always considered himself to be extremely up-to-date; no one could be more aware than he was of the high degree of disaffection which had seized large sections of the nation, and it would not have surprised him to find this disaffection among those to whom it should have been, not only a matter of interest, but of intelligence, to be in direct opposition to it. But what was he to make of the complete cynicism of a gentleman in his thirties whom he afterwards learned was a Professor of Assyriology, who had just been indulging in reflections on the analogy between a certain epoch in the culture of the ancient Araucassians and the present day, and who, apparently as a sort of protest against some state of affairs or another, seldom had his hair cut, who gave as his reason for joining the Democratic or State Party that people were thankful enough today if anybody joined them? It was this that made him uneasy; to have to take seriously things that weren’t worth taking seriously. He was working himself into a state of mind which made him feel that, despite all his self-control, in having to defend the one responsible attitude with the pride of the single combatant, he might have to discard the shield of his personal dignity.

  When Ive came in with Pareigat he did not at first notice Brodermann. Following the practice of late-comers to these gatherings, he tiptoed across the room, without greeting anyone, to find himself a chair, so as not to disturb the discussion. Brodermann had half risen, and Schaffer gave him a friendly nod without interrupting what he was saying, Ive now saw Brodermann face to face. He hesitated for a moment, nodded to him almost imperceptibly, turned very red, and sat down exactly opposite him. Schaffer threw an astonished glance at Ive and Brodermann and went on with what he was saying: that, at any rate, it was a mistake to regard the attitude of France, incomprehensible to German intelligence, in regard to the Hoover proposals simply as reactionary stubbornness or as dictated merely by hatred of Germany; nor was it necessary to explain the French theses with benevolent objectivity as psychological, as the result probably of the formal, juristical trend of the French mind, or of the desire for security, arising out of the memory of the devastations of the war in the Eastern departments— Ive thought to himself, Schaffer is surprised that Brodermann and I are not falling on each other’s necks as old war-comrades. Old war-comrades! If we had anything in common in the war it was that each of us, uninfluenced by any group egoism, had to find his way and his attitude absolutely alone—For the French struggle for hegemony, which had its counterpart in an at least equally strong and equally natural German struggle for hegemony, was derived from too deep a source to be explained psychologically and to be attributed merely to the political circumstances and the geo-political position. In any case, it was not a question of a political, but of a historical direction of will, which attracts statecraft, whatever views statesmen may represent, into line with itself. Fundamentally, from the very first awakening of German consciousness, the destiny of Germany, and beyond that the destiny of Europe, depended on a single and immutable factor. This was the existence of the Reich, not, of course, just one of the perpetually changing political manifestations in the midst of Central Europe, but the complete content of thoughts and feelings, of dreams and tendencies which are contained in the concept ‘The Reich.’ Every German attempt to realise the concept must of necessity call into the battlefield all the Powers who are in their essence non-German. Thus it was not surprising that the Reformation in its characteristic political significance, which was expressed at its finest in Luther’s hymns, had been far more instrumental in bringing about a movement like the Counter-reformation than Humanism which, as the revolt of an intellectual force, was certainly equally dangerous to the Church. Long after its first historical reaction, if not in any palpable achievement or in any conscious action, certainly in its influence, the Counter-reformation undoubtedly had, and must have even today, a widely operative effect.

