Perry: Scheidemann: Berlin: “The Hour We Yearned For”

Main Idea: Sheidemann notes the enthusiastic push for war among the people in Germany, however, he, himself, opposes the war from the very beginning.

Sheidemann says that the supporters of war, jingos, seem to be in a great majority but questions their clarity of mind.

Treitschke and Bernhardi were both war mongers – Bernhardi says, “the preservation of peace can and never shall be the aim of politics.”

Notes that the counter demonstrators organized by the Berlin Social Democrats were more orderly and disciplined than the war supporters

The Pan-German papers were saying, “It is the hour we yearned for – our friends know that.”
Other publications like The Post by von Summ also called for war.

Baron von Holstein was much like Bernhardi when he said at the first Peace Conference at the Hague: “For the State there is no higher aim than the preservation of its own interests; among which Great Powers these will not necessarily coincide with the maintenance of peace, but rather with the hostile policy of enemies and rivals.”