They had
believed in the divine mission of the German people as a civilizing
force, and now they were despised by all other peoples as a brutal and
barbarous race, in spite of German music, German folk-songs, German
art, German sentiment. They had been abandoned by God, by the
protecting hand of the altes gutes Deutsches Gottes to whom many had
prayed for comfort and help in those years of war, in Protestant
churches and Catholic churches, with deep piety and childlike faith.
What sins had they done that they should be abandoned by God? The
invasion of Belgium? That, they argued, was a tragic necessity.
Atrocities? Those were (they believed) the inventions of their
enemies. There had been stern things done, terrible things, but
according to the laws of war. Francs-tireurs had been shot. That was
war. Hostages had been shot. It was to save German lives from
slaughter by civilians. Individual brutalities, yes. There were brutes
in all armies. The U-boat war? It was (said the German patriot) to
break a blockade that was starving millions of German children to slow
death, condemning millions to consumption, rickets, all manner of
disease.
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