Johannes Lepsius and Kurt Hahn
Presentation at the international conference “Johannes Lepsius and Dealing with the Armenian Genocide” on 26/27 November 2010 at the House of Brandenburg-Prussian History in Potsdam.
Johannes Lepsius was a political person. His commitment to the Armenians was always also political work. Regardless of his involvement in the Armenian issue, Johannes Lepsius had clear political views. These are clearly reflected in his collaboration with Kurt Hahn from 1916 to 1922, which will be explored below.
The relationship between Johannes Lepsius and Kurt Hahn was preceded by close contacts between Reinhold and Sabine Lepsius, his brother and sister-in-law, with Kurt Hahn's parents. Reinhold had painted a portrait of Albert Hahn, the founder of Hahn's Röhrenwerke and grandfather of Kurt Hahn, and the mother of Kurt Hahn, Charlotte Hahn, née Landau. Sabine also portrayed her mother, Charlotte Hahn,
1895, the brother, Rudo Hahn, his wife, Lola Hahn, née Warburg (1928), and their child, Oskar Hahn (1932), as well as the daughters of the other brother, Franz Hahn and his wife, Beate Hahn, née Jastrow, Cornelie and Charlotte Hahn (1932), whose painting is now on display at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, and the father of Beate Hahn, Ignaz Jastrow (1926)).
This information shows the long-lasting and close ties between Sabine Lepsius and the Hahn family in particular. In her memoirs, she describes Charlotte Hahn as “our beloved friend.” Kurt Hahn was a guest at the Lepsius house, Sabine writes (Erinnerungen, p. 209): “Even as a child, he was full of reverence for Reinhold and Johannes. ”
Kurt Hahn, 28 years younger than Johannes Lepsius, knew him long before the First World War and was familiar with the Lepsius family's circle of friends and acquaintances. The joint trip of Kurt Hahn and Johannes Lepsius to Den Hag at the end of May 1916 for exploratory talks about the opportunities for German-British peace talks was based on this familial familiarity and on common political attitudes. Both have written a memorandum on this subject, which states: “The Dutch side gave German peace friends the suggestion to use the opportunity of a Dutch parliamentarian's trip to London to convey a German statement of opinion about the prospect of making contact with English friends.” The impression was created from statements by English Prime Minister Edward Grey and the German Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, there would be a desire for peace on both sides. After returning from London, the Dutch messenger reported that a prerequisite for contacts was Germany's reliable declaration of the restitution of occupied Belgium after the war.
Kurt Hahn wanted to maintain contacts with the Dutch peace friends and at the same time to closely monitor the chances of peace with England and their expression in the English press. For this purpose, he had set up a “foreign aid agency” in The Hague, which he was able to accredit at the German Embassy and for which he recruited Johannes Lepsius. He had moved to Holland in July 1916 for health reasons — he had diabetes — and had also become a “persona non grata” because of his involvement in Armenia in Germany.
How was Kurt Hahn able to develop this activity? He had been appointed to the “Central Office for Foreign Service” connected to the Foreign Office. This post was set up after the start of the war and was managed by Paul Rohrbach. It should analyse the foreign press and provide the Foreign Office with information about events and sentiments in enemy states. Kurt Hahn was hired as the “English editor” for this purpose. He had lived in England for the last four years before the outbreak of war and studied in Oxford. He knew English conditions and had good personal contacts. His grandfather and father already had good business relations with England; the family was Anglophile. Two days before the outbreak of war, Kurt Hahn had escaped to Germany via Norway and offered himself for this use, especially since he was “not fit for war.” His employee was Lina Richter, a granddaughter of the banker Oppenheimer, who had been in contact with the Hahn family. From this position, Kurt Hahn was able to establish many contacts and gain a certain degree of independence in the management of his office. He also established a relationship of trust with the head of the military department at the Federal Foreign Office, Colonel Hans von Haeften. He had direct contact with Erich Ludendorff. As a result, Kurt Hahn was well informed and connected. He tried to disseminate and substantiate his political convictions using the information he had collected about England. These convictions led him to choose the English option, not the Russian option, to end the war. He wanted an imminent “peace of understanding” and not wait for an uncertain “peace of victory.”
Johannes Lepsius wrote regular detailed reports on England's willingness to peace and the political mood in the country through evaluation of the English press and from contacts with his Dutch sources. Kurt Hahn provided Johannes Lepsius with compensation for this, which Robert Bosch paid and which enabled him to live in Holland. Following the Reichstag's peace resolution in July 1917, Hahn also arranged for the relocation of Johannes Lepsius's daughter Renate to strengthen the evaluation of English newspapers. At times, 14 newspapers and magazines were analysed and an office with a typewriter was set up. Renate Lepsius had studied English and taught at an English school for a year before the war, so she had good conditions for translating the English sources.
