Europe and the German Question
By
SHEED & WARD, $3.50
F. W. FOERSTER is a German of old family whom history has placed in the difficult position of regarding his own country as the greatest threat to European peace and civilization. To him Hitler is not a new or surprising phenomenon; he merely represents a continuation of the old Pan-German urge for world domination. What Hitler has done is to democratize, to spread more widely the extravagant theories of race superiority and the regenerating quality of war which were formerly characteristic of the German ruling class and ot a part of the German intelligentsia. Foerster was an unsparing critic of Germany in the first World War, but found an unexpected secret sympathizer and protector in the chief of the Bavarian censorship. He would certainly not experience so much tolerance in the Third Reich. The present book is a historical survey of what the author regards as the poisoning of the German creative spirit by Prussian regimentation and militarism during the last century. It holds out little hope of a popular revolt against Hitler and emphasizes the formidable strength of the machine which has been set in motion tor the destruction of the democratic world. However, the author, who is convinced that much of the world’s crisis is attributable to moral and spiritual causes, strikes a note of relative optimism when he writes: ‘All the living forces in the world are on the side of the rights of man. . . . The right of the strong will be stultified by the strength of right.'