The Psychology Of The Kaiser, By Hugo Muensterberg.

New York Times 100 years ago today, June 8, 1913:
Harvard Professor Says That in Politics, in Culture, in Outward Life, the Emperor Is the Realization of the Deepest Instincts of the German Nation.    The Americans who have met the Emperor and those who have watched him only from afar usually agree in the feeling that his mind is one of fascinating brilliancy, of remarkable power and of marvelous adaptability. Yet they have no difficulty in classifying that type of mind. Such personalities with energetic impulse, sparkling intellect and quickness of adjustment are not especially rare among them, and we even have illustrious examples.
    It is true the case of the Emperor becomes still more noteworthy by the thoroughness with which he masters entirely disconnected groups of human interests. While a great American is statesman and soldier, historian and naturalist at the same, time, the Emperor's mind evidently extends into many more directions. No exchange professor has returned to America without sincerely reporting that the Emperor conversed with him like a specialist about his own field of scholarship. He seems equally well versed in engineering and in theology, in chemistry and in architecture, in agriculture and in Greek art.
    Of course he has unusual chances to come in contact with leading men in all fields and thus to receive information in an impressive form, and as his memory is strong and as he has a distinct talent for recognizing at once which features are essential, the total effect is admirable, but after all not surprising.
    The American who meets the Emperor apprehends in addition to all this that the reservedness of mind which necessarily belongs to the tremendous responsibility of the position, and above all that splendid humor which at once removes the feeling of remoteness.
    It is a multicolored composite, and yet it appears as a harmonious unit, everyone of these many features reinforcing the others, all bound together without any inner contradiction. His mind appears astonishing by its richness and by the high pitch of all its faculties, but its formula strikes everyone as simple and easily understood.

How He Has Kept Peace.
    To be sure on the surface sometimes it looks as if his peacefulness and his enthusiasm for the forces of war do bring an inner antagonism into his mind. But the Americans, better than other nations, know that these two tendencies do not interfere with each other. The only native American who ever got a Nobel prize received it for his efforts for peace, and yet he stands foremost among those who believe in the need of a strong American army and navy. The Emperor has been able to conserve Germany's peace throughout his reign, just because he secured such perfect preparation for war, and this would have been impossible if he had not shown his enthusiastic belief in the value of military virtues. This double belief does not interfere with the inner unity of the Kaiser's mental equipment.
    Only one characteristic feature remains, which strikes every typical American as hopelessly contradictory to the Emperor's mental physiognomy. It is the one element, and a most essential element indeed, which makes his mind a confusing puzzle even to the sympathetic foreign observer. Americans ask, when all has been said in praise of Germany's Emperor, how it is possible that such a thoroughly modem man can indulge in such mediaeval views of the divine right of kings. How can a mind trained in the ideas of the engineer of to-day combine with them a belief in a mystical imperialism? How can a human being with so much humor, insist on so much pompousness of ceremony?
    Here is the one point at which the Americans persistently misunderstand the psychology of the German leader. It is doubtful whether from the American standpoint this apparent antithesis can be fully grasped at all. When President Wilson declared the other day that he went to the Capitol in order to show that the President is also a human being, Mr. Hearst cleverly replied that no one else would ever have thought him superhuman. But this answer cannot have been taken by any one otherwise than as a witty rejoinder. Everybody knew that Mr. Wilson had of course meant that the President is full of human interests and not merely the technical officer of government. President Wilson insisted only that he is not less than human; how could an American ever fancy for a moment that he is more than human? But to the German mind it seems only natural to feel that there is some symbolic significance in the person of the ruler which lifts him above the purely human rank and file. The German nation does not want to see in its Emperor simply an appointed officer of the state, but a man in whom symbolically the whole meaning of the German nation is embedded and who has therefore become more than the chance individual to whom certain functions are intrusted.
    Americans share this feeling in other fields. A poor woman was recently fined by the court because she carried a bundle of washing under her arm wrapped in an American flag. The piece of cloth was to her merely cloth, to the court it was more than cloth. In this sense a man may well be more than a human being and may feel himself as such, and would even be disloyal to his task if he were to feel himself nothing but a human being. With regard to persons, Americans approach this feeling in relation to the minister who stands for the church, and still more in relation to the Judge who stands for the majesty of the law. But they surely feel it much less to their Chief Magistrate of Government, the President. This ought to be so, and this fundamental difference in the attitude toward President and Emperor and the corresponding difference of feelings in their own minds can well be understood from the whole setting of the two great nations.
    America grew out of groups, which were held together by the longing for freedom of conscience and personal independence. From all the peoples of Europe the most, energetic and self-reliant persons came to unfold their individualities on the new soil. The tie which held them together as a Nation was accordingly the enthusiasm for an ideal commonwealth in which everyone could secure in freedom the highest development of his personal work. The National aim was to create something new which in a unique way would guarantee the richest growth of human individuals. Hence, what was common was a task, a goal, an ideal of the future.