  As he said this Schaffer looked across at Pareigat, who appeared to agree with him. Now, the first manifest French attempt, of the same character even led to the endeavour of King Francis I to have himself elected as Emperor of Germany, whilst his antagonist Charles V, who, owing to the far-sighted dynastic policy of his grandfather Maximilian, was also heir to the Spanish throne, was forced, in spite of Turkish wars and Italian decadence, again and again to dig his claws into France. If we could not renounce the pleasure of giving the picture a psychological justification, what had to be said was that obviously the French conception of history was unlike the German; for France the individual epochs of history could be regarded as isolated, self-sufficient manifestations; as historical phenomena they could be used as interesting, but objective examples for comparison and then be laid away among the documents in archives made up of typical examples. Much could be learned by studying Plato and Aristotle, Erasmus and Voltaire, the life of Jeanne d’Arc or even Napoleon, but for the French there was no application which could serve as a lesson for the present day to be drawn from such a study
; whereas for us Germans history was not a single process progressing in stages, but to a certain extent the continual crystallisation and solution of one and the same element, and we could still hear today the deep challenging voice of Plato; Meister Eckhart was still thinking today the thoughts that we have perpetually forgotten to think; and with us and today the battle was repeatedly being waged which has been waged from the Hohenstaufen to Bismarck, and every single epoch was a perpetual warning and injunction to fulfil today what has always been desired. It was just this lack of ‘restrained’ mystic consciousness in the French mind which gave to French politics its amazingly more flexible character. Whereas with us every association led to an eventually disastrous but holy alliance, for the French every alliance from the time of Louis XI to Napoleon and beyond that to the Great War, was always a fine and useful but extremely unholy transaction. But this flexibility gave French politics not only the appearance of, but actual honourableness. What the French wanted they wanted actually, whereas we were forced by historical retrospection always to be wanting something different from that for which we had entered the battle-arena, so carefully prepared and manned. The result was that we always seemed to the world to be the most reactionary and at the same time the most revolutionary nation, for whom it was a necessity to hold itself in readiness for every surprise. With this was closely associated the impossibility of understanding the character of Germany’s struggle for power. If we were, as Dostoevsky described us, a Protestant Power, our protest had always been for the sake of the Reich, and at the moment when we were very near to bringing the Reich to complete fulfilment we produced protest and anger in all our neighbours, above all in the French. Thus the conception of the Reich had a far-reaching effect, and whenever it struck root in great individual personalities there was always a strong endeavour to tear them up from German soil, and give them an honourable, but universally palatable, super-national, intellectual origin; and there might even be said to be an effort on our part to drive back to their own sphere any personalities who were in some degree unpleasing, who had in all honour acted against this honour, regarding them with sure instinct as forces antagonistic to the Reich; take for example Charles the Great, whom over there they described, quite as a matter of course, as a Frenchman. In fact, in every incident of German history which, as history, represented the perpetual struggle for the Reich, the world had re-echoed with the accusations hurled by the Germans against the French and by the French against the Germans. Varied as these complaints had been, there was always a germ of similarity to be observed: the complaint had always been that the other was striving for hegemony in Europe. And actually, if we asked ourselves who had the right to this hegemony, then there were abundant reasons for and against, but one thing was certain, that it could only belong to one of the two peoples, one of the two nations, and that the nation to whom it did not belong could no longer exist as a nation, that is as a people with an historical task to fulfil. And however much the odds changed in the game of chance, the winner had always made conditions which were calculated to cut the sinews of the aggressor of the Reich. France knew how great the danger was and so, at the present time, it had had to do something it had never done before, except in the Edict of Nantes, something which was even contrary to the essence of the French method, since it limited its flexibility, that is, to press through a Treaty with the avowed intention of its being permanent and unalterable. Over and above this, but arising out of it none the less, France had organised half the world, and if this had been accomplished in the neutral form of the League of Nations, after all the League of Nations arose out of the Treaty, and though possibly all the Geneva theses of peace and justice had been listened to, read and promulgated by all the nations represented with an enigmatic smile, not so by France, since for her peace was the guarantee of her hegemony, and for her justice really was a slogan uttered from the heart, the highest political virtue to which it applied itself, since everything that France did must—how pleasant—be just, so long as it served the ends of peace. But we saw what it actually meant to us; we saw in the League of Nations a Counter-Reich.

  As he said this Schaffer looked at Ive, for it was from a discussion with Ive that he had gleaned the idea. But Ive said nothing. He did not even look at Schaffer. His close-set eyes were fixed on the top buttons of Brodermann’s uniform coat. Brodermann, too, said nothing, but he listened with an intent expression on his face. The discussion now took a more lively turn—with interesting disclosures about the Sino-Japanese conflict, and the extraordinary attitude of France, which was not fully understood by the other Powers, nor by the French people, and actually it was a question of interests in Southern China, which only affected a small circle of capitalists, and of the distribution of spheres of interest, which had its explanation in Indo-Chinese affairs—but still neither Ive nor Brodermann took any part in what was being said. Later on, it is true, each one of them in turn ventured on a short remark. This was when Schaffer spoke of the part played by the citizen class —the bourgeoisie—in the form which had crystallised out of its political supremacy, making various attempts to define the word citizen and eventually giving a far-fetched explanation of the supremacy of this class as a manifestation of the idea of the Counter-Reich. Then Brodermann asked politely, and obviously embarrassed, if after all it was not the French Revolution which had created a concept indispensable to the organisation of every state, and which he had been waiting in vain to hear mentioned here: the concept of a citizen of the State? Since Schaffer did not at once realise whether his leg was being pulled or whether this was a serious criticism, and if so, from what angle it was being levelled, he let the observation pass with a few amiable words.

