Top 15 Gustav Stresemann Quotes

Do you think (leaning towards the German Nationals) that any member of the Reich Government regards the Young Plan as something ideal? Do you think that anyone in the whole world expects a guarantee from us in relation to it? It was even said among the experts that it was only possible to look ahead for the next decade. (Interruption from the right: "Yet you signed for fifty-one years".)

If the allies had obliged me just one single time, I would have brought the German people behind me, yes; even today, I could still get them to support me. However, they (the allies) gave me nothing and the minor concessions they made, always came too late. Thus, nothing else remains for us but brutal force. The future lies in the hands of the new generation. Moreover, they, the German youth, who we could have won for peace and reconstruction, we have lost. Herein lies my tragedy and there, the allies' crime.

Let us celebrate Bismarck's memory by making the great idea of his life, devotion to the Fatherland, the guiding star of our own lives. Each of us in the place where he can do his best work. Each of us is responsible for helping the country rise again to that greatness for which Bismarck, who also knew an Olmuetz, prepared the way.

There are States with which we are at odds, and which could not be in any case our natural allies.... It is thus my opinion that the interests of Germany do not coincide with those of the small Powers.

I refused at Thoiry to discuss the question of our Eastern frontier and that of our colonies. One can only advance step by step. When the day arrives when, in one way or another, the question of our Eastern frontier will come up for discussion, the atmosphere between us and France must already be such that we can broach this new problem.

The most important thing... is the liberation of German territory from foreign occupation. We must first get the strangler from our neck. Therefore German policy, as Metternich said of Austria—it must be after 1809—must in this respect consist first in showing finesse [finassieren] and avoiding fundamental decisions.

It is the policy of force which finally will always triumph. But when one has not got the force, one can also combat by the idea.

When it is a matter of deciding what amount of work might be demanded of the individual, this question concerns not only the people affected, but must be settled for the benefit of the State and on the basis of moral considerations. The admirable thing about the old Germany was that she considered herself as a mediator and held it to be her duty to take into account the interest of the State first of all. The new Germany must have no other task!... We are stripped of power and we must try to regain, little by little and by means of compromises, our rank as a Great Power.

Ah, gentlemen, if we had only been a little more dependent on this capital during the war, perhaps the world would have had different ideas as to how the war must end!

International indebtedness involves not only the usual slavery of debt, but the interest of the creditor nations in the debtor country.

We regard the ultimate aim of our efforts as the establishment of a German popular monarchy.

The spirit of the National Assembly was not our spirit.... On that account we stood for and still stand for the old flag of the Reich. On that account we hold fast to the memory of our glorious army and our fleet that we have now passed away, and of the pioneers of German colonisation, whose civilising influence was greater than that of other nations that now dispute our right to any colonial activity.

If one wants to avoid war in Europe for a long time, then one must remove the things which are unsettling to a certain extent, and they include the separation of Germany from East Prussia which in my opinion is unpolitical and is seen as oppressive. But it is not at all an immediate question and certainly not a question of war.

Even General Ludendorff would know that on all occasions when an appeal is made to the people, an appeal that concerns the vital interests of this land, the "Socialist Marxists" feel and vote as Germans.

A few days ago in a Berlin theatre the audience burst into spontaneous applause merely because the orchestra began to play an old military march—not a German march, either, but an Austrian one, the Radetzky march. Do not think that this meant a demonstration in favour of a war of revenge—not a bit of it. But the army and all that goes with it has been in the tradition of the German people for a hundred years and it would betray a very poor knowledge of men to believe that such a tradition could be uprooted when people is bidden by the terms of a treaty to give up compulsory military service.