K> .
fOL. XL
JHOUJfl AIRY, JfORTB CAMOLIJfA,
Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis'
Picture of Germany's War Plans
and
Her Atrocities in Belgium
and France
Rrprintnl from MANUFACTURERS RECORD, October IS, 1»17.
Dr. Newell Dwight Hillis, one of America's fere
mwt miaistrrs, pastor of Plymouth Church in Brook
lyn, Hpenl July and Augunt in a personal iarestiga
tion of the hattlefielda of France and Belgium from
which the Geraut bad been eipelled. in order to
learn far himself the exact condition* prevailing and
to find out whether ail the reports of German atro
cities would be coaArmsd by this persaaal study.
The followiag tells the story.
"Terrorism it a principle made neceasary by military
considerations."—General Von Hertmann.
"Strike him dead. The Day of Judgement will auk
70a no questions."—Inscription on the aluminum token
carried by the German soldier.
Every American who has passed through France and
the edge of Belgium this year has retamed home a per
manently saddened man. German cruelty and French
•Cony have cut a bloody gash m the heart, and there
ia no Dakin solution that can heal the wound. Here
upon this pulpit rests a reproduction of an iron coin
given aa a token to each German soldier. At the top
is a German portrait of Deity, and underneath are
courage the German soldier to cruelty and atrocity against
Belgians and French the Deity holds a weapon in his right
hand, and to dull his conscience and steel his heart to mur
der the token holds these words: "Smite your enemy dead.
The day at Judgement will not ask you for your reasons."
To this native characteristic Goethe was referring when
he said: "The Prussian is naturally cruel; civilization will
intensify that cruelty and make him a savage" The
German artocities of the last three years simply illustrate
Goethe's words, for we must confess that German efficien
cy rca< hed its highest point in the discovery of new and
horrible devices for torturing old men, helpless women and
little children.
For three years German-Americans have protested that
the stories of German atrocities were to be disbelieved
as English inventions, Belgian lie* and French hypocrisies,
but that day has gone by forever. When the representa
tives of the nations assemble for the final settlement, there
will be laid before the representatives of Germany affida
vits, photographs, with other legal proofs that make the
German atrocities to be far better established than the
acalpings of the Sioux Indians on the Western frontiers,
the murders in the Black Hole of Calcutta or the crimes
of the Spanish Inquisition. On a battle line 300 miles in
length, in whatsoever village the retreating Germans pas
sed, the following morning accredited men hurried to the
Scene to make the record against the day or judgement.
The photographs of dead and mutilated <irls, children and
«ld men tell no liea. Jurists rank high two forms of testi
mony—the testimony of what mature men have seen and
heard and the testimony of children too innocent to invent
their statements, but old enough to tell what they saw.
For the first time ia history the German has reducnd
savagery to a science; therefore, thia great war for peace
must go on until the German cancer U cut clean out of
the body.
The cold catalogue of German atrocities now documented
and in the government archives of the different nations
makes up the most sickening page in history. Days spent
upon the records preserved in Southern Belgium. Northern
France or in and about Paris, days spent in the ruined vil
lages of Alsace and Lorraine, leave one nauseated, physi
cally and mentally. It is one long, black series of legally -
documented atrocities. Every solumn pledge that Ger
many signed a year and a half before at the Hague Con
vention as to safeguarding the Red Cross, hospitals, cath
edrals, libraries, women and children and unarmed citizens
are scoffed at as a "scrap of paper." These atrocities al
so were committed not in a mow! of drunkenne.s nor an
kour qi anger, but were organized by a so-called Gorman
efficiency and perpetrated on a deliberate, cold, precise,
scientific policy of German frightfulness. It is not simply
that they looted factories, carried away machinery, rob
bed houses, bombed every farm hou • iyid granary left no
plough nor reaper, chopped lown every pear tree and plum
tree with every grapvine and poisoned all wells! The Ger
mans slaughtered old men and mn1 ons. mutilated cap
tives in ways that can only be spoken of by men in whis
pers; violated little girls until they were dead; finding a
calfskin nailed upon a ham door to be dried, they nailed
A bahv beside It and wrote beneath the word "7.wei";
they thrust women and children l-etween themselves and
•oMiers coming up to defend their native land; bom Sod
and looted hospitals, Rod Cross buildings; violated the
white flag—while the worst atrocities cannot even be
aaaseJ In this mixed audience.
The Kaiser Brands his People as "Huns."
