Vossische Zeitung
- Coolidge Against the Manifesto
- The Rhineland and Thoiry
- The Nobility and the New Era
The Vossische Zeitung of 22 October 1926 reported by cable from New York that President Coolidge had called Mellon to the White House to work out America's answer to the recent free-trade manifesto; Treasury circles expected Mellon to call its idea sound for Europe but inapplicable to American tariff policy. A commentary regretted that the manifesto had found little echo and that its own signatories had broken ranks within 24 hours. Under the heading "Rhineland and Thoiry", the Rhine Province authorities appealed for restraint after several clashes between occupation troops and the population. In a signed column, Hans Jürgen v. Kleist argued that most of the German nobility had failed its leadership mission since 1918 by refusing to accept the new state.
Translation
Coolidge Against the Manifesto
Coolidge against [?]
America Needs Protective Tariffs
Cable service of the "Vossische Zeitung"
wsch New York, October 21
Coolidge today summoned Mellon to the White House to go through the free-trade manifesto with him in the closest detail and to consider what policy America should adopt toward the manifesto. After the talks ended, it became known that Mellon will shortly set out America's position on the manifesto, either through official statements in the press or in a speech. According to circles close to the Treasury, the tenor of Mellon's statements is likely to be that America regards the idea underlying the manifesto as sound, insofar as it is applied only to European conditions. Its application to American tariff policy must be rejected, because American conditions are entirely different from European ones. An Er- [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?]
The Rhineland and Thoiry
[?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] -economy strove to remind a humanity still torn apart by the war of the principles of international solidarity, which closed with the call to lay down the dividing barriers and was meant to show the way to a new ordering of things that would do justice to the demands of reason, has not found in the world the response to which its nature and significance would have entitled it. It is at once regrettable and grotesque to note that among the authors themselves solidarity did not last even 24 hours after the publication of the appeal, and
The Rhineland and Thoiry
An Appeal for Restraint
The office of the Oberpräsident of the Rhine Province announces: "On the occasion of several regrettable clashes between members of the army of occupation and the population of the occupied territory, the Prussian State Government, in agreement with the
The Nobility and the New Era
By Dr. Hans Jürgen v. Kleist.
Master of the future is he
Who is able to change.
(Stefan George.)
If the saying of General Bonaparte is true — "The true power of the French Republic must in future consist in allowing not a single new idea to arise that does not belong to it" — then the German nobility, if we apply the saying to it, has failed in its mission of political leadership since 1918. Only relatively few bearers of the old names have been able inwardly to acknowledge the historical right of the reshaping of the state and have set about helping to build up the form of the state with genuine gladness. By far the larger part in number laments, with the old French aristocrat of the ancien régime, that whoever did not live through the times before the Revolution does not know what "living" means. As far as possible, it sleepwalks, far from the raw draught of the day, in a
Context
What Briand and Stresemann agreed at Thoiry
The paper places the Rhine Province's appeal for restraint under the heading "Rhineland and Thoiry", linking incidents in the occupied territory to the diplomacy of the previous month. On 17 September 1926, during the ceremonies for Germany's admission to the League of Nations, the German and French foreign ministers, Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand, met in the French village of Thoiry. According to a Weimar Republic chronology, Briand agreed to return the Saar early and to bring an early end to military control and the occupation of the Rhineland, while Stresemann pledged material support to stabilize the franc. The historian Gerhard Rempel describes the same bargain as the evacuation of the whole Rhineland and the return of the Saar in exchange for German help with the falling franc. The chronology adds that objections from both the German and French governments soon reduced the scope of what had been agreed. When this edition appeared in October, therefore, German hopes of an early withdrawal rested on an understanding whose scope the two governments soon cut back. The excerpt breaks off before the paper spells out the connection. In the event, the last occupation troops left only in 1930, which Rempel notes was five years before the treaty deadline.
The clashes behind the Rhine Province warning
The notice from the Oberpräsident's office speaks of "several regrettable clashes" between members of the occupation army and the population, but the legible text breaks off before it names any incident or the measures agreed by the Prussian government. One serious incident of those weeks is well documented. TIME reported in January 1927 that a French officer had been tried by a French court-martial for killing a German citizen and wounding two others at Germersheim in the occupied Rhineland in September 1926. The court acquitted the officer, Lieutenant Rouzier, of manslaughter, accepting that he had fired in self-defence when attacked by Germans with canes. After the German government lodged an official protest with the French Foreign Ministry, President Doumergue pardoned the six Germans who had been sentenced in the case. The trial and pardon came after this edition, but the Germersheim shooting shows how such incidents could turn into disputes between governments at the very time Stresemann was seeking the early evacuation discussed at Thoiry. The excerpt does not show whether the Germersheim case was among the clashes that prompted this particular notice.
