eLhhYSjF

1
2
3
4
5https://books.google.com/books?id=rXAWhuQfG_sC&pg=PA343
6
7
8A certain Mr. Simmons testifies that Hollweg dispatched a socialist as agent to Switzerland to study the socialists there and find the most radical ones. In Simmon's account, the socialist agent reported back that Lenin was the most radical, but not to support him as it would bring chaos and ruin to Russia.
9
10
11Also in the hearing was an excerpt from "The German-Bolshevik Conspiracy"
12
13
14Simmons appears to be "Roger E. Simmons"
15
16
17------
18
19http://digitalcommons.brockport.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=hashtaghistory
20	After the Battle of the Marne, Bethmann-Hollweg urged a cessation of hostilities as soon as possible. He lost faith that Germany could win a total victory, and recognized that Germany was outmatched in terms of raw manpower and economic stability. The Allies were content to prolong the war, but Germany needed to end it quickly. To this end, Bethmann-Hollweg proposed that Germany should isolate one member of the Entente Powers and conclude a separate peace with them. Bethmann-Hollweg surmised that if Germany could break up the Entente, they could coerce the other two countries to the negotiating table, on Germany’s terms.
21
22
23Hollweg says "we are screwed we need peace!" but decides that the way is to get a "spearate peace" with one country and then bring the rest of the allies to the negotiating table. Seems to be a set-up for the foreign ministry's subsequent involvement with the Bolsheviks.
24
25	However, Bethmann - Hollweg soon shifted his initial opinion that Germany needed to win the war q uickly. He held that Germany must defend the Western Front and outlast the Allies.  While the West held firm, the Germans could advance slowly eastward and convince the Russians to sue for peace. Bethmann - Hollweg used the Danish King Hans Neil Andersen as a mediato r to determine whether Russia was interested in peace
26
27
28and of course he chooses Russia. How does any of this make sense? the whole war started betweeen Germany and Russia in the first place!
29
30
31	....As a result of this dilemma, the flow of information between the two branches decreased.  Falkenhayn did not tell Bethmann-Hollweg about his operational agenda and Bethmann-Hollweg neglected to involve Falkenhayn in diplomatic affairs.38Falkenhayn and Bethmann-Hollweg never worked together, so how could Germany expect to win the war when the two most crucial branches failed to communicate with one another?  While Bethmann-Hollweg was busy chasing peace, the generals pursued efforts to win a total military victory.  
32
33
34there are documents of Hollweg consulting Falkenhayn, but if this is true it could have been part of setting-up the Foreign Ministry for their operations
35
36The Foreign Ministry seems worse (more traitorous) than the German Military command. One hint is that there were apparently "intrigues" to oust Falkenhayn and he was unpopular with the General Staff. Another hint is that Hollweg blamed the military leaders for everything. It's hard to say for sure.
37
38Then again, it is true that Ludendorff was involved with the operations to fund the Bolsheviks, and he signed off on some of it.
39
40
41------
42
43
44http://frihetspartiet.net/dokumenter/bolshevik_revolution/chapter_03.htm
45
46
47Bethman-Hollweg also approved of Lenin's trip, and did some shady shit that helped start the war
48
49
50https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Fischer
51	Fischer was the first German historian to publish documents showing that the German chancellor Dr. Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg had made plans in September 1914 (after the war began) to annex all of Belgium, part of France and part of Russia.[1] 
52
53
54https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/apr/14c.htm
55
56
57Lenin upset that someone said he was working with Hollweg
58
59https://books.google.com/books?id=1KO8DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT291&lpg=PT291&dq=%22Bethmann-Hollweg%22+Lenin&source=bl&ots=vQwQUNLBTp&sig=bsJ06NCCwD4pRROMmMyrrKhRvHM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo9pLhsdXWAhUDJiYKHQRfDvcQ6AEIKzAB#v=onepage&q=%22Bethmann-Hollweg%22%20Lenin&f=false
60
61says there were rumors that Hollweg met with Lenin--did he? where did rumors come from?
62
63
64https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Riezler
65	During this period, Riezler served as the conduit for German subsidies to the Bolsheviks and personally negotiated these with Lenin's representatives Karl Radek and Alexander Parvus. Riezler later claimed privately that it had been his own idea to transport Lenin in the famous "sealed train" from Zurich through Germany to Russia in April 1917.
66
67was transporting Lenin this guy's idea?
68
69
70passage on Lenin train rumor says "possible" Lenin met with Riezler
71
72not sure about author of that one though
73
74
75http://www.thehistoryforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30125
76	German Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg reported to the Kaiser that “immediately” upon learning of the events in Russia (March 14), he instructed Gisbert von Romberg, the German Minister in Berne, to offer the Bolshevik exiles passage through Germany. Indeed, there was no time to lose! Already Germany had initiated the submarine warfare policy which would soon bring a U.S. declaration of war. Everything now depended upon a peace treaty with Russia that would enable Germany to transfer a million troops to the Western front and thereby bring the War to a victorious conclusion before American military might could be brought to bear.