Ne one aaderciamia the Gorman people as, well as the
Kaiser. Ours President, in a spirit of magnanimity, pi
ttance and geed-wtll, distinguished between the Kaiser
am] th« Prussian Government, and over against them put
German people. But Germany's Chambers of Commerce.
Hamburg's bord of Trade and certain popular assemblies
would have none of this, and in the fury of their angar pas
sed resolutions, saying: "What our Government is we
are. Their acts are our acts. Their deeds and military
plans are our plans." Knowing his people through and
through, the Kaiser called his soldiers before him and
gave them this charge: "Make yourselves more fright
ful than the Huns under AtUla. See that for a thousand
years no enemy mentions the very name of 'Germany'
without shuddering." Why do the German people say
they feel so terribly because the authors of the world call
them "IIuns" and "barbarians?" Who named them
"Huns" Their Kaiser. Who christened them barbarian* *
Their Kaiser. Who likened the German soldiers to blood
hounds held upon the.lesh by the Kaiser's thong as they
strained Apon the lash with bloody jaws, longing to tear
their French and Belgian prey? With bloody Angers the
Kaiser said: "I baptise thee 'Han' and 'barbarian.'" Let
the Kaiser's words stand— "for a thousand years no man
shall speak the word 'Hun' without shuddering."
All wise men trace deeds, wicked or good, back to the
philisophic thinking of the doer, just as they trace bitter
water back to a poisoned spring. What the individual or
the nation thinks to his heart, that he does in the life.
Judas thinks in terms of avarice and greed, and his ptuhSo
phy results in treason and murder. The Kaiser, Nietz
sche, Von Bethmann-Hollweg, Von Biasing and Plauss
think and teach the theory of iron force, the right of big
Germany to loot little Belgium or Northern France and
asked by a just God on the Day of Jodgwnt.
This war began in a conference in the Potsdam Palace
in 1892. The pamphlet distributed by the Kaiser begins
with these words: "The Pan-German Empire: From Ham
burg on the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. Our immedi
ate goal: 260,000,000 of people. Our ultimata goal: the
Germanization of the world." The explanation of the
Kaiser contains these words: "From childhood I have
been under the influence of Ave men—Alexander, Julius
C'easar. Theodore II, Frederick the Great, Napoleon.
Each of the.se men dreamed a dream of the German world
Empire— and my mailed fist shall succeed." He printed
one map headed "The Roman Empire," with all the great
states captured and their capitals—Athens, Epbesus, Jeru
salem, Alexander, Carthage—reduced to county-seat towns
paying tribute to Koine. But th« Kaiser prints side by ,
sine wun uui map inomer worm map, wiui Berlin uie
Capital; and by 1915 St. Petersburg, Paris and London
were to be county-seat t wns, subdued provinces of Ger
many —and Washington and Ottowa were to follow, with
the word"G«rmania" stum pad on the United States and
Canada. That is why the Kaiser told Mr. Gerard: "After
this war I shall not stand any nonsense from the United
States." The President heard, but he did not tremble.
The originator of this world war was the Kaiser; Treit
schke was its historian; Nietzsche its philosopher; Von
Biasing and Von Hindenburg its executives. The murder
of Edith Cavell. hundreds of women and children on the
Lusitania, the rape of Belgium, the assassination of Nor
thern France, were the outer exibition in deeds of the in
ner philosophy of farce. Their great ■ aster, whom they
celebrate and never tire of praising, Nietzsche, judges Ger
many aright. On page 36, in his Ecce Homo, Nietzsche
says; "Wherever Germany extends her sway she ruins
culture." On page 124 of the same, volume he says: "I
feel it my duty to telll the Germans that every crime
against culture lies on their conscience." By "culture"
Nietzsche means painting, sculpture, cathedrals, interna
tional laws, the Athenian sweetness, reaaonahlcnesa and;
light. "Germany's gual should be a super-Hercules or I
Goliath, with the club. Germany has no gift for culture
of the intellect. As to that there is no other culture be-'
side France."
Consider the reflex influence of Germany's philosophy of
militarism upon her statesmen and diplomats. In one i
of his greatest s/eeches Edmond Burke speaks of "the pe >
euliar sanctity attaching U> the wonl of a foreign minis-1
ter." Kross Phocion to John Hay prime ministers have
Keen jealous of their pledges. Lincoln speaks of the fail
ure of a government to make good its word as "a crime
:<gainst civilization.'* Business man scoff at the trickster,
who docs not count his written pledge more precious than
life itself.