Kurt Hahn, supported by these reports, worked within the framework of his networks, including through members of the “German Society 1914”, such as Hans Delbrück and Friedrich Meinecke, in the spirit of “peace of understanding” and opposed unrestricted submarine war and advocated domestic democratization. He himself had no position through which he could directly participate in decisions. He was, as you would say today, a networker.
Before leaving for Holland, Johannes Lepsius had joined the “Association of Like-Minded People” (see Karl Holl, The “Association of Like-Minded People”, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte, Vg. 54, 1972), which brought together peace-oriented personalities who came together at the home of art historian Werner Weisbach. Following the prohibition of the “Bund Neues Vaterland” founded on November 16, 1914, this association was founded on February 7, 1916 in order to keep together a circle of reliable, non-chauvinist personalities who were to be available ad hoc as mediators after the war. In addition to Weisbach, the husband of a niece of Johannes Lepsius, her cousin, Friedrich Curtius, also belonged to this circle. Family contacts also played a role in this case. The theologian Friedrich Siegmund Schulze, the head of the “International League of Reconciliation” and founder of the Working Group East (Berlin) based on the English example of neighborhood work, with whom Lepsius was friends, also belonged to the circle. Renate Lepsius was one of his close collaborators after the war.
We are faced with a network of personal relationships between people who, since the start of the war, have fought for an early peace, rejected all German annexation plans and fought for the internal democratization of Germany. These networks were kept out of the public eye by censorship regulations and police surveillance, whereas the representatives of the “Victory Peace” were able to speak loudly and impress public opinion. They represented the majority of German intellectual circles, as can be seen from the number of signatories to the so-called “Seeberg Address,” which was organized by Berlin theologian Reinhold Seeberg and advocated annexations in both East and West. Her signatories included
1,341 professors, senior administrators, judges and lawyers. On July 8, 1915, it was handed over to the Reich Chancellor. On the other hand, Theodor Wolff, Hans Delbrück and Lujo Brentano had called for a return address, which was presented to the Reich Chancellor on July 27, 1915 and signed by 141 intellectuals from 91 to October. These included Albert Einstein, Max Weber, Max Planck, Friedrich Wilhelm Förster, Gerhard Anschütz, Hermann Onken, Heinrich Herkner, Martin Rade — all personalities who have also acted as representatives of the “Peace Party” in Germany in other contexts.
Immediately after the outbreak of war, public discussion of the German war goals was prohibited, so that opponents and neutrals were kept in the dark about German post-war intentions. Officially, the German Reich waged a “defensive war” to secure its existence. It was only through informal contacts and unpublished “memorandums” that the debate on the aims of the war could be conducted.
Johannes Lepsius was directly affected by the censorship regulations. His “Report on the Situation of the Armenian People in Turkey,” which had compiled the results of his trip to Constantinople at the end of July 1915, was immediately banned by the responsible General Command and prohibited him from speaking. He evaded the ban on speaking and publishing by moving to Holland.
The background is as follows: At the beginning of June 1915, Johannes Lepsius was presented with a telegram from the German Ambassador in Constantinople at the Federal Foreign Office, in which he reported severe persecution of the Armenians and asked to inform Dr. Lepsius that unfortunately nothing could be done about it. Lepsius was unable to come to terms with this communication and obtained permission from the Foreign Office to travel to Constantinople to find out exactly what had happened. Deputy State Secretary Zimmermann supported this request and, after hesitation, the Turkish authorities allowed his entry but prohibited any onward travel to Anatolia. When he arrived in Constantinople, the situation was immediately clear to him. In a letter to his wife, he wrote from Constantinople: “It is unspeakable what has happened and is still happening. The goal is complete eradication.” He spent three weeks in Constantinople and collected material about the massacres and deportations from all sources available to him. Through the mediation of
Corvette captain Humann finally succeeded in having a personal conversation with the Minister of War, Enver Pascha, but this was without a positive result. Lepsius had offered to use his relief organization and the money he had collected to help the deportees, which Enver Pasha categorically rejected. After returning to Berlin, he was unable to obey the German government's command to remain silent about Armenian affairs until the end of the war. He informed the press, organized an appeal to the Reich Chancellor and wrote his report, which was immediately banned.
