From the crime of the Völkisch, who wanted to smash today's state in the midst of the Ruhrkampf based on the will of the working class and put some unclear and untenable dictatorship in its place, it has become quiet at first. The hearing before the Supreme Court will result in the rest. But the nationalist agitators are still travelling country to country, country. Their press is as loud as ever, and together they falsify and weaken the national will at home and abroad.
Because that's what it's all about. Our nationalists still have a resonance in the world and in Germany that no longer corresponds to their importance, the whole political situation and at least to what they still have to say to us. This must be clearly stated again and again and clearly recognised in broad circles. What is their monarchist goal all about today? Is a nationally minded German still allowed to advocate this goal?
Allow us a few words about this, in order to clarify precisely from the insights of today's struggle. The agitation claim of the right-wing parties in the glorious election campaign of 1920 that the democratic state only took into account the interests of the working class must have long been recognized by everyone as untenable.
Democracy gives all strata their right
The development since those days has clearly shown that republican democracy, despite some blemishes that cling to it as well as all human work and which we must fight to overcome, leaves all strata their right. The monarchist-aristocratic state, however, would immediately have to reckon with the sharpest opposition of at least half of the people, who would feel disenfranchised by its establishment; the strength of the nation, already worn down by war and defeat, would be consumed completely in inner strife.
Moreover, as history teaches, the rivalry between the tribal monarchies in dependent Germany could not be curbed; thus, with the day of monarchist restoration, we would become an inwardly powerless plaything in the hands of the other European nations (as at the time of the confessional wars) and would no longer even be capable of passive resistance.
Not only today, when the predominantly socialist Ruhr area and the Rhineland, led by democratic centrist circles, stand by the republic, but for all future every attempt to introduce the monarchy, but also the power-rejecting, internal strife monarchist agitation is a crime against the nation.
Moreover, haven't we all actually become Republicans in these years? After the terrible collapse of the old regime, we were dependent on ourselves without the old paternalism, discovered living forces in our body of the people and paved our way in free, republican self-determination.
No nationally minded German can be a monarchist
But what can be said entirely about the still advanced claim of the right-wing parties that the Reich Constitution, which encloses our national life, is compromised by its allegedly highly treacherous origin? It emerged from the will of the people; the former legitimacy of the princes, however, was based on violent coups or on Napoleon's grace. Can there still be any doubt as to which laws are supported by deeper domestic law?
In any case, at least the Wittelsbachs and perhaps even smaller dynasties would come back to the helm alongside the Hohenzollerns, their jealousy wanted by Napoleon would awaken. It is incomprehensible that today, in the time of a new Napoleonic policy of France, there are still Germans who long for dynasties whose sovereignty and rivalry Napoleon stabilized for reasons of French world domination policy with clever calculation of the consequences in Germany. A truly nationally minded German can no longer be a monarchist today.