  Then Dr. Salamander broke in. He had returned from Paris, since the banks had been closed by an emergency regulation, and he gave the impression of a man who no longer understood the world.

  ‘But in the name of God,’ he asked, ‘what would become of German intellectualism if the Third Reich was established? Is it conceivable that the intellectual freedom so laboriously won should be suppressed, gagged, and forced to go abroad, into exile—an immeasurable loss to German culture?’

  Then Ive said that he could not, of course, tell how the power of the Third Reich would be exercised, but when he reflected that, for at least twelve years, intellectual freedom had been able to put forth what blossoms it liked and had taken full advantage of this and, indeed, had at its disposal a magnificent apparatus which it would be difficult to equal, and that it had made the greatest imaginable use of this apparatus, with the result that those very Powers were now menacing it, which the approved representatives of intellect were steadily endeavouring, with all the weapons of reason, to scare back into their dark lairs, ‘then it is easy to imagine, Dr. Salamander, what will happen to you and those on whose behalf you have raised your voice, namely— nothing. Nothing will happen to them, they can go on writing calmly and confidently and peacefully; nobody will read a word of it.’

  Schaffer disapproved of this turn in the discussion and, shaking his head playfully, he tactfully led the discussion, which was threatening to go to pieces, into the right lines again.

  ‘Everything we have been saying,’ he went on, ‘leads to the conclusion that what any German policy needs is an objective point which is a fundamental part of it. What we have to criticise in the present conditions, from whatever point of view we regard them, is their lack of any sort of objective point which would permit of far-sighted action. It is impossible to feel any certainty as to where things are leading. The reason for this impossibility lies in the System.’

  Lieutenant Brodermann wheeled round like a hawk, but he said nothing.

  Have I got to spend the whole evening gassing away by myself? thought Schaffer. I must say something to rouse that blockhead.

  ‘For,’ he continued, ‘by reason of its origin and character, the System has no need to do anything but apply the national technique of political theory. That is to say, it i
s forced always to do exactly what other political Powers prescribe. Once it has assumed hegemony, it cannot conceal by camouflage what it actually is, the tool of Powers which have extranational interests. Whatever policy the System undertakes to follow, it can never be what it professes to be, a national policy.’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Brodermann, clearing his throat and fingering the air as though he were clasping the hilt of an invisible sword, and, although he was annoyed with Dr. Schaffer, it was apparent to every one that it could not be out of courtesy to his host that he addressed his words directly and exclusively to Ive.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Brodermann, ‘you speak of the System; it is very much the fashion lately to speak of the System; after all, it is a very simple and convenient concept. But I don’t know what the reason is, whether I am too stupid, or whether it has to do with the state of public enlightenment —I have tried seriously, but so far I have not been able to understand what you really mean by the word “System,” what this “System” you talk about actually is. I might very well imagine what it is by putting together all that I have heard and read for and against the System; but there is nothing here to throw any light on the System; it simply does not exist, if one is to believe all the things that are said and written about it. It would appear to be something which has only a negative existence, that cannot therefore be described as to its qualities, and, although I am far from wishing to assume that it merely lives the ghostly life of the figment of a discontented imagination, you must permit me to fill the gap, which is visible in spite of all the many points of view which have been put forward, by adding my modest contribution to the discussion and telling you what might after all be claimed to be the “System,” even if it is not quite what you wish or are able to convey. And you must also permit me to refer to this straight away as the “System” in order to avoid circumlocutions which detract from the necessary clarity.’