Is Germany Degenerate?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVIII, Issue 7, 14 August 1912, Page 11

Is Germany Degenerate?

The characteristic of Bismarckian Germany (says Mr J. Ellis Barker, writing in the “Nineteenth Century”) was efficiency coupled with frugality. William the First hated pomp -and ostentation. He refused, for instance, to have gas and electric light installed in his palaces. In front of his plain wooden bed in Babelsberg was a carpet which had been knitted by his daughter, the Grand Duchess of Baden, and a simple woo len chair which had been made by his -on, Frederick the Third. His example was followed by the German people. William the Second has preached frugality to his officers, but an area of luxury and waste has been introduced notwithstanding. The old Prussian virtues htt.i disappeared. Riotous living prevails .n Germany. Berlin lias become the oust immoral town in Europe. No less than 20 per cent of the children born in Berlin are illegitimate. Hundreds of >!i oly restaurants and cafes in which music and dancing take place are permitted to remain open until four o’clock in the morning or all night long, and m>< Berliners are proud of the night life of their town, which puts that of Puri- in the shade. An unnaineable vice, which the French call “ le vice allemand,” hapermeated the highest military and social circles, as was seen at the Euleii berg trial. Vice is paraded openly and shamelessly. Tlie German police, which is always ready to interfere vigorously with political meetings, makes no at tempt to interfere with the evil. The German Government sees apparently no reason for suppressing it. The <>l l idealism of Germany has given way to a coarse materialisfia.