DOCS.
662,
663
DECEMBER
1918 703
greatest
imbeciles. Not God
but
money
rules
the
world.
I
hope you
are
healthy
at
least.
I
would be
very grateful
for
a reply.
Cordially yours,
A.
Sommerfeld.
663. To
Michele
Besso
[Berlin,
4
December
1918][1]
Dear
Michele,
A major thing
really
has been achieved. The
military religion
has vanished.
I
think
it will not return
anymore. Nothing
has taken its
place,
of
course.
While
southern
Germany promises
to
develop
more
after
the
Swiss
model,
here
the
Rus-
sian
example
is
disquietingly
prevalent.[2]
Runaway
slaves
without
a
true
sense
of
solidarity
and without
a
general
overview.
The
government,
which
is
depen-
dent
on
the
common
herd,
of
course,
is
struggling assiduously
but
with minimal
success
against
the
economic crisis caused
pitilessly by
the
vicious
circle
of
forced
wage
increases-accelerated
bill
printing-currency
devaluation[3]-forced
wage
increases
.....
In
spite
of
everything,
most
people
feel
relieved
after the drastic
cure,
even
those who know
very
well
that
they
will
have to
say good-bye
once
and
for all
to
their
money
purses.
The
Ac[ademy]
meetings are amusing now;
the
old folks
are
for
the
most
part
completely
disoriented and dazed.
They perceive
the
new era as a
sad carnival and
are
mourning
over
the
bygone
state of
affairs,
whose
disappearance
means
such
liberation
to
the
likes of
us.
When
I
see
Tre-
itschke in
the
university quad
with his
ostentatiously
arrogant posture
and his
solid
belly
of
brass,
he
seems
to
me
like
a
mammoth
from
the
Bismarckian
ice
age.[4]
Long ago
it
was, .....,
that
is,
about
four
weeks,
when
he
was
still
a
god
beside
the
higher god Bismarck,
who
now
all
of
a
sudden
appears
to
many
in
the
same
light
that
he
had
always appeared
to
us.
If
only they
survive
the drastic
cure;
some symptoms are a
bit
too
suspect.
But
I will not
be dissuaded from
my
optimism.
I
am
enjoying
the
reputation of
an
irreproachable
Socialist
[Sozi];[5]
as
a consequence, yesterday’s
heros
are
coming fawningly
to
me
in
the
opinion
that
I
could break
their
fall into
emptiness. Funny
world!
But
by prowling
about
Zurich for
so
long you
are a
veritably
abominable
institute
father.
I
would
give a
lot to
accompany you
to
the
scene
of
your
duty,[6]
for which
many
a
loden-knight
here
now
pines.
(I
always
console them
by telling
them
that
failure
brings reconciliation.)
Yet
I
would
spend
time with the kind
Levi-Civita in
Padova;[7]
perhaps
you
will
do
the
same?
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