96 DOC. 20 OPINION ON THE WAR
[p. 1]
Doc. 20
My
Opinion
on
the
War[2]
[October
23-November
11,
1915][1]
The
psychological
roots
of
war
are-in
my
opinion-biologically
founded in the
aggressive
characteristics of the male
creature.
We
"jewels
of the creation"
are
not
the
only ones
who
can
boast
of this
distinction;
some
animals outdo
us
on
this
point,
e.g.,
the bull and the rooster.
This
aggressive tendency comes
to
the
fore whenever
individual males
are placed
side
by side,
and
even more so
when
relatively
close-knit
societies have
to
deal with each other. Almost without fail
they
will end
up
in
disputes
that escalate into
quarrels
and murder unless
special precautions
are
taken
to
prevent
such
occurrences.
I
will
never forget
with what
bloody
and honest
hatred the schoolmates of
my
age
felt for
years against
the
first-graders
of
a
school
in
a neighboring
street. Innumerable
fistfights
occurred,
resulting
in
many a
hole in
the heads of those little
striplings.
Who could doubt that vendetta and
dueling spring
from such
feelings?
I
even
believe that the honor
[Ehre]
that is
so carefully groomed
by us
gains
its
major
nourishment from such
sources.
Understandably,
the
more
modern
organized
states had
to
push
these manifesta-
tions of
primitive
virile characteristics
vigorously
into the
background.
But wherever
two
nation
states
are
next to
each
other and without
a
joint superpower
above
them,
those
feelings
at
times
generate
tensions in the
moods
[Gemüt]*
that lead
to
catastrophes
of
war.
In
saying so, I
consider
so-called aims and
causes
of
war as
rather
meaningless,
because
they
are
always
found when
passion
needs them.
The
more
subtle intellects of all times have
agreed
that
war
is
one
of the
worst
enemies of human
development,
and that
everything
must
be done
to
prevent
it.
Notwithstanding
the
unspeakably
sad conditions of the
present
times, I
have the
conviction that it
is
possible,
in the
near
future,
to
form
a
statelike
organization
in
Europe
that makes
European
wars
impossible,
just
as now war
between Bavaria and
Württemberg
is
impossible
in the German Reich. No friend of
spiritual
evolution
should fail
to
stand
up
for this most
important political
aim of
our time.[3]
One
can
ponder
the question:
Why
does
man
in
peacetime
(when
the social
community
suppresses almost every
representation of
rowdyism)
not
lose the
capabilities
and
motivations
that
enable
him
to
commit mass murder
in
war? The
reasons
seem
to
me
as
follows.
When
I
look
into the
mind
of
the well-intentioned
average
citizen,
I
see a moderately
illuminated
cozy room.
In
one
corner stands a
*Translator's note. The
psychologically multilayered
and thus untranslatable German
word "Gemüt" is here circumscribed with "moods."