October 1983 Print

by Friedrich Wilhelm Bracht

In our April issue, Phyllis Graham conducted a very enlightening interview with Father Franz Schmidberger, the new Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X. In it, she referred to Father's "Germanic mode of expression." The same observation could be made about the present article, which appeared earlier this year in the German counterpart of our magazine, while it was under the supervision of Father Schmidberger himself, as District Superior for Germany. He recommended it to our readers, and we are happy to publish it as a contribution to our educational apostolate. The author was born in 1922—near the Czech border—and is a veteran of military service, a lawyer and industrialist. He has studied in Paris, London and America, chiefly history, philosophy and theology. The original introduction called his a "remarkably cosmopolitan outlook. " Certainly he has developed to a high degree his gift for analyzing the complex history of European politics. His writing is very German-oriented, but we think that careful reading will show that the material has important implications for us all. It will be divided into three installments, with notes added by your Editors. The translation is by Father Philip M. Stark.

I.

Every human institution, every era in history has its Highest Good,¹ to which all other values are subordinated in any conflict of values or goals. And it is most often the case, without being realized, that another summum bonum (Highest Good) is generally possible. In Europe this Highest Good for about 1500 years was God—from the time of the Emperor Constantine until 1789. In the ancient Roman world before Constantine, it was the Roman state, represented by the Emperor. The persecutions of the Christians were not meant to wipe out the Christian religion, but rather to make the Christians acknowledge the Emperor as the Highest Good. On this condition they would have received "religious freedom." The early Christians preferred to die as martyrs rather than to concede that the Emperor and not their God could be the Highest Good. This conflict of values was resolved by Constantine in favor of God as summum bonum. For the entire Middle Ages God remained without question or doubt the summum bonum of Europe. Through the Renaissance and the rediscovery of Roman law that went along with it—also ancient philosophy—through the terrible consequences of the European religious wars in connection with the Reformation (which in their turn were a reaction to the Renaissance) and finally through the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, above all through the mechanistic and materialistic natural sciences of the age, God was pushed slowly into the background of European consciousness, first of all in intellectual circles. Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Encyclopedists and also the salons of the nobility—especially in France—turned increasingly away from God and toward Man as the "new" summum bonum (enlightened Absolutism, enlightened Humanism). In short, the homo mensura theme ("Man is the measure of all things") of the Sophists (Protagoras) was again taken up. [The Sophists were an ancient Greek school of philosophy, whose leader Protagoras was famous for this saying.—Ed.]

Thus, as the Emperor Constantine signals the official acceptance of God as summum bonum, so the French Revolution is the date of the official acceptance of a new summum bonum—a human one in place of God—namely, the Nation. (This concept was coined in the French Revolution.) Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette died consciously for the old summum bonum, for God. This has been generally forgotten, is scarcely even mentioned in history books, although it is the distinctive characteristic separating the time before 1789 and after 1789. Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette died on the guillotine. In this way they saved not only their souls but also their honor—and along with their honor, the honor of France, indeed of the whole of old Europe.

From now on—since the French Revolution—the Nation, the Fatherland, was the Highest Good; it claimed priority in any conflict of interest; men were ready to die for it. This happened without anyone's noticing it—a gradual shift of consciousness. The Napoleonic wars, the victory of the Holy Alliance [coalition of conservative powers—Ed.] over revolutionary France altered nothing in this state of affairs. The monarchy was reinstated in France, the clock turned back on revolutionary changes in Europe. But the clock could not be turned back on the shift in fundamental values from God to Man, i.e., the Nation. Unfortunately it is not true that the émigrés [aristocrats who had fled the French revolution—Ed.] had forgotten nothing and learned nothing. The thing of greatest importance—the old summum bonum—they had indeed forgotten. The new age had a new consciousness. The Holy Alliance itself had lost sight of God as Highest Good. Therefore European princes—especially the Germans—had to make a breathtaking and fatal leap [to the new consciousness]. They, the legitimate princes, ceased to be the "Lord's anointed" and became instead symbols of the Nation. They warily made some concessions—in the form of constitutions which they gave to their respective countries. Yet in this they did not do badly, because the German princes could divide among themselves the vast territories of the spiritual princes [the landlord bishops who were dispossessed at the Protestant Reformation—Ed.] and [in effect] basically did what (the example of) Louis XVI taught them they did not have to do, namely, to mount the scaffold. It was one of the greatest organized robberies in the history of the world. In this way many German princes were elevated to higher rank—sometimes even to kingships—which they had received through Napoleon—therefore through the French Revolution. So these new, higher-ranking crowns and symbols were in a real sense dipped in the blood of Marie Antoinette. All this augured little good for the "New Age"—the Age of Man. The saying Diem hominis non speravi ("I have not hoped in the day of man" [Jeremias 17:16—Ed.] was forgotten.

