Gustav Stresemann: Quotes about the world

“We see the strongest guarantee of peace for Europe in a policy of expansion. When have we exploited the embarrassments of other peoples? When Russia was at war with Japan, the Tsar was able to take his last regiment away from our frontier. We did not regard Morocco as an object of war, we looked on while East Africa was divided, while France was creating a great colonial empire of Tunis, Algiers and Morocco, while Italy occupied Tripolis, while Persia was divided between Britain and Russia into two spheres of interest—the world could always rely on the German Kaisers and the German people's love of peace. And what thanks have we had? A world of enemies…When one awakens in this way from a beautiful dream one must not follow that dream again, must not in future believe that renunciation of a world policy will be a guarantee of permanent freedom. They grudged us the right to economic development. We thank the Chancellor for what he said yesterday concerning our security in the East and West.”

Gustav Stresemann

Speech in the Reichstag (6 April 1916), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), p. 75
1910s

Love , War , People , World

“We agree to recognise Lithuanian independence on condition that the desire of the Lithuanians for a military convention and a customs, monetary and postal union with Germany, communicated to us some time ago by a Lithuanian delegation, still remains. For to be candid, the idea of full independence for these peripheral countries seems to me to be purely theoretical and impracticable…The whole development of world politics shows that we have not only great and powerful individual countries like Germany on the one hand and Britain and France on the other, but associations of States fighting against each other…I do not believe in Wilson's universal League of Nations, I think that after the peace it will burst like a soap bubble. Great and powerful complexes of nations with hundreds of millions of inhabitants, armies of millions of men and exports amounting to thousands of millions, will be confronting each other. In the circumstances such small fractional nationalities will not be able to exist in complete independence, without seeking to lean on one side or the other. Just as there is no independent Belgium in the sense that it gravitates towards one side or the other, so it is not possible to conceive of a completely independent Lithuania, Balticum or Poland without that provisio.”

Gustav Stresemann

1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 18 March 1918

Men , World , Peace , Communication

“We…would nevertheless make it clear that entirely independent political structures are impossible here [in the Baltic]…They cannot lead an isolated existence between the colossi of West and East. We hope that they will seek and find this support with us. The German occupation will have to continue for a long time, lest the anarchy we have just been combating should arise again. We shall have to safeguard the position of the Germans, a position consistent with their economic and cultural achievements…Herr Scheiddemann, said that we have made ourselves new enemies in the world through our push in the East…Had we continued the negotiations, we should still be sitting with Herr Trotski in Brest Litovsk. As it is, the advance has brought us peace in a few days and I think we should recognise this and not delude ourselves, particularly as regards the East, that if by resolutions made here in the Reichstag or through our Government's acceptance of the entirely welcome initiative of His Holiness the Pope, we had agreed to a peace without indemnities and annexations, we should have had peace in the East. In view of our situation as a whole, I should regard a fresh peace offer as an evil. My chief objection is against the detachment of the Belgian question from the whole complex of the question of peace. It is precisely if Belgium is not to be annexed that Belgium is the best dead pledge we hold, notably as regards England. The restoration of Belgium before we conclude peace with England seems to me an utter political and diplomatic impossibility…There is a great difference between the first set of terms at Brest-Litovsk and the ultimatum that we have now presented, and the blame for this change rests with those who refused to come to an agreement with Germany and who, consequently, must now feel her power. We are just as free to choose between understanding and the exploitation of victory in the case of the West, and I hope that these eight or fourteen days that have elapsed between the first set of peace terms in Brest-Litovsk and the second set, may also have an educational effect in that direction.”

Gustav Stresemann

Speech in the Reichstag (25 February 1918), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), pp. 159-160
1910s

World , Education , Peace , Hope

“Ah, gentlemen, if we had only been a little more dependent on this capital during the war, perhaps the world would have had different ideas as to how the war must end!”

