Because I Am a German

logical exposition of his unsparing indictment, combined to establish his book forthwith in the forefront of War literature. Wherever men were thinking and discussing, this book, in spite of the tremendous military events then in progress, became the topic of the hour. To this'' wherever'' we must, however, make an exception of Germany and Austria-Hungary, in which countries the work was prohibited immediately on its appearance. That the Government of my country should have thought fit simply to prohibit "J 'Accuse" is distressing to me, not because I regret that by this act the German public should have been deprived of the enjoyment of a valuable piece of literature, but, in the first place, because this prohibition seems to me to imply an offence against those sacred treasures of Culture for the protection of which Germany had drawn the sword, and, in the second place, because a Government, by forbidding a book, unfortunately creates to some extent the impression that it has been actuated by fear. If a person possesses incontestable proofs of the justice and sacredness of his cause (and we may presume that this was the case with the German Government), can there be any books which he is under the necessity of prohibiting? Are the German people, whenthey are discussing the origins of and responsibilities for the World-War, to be allowed only to make use of a definite set of ideas manufactured for them in the Berlin workshop of Culture? Did not the German Cha...