“Since the Emperor spoke those words three months have passed, and there have only been Germans in the land.  These three months have brought much sorrow to German hearts, for there is hardly a home which does not lament a father, a son, or a brother.  Nevertheless, one may say that since our existence as a nation, Germany has never been more joyous, in the best sense of the word, than in this time of suffering.  Through our tears the noblest joy has shone; not alone at the success of our arms; it is not from pride at fighting against a world of enemies; it is not the fact that we are now assured of a future which in July last we could not have imagined; it is not the feeling of power, of which even we ourselves did not know.  That shining joy springs from deeper reasons.  We are glad because we have found each other; we did not know each other before.  Indeed, no one knew himself.  Now we know each other, and above all, each knows himself.

“It was Bismarck who uttered these terrible words:  ’When the unoccupied German must give up the struggle and strife which has become dear to him, and offer the hand of reconciliation, then he loses all joy in life.  Civil war is always the most terrible thing which any land can have.  But with us Germans it is still more terrible, because it is fought out by us with more love for the strife than any other war.’

“Does it not sound truly horrible for the greatest benefactor of a nation, which has to thank him for having realized its century-old dream of unity, to say in all calm and as something quite obvious, that his own nation engages in a civil war ‘with more love’ than any other war?  And wherever we look in Bismarck’s speeches, the same complaint is found which had been the eternal lamentation of Goethe—­the lament over the lack of faith and will of the Germans.

“How will it be this time?  Will it be as after the Seven Years’ War, after the War of Liberation, after 1870?  Will it be again all in vain?  As soon as the Fatherland is secure, will every German once again cease to be a German in order to become some kind of -crat or -ist or -er?  This time it will be more difficult, for from this war he will return no more into the same Fatherland.  It will have expanded; the German Fatherland will be greater.  Arndt’s poems must be written over again:  no longer merely ‘as far as the German tongue is spoken.’  Germany will stretch beyond that limit, and in it the German will have work to do.

“In his speech Bismarck spoke of the ‘unoccupied’; but in all probability after this war, for years to come, there will be no ‘unoccupied’ Germans.  They will be fully occupied with the new organization.  What the sword has won, we shall keep.  ’The pike in the European carp-pond,’ said Bismarck once, ’prevent us from becoming carp.  They compel us to exertions which voluntarily we should hardly be willing to make.  They compel us to hold together, which is in direct contradiction to our innermost nature.’