Where the nobility stood after the Republic ended its privileges
Kleist argues that only a minority of the old noble families had inwardly accepted the new state, while the large majority mourned the world before 1918. The legal break he has in mind was sharp: on the promulgation of the Weimar Constitution on 11 August 1919, all Germans were declared equal before the law, and former titles shared by whole families survived only as parts of the surname, which is why the "v." in Kleist's own byline now counted as part of his name. The nobility nevertheless organised itself more strongly than before. The Deutsche Adelsgenossenschaft, founded in 1874 by a small group of 30 North German nobles, fell from 2,400 members in 1914 to about 1,600 in 1918, then grew rapidly to 5,270 in 1921, 11,268 in 1923 and 17,000 in 1926. In the year Kleist wrote, the Deutsche Adelsgenossenschaft was therefore about seven times its pre-war size. Membership figures alone do not reveal political attitudes, so his picture of a majority holding aloof from the Republic remains his own judgment, but the growth shows that a self-conscious noble milieu persisted after legal privileges ended.
Original
Coolidge gegen das Manifest
Coolidge gegen [?] Amerika braucht Schutzzölle Kabeldienst der " Vossischen Zeitung " wsch New York, 21. Oktober Coolidge berief heute Mellon ins Weiße Haus, um mit ihm genauestens das Freihandelsmanifest durchzusprechen und zu beraten, welche Politik Amerika gegenüber dem Manifest einschlagen solle. Nach Abschluß der Verhandlungen wurde bekannt, daß Mellon entweder durch offizielle Erklärungen in der Presse oder durch eine Rede die Stellungnahme Amerikas zu dem Manifest demnächst zum Ausdruck bringen wird. Die Tendenz der Erklärungen Mellons dürfte, wie aus dem Schatzamt nahestehenden Kreisen verlautet, dahin gehen, daß die dem Manifest zugrunde liegende Idee von Amerika als gesund angesehen werde, soweit sie nur auf europäische Verhältnisse angewandt werde. Die Anwendung auf die amerikanische Zollpolitik müsse abgelehnt werden, weil die amerikanischen Verhältnisse ganz anders als die europäischen gelagert seien. Eine Er - [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?]
Rheinland und Thoiry
[?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] [?] wirtschaft der durch den Krieg noch immer zerrissenen Menschheit die Grundsätze internationaler Solidarität ins Gedächtnis zurückzurufen sich bemühten, das mit der Aufforderung zur Niederlegung der trennenden Schranken schloß und den Weg zu einer den Forderungen der Vernunft gerecht werdenden Neuordnung der Dinge zeigen sollte, hat in der Welt nicht den Widerhall gefunden, auf den es seiner Natur und Bedeutung nach Anspruch gehabt hätte. Es ist bedauerlich und grotesk zugleich, festzustellen, daß bei den Verfassern selbst die Solidarität nach Veröffentlichung des Aufrufes noch nicht 24 Stunden andauerte und Rheinland und Thoiry Mahnung zur Besonnenheit Das Oberpräsidium der Rheinprovinz gibt bekannt: " Aus Anlaß mehrerer bedauerlicher Zusammenstöße zwischen Angehörigen der Besatzungsarmee und der Bevölkerung des besetzten Gebietes hat die preußische Staatsregierung im Einvernehmen mit der
Der Adel und die neue Zeit
Von Dr. Hans Jürgen v. Kleist. Herr der Zukunft ist, Wer sich wandeln kann. (Stefan George.) Wenn das Wort des Generals Bonaparte zutreffend ist: " Die wahre Macht der Französischen Republik muß künftig darin bestehen, keine einzige neue Idee aufkommen zu lassen, die ihr nicht gehört, " so hat der deutsche Adel, wenn wir das Wort auf ihn beziehen, seine politische Führermission seit 1918 verfehlt. Nur verhältnismäßig wenige Träger der alten Namen haben das historische Recht der staatlichen Neugestaltung innerlich anzuerkennen vermocht und sind mit innerer Freudigkeit an die Mitarbeit beim Ausbau der Staatsform herangetreten. Der zahlenmäßig weit überwiegende Teil beklagt mit dem alten französischen Aristokraten des Ancien régime, daß der nicht weiß, was " Leben " heißt, der nicht die Zeiten vor der Revolution erlebt hat. Er nachtwandelt nach Möglichkeit fern dem rauhen Luftzug des Tages in einer