With the standards of civilized states In mind, recall
the intellectual and moral atrocities of the Kaiser and i
Itethmann-llollweg. In 1011 the German Foreign Office
realfiirmed the Treaty with England and France to observe
the neutrality of Belgium in the event of war with France.
On July 31, lt)M, the Kaiaer'z Prime Minister telegraphed
lx>rd Grey that Germany would of course keep her treaty
obligations as to Belgium. The French and English gov
ernments now have full knowledge of the conference be
tween the Austrian Emperor and the Kaiaer at the Pote
dam Palace oa July t, with the agreement to launch the
war August 1. When the war proclamation was delayed
until August 8. the Kaiser'a representative used this sen
tence in his speech in the Reiahstag: "We must not post
pone the agreement entered into with Austria at the con
ference of July R." For more than three weeks, therefore
.before war »»• de. larfd Germany and Austria were pre
| paring cannon, funs, equipment, and as soon as the last
buckl* «u on ifcs hinHH and the last > tfle in lh« hindi
of th« soldiers, on August 3, war was declared. Thon
Hethmann-Hoilweg ««nt oat this itatsmsnt to the world
a* to «kj tkc Kaiser and himself counted an international
treaty a "scrap of papor."
Ho said: "As to Belgium—we ara now in a utato of
necessity and necessity know* no law. Tha wrong- I
speak openly—that wo ara committing we will endaavor
to make good aa toon as our military goal ha* boon ranch
od. Wo have now only ono thought—how to hack tha way
through." So tha international burglar's excuse is that
ho must hack his way through tho neighbor's house and
kill his family because that house stands between himself
and tho Frenchman's vault whose gold ha wants to steal!
That to why our President, answering tha Pope, said thai
no treaty signed by the Kaiser and his government means
anything. And here to Bernstorif, German Ambassador
in Washington, who forgets that cannibals and savages,
even, consider that eating salt in another Indian's tent or
white man's house to a pledge of truth; while this Judas
Ambassador dined at the White House at night and goes
on plotting seditions in Mexico, blowing up of our muni
tion factories and the killing of our people. Bemstorff
smiled and smiled as he kept one hand above the table and
in the other hand under the table whetting a dagger on his
boots with which to stab his host in tha back.
witness we discovery or treacnery to Norway two
montha ago. After several Norweigian »teamen had mys
teriously sunk at sea the German Consul was found travel
ing hack and forth from Foreign Office in Berlin, Ail
ing his trunk with bomba and glass tubes containing the
cultural of glanders to spread on* of the most deadly dis
eases, to annihilate men, horses and cattle, and protecting
these instruments of death by the seals of the Berlin For
eign Office. The substance of Germany's answer to Nor
way's protest was the sneering answer: "What are you
going to do about it?" While Germany's Ambassador to
the Argentine Be public, advising the sinking of Argentine
ships so aa to leave no trace behind is a part of the same
cunning, devilish, German diplomacy that exhibits these
German Ambassadors aa a complete Judas, Macchiavelli
and Mephistopholes, united and carrieJ up to the nth
power of diabolism. No wonder the Kaiser baptized them
"Huns" and "barbarians!"
German Philosophy Degrades German Officers
and Soldier*.
The German philosophy has dehumanized Germany's
officers and men. Later on I shall givs a detailed account
of the devastated regions of Northern France, but here
and now let us conflne the obeervations to the ruined vil
lages and towns of Easter?) France. Pullini* his irc.n token
out of his pocket—that exhibited Deity u a destroying sol
dier—the German officer and private reada the words be
neath: "Saute your enemy dead. The day of Judgement.
M?w!«5^Se«?Ae!t''8eS!!a5iSe«wm?ti?iSnER?
The plan had been "Brussels in one week, Paris in two
weeks, London in two months," and then two pockets filled
with rings, bracelets and watches from Paris or Nancy for
the sweethearts at home.
When the German army in Lorraine was defeated by
one-half ita number, it fall northward, passing through
French towns and villages where there were no Frenchmen,
no guns, and where no shota were fired. During July and
August we went slowly from one ruined town to another,
talking with the women and the children, comparing the
photographs and the full official records made at the time
with the statements of the poor, wretched survivors, who
lived in cellars where once there had lean beautiful houses,
orchards, vineyards—but now was only desolation.
