It is not to the sense of the rest of the world that I appeal against you.  It is to yourself, Hauptmann.  In the name of our Europe, of which up to the present you have been one of the noblest champions—­in the name of that civilization for which the greatest of men have struggled—­in the name of the honor even of your German race, Gerhart Hauptmann, I adjure you, I command you, you and the intellectual elite of Germany, where I have so many friends, to protest with utmost vehemence against this crime which leaps back upon yourselves.

If you fail in this, one of two things will be proved—­that you acquiesce, (and then the opinion of the world will crush you,) or that you are powerless to raise your voice against the Huns that now command you.  And in that case, with what right will you still pretend, as you have written, that your cause is that of liberty and human progress?

You will be giving to the world a proof that, incapable of defending the liberty of the world, you are helpless even to uphold your own; that the elite of Germany lies subservient to the blackest despotism—­to a tyranny which mutilates masterpieces and assassinates the human spirit.

I await your response, Hauptmann—­a response which shall be an act.  The opinion of Europe awaits it, as do I. Bear this in mind; in a moment like this, even silence is an act.

A Reply to Rolland

By Gerhart Hauptmann.

You address me, Herr Rolland, in public words which breathe the pain over this war, (forced by England, Russia and France,) pain over the endangering of European culture and the destruction of hallowed memorials of ancient art.  I share in this general sorrow, but that to which I cannot consent is to give an answer whose spirit you have already prescribed and concerning which you wrongly assert that it is awaited by all Europe.  I know that you are of German blood.  Your beautiful novel, “Jean-Christophe,” will remain immortal among us Germans together with “Wilhelm Meister,” and “der gruene Heinrich.”

But France became your adopted fatherland; therefore your heart must now be torn and your judgment confused.  You have labored zealously for the reconciliation of both peoples.  In spite of all this when the present bloody conflict destroys your fair concept of peace, as it has done for so many others, you see our nation and our people through French eyes, and every attempt to make you see clearly and as a German is absolutely sure to be in vain.

Naturally everything which you say of our Government, of our army and our people, is distorted, everything is false, so false that in this respect your open letter to me appears as an empty black surface.

War is war.  You may lament war, but you should not wonder at the things that are inseparable from the elementary fact itself.  Assuredly it is deplorable that in the conflict an irreplaceable Rubens is destroyed, but—­with all honor to Rubens!—­I am among those in whom the shattered breast of his fellow-man compels far deeper pain.