IV. The Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life In the Present and the Future

GA 330/1919-04-28/p025 ·1919-04-28 · English HighHigh alignmentThis translation's paragraph count matches the German original — the locus maps cleanly to the same paragraph in DE.
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This is what prompted the person speaking to you today, when we were in the midst of that terrible catastrophe that brought us here in Germany to our present situation, to turn to many places so that the tone of the Germany. One could already see that at the time. The sound of the guns that thundered in vain should have been accompanied by a spiritual voice that would have filled the world, so that Central and Eastern Europe would have heard that in the future they should not work with guns but with the spirit. The way should have been sought to prevent what has now come to pass. My friends have put a great deal of effort into bringing to the relevant authorities, who were still appointed at the time and have now sunk into the abyss, what has been brought forth from the necessary conditions for the development of humanity in the present and near future. And I said to some at the time: What is expressed in this draft - at that time it was mainly formulated for foreign policy - is what has been deduced from the conditions in Central and Eastern Europe and the civilized world in general through decades of dedicated work, and what is to be realized in the next ten, fifteen, twenty years. And it has been said: You now have a choice. Either you accept reason and tell humanity that you want to realize this, or you face cataclysms and revolutions. Because what you do not want to realize through reason is what leads to revolution. This may be said today by someone who, before this war catastrophe, spoke of a social ulceration, of a social cancer. At the time, I was considered a fantasist, and those who spoke of a general relaxation shortly before the slaughter began were considered practical people.

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Cite: GA 330/1919-04-28/p025 · edition English