    The German people, on the other hand, since the days when it became conscious of itself, has had to cultivate an inheritance. What was common to the Germans was lying in the past. It was the wonderful talent of the German soul, as it had expressed itself in the history of two thousand years. This German spirit spoke through the family life and the forms of the community, through law and commerce, through music and poetry, through science and art, through war and play, through religion and philosophy. One unique, beautiful tone resounded from all those forms of culture. To make it ring on in purity and fullness has always been the duty of the German nation.
    Americans are bound together by the common ideal of a National life which allows the fullest unfolding of personality; the Germans are held together by the common ideal of conserving the German spirit. For the American, therefore, the Nation exists in the interest of the single individuals, for the German the individuals exist in order to subordinate themselves to the nation as a totality. Everything else follows from this naturally.
    If the Nation exists for the sake of the personalities, the most important virtue is justice; if the individuals exist for the sake of the Nation, the fundamental virtue is loyalty. Millions stream to the new world because they believe in this independent value of the personality, but only those are true Germans who feel deeply the belief in the independent value of the nation. The two peoples must accordingly find their governmental leaders in two different ways.
    If the true meaning of the Nation lies in the individuals, the head of the State must be secured by election. The republican form is thus necessarily demanded by the task of the Nation Itself. The President takes his whole power from the individual wills of the millions of single personalities.
    But if the meaning of the Nation lies in the inherited totality, its head must be determined by historical tradition, high above all struggle and conflict of wills between individuals. The monarchical form is then the only possible expression of the National task. The Emperor gains his fullest power through his full independence from the will of individuals. The crown of the Emperor becomes a symbol of the unified whole through this remoteness from every struggle of parties, and in such a National system the individual man receives his position and significance through his particular relation to the overtowering symbol. The aristocracy, the bureaucracy, the titles, the orders, are then only expressions of this relation to the symbolic centre.
    To say that the republican form of the United States is better than the monarchical one of Germany, or vice versa, is as meaningless as if we were to discuss whether the fins of the fish are better than the wings of the bird. Both are necessary for the whole unchangeable National life ideals. If a silly misuse of rationalism were to crush the true historical spirit in the German empire and force on it the republican form, unanimously electing the German Emperor to a lifelong Presidency, his power and his importance would apparently not change. The truth is, on the contrary, that then everything would be destroyed. That which is a historical symbol of the totality would have become the product of the will of Individuals, and the meaning of the German State would be lost.
    The Emperor himself feels this symbolic function, not as a right but as a duty. It penetrates all his thinking and feeling. His whole education for the throne has trained him to a masterful ability to merge his personality into this overpersonal task. To call it mediaeval or mystical and to put it into contrast with the outfit of a modern mind is a gross misinterpretation of historical idealism.
    The Emperor is thoroughly a human being with all the charms and all the abilities and with all the weaknesses which belong to the true human being. He is a splendid husband and father, he is a lovable, good fellow, he is an eager student and an enthusiastic sportsman, he loves to hear good stories and he tells most entertaining ones, yet he never forgets that he has not the right ever to be nothing but this, which we all may be. With the most intense joy in life, he feels himself as a man, and with the most solemn respect for his duties, he feels himself at the same time as the tool of history, as the wearer of the crown, as the imperial symbol of the German nation.
    But here a new opposition sets in. If the Emperor really feels himself so entirely the expression of the national spirit, then we should have to suppose that just his imperial actions would be in fullest harmony with the characteristic opinion and sentiment of the German nation. Instead of that, is it not a widespread feeling that his actions are decidedly different from the traditional German spirit, and that they constantly strike a personal, even a too personal, note?
    No doubt a powerful temperament like that of William II. cannot fully be submerged in the royal affairs of the day. Inclinations, which are controlled by his talents and his experiences, his education and his surroundings and his friendships, must shade somewhat his speeches and his deeds. Yet, whoever looks over his lifework under the historical point of view cannot help feeling that fundamentally such criticism and such objections are mistaken, and that all the significant tendencies were really the consistent expression of the German mind.
    The claim that the Emperor has led the nation in strictly personal and not traditional German ways began when he built up the navy and turned German eyes over the wide sea. Had not the Germans for a long while been satisfied with plowing their acres and with protecting their boundaries against enemies, keeping cautiously away from transmarine adventures? Certainly the German navy sprung from the mind of the Emperor. But, first of all, did he not simply yield to historical necessity? The population grew too fast to support itself by mere cultivation of the meagre soil. The increase of the nation demanded the transition to industrial life, and that meant exchange with the countries of the globe. But if the people have to send their wares over the seas, the nation must be ready to protect its commerce. A strong navy thus became the necessary by-product of the new economic, industrial development and growth.
