Books

Review of Theodore Wolff’s “The War of Pontius Pilate”

People may differ about the tasks of German emigrant authors and journalists. While most of them assail the present German regime more or less directly and sharply, Theodor Wolff, the former editor-in-chief of the Berlin Tageblatt, has set himself a task which seemingly lies outside the topics of the day.

The political, cultural, and literary influence of Wolff and of the Tageblatt in the decade preceding and following the war, was extraordinary. Beginning as Paris correspondent of the Tageblatt, he, through his personal acquaintance with the great French statesmen, industrialists, and artists, acquired that high regard for Western democracy which was to become the goal of his life and uncompromising struggle.

If today the Nazis speak contemptuously of the German Republic as a Jewish Republic and represent German democracy as the baleful creature of the Jews, this title of honor is not least of all to be attributed to the incorruptible and indefatigable work of Wolff. In fact, the servile worship of power, the lack of culture, and the downright barbarism of the “Third Reich” in Germany prove that the Jews played a great and unique role in Germany, and today I am no longer able to oppose the view that German democracy was merely the superficial aspect of a nation whose heart indeed was always attached only to uniforms, martial music, and a medieval imperialism.

The world must not permit itself to be led astray. As a matter of fact this has been the mission of the Jews in all ages: to live for freedom and justice and (thanks to their dispersion throughout the world) to create that international understanding, that concord and cooperation among the nations, for which Germany reproached them as for a crime, and which she believed could only be frustrated by the expulsion of the Jews from the country.

WOLFF FOUGHT IMPERIALISM

It was against this German imperialism that Theodor Wolff fought. He considered himself a hundred per cent. German (as did all German Jews). He loved that country as his own, but he wanted to educate it to true democracy, to international understanding, to humanity and social concord.

If Wolff publishes today this book on the prelude to the World War, and not a book against Hitler, it is characteristic of the distinguished bearing of a man who is accustomed to take a larger view of events. The malady of Hitlerism must and will be destroyed from within, just as imperialist Germany had to collapse during the World War because hidden inner forces impelled her to her doom.

REVEALS GUILT

The title of the book mentions that Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate, who washed his hands of all guilt in the matter when, yielding to the importunities of the priests; he gave his consent to the crucifixion of Jesus. The symbol is clear; nearly all the statesmen of all the countries which participated in the war have published their memoirs in order to clear themselves of all guilt. Inexorably Wolff shows each of them his guilt. As a matter of fact, this cleansing water was in each case somewhat artificially filtered for use in the writing of history.

There was in truth none who sought persistently to prevent this slaughter of human beings, neither was there any one (with the possible exception of certain cavalier politicians in Austria and Russia) who consciously wanted it. However, human weakness vanity, frivolity, thoughtfulness, tactlessness, and incompetence led Europe to that abyss on the brink of which it is now standing for the second time, if other men and another will than was the case at that time do not avert a catastrophe.

The book contains objective historical material, many interviews, documents, and conversations which were hitherto unknown, yet one reads it with the same deep suspense and absorbing interest as a novel. The individual characters are sketched with supreme plasticity and brilliant psychological insight. For the first time, too, the role which the Kaiser played in the much-discussed war guilt question, is historically established. Afterwards it is shown that this guilt of his was only psychological and not actual. When the Serbian note in reply to the Austrian ultimatum, after three days of intentional delay by Austria’s catastrophic politicians, finally reached his hands, he wrote on the margin of this decisive document: “This is completely satisfying. With this every ground for war disappears.” But by this time it was already too late. The ever recurrent saber-rattling since the Agadir affair, the refusal of an understanding with England in the naval question, the threats and military parades, the ringing speeches, the irresponsible gambling with the fate of nations, of millions of human beings, had all done their deadly work. There is the same reckless gambling today, the same criminal threat to peace, whose breakdown would spell the end of civilization, at least in Europe.

The book is one of the most significant of our times. A book which merits worldwide attention, which offers not only reading matter for historians and those whose gaze is ever turned backward, but information for those who desire to interpret the form and destiny of the present and the future in the light of the continuity of the past.