TWO WORLDS

Evening Post, Volume XCVII, Issue 103, 3 May 1919, Page 10

TWO WORLDS

EX-KAISER A DESERTER

HERR HARDENS INDICTMENT

WHY HERR BALLIN FAILED.

Under the heading "Der Gotterfunke," Herr Maximilian Harden denounced in liis paper, Die Zukunft, William HohenEollern as a deserter; he also shows how and why ths late Herr .Ballin's counsel was flouted. "We had grown accustomed^ to the belief that a triumphal victory would surely crown our work," wrote Herr Harden. "There was no psychological or -spiritual solution in this war at any time; none that summoned Germans., And in the same second in which the hope of victory fell to pieces, all the force vanished, the will was withered,, there leaped up in the minds of the re-

sponsible—the all too lesponsible—parties the terrified realisation: "It's all over. Everything is irrevocably lost!' "In Hamburg," Herr Harden continued, "there lived a. good man, who unfortunately now also has left us, Albert Ballin. A man friendly to and obligated to the Kaiser (perhaps the Kaiser was even more obligated to the merchant), a man of thoroughly capitalistic thought, which he neither'concealed nor wished to conceal, but a man full of honest love of humanity, and in his brightest hours a wise man. He was removed from the ' sun' and the ' need of the sun' ever since. In the very first months of the war he had tried to bring some clear facts before the eye' of the Most High, the Ever-Joyous. Ballin at that time urged a dignified agreement with the foe. ■ A FURIOUS SCENE. A furious scene ensued. A ladjr's fan threatened the cheek- of the shipping magnate the only German who, upon his world field, had been victorious over England and who had, nevertheless, won and kept the -confidence of the Britons, was suspected of being an Anglomaniac, was slandered and shoved away from the .vicinity of the Follower of Will-o'-tbe-Wisps, who used with a, smile to say to him: "You ascended to rule a year before I did." He had ever and again tried to help ■ the Kaiser and to "serve the Empire. In vain! But in August, 1918, those in the Ludendorff region, where his warning letters had long been left unanswered, addressed themselves to him with the plea to enlighten the All-Highest Lord about the realities of the situation, which that One, therefore, did not yet know; in August, after our armies had been overrun; when- the hand of the clock pointed to 12. True, there was then still .a Chancellor, a Government, a Supreme WaiAdministration. Nevertheless, it was found necessary to call upon "the shelved Water Jew," as he had been called since the beginning of the war, because no man in office wshed to expose himself to the danger of ungracious treat-. mont. In those days we sat together very long, and I tried to formulate the needs of the hour in my way. Then Ballin went to Wilhelroshohe. CONFESSED FAILTJEE. \ But he did not succeed in getting private speech with the Kaiser. The latter avoided the truth that might break in a private conversation, and interposed in the interview his Chief of the Cabinet, Yon Berg, who was very' skilful in his way, and who carefully saw to it that this conversation should not lead to any depths. Ballin travelled sadly home, and wrote to me : "You will consider me an ass or a bungler, because I did not reach the main'point." I had no doubt that he did all that was humanly possible, fearlessly, but fruitlessly; but I recognised more clearly than ever the impossibility of our condition. ... No one dared to loosen the bandage from the eyes of the nation, or of its leader. Those who were called in \ for the decision fell into the disgraceful position of those who knew themselves to 1 be bankrupt, and for that very reason 1 were unwilling to draw up.a balance account. ' There were among us two worlds, that 1 had. scarcely touched one another, the ' military and the civil worlds; and these [•' were suddenly startled as by a thunderbolt. The militaristic world was startled 1 out of the deepest darkness of the illusion of certain triumphs into which it ' had been forced, an illusion bred of pos- | tal embargoes, false reports, and a propaganda of a ruthless, lying, but well--1 intended sort. How could _ army and j navy suspect that the armistice was demanded by the Supreme Command of its own urgent need? To them it seemed ' a whimpering produced by bourgeoise--1 democratic "dsfeateet" weakness, the ' result of a despicable "Jew's fear" ; and ' they.decided to resist v/ith all forces such ; a despicable .ending of the fight. And from this will arose the plan to let the \ fleet sail out and attack, and if necessary, bo destroyed by the English: FLEET SAILS .AND—RETURNS. The squadrons sailed to the mine zone,. no further. One fire went out, then another; a- ship left the line. , They had to turn back. They sailed ■ again, and again they had to return, 'i'he sailors seized power without any ■ considerable resistance on the part of the officers. They sailed to the Hansa cities, from • which the suddenly-risen sparks of the revolution spread afar into the mainland, and the revolution ' took place more swiftly, less bloodily, than was ever to have been expected. But in Berlin the system of madness and frivolity raged on undisturbed. No one was to speak a. true word. Lies were rewarded .with honorary decorations. The people were not permitted to hear anything, to know anything of what w-as taking place and coming to be. Confused rumours seeped through. Something's up in Kiel. Horrible I things aro a-doing ill Bremen, 1 Lubeck, Hamburg—plunder, mutiny,, murder! In hundreds of press 'offices ■• sat officers and lawyers wearing fieldgray garb, and they- decided: 'It cannot be printed! Verboten!" Whoever writes th« history of the war.must make use of the. "verboten" tags that rained each day in the newspaper offices, must first teach these men what was happening, and what there-, fore could not be printed. • The lie stank to heaven; it stank above all the stench of blood. And unsuspecting Germans swore that, to them was flowing the parent sti'eam of unadulterated troth, and that their "official r.eports" wore of bronze!" '