Johannes Lepsius now delivered regular reports from The Hague analysing the chances of peace. These have been handed down from 1918. It urged for a clear presentation of the German war goals, the rejection of annexations in the West and after 1918 also in the East and — following President Wilson's memoranda — for German approval of disarmament, the League of Nations and the Court of Arbitration for the period after the war. On January 8, 1918, he wrote: “However strong the peace flows are, one must not deceive oneself that even the victory of the intelligent elements will most likely not bring peace if Germany continues to promote the appearance of ambiguity.” And on February 5, 1918, he believed that he could predict “that even in Germany — out of fear of showing weakness — the means will not be taken in time to bring about peace now.”. On February 13, 1918, he reported on the opinion in England that “a new system (in Germany, D.ed.) could not be genuine if it was supported by old-school men, in particular by reactionaries.” He supported Kurt Hahn's intentions to appoint Prince Max of Baden as Reich Chancellor. With the worsening military situation in the West and the half-hearted domestic political compromises, his prospects for peace darkened. On September 4, 1918, he said, “For the Entente, the reasons for continuing the war are becoming more and more favorable as long as the final victory can be simulated again. Do what you can to avert impending disaster either way.”
Kurt Hahn had met Prince Max of Baden in Berlin. He had earned internationally recognized merits in the treatment of prisoners of war in Germany. He saw in him the suitable person who could bring about a peace treaty to end the war, and so he campaigned for him as Reich Chancellor together with Deputy Haussmann from the “Progressive Party” after Bethmann Hollweg's resignation in 1917. He became political advisor to the prince and thus gained influence, especially after the prince was appointed Reich Chancellor on October 3, 1918. Prince Max completed the transition to a parliamentary government, announced the resignation of the emperor on his own authority and finally transferred the business to Friedrich Ebert, the leader of the majority Social Democrats. During his short reign, he enabled the necessary regime change. But his chancellorship came too late and was too short to be able to influence the rapid and revolutionary course of development. The efforts of Kurt Hahn and Johannes Lepsius were unsuccessful.
Following the armistice, the Federal Foreign Office recalled his international reputation as a lawyer for the Armenians and his expertise in the Armenian issue, which the Foreign Office had already claimed in 1913/14 when it came to international negotiations between the European powers and Turkey on the granting of self-government rights to Armenians. At that time, he was a valued advisor to the German government. There was now concern that the Germans could also be blamed for the persecution of the Turks against the Armenians during the peace negotiations. The acting Secretary of State Solf therefore instructed Lepsius, as part of the intended publication of the official German files on foreign policy, to compile a collection of diplomatic documents on Armenian policy during the war as a matter of urgency in order to be able to counter possible allegations from the Allies. In France and England, the deportations and massacres had received great attention. He did this with great effort. His large collection of “Germany and Armenia” files was published as late as 1919.
The Armenian issue played no role in the peace negotiations with Germany. The treaty, however, contained a provision on Germany's sole culpability for the outbreak of the World War and all the consequences associated with it. The German delegation was forced to agree with this statement.
Avoiding this was also the reason for Kurt Hahn to found a “Working Group for Law Politics” together with Prince Max. Through his initiative, Hahn wanted to strengthen the negotiating position of the German Reich by rejecting Germany's war debt in the peace treaty negotiations. Building on the principles of President Wilson's 14 points, there should be a “legal peace” instead of a “peace of force.” In addition, atrocity propaganda about the conduct of German soldiers should be opposed. On February 4, 1919, the founding meeting was convened at Max Weber's house in Heidelberg, which is why the association also had the addition “Heidelberg Association.” The participants also included Johannes Lepsius, from whom a transcript made on March 9, 1919 has been handed down. In it, he was very critical of the meeting, found it ill-prepared and aimless in the discussion. Kurt Hahn had told him neither before nor after “what he actually wanted to get at.” He added that “the basic difference between Kurt and us lies in the different assessments of the revolution, which there is only a mishap in the ordinary course of history, but for me the breakthrough of the new world era.” Johannes Lepsius had Scholler's “Social Question. The meeting was financed by Robert Bosch. Other participants came from Max Weber's circle of acquaintances, such as his brother Alfred and Heidelberg colleagues Hermann Onken and Richard Thoma. A “Central Office for Investigating the Causes of War” and a “European Source of Information on Foreign Policy Facts” were planned. In this respect, the “Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Politik des Rechts” was a parallel undertaking to the plans of the Federal Foreign Office to publish the files on foreign policy. Initially, only the files relating to the outbreak of war, which had already been prepared by Karl Kautsky during the reign of the People's Representative and then published by General Max Graf Montgelas and Walter Schücking, were to be published. But when Germany's war debt had been extended to include German politics “for decades, the Reich Government decided to commission a publication of documents covering the period since 1871. Responsibility was shared by three editors: Albrecht Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was to oversee relations with the British Empire, Friedrich Thimme the Franco-German relations and Johannes Lepsius the Eastern issues: Russia, Austria-Hungary, the Balkans and Turkey. The result: “The Grand Policy of European Cabinets 1871-1914” was published on behalf of the Foreign Office.
