It has been taught to
the entire German people. This precept proves the case. It emanates
not from a soldier but from a poet, who is not addressing the military
class but the civilians, the women, the children, and all Germany. It
is the "Hymn of Hate" by the poet Heinrich Vierordt, which, before the
war, was recited in even the German kindergartens:
Hate, Germany! Slit the throats of your millions of enemies.
Raise a monument of their smoking corpses that will rise to
the heavens!
Germany, arm yourself with brazen armor and pierce with your
bayonet the heart of every enemy. Take no prisoners! Strike
them dumb. Transform into deserts the lands that lie near
you!
Hate, Germany! Victory will come from your anger. Shatter
their skulls with blows from your ax and the butt of your
musket. These brigands are timid beasts.... They are not
men.... May your fist perform the judgment of God!
It is useless to say what this spirit has brought about. Germany has
carried on the war with vigor, has armed herself with brazen armor!
She has transformed neighboring lands into deserts! She has slit
throats, laid waste fields, shattered skulls, she has destroyed all
that lay in her path! She has tried to impress the terror she holds
salutary upon the souls of inoffensive old men and women and children!
This is the first of all the reasons why it is necessary now to fight,
and to fight to the death; because these men will understand the
abominable nature of "frightfulness" only when they see that
"frightfulness" does not pay; only when they see the uselessness of
unchaining horror and of beginning another war.
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