- Yg. 1926, No. 25 -
In Hannover, students intentionally, deliberately and systematically behave like rascals, tempting Professor Theodor Lessing, disrupting his lectures, skipping their own lessons, holding meetings, not learning their lessons, making demonstration rides, singing phrases in the world in which they have not thought anything and others can not think anything. The Stahlhelm feeds them, the reactionary chicks of other German universities send them sympathy rallies, hold meetings, staging rallies, and tragically and officially announce special strike days, in which they reminding themselves by physically absent from the lecture halls that they are otherwise, with the What you like to call in your circles mind is not there. And all this in sympathy for their fellow-spirits. Bad boys always sympathize with each other.
The whole student body of the technical colleges in Germany, along with a few commercial colleges, along with some agricultural colleges, along with some "real" universities, along with a considerable number of non-academic idiots foams, drools, rages against a single man. A lecturer, a Republican, an anti-militarist, a simple but clear-thinking person. A Jew.
And this little Jew, who by the way was not even of pure Jewish descent, had been Protestant and voluntarily converted to Judaism, has his forehead, the unleashed mob of Teutonic youths, behind which are the right-wing parties with their press, rich parents with their money, and ill-favored professors stand with their hatred and authority to defy, to defy. He does not give way. He does not want to give up his job, although his principal clearly told him that he was reluctant to protect him, although his colleagues had left him in a document of shame for fear of the threatened closure of the university, and even the city magistrate Hannover had the brow, to demand from him the voluntary resignation.
What did Lessing do? Well, apart from being a Jew and the only one of the Hanoverian professors whose name has passed beyond Germany's borders, he has written a number of books that reveal a worldview not appreciated in better circles. Then he published in the press reports on the case of Haarmann, which were unsympathetic to the court and all the better citizens. And last year, when Hindenburg's candidature was being promoted, he wrote a psychological study of Hindenburg in the largest newspaper of the Germans in Czechoslovakia, which astonished the leftists for their moderation, but the reactionaries, since they did not fit in with the general hurray Rage has offset.
Therefore, therefore, the boiler of the jeunesse dorée against Lessing. The raging of unleashed mass instincts against the one.
Today's academic youth behave like mob like Janhagel. There were times when the young German students sacrificed themselves for a big cause. As each of them gave themselves up, gave up for the general. Today they do not sacrifice themselves; Today they want to sacrifice: another, an individual, on the altar of their thirst, their political intrigue, their green impudence. At that time, 1813, 1848, 1914 threw themselves students, ready to go down for something big - yes, even 1914! They did not make themselves important, but voluntarily humbled themselves for the cause they believed in. Whether faith was good, true or bad, deceitful is secondary. It was humility, service, modesty and therefore greatness in their actions. But today they are practicing self-conceit, self-conceit, mischievous wheel terror against a single man. That's their bravery. That's their bravery.
And they are still proud of that. A miserable pride, that!
1926, 25, Max Barth