65. Dreyfus Letters

People with a clear view of the events of life must have long been convinced of the complete blamelessness of the unfortunate prisoner on Devil's Island. When the feeling of disgust against an unprecedented gagging of the law and the enthusiasm for justice are added to the clear view of such people, then their indignation must be discharged in such strong accusations as those made by Zola, Björnson and others.

It is understandable that there are people in France who rebel against the free rule of law in this matter. For who are these people? Those who fear the revelation of the true facts because they have played a role in the matter that no decent person can envy them. Those who, out of party interests, have to claim that they are convinced of Dreyfus' guilt because they need this lie, which they committed in front of themselves, as a party slogan. And those who are too stupid or too cowardly to look at the true situation.

We also have people in Germany who are hostile to standing up for the tormented captain. They voluntarily play statesman and say: we must not interfere in the affairs of the French. At the same time, they threaten the spectre of a Franco-German war. To be sure, no one has yet provided any proof that clearing up the fog of lies, party passion and political corruption could contribute the least to such a war. But such a "spectral threat" has a strong effect on the masses; and it tickles one's own vanity to claim: I have statesmanlike insight and speak from a higher political point of view about the poor naive lambs who allow themselves to be carried away by misunderstood human compassion to stand up for a man who - since he is French - is none of their business.

Whatever the motives of the opponents of an advocacy for a martyr of injustice, blindness and corruption that is prompted by enthusiasm for justice and freedom, one thing is true of them all: they have not the slightest psychological judgment. Only those who are able to decide according to the whole nature of a person whether he is capable of an act that is attributed to him or not have such a judgment. All people with psychological judgment could say with certainty from the behaviour of Captain Dreyfus before, during and after his conviction: This man must be innocent.

In the last few weeks, another reason has been added to those of these people with a psychological eye. The letters that Dreyfus wrote to his wife from December 1894 to March 1898 have been published. They are a psychological document of the first order. I would like to record without reservation the feelings that ran through my soul when I read these letters. Dreyfus is a personality with qualities that I hate. I dislike him as only a human being can be disliked. He is a narrow-minded chauvinist. He writes to his wife: "Do you remember how I told you that ten years ago, when I was in Mulhouse in September, I heard a German music corps celebrating the anniversary of the Battle of Sedan. My pain was so great then that I wept with rage, tore my sheets in anger and vowed to devote all my strength, all my intelligence, to the service of my fatherland against the enemy who was insulting the pain of the Alsatians in this way." Dreyfus was a stubborn soldier. The cries of indignation that he sent to his wife from his prison and exile all had a petty character. No lion's nature rears up against excessive injustice, but a small patriot and socialite who would have killed himself if he had not felt obliged to live until his "honor" and the good name of his children were restored. I do not stand up for a personality I like or a great personality, but I speak out against the trampled right of personality, against freedom thrown with excrement.

Shrunk down to a few ideas is the whole soul life of the martyred man. The large number of letters bring only the one cry of pain in countless variations: "My heart bled, it still bleeds, it lives only in the hope that one day the braids that I acquired in a noble way and never soiled will be returned to me." How little the tortured man has to say to his heroic wife apart from this! Like a "fixed idea" in the speeches of a madman, this thought pervades all the prisoner's letters. And his state must be similar to madness. His inner life is extinguished except for this one thought. It is obvious to any psychologist that this mental life has reached a point that would make it a traitor to its own guilt, if there were such a thing. This man, driven to the point of obsession, would confess today if he had anything to confess, but Dreyfus' obsessions are credible proof of his innocence. No one who reads these letters with a psychological eye can believe in the slightest guilt of this man. These letters should be read as a monumental testimony that today in the French Republic the right of personality, that freedom can be crushed, that man can be without rights in a state that bases its existence on so-called liberties.

If there were judges, if there could be judges in the present state, who would not pass judgment according to the letter of the law, which is a mockery of the facts, then it would only take these letters to get Dreyfus out of his exile, acquit him of all guilt and grant him what he demands and what he is still capable of. But judges cannot be psychologists. More important to them than the evidence of innocence provided by the letters is whether there is an ambiguous paragraph somewhere that can be subtly interpreted in favor or against the convicted man.