Yet it was perhaps not exactly in this way that God or religion had been abolished—as happened in the French Revolution, when we know that a half-naked prostitute (tradition has preserved her name: Madame Maillard) was installed on the altar of Notre Dame Cathedral and honored as the goddess of reason (a remarkably clear-sighted understanding of themselves). The man who instigated this was a German: Anarchis Cloots—"Spokesman for Mankind," "Enemy of God." His first name and titles he picked himself.

But later, after the Restoration [of the monarchy] these people all decided they were good Christians, went to Mass or church services and prayed to God. But God was no longer the Highest Good. This honor had now been taken over by Man (the Nation). People no longer fought "for God," but rather "with God" for King and Fatherland. The motto was "Throne and Altar," significantly in that order. Which in the last analysis means: Man does not exist for God, but God for Man.

And later in the nineteenth century—after Feuerbach—man came to do without God altogether. Man believed in "Science." Belief in God was looked upon as superstition. (Freethinkers and Liberals). "With heart and hand for Fatherland" was now the watchword.

Hoffman von Fallersleben in 1841 wrote the hymn "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles." Massman (died 1874) wrote: "I have given myself with heart and hand, to thee, land of love and life, my German Fatherland." The Fatherland was the Highest Good, to which Law and Morality (also the Ten Commandments) were subordinate. The English coined a catchy slogan for this spirit: "Right or wrong—my country." In an unintentionally comic vein, but, as so often in common speech, in a deeply resonant harmony with the spirit of the time, came this news report from the royal court: "Last Sunday the court preacher N., in the presence of the thrice-blessed entourage, prayed for the mercy of the Blessed One."

A clear indication of the prevailing summum bonum at any given time is seen in the negative: as long as God is summum bonum, the severest judgment falls on heresy or that collaboration with the devil called witchcraft. Where Man is the summum bonum, the greatest crime is political conspiracy, demagoguery, revolutionary or counter-revolutionary activity, betrayal of country (treason), being "an enemy of the people."

A good reflection of the shift in the summum bonum is seen in the holidays. Christian holidays [i.e., holy days—Ed.] lose their meaning or degenerate into mere social occasions, and new, secular holidays are introduced: Mother's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, the Emperor's Birthday, etc.

 

The Proletariat Replaces the Nation

But the Nation remained as new Highest Good only about sixty years without competition. In 1848 Marx published his Communist Manifesto. Its last lines were "Proletariat of the world, unite!" A new Highest Good was thus announced: The Proletarian, Socialist World Revolution. This value emerged as an international movement, oriented to class interest, not to the national interest, and consciously in sharp contrast with the prevailing Highest Good—the Nation. (Both Naturalism and Socialism were aimed at Man, making Man automatically and naturally the summum bonum). The Socialists were promptly labeled "comrades without a country" by those whose Highest Good had remained the Nation. Similar suspicion fell on the Catholics, above all the Jesuits, who enjoyed some respect, and who sided with Rome against the Nation. The Roman Church almost alone held to the old summum bonum, i.e., God as Highest Good. For this reason it was considered reactionary, medieval, "murky" (the Enlightened and Progressives considered the Middle Ages "murky") and antique. And in the last third of the nineteenth century Bismarck as reigning Chancellor of the "Nation" had to defend it on two sides: "from the rear," so to speak, against God as summum bonum in his Kulturkampf [period of anti-Catholic laws in Germany—Ed.] and "from the front," with the so-called "socialist laws," against the supposed threat of the Proletarian World Revolution." And National Socialists fought the Reds (=Socialists, whose Highest Good was the Revolution) and the Blacks (whose Highest Good was God) ... "Comrades, who killed Reds and Reactionaries ..."

Now Socialism as such had not always been the summum bonum for the Socialists. There were socialist systems in history whose summum bonum was God (for example, the Baptist sect under Thomas Munzer [died 1525—Ed.]. And there were those whose summum bonum was the Nation, such as "Gracchus" Babeuf. [French political agitator and founder of modern socialism as practical policy. He was executed for subversive activity in 1797.—Ed.]. Hence the Socialists were continually threatened with a potential split: between, on the one hand, those who wished to erect a socialist regime in their own land for the benefit of their own Nation; and, on the other hand, those who wanted the same thing for the World Revolution for the benefit of the International Proletariat. There were also potential Socialists, whose summum bonum remained the Nation. Nevertheless, an answer emerged without the Socialist World Movement to other questions, above all the question of method, the path to Socialism, and therefore the question: Reform or Revolution? (But, since "Reform" was possible only within the existing Nations, which had remained as Nations, the unspoken question of the summum bonum also suggested itself indirectly: Nation or World Revolution?) This question became most pressing at the outbreak of World War I. Kaiser Wilhelm II, representative of the German Nation, answered for all in the classic form: "I know no more Parties; I know only Germany." This laid claim to everyone's allegiance to the Nation as summum bonum. The Socialist parties during the First World War tumbled to the bottom of the ladder.