In Gerbevillier, standing beside thfir graves, I studied
the photograph of 15 old men whom ths Germans lined up
and shot because there were no younk" soldiers to kill;
heard the detailed story of a woman wkt.ee son was first
hung to a pear tree in the garden, and wben the officer
and soldier had left him and were besy setting rir« t? the
next house, she cut the rope, reviving the strangled youth,
only to And the soldiers had returned, and while the ofirer
held her hands behind her hack, km assistant poured petrol
oa the son's head and clothing, set Are to him and, while
he staggered about, a flaming torch, they shrieked with
laughter. When they had burned all the houses and re
treated. the next morning, the prefect of Lorraine reached
the Gethesmane and photographed the bodies of 30 aged
men lying as they fell, the bodies of women stripped and at
last slain.
In the next village stood the ruined square belfry into
which the Germans had lifted machine guns, then forced
every woman and child—275 in number—into the little
church, and notified the French soldiers that if they A red
upon the machine guns, they would kill their own women
and children. After several days' hunger and thirst, at
midnight these brave women slipped a little boy through
the church wirdow and bade their husbands fire upon the
Germans in the belfry, saying they preferred death to the
indignities they were suffering And so these French
men turned their guns, and in blowing that machine gun
out of the belfry killed 20 of their own wives and children.
In a hundred years of history, where shall you find a record
of any other race, who call themselves civilized, who are
such sneaking cowards that they could not fight like men
or play the game fairly, but in their chattering terror pul
women and children before them as a shield.
Proof overwhelming. Here are, in a brief, Uie records
of more than a thousand individual atrocities that go with
the original photographs, affidavits and documents rest
ing in the archies of France against the day of reckoning.
What is more important still, here are the letters taken
from the bodies of dead German soldeir* with their diaries.
Out of the large number, note these: Photographs of th»!
dead bodies of aged priests, some of whom were dead be-1
cause they had been staked down and used as a lavatory
until they perished. Dead girls, with breasts cut off —and
for this reason: every German soldier Is examined for
lyphilis by the surgeon of the regiment, and only healthy
ones receive the card giving access to the ramp women
If the syphilitic German contaminates Uie camp women,
his disease is handed on to his brother soldier, and that
means he will be shot. This syphilitic *o!dier, therefore,
finds hi* only ohance with the rapturad French gtrta, hot,
having contaminated a girl he fsan that she la tan will
contaminate the next German soldier and therefore ho ma
tllates her body to warn away Germans. The girl's life
weighs nothing against a German soldier's last or the poe
nibility of the brute's handing his contaminatioa to the
next soldier.
Hera la German sAcieocy for ynu — 4 ntgaalssd by the
devil IummU. Take Umm p.(M found m tha dtanaa of
i;«mi aoidtera August St; note book of Mm> Mar
Hmmc: "Ow hHIih are *o tiaud we are like
heaata. Today daatroyed eight ho»m, with tMr inmate*
Bayonetted two man with their wivee acJ a girl of ti
Tha IttUa ona almoet unnarvad Ma, *o itinerant waa bar am
praaaton." Diary of Eitel Andara; "In Vandra all tha la
habitanu without eiception, wara brought out and afeat
This (hooting waa heartbreaking aa thay ail knetd daw
and prayad. It ia real aport, yet It waa really terrtbie ta
watch."
"At Haacht I aaw tha daad body of a young girl nailed
to tha outaide door of a cottage by her handa. She waa
about 14 or Ifl year* old." Page 21. Affidavit* H-47.
In returning from Malinee eight drunken soldier* ware
marching through tha atreet. A little child of two yaart
rama out and a aoldiar akewered tha child on hia bayoaat
and carried it away, while hia comrade* aang. D. 10-44.
Withdrawing from Hofatade, in addition to other atro
-*tiaa, tha fterman* cut off both handa of a boy of IS. At
tha inqueet affidavit" were taken from 35 witneaaee, who
-aw tha boy before he died or juat afterward*.
Paaaing through Haecht in addition to tha young wom
en whom they violated and killed, affidavit* were taken and
tha photograph of a child three year* old nailed to a door
by it* handa and feet. Affldavita D. 100-8.
That all theae atrocities were carefully planned in ad
vance for terrorizing the people is proven by the fact that
on the morning of Auguxt 25 the officer* who had received
great kindneaa from Madame Roomana, a notary'* wifa.
warned her to make her encape immediately, aa the lootiaa
and killing of all the citizens, men, women and children,
was about to begin.
