ferred to be rich in deeds, even in misdeeds, and poor in thought. "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, that means the end of German philosophy," Nietzsche asserted. This jealousy of the worid and reality, was nothing but jealousy of political action. And because this was so foreign to the German mind, politics were understood as a realm of absolute cynicism and Machiavellianism. The Germans were encouraged in this interpretation by the appearance of Bismarck, who, though not without a certain affinity to the type of the artist, was a man of violence who openly despised the ideological. German liberals, who existed after all, considered him atavistic and reactionary. And yet, because of his "realism," he was admired as a political genius, although he was by no means as brutal as the Germans understood him to be, for Bismarck had a keen appreciation of the importance of moral imponderables. But, to his German fellow-citizens, every moral embellishment and justification of power politics seemed pure hypocrisy, and never would a post-Bismarckian German have been able to say, as Cardinal Manning did, "Politics is a part of morals." Ultimately, hypocrisy is a compliment to virtue. It implies the recognition of moral standards in principle. There is a difference whether the Ten Commandments are not kept, as is the case the world over, or whether they are dropped officially and solemnly. The German, when he wants to be political, thinks that all morality and humanity must be thrown overboard. A Frenchman said: "When a German wishes to be graceful, he jumps out of the window." He does the same thing when he wants to be political. He thinks that for this purpose he must de-humanize himself. We do well to see in national socialism an example of this jumping out of the window, an exaggerated over-compensation of the German lack of political talent.
Does this prove that the German character is fundamentally related to national socialism and that this German nature is inherently unchangeable? There may be some partial truth in this, but one must not forget how many humane and, in the best sense, democratic tendencies were active in German life—tendencies which it has had in common with the great world
