- Yg. 1927, No. 39 -

The Werkbundsiedlung on the Weissenhof near Stuttgart is the horror of all those who reject something, because it is different than they are used to. Houses without a roof! Walls without wallpaper! Furniture without ornaments! No, the brave citizen does not eat that.

Since no one demands from him that he should live in a house of Le Corbusier from tomorrow on, this indignation of the public has nothing to do with it. But there are also people who are a little more upset because they see their interests threatened: the roof tile industrialists, the wallpaper manufacturers, the furniture manufacturers. They protest full-heartedly against the new, which takes no account of their sales needs. And they justify their objection by stating that this style, which the Werkbund propagates, is un-German.

So there we go again. If any group of interested parties in Germany sees their profit threatened by a school of thought which they therefore do not like, then the loyal German heart suddenly surges. Has anyone ever seen such a patented German say: I'm for it, although I don't deserve anything? Or: I am against it, although I would earn money from it? Or even just honest and open: I'm against it because I don't earn anything from it? No, one is against something because it is “un-German”.

If the workers make international appointments because they can only pay against their internationally fraternal exploiters, then they are fatherless fellows with no national sentiment. When sensible, law-abiding men raise their voices against the madness and vulgarity of mass slaughter, called war, the cannon, powder, and poison gas manufacturers and their cousins, the generals, claim they are traitors to the country. Beer brewers find it un-German, if you do not drink beer. Hat manufacturers, if you go bareheaded. Why not butcher, if one does not eat meat? Or maybe umbrella retailer, if it does not rain?

The world is evidently becoming more and more German. In the end, will it even come to that, that one can not earn anything with his Germanism in Germany?

Then you probably would not know at all, which is actually German. So far, being German is known to mean doing something for its own sake.

The word is from Paul de Lagarde. A real German, which already shows that he has acquired such a nice French name.

1927, 39 Sch.