that the century has to offer. The non-social Ur-poetry is in fact Germany's own special myth, its typical and fundamental national nature, which differentiates it from the other European national minds and types. Between Zola and Wagner, between the symbolic naturalism of the Rougon-Maquarts novels and Wagner's art, there are many similarities. I am not thinking only of the "leitmotif." But the essential and typical national difference lies in the social mentality of the Frenchman and the mythical Ur-poetical quality of the German world. The complicated question: "What is German?" receives perhaps its best answer in the formulation of this difference. The German mentality is essentially indifferent to social and political questions. This sphere is utterly foreign to it. This is not to be understood merely negatively but we can actually speak of a vacuum, of a lack, of a deficiency, and it is probably true that in times when the social problem is dominant, when the idea of social and economic equality, of a juster economic order is felt by every alert consciousness as the most vital and urgent problem—that tinder such circumstances, this deficiency which is often so fruitful, does not make the happiest impression and leads to disharmony with the general will of the world. Faced with immediate problems, this deficiency leads to attempts at solutions that are evasive and carry the imprint of a mythical substitute for the genuinely social. It is not difficult to recognize in so-called national socialism, a mythical substitute of this sort. Translated from political terminology into the psychological, national socialism means: "I do not want the social at all. I want the folk fairy-tale." But in the political realm, the fairy-tale becomes a murderous lie.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is horrible and humiliating to behold the civilized world obliged to fight to the death against the politically distorted lie of an aggressive folk fairy-tale, which in its earlier spiritual purity had given the world so much that was beautiful. In former times, it was innocent and idealistic, but this idealism began to be ashamed of itself and became jealous of the world and of reality, "Germany is Hamlet" it used to be said. "Tatenarm und gedankenreich," [lacking in deeds and rich in thought], Holderlin called it; but it pre-