In Russia, Lenin clung to World Revolution as summum bonum, and Kerenski opted for the Fatherland (and hence against Totalitarian Socialism and for Social Democracy). In Italy Benito Mussolini separated from the Socialist Party (having been one of its leaders and chief editor of the party paper Avanti) for the sake of the Fatherland as Highest Good (but he remained Totalitarian and so not a Social Democrat). He was called Benito after Benito Juarez [the nineteenth-century Mexican guerilla leader—Ed.], who had had Maximilian von Hapsburg shot. In Germany the Social Democratic Party clung to the Fatherland as summum bonum and to the reforms (on the Social Democratic model), and so ceased to be "Socialist" in the sense of Totalitarian. A Socialist Totalitarian wing split off and went further with World Revolution as summum bonum. Germany at first lacked a Totalitarian Socialist Party whose summum bonum was not World Revolution but rather the Nation. This was established in the early 1920s as Hitler's National Socialist German Workers' Party.

The question of the Highest Good is amazingly well reflected in the respective national anthems. Before World War I the Imperial Anthem (the Emperor as representative of the Nation) or in some countries "God Save the King" ("with God and King for Fatherland"); in Weimar [capital of the short-lived republican government in Germany after World War I], "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles"; in the Third Reich, "Lift High the Flag." In Bolshevik Russia, the "Internationale."

The Socialist parties had recently formed into three groups:

1. The Socialists whose summum bonum remained the Proletarian World Revolution. They remained Totalitarian, therefore true Socialists. This policy prevailed in Russia under Lenin (Marxism-Leninism). This is the pure, orthodox, "scholarly" Socialism of Marx and Engels. They sing the "Internationale."

2. The majority of the old Social Democratic Party in Germany swung around from Revolution to Reform (Bernstein in Eisenach), that is, from Socialism to Social Democracy. This policy had been pushed in Germany under Ebert as President of the Reich. The summum bonum was the Fatherland ("Deutschland, Deutschland über alles was first the Weimar national anthem). This policy prevailed in Russia under Kerenski but was crushed by Lenin. An attempt of the German Totalitarian Socialists to seize power for the World Revolution failed, despite support from Russia (A. Joffe and Karl Radek), since the Social Democrats were pledged (Noske) to the support of the Fatherland by military means. The Social Democrats became for this reason branded immediately as Social Fascists by the Communists, therefore as not true Socialists (as they were not Totalitarian), therefore "social" ... and as Fascists, because for them the Nation took precedence over the World Revolution. They sing their respective national anthems.

3. The Socialists who remained Totalitarian and Revolutionary (thus not democratic in the Western meaning of the term), but who extolled the Fatherland as summum bonum, were keenly nationalistic and replaced the myth of the Proletariat partly with the myth of the Simple Soldier (a kind of proletarian in uniform). They sing, alongside their national anthem, the party song (in Germany, "Lift High the Flag," in Italy, "Giovinezza" [Youth]. This movement was pushed through in Italy by Mussolini and took the name Fascism (after the ancient Roman custom of lictors [bodyguards of high officials, who carried an axe in a bundle of rods, symbolizing the state's power of capital and corporal punishment—Ed.]. Mussolini took this as symbol of his party when he separated from the Socialists—an old socialist symbol, furthermore, which appears in the first Russian Constitution of Lenin). The lictors' axe-and-rods, the fasces, first emerge as a symbol in the modern world in an agrarian revolutionary movement of farm workers in Sicily in the 1890s.

This contrast found an exact parallel in art. Italian futurism was vehicle for the national war propaganda—even before Mussolini. Russian futurism was already in the time of the Czars pacifist and with an international bent.

Such a nationalist, totalitarian, socialist party also arose in the economic crisis of 1933 in Germany, the National Socialist (totalitarian Socialist) German Workers' Party of Adolf Hitler.

Next Month: "The Ongoing Search for a New Summum Bonum"

 

---

1. To help convey something of the German mentality, which thinks in strong, clear concepts, certain terms in the translation will be capitalized, contrary to normal English usage.—Editor's note.