to the Romans as a hostage. Arminius was embroiled in family strife and in the end murdered by his own kin. Segestus, the other Teuton prince, inveigled himself into the good graces of the Romans, as certain conquered leaders today truckle to their conquerors. During the triumphal procession in Rome he was permitted on the tribune as a guest, while down below his daughter was led by in chains, holding by the hand the German liberator’s son, born in prison. In the course of history we shall see this dual treachery oft repeated. The tribal leaders were forever locked in struggle. Throughout the later ages German princes were in the habit of betraying their rivals to the enemy abroad; indeed, it was only thereby that the victories of the Bourbon kings over Germany became possible. For the most part the Germans have won their wars by valor and lost them by treachery.
Like all the peoples of their time they kept slaves and were accustomed to vent their love of power upon their bondsmen. Lacking the true instinct of rulership, they lapsed into brutality toward those beneath them and submissiveness to those above them. Even in the forest primeval, the pyramid, today once more the model for their ideal State, formed the symbol of their society, though there was as yet no Party and no bureaucracy to insure so artful a structure as today. At first their leader was the mightiest warrior or the boldest huntsman—later his son or grandson. Even before they called him a King or a Duke, they swore solemn fealty to him, to the accompaniment of sacrifices offered under their ancient rustling oaks. These oaths had a fearful binding force. They were at the heart of their religion, for the leader at the same time represented the gods and destiny.
For this reason obedience to the leader was blind, excluding all independent thought and expressly requiring even treachery if the leader so ordered. Disgrace consisted not in killing a defenseless man, but in failing to kill someone the leader had marked for death. No one was allowed to boast of his deeds, which were always attributed to the leader. No one was allowed to return from a battle in which the leader had fallen. This loyalty unto death—a loyalty that did not shrink from crime—was the framework for the morals of those primitive times. It took the place of all law, and since there was no individual choice nor a general center, the loosely allied tribes formed a kind of communistic society of bold warriors in which but one thing was protected—the family or clan, which Tacitus called more powerful with them than the law with other peoples.
The fact that they were all warriors was the only thing that remained common to the Teutonic tribes. Their heavens were battlefields, their gods warrior-heroes, their popular assemblies army reviews. Political rule found expression solely in war command. The citizen derived his citizenship from being a warrior. The slave became a citizen when he was invested with arms. The leader’s commands and punishments were supposed to be handed down to him by the gods, and since the leader was also general and judge, he must evidently know everything better. Five hundred years after the poor rose against the rich in Athens, after social revolutions of every kind had rocked the empires of the Mediterranean, all the Teutonic tribes still obeyed their leaders, adhering to this custom down to our own day, almost without wavering.
On the other hand, the Teuton’s every impulse was wild and unpredictable. In a single night he might lose his freedom by a turn of the dice; he might slay his friend in a drunken stupor. When it came to battle he literally hurled himself into the fray with exultation. The utter contempt of death which amazed the peoples of antiquity so much in the Teutons resembled an intoxication such as only wild and pugnacious men develop, who know neither work nor love. Even today it fills a part of German youth.
3
THE ROMANS no more than the Franks or the Italians—indeed, not a single neighbor of the Germans—could ever trust the Germans to remain peaceable. No matter how happy their condition, their restless passion would urge them on to ever more extreme demands. The warlike Germans could no more bear an idyllic state of affairs than could Faust and his thousands of German fellow spirits the calm heights of the mind. To enjoy achievement and the fleeting moment was denied them. What was it these irresistible conquerors lacked?
They lacked spirit, humaneness, vision. The Carthaginians and even the Romans came to colonize with fire and sword and so did the French when they forced the three ideals of the great Revolution upon the world. But with all of them ideals played a part—a theogony or religion, philosophy or natural science, a verse, a song on the lips of the conqueror. In their footsteps followed men who guarded the treasures of the spirit. But the Teutons were barbarians not because they were unable to read, but because they lacked the wisdom of the heart, the instinct of the mind, the knowledge of nature, wisdom and humility—the heritage of the Mediterranean, the source and substance of mankind.
The inner lack of security that dwelt in the Teutonic soul even while the Teutonic body surged forward victoriously—indeed, particularly then—was not assuaged by the conquest of Europe. It grew, betraying itself in a willingness of the Teutons to accept readily whatever was offered them by the Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, whose conquerors but not superiors they were. The occasional efforts by these nomads, shunted from their wild forests to the luxuriant gardens of Sicily or the Provence, to emulate the heritage and lessons of generations were touching in their simple-mindedness. Never have they been more profoundly grasped than in Schubert’s “Wanderer,” who moans:—
I wander still, in pain and tears,
And ever ask with sighing. Where?
A spirit voice doth answer near:
There where thou art not, all joy is there.
Only one of the wandering tribes built up anything within the Roman Empire: the Franks, who conquered Gaul and founded France. Clovis, their chieftain, a typically Teutonic barbarian, brave, naïve and cunning, seems to have been the first constructive force among the Germans, around 500 A.D. By assimilating Teutons and Romans he laid the basis for the later Carolingian Empire. On a Christmas Day he, together with three thousand heathen Franks, was baptized with immense pomp and circumstance. What could have taken a stronger hold on the imagination of these savage people, bound neither by State nor by law, than the complete contrast of this faith? What—a God who did not wreak vengeance, who did not send his thunderbolts in retribution? A God who blessed and forgave? Here were priests who lifted up instead of abasing, a court of judgment that went to the heart! The whole structure of the ancient Teutons was shaken to the core when they were suddenly confronted with an invisible hand that banished all force. This period of transition lasted five centuries—indeed, the last mass baptism among the Frisians took place seven hundred years after the first.
4
THEY were brave, these German noblemen, forerunners of the Junkers. They knew how to die and they did not spare themselves. But loyalty to their leaders was confined to battle. Afterward it was supplanted by demands for booty or for so-called fiefs which closely resembled outright property. Woe unto the leader who did not yield what the nobles demanded! They were his swords, his lances and his daggers, and he had to stand in constant fear that these human weapons might turn against him. The history of the German kings and leaders during the Middle Ages is a story of revolt and conspiracy on the part of vassals. The reason that loyalty has always been and still is held in such high esteem by the Germans is that it is so rare, an ideal emulated by but a few. A red streak of murder and treachery ran through the history of the German noble families, and if later they grew more sedate it was because there was less killing and more bargaining. The intimate memoirs of the kings are studded with plaints at the constant threats to which they so often had to yield in order to hand down their power to their sons. Indeed, the kings often showed their feelings by seeking refuge with commoners. Later the Prussian Junkers, descendants of the ancient vassals, defiantly succeeded in maintaining the subjection of all other classes down to our own days.
The lack of unity which constitutes the tragedy and at the same time
