As representatives of German science and art, we hereby protest to the civilized world against the lies and calumnies with which our enemies are endeavoring to stain the honor of Germany in her hard struggle for existence--in a struggle which has been forced upon her.
The iron mouth of events has proved the untruth of the fictitious German defeats, consequently misrepresentation and calumny are all the more eagerly at work. As heralds of truth we raise our voices against these.
_It is not true_ that Germany is guilty of having caused this war.
Neither the people, the Government, nor the Kaiser wanted war. Germany did her utmost to prevent it; for this assertion the world has documental proof. Often enough during the twenty-six years of his reign has Wilhelm II. shown himself to be the upholder of peace, and often enough has this fact been acknowledged by our opponents. Nay, even the Kaiser they now dare to call an Attila has been ridiculed by them for years, because of his steadfast endeavors to maintain universal peace.
Not till a numerical superiority which had been lying in wait on the frontiers assailed us did the whole nation rise to a man.
_It is not true_ that we trespassed in neutral Belgium. It has been proved that France and England had resolved on such a trespass, and it has likewise been proved that Belgium had agreed to their doing so. It would have been suicide on our part not to have been beforehand.
_It is not true_ that the life and property of a single Belgian citizen was injured by our soldiers without the bitterest self-defense having made it necessary; for again and again, notwithstanding repeated threats, the citizens lay in ambush, shooting at the troops out of the houses, mutilating the wounded, and murdering in cold blood the medical men while they were doing their Samaritan work. There can be no baser abuse than the suppression of these crimes with the view of letting the Germans appear to be criminals, only for having justly punished these assassins for their wicked deeds.
_It is not true_ that our troops treated Louvain brutally. Furious inhabitants having treacherously fallen upon them in their quarters, our troops with aching hearts were obliged to fire a part of the town as a punishment. The greatest part of Louvain has been preserved. The famous Town Hall stands quite intact; for at great self-sacrifice our soldiers saved it from destruction by the flames. Every German would of course greatly regret if in the course of this terrible war any works of art should already have been destroyed or be destroyed at some future time, but inasmuch as in our great love for art we cannot be surpassed by any other nation, in the same degree we must decidedly refuse to buy a German defeat at the cost of saving a work of art.
_It is not true_ that our warfare pays no respect to international laws.
It knows no indisciplined cruelty. But in the east the earth is saturated with the blood of women and children unmercifully butchered by the wild Russian troops, and in the west dumdum bullets mutilate the breasts of our soldiers. Those who have allied themselves with Russians and Servians, and present such a shameful scene to the world as that of inciting Mongolians and negroes against the white race, have no right whatever to call themselves upholders of civilization.
_It is not true_ that the combat against our so-called militarism is not a combat against our civilization, as our enemies hypocritically pretend it is. Were it not for German militarism German civilization would long since have been extirpated. For its protection it arose in a land which for centuries had been plagued by bands of robbers as no other land had been. The German Army and the German people are one and today this consciousness fraternizes 70,000,000 of Germans, all ranks, positions, and parties being one.
We cannot wrest the poisonous weapon--the lie--out of the hands of our enemies. All we can do is to proclaim to all the world that our enemies are giving false witness against us. You, who know us, who with us have protected the most holy possessions of man, we call to you:
Have faith in us! Believe that we shall carry on this war to the end as a civilized nation, to whom the legacy of a Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Kant is just as sacred as its own hearths and homes.
For this we pledge you our names and our honor:
ADOLF VON BAEYER, Professor of Chemistry, Munich.
Prof. PETER BEHRENS, Berlin.
EMIL VON BEHRING, Professor of Medicine, Marburg.
WILHELM VON BODE, General Director of the Royal Museums, Berlin.
ALOIS BRANDL, Professor, President of the Shakespeare Society, Berlin.
LUJU BRENTANO, Professor of National Economy, Munich.
Prof. JUSTUS BRINKMANN, Museum Director, Hamburg.
JOHANNES CONRAD, Professor of National Economy, Halle.
FRANZ VON DEFREGGER, Munich.
RICHARD DEHMEL, Hamburg.
ADOLF DEITZMANN, Professor of Theology, Berlin.
Prof. WILHELM DOERPFELD, Berlin.
FRIEDRICH VON DUHN, Professor of Archaeology, Heidelberg.
Prof. PAUL EHRLICH, Frankfort on the Main.
ALBERT EHRHARD, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Strassburg.
KARL ENGLER, Professor of Chemistry, Karlsruhe.
GERHARD ESSER, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Bonn.
RUDOLF EUCKEN, Professor of Philosophy, Jena.
HERBERT EULENBERG, Kaiserswerth.
HEINRICH FINKE, Professor of History, Freiburg.
EMIL FISCHER, Professor of Chemistry, Berlin.
WILHELM FOERSTER, Professor of Astronomy, Berlin.
LUDWIG FULDA, Berlin.
EDUARD VON GEBHARDT, Dusseldorf.
J.J. DE GROOT, Professor of Ethnography, Berlin.
FRITZ HABER, Professor of Chemistry, Berlin.
ERNST HAECKEL, Professor of Zoology, Jena.
MAX HALBE, Munich.
Prof. ADOLF VON HARNACK, General Director of the Royal Library, Berlin.
GERHART HAUPTMANN, Agnetendorf.
KARL, HAUPTMANN, Schreiberhau.
GUSTAV HELLMANN, Professor of Meteorology, Berlin.
WILHELM HERRMANN, Professor of Protestant Theology, Marburg.
ANDREAS HEUSLER, Professor of Northern Philology, Berlin.
ADOLF VON HILDEBRAND, Munich.
LUDWIG HOFFMANN, City Architect. Berlin.
ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK, Berlin.