Kurt Hahn retired from political work, founded a boarding school in Salem Castle by Max von Baden and worked on the memoirs of Max von Baden. The “Vereinigung für Politik des Rechts” did not develop any activities and also had no more resources.
In the Treaty of Versailles, the moral guilt of a warring party was established for the first time. That had never happened before. The shortcoming note stated: According to the Allied and Associated Powers, the war, which broke out on August 1, 1914, was the greatest crime committed by humanity against the freedom of peoples, which a nation posing as civilized has ever committed consciously. For many years, true to the Prussian tradition, the governments of Germany have sought supremacy in Europe.” Section 231 of the Peace Treaty stated: “The Allied and Associated Governments declare and Germany recognizes that Germany and its allies are responsible as the perpetrators of all losses and damage suffered by the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals as a result of the war imposed on them by the attack of Germany and its allies.” All German efforts to ward off sole responsibility for the war and to address the question of war guilt by an international commission on the The basis of the respective government acts was refused to examine, and the German signature was forced. The German debt of war was the moral basis for the drastic peace conditions. It was obvious to argue against this statement. It was not possible to talk about this during the peace treaty negotiations, and so the intentions of both the German document publication and the “Heidelberg Association” came to nothing. The many years of negotiations on a revision of the peace treaty turned to the individual provisions and left the question of war guilt unaffected. But Germany was not prepared to accept them, and the agitation against the “peace of shame” contributed to Hitler's seizure of power.
Johannes Lepsius, like the majority of Germans, was convinced of the incorrectness of this allegation and, in an essay in the June 1922 issue of the “Süddeutsche Monatshefte”, based on the documents he co-published from the Bismarck period, described Bismarck's will for peace, which had stood about France's retaliation policy and the aggressive Pan-Slavism of Russia. The question of war guilt lost its political urgency.
Kurz Hahn retired from politics; he supported Prince Max of Baden in writing his memoirs and concentrated on setting up the Salem Castle boarding school. Since then, pedagogical problems have defined his life, and he has also become famous as a reform teacher.
Johannes Lepsius turned his attention to the reconstruction of his Armenian Relief Organization and other projects for Armenia. He had already traveled to Switzerland in February and March 1919 to renew contacts with his old friends there.
Armenian problems kept him in suspense. As early as 2929/20, his office at the Foreign Office, where he worked on publishing documents, had become a point of contact for Armenians and invited him as an expert during the lawsuit in June 1921 against the Armenian Teilirian, who had shot the former Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire, a main person responsible for the Armenian genocide on the street. Sensationally, the assassin was acquitted. Johannes Lepsius had obtained the lawyer and the excellent interpreter for the lawsuit, made a statement himself about the massacres and was therefore centrally involved in the events. The cooperation between Kurt Hahn and Johannes Lepsius had come to an end.
What can be inferred from this about Johannes Lepsius' political views? Johannes Lepsius was a German patriot who grew up in a Protestant-Prussian self-image. He was idealistic, religious, and bourgeois liberal. Since the outbreak of war, he has been committed to an early peace on the basis of equal negotiations. He was part of the minority in the German educated bourgeoisie that did not agitate nationalistically for a “peace of victory.” He was thus one of those who assessed Germany's situation realistically and rationally, as did Kurt Hahn and a number of important intellectuals, such as Max Weber, Hans Delbrück, Conrad Hausmann and others. This German “peace party” was unable to influence the politics of the Reich Government, neither on the question of annexations nor on the question of submarine war, nor also with regard to internal political democratization. German politicians repeatedly believed in the chances of a “victory peace,” but in this case they did not develop clear ideas for a future European peace order. Johannes Lepsius and his friends tried to exert influence in informal ways. They were unsuccessful. They were deeply affected by the unexpected military and political collapse in November 1918, but they did not sink into depression and lethargy. They remained energetic. When Johannes Lepsius returned to Germany on November 28, he immediately “got Scholler's 'Social Question” and Mehring's life from Karl Marx. This is also a new burden that you now have to embrace completely new sciences, national economy and socialism if you don't want to stay behind the times... “He was open to the new era and supported democratization. His loyalty belonged to the Armenians, and his fame is rightly based on his help for the persecuted and his commitment to human rights.