Manifesto of the Ninety-Three

• 1. Introduction

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  The Manifesto of the Ninety-Three went out to the world on the 4th of October 1914. Ninety-three prominent Germans had signed it. Its original title was 'To the Civilized World.'

  Its opening line described the signatories as 'representatives of German Science and Art' protesting against lies that were staining Germany's honour. Not soldiers. Not diplomats. Scientists, composers, architects, and philosophers.

  Seven years later, a report in The New York Times found that sixty of the seventy-six surviving signatories expressed varying degrees of regret. Some claimed they had not even read what they had signed. What exactly had they put their names to? Why did so many of Europe's most decorated minds come to wish they never had?

• 2. A Calculated Gambit

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  Britain's press, in particular, had been portraying Germany as an aggressor, and the manifesto's authors wanted to push back. The document was published in ten different languages to reach the widest possible international audience. That choice signaled ambition; this was not a declaration intended for a domestic readership.

  German scientists held an exceptionally high standing in European intellectual circles at that time. The manifesto's architects probably counted on that reputation. If men of such stature backed Germany publicly, their counterparts in France and Britain might press their own governments toward restraint. That calculation failed. Reactions from the European and American press, and from academic institutions across the world, indicated the attempt had misfired badly.

  Inside Germany, the document's effect was very different. It galvanized support for the war throughout schools and universities. The manifesto also laid formal charges against specific foreign governments, academic institutions, and scholars the authors believed had wronged Germany. The text that resulted organized its central argument around a repeated structure of denial, confronting the war's major accusations one by one.

• 3. Six Denials

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  Six times in its central argument, the manifesto repeated the same construction: 'It is not true.' Six charges, confronted and rejected. The structure made the text read as a formal rebuttal, not a spontaneous defense.

  Twenty-six years of Kaiser Wilhelm II's reign, the document argued, proved Germany had not wanted war. Germany's opponents had ridiculed the Kaiser precisely for his efforts to preserve peace; to now call him 'an Attila,' the manifesto contended, was inconsistent. Germany had not violated Belgian neutrality either. France and England, the text claimed, had already resolved to enter Belgium themselves, and Belgium had agreed to their doing so. Not entering first would have been suicide.

  On the city of Louvain, the document offered specific detail. Only 'a part of the town' had been fired as punishment, after 'furious inhabitants' treacherously attacked German soldiers in their quarters. The famous Town Hall stood intact. German soldiers, the manifesto reported, had saved it from the flames.

  The Entente powers, the manifesto charged, had allied themselves with 'Mongolians and negroes against the white race.' They had therefore lost any standing to speak of civilization. Against this, the document offered a different image of Germany. Seventy million strong, every rank and party united, the German nation was bound by the legacy of Goethe, Beethoven, and Kant. The manifesto ended with a single declaration: 'For this we pledge you our names and our honor.' Who, exactly, was pledging?

• 4. A Roster Without Parallel

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  Fourteen of the ninety-three signatories were Nobel laureates, either already honored or destined to be. Max Planck, who had originated quantum theory, signed. So did Wilhelm Röntgen, the discoverer of X-rays, and Fritz Haber, who would later receive the Nobel Prize for synthesizing ammonia.

  Ernst Haeckel had coined the words 'ecology,' 'phylum,' and 'stem cell.' Wilhelm Waldeyer had named the chromosome. Albert Neisser had identified the cause of gonorrhea. August von Wassermann had developed the diagnostic test for syphilis that bore his name. Wilhelm Wundt was known as the father of experimental psychology.

  Gerhart Hauptmann, winner of the 1912 Nobel Prize for Literature, added his name. So did Engelbert Humperdinck, the composer of the opera Hänsel und Gretel, and Max Reinhardt, the Austrian-born stage and film director.

  Richard Strauss refused to sign, stating plainly that 'Declarations about war and politics are not fitting for an artist.' He would not be the only figure connected with this document to want distance from it.

• 5. The Counter-Voice

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  Wilhelm Julius Foerster, the astronomer whose name appeared on the manifesto, repented having signed it. Working with the physiologist Georg Friedrich Nicolai, he produced a counter-document called the 'Manifesto to the Europeans.' Its argument: educated men of all nations faced a 'dire necessity' to direct their influence so that peace terms did not become 'the wellspring of future wars.'

  Foerster and Nicolai sought co-signatories. The philosopher Otto Buek agreed. Albert Einstein agreed. Four names in all, set against the ninety-three. The counter-manifesto was not published during the war. It sat unread while the conflict it addressed continued.

  Einstein later brought it to public attention. The counter-manifesto's closing vision held that the war had 'plunged all European relations into an equally unstable and plastic state.' That disruption, Foerster and Nicolai argued, should be turned to account to create 'out of Europe an organic whole.'