Gustav Stresemann

Speech in the Reichstag (6 June 1924) on foreign loans to Germany, quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), p. 348
1920s

War , World , Idea , Dependency

“I must say a few words here concerning the solution of the Polish problem…Groeber has posed the question: Do I not overestimate the value of the military guarantees? Are not political guarantees in connection with good relations between Poland and Germany far better and more durable than it is possible fo military guarantees to be? …The past conduct of the Polish fraction in the Reichstag and the House of Deputies, and the attempts to have the German Ostmark question discussed as a question of international importance at world peace congresses, do not give my political friends a sufficient guarantee to think that future relations between Poland and Germany can be based solely on a formal paper friendship.”

Gustav Stresemann

Source: 1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 21 June 1918, p. 175

Friendship , World , Peace , Question

“The question poses itself whether we should look on with folded arms while those Germans of the Baltic countries who, despite all the persecution, all the misery and all the difficulties have stuck to the German language and German culture, are being slaughtered…It would be incomprehensible if we, who have exerted ourselves for the freedom of ethnically foreign nations, failed to let our hearts beat first of all for the Balts, who are our own flesh and blood…If to-day you go to Riga or Mitau, you will be confronted by such a pure, unadulterated Germanism that sometimes you would wish it could be united with Germany…When, in addition to Courland, we have also occupied Latvia and Estonia, then I hope that the day will also come when this old German soil will lie under the protection of the great Reich…This does not mean annexation of these territories. But it does mean a free Baltic in close dependence on Germany, under our military, moral, political, and cultural protection. I think it would be one of the finest aims of this world war if we could merge this piece of loyal Germanism with ourselves as intimately as it desires to be merged…The Baltic Germans have completely preserved their German culture: a shining example for the Americanized grandchildren of German grandfathers.”

Gustav Stresemann

Speech in the Reichstag (19 February 1918), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), pp. 149-150.
1910s

War , Lie , World , Hope

“We welcome the peace with the militarily and politically entirely collapsed Rumania as a world judgment in world history…Is there anyone to-day who, after the overthrow of the whole of the East, would still doubt a German victory?…Anyone who visualises the collapse of Rumania, this military collapse in three months, this complete political crash of the State that saw itself compelled to sue for peace, must feel that something like a world judgment in world history is taking place…Then there is the question of the war indemnity. In the debate on the Treaty of Brest Litovsk I said that, surely it could not be contradicted from any part of this House that a war indemnity must be demanded from Rumania If Germany receives an indemnity, then it is a matter of indifference to me what it is called, either in the case of the present Treaty or any further ones.”

Gustav Stresemann

Source: 1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 21 June 1918, p. 175

War , World , Peace , Feeling

“Do you think (leaning towards the German Nationals) that any member of the Reich Government regards the Young Plan as something ideal? Do you think that anyone in the whole world expects a guarantee from us in relation to it? It was even said among the experts that it was only possible to look ahead for the next decade”

Gustav Stresemann

Interruption from the Right: 'Yet you signed for fifty-one years'
Speech in the Reichstag (24 June 1929), quoted in W. M. Knight-Patterson, Germany. From Defeat to Conquest 1913-1933 (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945), p. 438
1920s

World , Thinking

“Our whole policy since August 1, 1914, has been directed with a view to sparing the neutrals during the world war…I cannot yet put it down as a fact or as a result of this world war that our policy of sparing neutrals has extended the circle of our friends. Nor is it right to present it as a dogma that annexation or the detachment of territories creates hostility and hatred, while understanding and solicitude results in friendship.”

Gustav Stresemann

1910s, Speech in the Reichstag, 18 March 1918

Friendship , Hostility , War , World

“This Alsace and vast tracts of Lorraine are German regions, and their inhabitants are of German blood. The tricolour may float above Strasbourg cathedral, but that imposing edifice was born of the German spirit, it has nothing in common with the French spirit; it was there that one of the greatest geniuses Germany has given the world first felt the great breath of German architecture. It all bears the impress of the German character and is animated by the German spirit. That is why we shall never forget that Alsace-Lorraine is German, that it will always belong to us in spirit and that our task will be to preserve for Germany this spiritual patrimony.”

Gustav Stresemann

Speech to the Congress of the People's Party in Jena (17 April 1919), quoted in W. W. Coole (ed.), Thus Spake Germany (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1941), p. 331
1910s

World , Forgetting , Animals