These records could be multiplied by the thousand*. Up
on the retreat from one city alone, inquests were held upon
the bodies of over 600 victims, including very aged men
and women and babies unborn, removed bv the bavnnet
from their mothers. It is the logical result of the charge
of the Kaiser to his army: "Give no quarters and take no
prisoners. Let all who fall into your hands be at jomr
mercy." The general staff of the German army published
a manual several years before they began this war. They
explicitly charged their soldiers to break the will of the
enemy by cruelty. Witness this page from the War Man
ual on page 52: "A war is conducted with energy merely
against the combatants of the enemy states and the posi
tions they occupy, but it will and must In like manner seek
to destroy the total intellectual and materia] resources of
the later."
And witness this injunction to atrocity, page 35: "By
steeping himself in military history an officer will be able
to guard himself against excessive humanitarian ism. It
will teach him that certain severities are indispensable to
war. Humanitarian clams, such as the protection of seen
and the'r goods, rnn on
token, large as a silver dollar, bidding the soldier "Strike
him dead. The Day of Judgement will ask you no ques
tions." Jesus said: "Take heed that ye offend not one at
My little ones." The Kaiser says: "I have done away
with Jesus' teachings." The Master who loved the lit
tle children said: "I was an hungered and ye gave mm
no meat. I was athirst and ye gave me no drink. There
fore, depart from me into everlasting Are. prepared for the
devil and his fellows." The war staff answers: "Don't be
afraid. Look at your token. The Kaiser will take care
of you in the Day of Judgement. Kill old men and little
children, loot merchants' houses, violate women: 'he
Kaiser will see that God of Justice asks you no questions."
The result was logical and inevitable. These horrible atro
cities! On August 27 General Von Ueber irave out this
proclamation: "The town of Waevre will he set on fir*
ind destroyed without distinction of persons. The inno
cent will suffer with the guilty." After this town was
destroyed and all the inhabitants killed, from the body
of a soldier slain on the retreat we find this page in his
•iary: "We lived gorgeously; two or three bottle of
-hampagne at each meal; all the girls we want. It is fine
".port." Are we surprised that many of the letters and
journals taken from the bodies of Germans qoote General
Von Hartman's sentence: "Terrorize is a principle mad*
necessary by military considerations." German-Ameri
can objections that these towns were destroyed because
the inhabitants had flred upon the invading army from the
windows of their homes is conclusively met and answered
by another letter, written by a German officer to his wife:
"On approaching a village a soldier is sent on in advance
to insert a Belgian rifle in the cellar window or stable, and,
of course, when this weapon is found we taken it to the
Burgomaster, and then the sport begins."
On a little board in one ruined village I read these
words: "Marie; aged 16; dead Augst 24. 191S. Ven
geance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." The hun
dreds of atrocities personally investigated only serve to
interpret Ambassador Mongenthau's statement as to
Armenia—that the Turkish soldiers and German officers
massacred in Armenia half a million people, that they
might move into their farm houses and little shops and
stores.
German Philosophy of Militarism Has Debauch
ed Germany's University Professors.
The glory of every great city and country is K* vhol
ars, with their love of truth ami their stainless lives.
We have had our civilization at the hands of men who
loved the truth supremely, pursued the truth eternally and
cherished the truth above their fear of hell or hope at
heaven. The world has its liberty, its science and its law
.it the hard* of the heroe* who preferred the truth above
life. Concerning the patriots, the reformers and the
statesmen, we can say they were stoned, they were sawn
asunder, they were cracilted in Jerusalem, poisoned la
Athens, t< rtued in Rphesus, exiled in Florence. barn*4 at
the stake in Oxford, assassinated in Washington, rrmllrf
in Jerusalem. Rut the iron autocracy and militarism, of
Germany debauched her university men. Her* in my
hand in an address to the civilised world, signed by tt
German profc^ors. They all receive their salaries tnm
state endowments. Any hour the Kaiser or Bethmana*
Hollweg ran rut off their income. When the indigratia*
of the civilised world flamed out against Germany la the
winter of 191K. the German Government asked these pre>
fessors te rn s document, and these men had been so tie
graded by the German philosophy of militarism and auto
cracy that they obeyed—losing their souls to save their
•alary. And consider what they signed! hi prevteoa
(Continued to Ptfe Few) j
- .m
.. .c