I think that never in my life did I start a more unpopular work than I did in my stand against the anti-Prussian incitement. In Munich, during the semiCommunistic period, the first mass meetings took place, at which hatred against the rest of Germany, especially Prussia, was lashed to such a heat of frenzy that if a North German attended a meeting it was at the risk of his life. Those demonstrations usually ended with wild shouts of “Away from Prussia”, “Down with Prussia”, “War against Prussia” ; a sentiment summed up in the German Reichstag by a brilliant defender of Bavaria’s sovereign interests in the battle-cry : “Rather die as a Bavarian than rot as a Prussian !”
The fight which I had undertaken, at first by myself and afterward with the support of my war comrades, was now carried on almost, I might say, as a sacred duty by the young Movement. I am proud to be able to say to-day that we—depending almost exclusively on our adherents in Bavaria—were respon¬ sible for putting an end, slowly but surely, to that combination of folly and treason.
It is, of course, obvious that the agitation against Prussia had nothing to do with Federalism. “Federative activities” are most inappropriate when their object is to break up or dismember another Confederation. For a genuine Federalist, for whom Bismarck’s con¬ ception of the Empire is not an empty phrase, could not in the same breath desire to cut off portions of the Prussian State, which was created and perfected by Bismarck, nor could he publicly support such separatist aspirations. It is the more unbelievable, since the battle waged by these so-called Federalists was against the element in Prussia which can least be considered as being connected with the November democracy. For their slanders and attacks were not directed against the fathers of the Weimar Constitution, who consisted mostly of South Germans and Jews, but against the representatives of the old Conservative Prussia, the very antipodes of the Weimar Constitution. We need feel no astonishment that they were especially careful not to encroach upon the Jews ; but this,