5 - The government's myth of the spirit of 1914

Summary

To the crowds assembled beneath his castle window on 1 August 1914 the Kaiser uttered the famous words:

I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the expression of your affection and your loyalty. When it comes to war all parties cease and we are all brothers. If this or that party has attacked me in peace time, I now forgive them wholeheartedly.

He repeated the remarks on 4 August, slightly modified (“I no longer recognize any parties, I know only Germans”), to the assembled parliamentarians. Within hours newspapers proclaimed these words in their headlines. Within days street vendors sold postcards with the picture of the Kaiser and these words.

These sentences would become the most important quote of the war, an essential part of the government's narrative of the “spirit of 1914.” This narrative stated that in 1914, when the Kaiser called the nation to war, all Germans willingly came, with enthusiasm, and in this moment of enthusiasm “the Kaiser and his people have become one.” The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: “how they all stood there, all reading the extras: the quiet worker next to the finely dressed lady; the old man next to the youth, and how they all, feeling the same thing, shook hands, and formed a chain of loyalty around the beloved royal house.”

This narrative of the “spirit of 1914” was at the heart of the government's propaganda message.