    This, however, is only half the truth, after all. It is the meek explanation in the mouth of those who want to excuse the change in the course of the nation. The full truth is rather that there is nothing to be excused, inasmuch as fundamentally no change in the course occurred. Our view must not be confined to the yesterday alone, which indeed showed Germany's weakness on the sea. Whoever traces German struggling and German adventure through history will surely recognize that the battle of the ships has always been beginning anew since the earliest centuries of German history, and that the power of the sea tempted the Germans at all times. Germanic tribes were victorious in their naval wars at the time of the great migrations, and before then; and Charlemagne kept sending fleets against his enemies. With the thirteenth century the powerful development of the German Hansa begins, and its mighty influence on the ocean. Truly it was only the misery of later times which narrowed down the longing of the German people and broke its naval power. He who renews the great days of German seafaring and builds again a powerful navy for Germany is conserving for the German people its old German tradition, and is thus realizing the symbolic meaning of the imperial leadership.
    But the national spirit is not only will. It is no less thought and feeling and longing. If the crown is a symbol of the nation, the Emperor ought to express the intellect and the heart and the conscience of the community. Here again we all know the popular criticism and the Americans are the most eager to emphasize it. It is claimed that the German nation is progressive, is seeking new paths in science and art and literature, and that the Emperor willfully opposes the pioneers and exerts his influence in reactionary caprices. But here, too, it is only superficiality which credits such blame. The same who complain, when the Kaiser pushes into new paths in the world politics, lament when he remains in the old paths in the realm of art. We, on the contrary, have appreciated the new political movement toward a German future on the sea as perfectly loyal to the old inheritance of German traditions, and in the same spirit we must welcome the conservative politics in the realm of the intellect.
    Whatever the Emperor as an individual may like or dislike in science and art and literature, it is his duty as Emperor to indorse that which has slowly grown and which is the safe and secure product of German development as against the over-modern, often hasty, demands to break out unheard of paths. The tent of the Emperor must not be raised where the skirmishes of the advance guard are to be fought. The forward march of science and art must always be led by individual geniuses and talents. The best and most brilliant must help. But as long as it is still motion, it must remain the deed of individuals. Only when the new field is conquered can the people as a whole follow and take possession. If the Emperor were to rush forward with the most adventurous spirits in bold dashes, he would become just such a single individual, who may be now in the right and now in the wrong, but he would no longer be a true Emperor, who must represent not his personal inclinations, but the historical standing of the totality. In his taste and judgment the whole history of his nation must become crystallized, and for this reason the Emperor fulfills his function only of he warns against the rush toward untried innovation. To be an Emperor means to be a protector of what has been won. To risk and to sacrifice the old for the possibility of winning some uncertain new gain is tempting and easy, and anyone is welcome to do it with the exception of the Emperor, who must stand above the partisanship of individuals in the realm of culture too, in order to remain a symbol of the historical nation.

A Complete Transformation.
    Americans, finally, insist on one more difference between the national tendency and the imperial personal impulse. The friends of Germany are just the ones who often claim that the Germans are simple and silent and work for work's sake, while the Emperor wants the limelight and success, seeks scenic effects and pushes himself by word and deed into the foreground. That may be the French method, not the German spirit. But such an argument is utterly unfair. It constructs a contrast between the Emperor and his people only by comparing the real Emperor of to-day with an unreal people which wears the features of past generations. The German nation of to-day has all those characteristics which scintillate in the dramatic personality of the Emperor, and no true contrast exists.
    It is true there are many to whom the change is unpleasant, and the new glamour strange. In their imagination the poor suppressed Germany of the past is still living. They loved the queer, quiet streets, and now find the reign of the automobile; they honored the German poets and thinkers, and now see how the youth of to-day admires the glories of industry, they crossed the ocean in the hope of finding even in the cities an enlarged Weimar, and are surprised when they discover instead a reduced Chicago.
    Yes, Germany has been completely transformed by the new wealth, and with a new form of life; a new spirit and a new emotion have come over the population. A rococo mood with all its festival joy and its theatrical extravagances, with its fantasies and its luxuries, has taken hold of the new generation. This is not a chance caprice, but a necessary development in the life sentiment of the German people. And if the Emperor is really to represent the inner longing of the whole nation, he can no longer imitate the pure simplicity of his grandfather, he must express the new imaginations in pomp and scenery and monuments, parades and theatricals and orations.
    The old German spirit is not really threatened by this new festival mood of the nation, which enjoys its new wealth, as it is entirely clear that the nation will not forget over its play the hard, strenuous, productive labor. In spite of all its ostentation, Germany is working splendidly and is moving forward with the best in science and art and economics and law. Herein, too, the Emperor with his incessant energy represents the noblest impulses of the popular feeling. Hour for hour he tirelessly gives his full strength to carrying the weight of his duties. In politics, in culture. In outward life, the Emperor is the realization of the deepest instincts of the German nation, and this alone is his aim and his ambition. He makes his individual personality subservient to this overpersonal task. One shines through the other, and every apparent contradiction disappears, and the psychological puzzle is solved as soon as we recognize this doubleness of function: to be a man, and at the same time to be the symbol of a people.