Nazi's before hitler?

After reading "The Barbarism of Berlin, I decided that I should write a summary on it, to straighten out my thoughts on it. After Dr. Grant said that many American citizens wanted to join the war on Germany's side I started to wonder which side was the better of the two. This book was very enlightening, and I advise it to anyone who is interested in military history.

Chesterton first states why it is Britain's business to interfere with Prussia in the first place. He sets up a ficticious calender of events that would have happened if England had been silenced every time by Prussian diplomacy...

July 24: Germany invades Belgium.

July 25: England declares war.

July 26: Germany promises not to annex Belgium.

July 27: England withdraws from the war.

July 28: Germany annexes Belgium, England declares war.

July 29: Germany promises not to annex France, England withdraws from the
war.

July 30: Germany annexes France, England declares war.

July 31: Germany promises not to annex England.

Aug. 1: England withdraws from the war. Germany invades England.

Chesterton then states that there are two different types of barbarian, the negative barbarian, such as Russia, and the positive barbarian such as Prussia. The negative Barbarian is barbaric because of tradition, he simply goes on doing the same as his fathers before him. The positive barbarian on the other hand takes an old barbaric act, claims that it is a new scientific discovery, and then commits the act while proclaiming progress. In the end, Chesterton states that positive barbarism means purposeful militant hostility to certain necessary human ideas.

One Crucial "necessary (God given) human idea" is that of keeping one's word. Apparently the Prussians often broke the promises with one country while making a new agreement with another. While many of the most cruel traditional barbarians have a sense of honor about keeping one's word, the positive barbarian denies this crucial idea.

Another fundamental idea which the Prussian's denied was the "idea of reciprocity" or of "give and take." To the Prussian's nothing is mutual, they had no feeling of other's pain, this is obviously an outcrop of "survival of the fittest."

In the end, then, the Prussian mindset was based off of Nietzsche, who once said the following...

The "overman" is most likely referring to the Aryan race.

I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? … All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughing stock or painful embarrassment. And man shall be that to overman: a laughingstock or painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now, too, man is more ape than any ape.… The overman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the earth.… Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss … what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end."

Note that this book was first published in 1914, which is the year in which the war started.

I have also read, "The ball and the cross" by Chesterton, which was also a great book about a devout Catholic Irishman trying to fight a physical duel with an atheist.

I am currently reading "GK Chesterton, A Critisism" By his brother, Cecil Cheterton. So far, this also is a very good book. It is not on Gutenberg, but can be read here.

Eternal Father, strong to save!

No other branch of the military has as good a hymn as the Navy, in my opinion at least.
This video is one of the better recordings I have heard.



For about twenty excellent extra verses go here

(Note, this does have a slightly different harmony than what is in the trinity red hymnal, but the same melody.)

Second poem

British soldiers, side by side
In rows they march, in rows they die
They stand in lines for money,
and kill for country's pride.

German soldiers, in a trench
trained for years to do their best
Unaware of Nazi wrongs
They fight on with the rest.

To soldiers of the United States,
Are you as well to share their fate?
Do you blindly follow your flag?
And kill all those your country hate?

One day you may face the same
when your country chases fame
follow not their blackened name
When they the defenseless maim.