INTELLECTUALS AS LEADERS
685
bear, we are dealing with a social as well as a spiritual category. Statisti–
cally speaking, it will not do to consider only the first-rate . Quite apart
from this somewhat crude reminder, I hope to show that excellence is
no safeguard against the affiiction I have in mind, and that there are
many cases of quite eminent thinkers and writers who were, at the same
time, very proficient at stirring up hate.
Let me begin with a quotation from one of the most sublime writers
in the German language. In 1809, Heinrich von Kleist wrote a poem
which had the good fortune to be reprinted in countless textbooks and
anthologies throughout the nineteenth century. It is an ode called
"Germania Speaking to Her Children," dedicated to the Prussian war
against the invading armies of Napoleon. Here is an excerpt in an
ad hoc
English translation:
Their skull and bone
shall whiten every mead and field.
Feed to the fish their corpses
spurned by bird and beast alike ,
until the River Rhine be stemmed
by their remains
and carve out for itself another bed
to mark our border to the West
A joyous hunt as if
to
shoot a wolf,
to kill' On Judgment Day no God
will ever ask you for your pros and cons.
It
is easy to underestimate the effectiveness of such lines. To us, they
appear overblown and almost mindless in their venom. They lost their
grip long ago. But this is not to say that they never had much authority.
On the contrary, they were revered by a substantial audience. I am not
saying that a single poem, by itself, could be held responsible for the
long-lasting German animosity against the French, let alone for the en–
suing three wars. But Kleist's poem is just a sample from an enormous
output of similarly inspired work by authors as distinguished as Fichte,
Arndt, Brentano, and a host of other, forgotten poets and philosophers.
We are dealing with a long tradition which can easily be traced through
several generations right up to 1945. A similar case-study could be made
with regard to anti-Semitic texts, often produced by the same authors.
Lest it be thought that this is a specific German delicacy, let me add
that somewhat later in the day equally rabid voices made themselves
heard in France. In many ways, the Action Fran<;:aise provided an exact
counterpart to the German chauvinists, each side goading on the other
