Chapter VI: The Controversy with Gerhart Hauptmann

Romain Rolland had never been personally acquainted with Gerhart Hauptmann. He was familiar with the German's writings, and admired their passionate participation in all that is human, loved them for the goodness with which the individual figures are intentionally characterized. On a visit to Berlin, he had called at Hauptmann's house, but the playwright was away. The two had never before exchanged letters.

Nevertheless, Rolland decided to address Hauptmann as a representative German author, as writer of _Die Weber_ and as creator of many other figures typifying suffering. He wrote on August 29, 1914, the day on which a telegram issued by Wolff's agency, ludicrously exaggerating in pursuit of the policy of "frightfulness," had announced that "the old town of Louvain, rich in works of art, exists no more to-day." An outburst of indignation was assuredly justified, but Rolland endeavored to exhibit the utmost self-control. He began as follows: "I am not, Gerhart Hauptmann, one of those Frenchmen who regard Germany as a nation of barbarians. I know the intellectual and moral greatness of your mighty race. I know all that I owe to the thinkers of Old Germany; and even now, at this hour, I recall the example and the words of _our_ Goethe--for he belongs to the whole of humanity--repudiating all national hatreds and preserving the calmness of his soul on those heights 'where we feel the happiness and the misfortunes of other peoples as our own.'" He goes on with a pathetic self-consciousness for the first time noticeable in the work of this most modest of writers. Recognizing his mission, he lifts his voice above the controversies of the moment. "I have labored all my life to bring together the minds of our two nations; and the atrocities of this impious war in which, to the ruin of European civilization, they are involved, will never lead me to soil my spirit with hatred."

Now Rolland sounds a more impassioned note. He does not hold Germany responsible for the war. "War springs from the weakness and stupidity of nations." He ignores political questions, but protests vehemently against the destruction of works of art, asking Hauptmann and his countrymen, "Are you the grandchildren of Goethe or of Attila?" Proceeding more quietly, he implores Hauptmann to refrain from any attempt to justify such things. "In the name of our Europe, of which you have hitherto been one of the most illustrious champions, in the name of that civilization for which the greatest of men have striven all down the ages, in the name of the very honor of your Germanic race, Gerhart Hauptmann, I adjure you, I challenge you, you and the intellectuals of Germany, among whom I reckon so many friends, to protest with the utmost energy against this crime which will otherwise recoil upon yourselves." Rolland's hope was that the Germans would, like himself, refuse to condone the excesses of the war-makers, would refuse to accept the war as a fatality. He hoped for a public protest from across the Rhine. Rolland was not aware that at this time no one in Germany had or could have any inkling of the true political situation. He was not aware that such a public protest as he desired was quite impossible.

Gerhart Hauptmann's answer struck a fiercer note than Rolland's letter. Instead of complying with the Frenchman's plea, instead of repudiating the German militarist policy of frightfulness, he attempted, with sinister enthusiasm, to justify that policy. Accepting the maxim, "war is war," he, somewhat prematurely, defended the right of the stronger. "The weak naturally have recourse to vituperation." He declared the report of the destruction of Louvain to be false. It was, he said, a matter of life or death for Germany that the German troops should effect "their peaceful passage" through Belgium. He referred to the pronouncements of the general staff, and quoted, as the highest authority for truth, the words of "the Emperor himself."

Therewith the controversy passed from the spiritual to the political plane. Rolland, embittered in his turn, rejected the views of Hauptmann, who was lending his moral authority to the support of Schlieffen's aggressive theories. Hauptmann, declared Rolland, was "accepting responsibility for the crimes of those who wield authority." Instead of promoting harmony, the correspondence was fostering discord. In reality the two had no common ground for discussion. The attempt was ill-timed, passion still ran too high; the mists of prevalent falsehood still obscured vision on both sides. The waters of the flood continued to rise, the infinite deluge of hatred and error. Brethren were as yet unable to recognize one another in the darkness.