77
78
79claims Hollweg arranged for Lenin's trip
80
81
82https://books.google.com/books?id=D8JpAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA88&lpg=PA88&dq=%22Bethmann-Hollweg%22+Lenin+OR+Ulyanov&source=bl&ots=qJxG11jg2y&sig=U44zoWCTGJVFtU3fgfbtUIUetOY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi0-KPQuNXWAhWnz4MKHY6RBYAQ6AEIQzAG#v=onepage&q=%22Bethmann-Hollweg%22%20Lenin%20OR%20Ulyanov&f=false
83
84
85says Parvus' ideas on using Bolshevism to win war were passed on to Hollweg, and this culminated in Lenin's trip
86
87
88https://books.google.com/books?id=YlRZXtADx7MC&pg=PT471&lpg=PT471&dq=%22Bethmann-Hollweg%22+Lenin+OR+Ulyanov+passage&source=bl&ots=j3Axy0ti8L&sig=yvHk-80dKDznKRcnnIpc2hETodo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjlj4KcutXWAhXBzIMKHTFIAYgQ6AEIWDAP#v=onepage&q=%22Bethmann-Hollweg%22%20Lenin%20OR%20Ulyanov%20passage&f=false
89
90
91Hollweg: "necessity knows no law!"
92
93
94https://books.google.com/books?id=RZHLAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA81&lpg=PA81&dq=%22Bethmann-Hollweg%22+Lenin+OR+Ulyanov+passage&source=bl&ots=4k3pPPsJa7&sig=7EDP2GYLtvhzzCkcNXinpS5g4tY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj68_K8utXWAhUE6oMKHaMXC3Y4ChDoAQhGMAY#v=onepage&q=%22Bethmann-Hollweg%22%20Lenin%20OR%20Ulyanov%20passage&f=false
95
96
97In 1914, Hollweg says Germany would not accept peace unless Belgium restored and Germany gets indemnity
98
99
100https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theobald_von_Bethmann-Hollweg
101	His main concern was Russian border manoeuvres, conveyed by his ambassadors at a time when Raymond Poincaré himself was preparing a secret mission to St Petersburg. He wrote to Count Sergey Sazonov:
102
103    	Russian mobilisation measures would compel us to mobilise and that then European war could scarcely be prevented.
104
105Hollweg told Sazonov mobilization would lead to war, then Sazanov does it anyway...
106
107was it a warning? or more like advice...
108
109	Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, Bethmann-Hollweg and his foreign minister, Gottlieb von Jagow, were instrumental in assuring Austria-Hungary of Germany's unconditional support, regardless of Austria's actions against Serbia. While Grey was suggesting a mediation between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, Bethmann-Hollweg wanted Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia and so he tampered with the British message and deleted the last line of the letter:
110
111    	"Also, the whole world here is convinced, and I hear from my colleagues that the key to the situation lies in Berlin, and that if Berlin seriously wants peace, it will prevent Vienna from following a foolhardy policy."
112
113
114so clearly wanted a war. Did he want a local war or a global one?
115
116
117https://blog.oup.com/2014/07/29-july-1914-russian-mobilization-first-world-war/
118	At 4 p.m. the German general staff received intelligence that Belgium was calling up reservists, raising the numbers of the Belgian army from 50,000 to 100,000, equipping its fortifications and reinforcing defences along the frontier. Forty minutes later a meeting at the Neue Palais in Potsdam, the Kaiser and his advisers decided to compose an ultimatum to present to Belgium: either agree to adopt an attitude of ‘benevolent neutrality’ towards Germany in a European war or face dire consequences.
119
120	Simultaneously, Bethmann Hollweg decided to launch a bold new initiative. He proposed to the British ambassador that Britain agree to remain neutral in the event of war in exchange for a German promise not to seize any French territory in Europe when it ended. He understood that Britain would not allow France to be crushed, but this was not Germany’s aim. When asked whether his proposal applied to French colonies as well, the chancellor replied that he was unable to give a similar undertaking concerning them. Belgium’s integrity would be respected when the war ended –as long as it had not sided against Germany.
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122
123Hollweg already divvying-up territory before war even started
124
125	...Yet another German initiative was taken in St Petersburg. At 7 p.m. the German ambassador transmitted a warning from the chancellor that if Russia continued with its military preparations Germany would be compelled to mobilize, in which case it would take the offensive. Sazonov replied that this removed any doubts he may have had concerning the real cause of Austria’s intransigence.
126
127	The Russians found this confusing, as they had just received another telegram from the Kaiser containing a plea that he should not permit Russian military measures to jeopardize German efforts to promote a direct understanding between Russia and Austria. It was agreed that the Tsar should wire Berlin immediately to ask for an explanation of the apparent discrepancy. At 8.20 p.m. the wire asking for clarification was sent. Trusting in his cousin’s ‘wisdom and friendship’, Tsar Nicholas suggested that the ‘Austro-Serbian problem’ be handed over to the Hague conference.
128
129	A message announcing a general mobilization in Russia had been drafted and ready to be sent out by 9 p.m. Then, just minutes before it was to be sent out, a personal messenger from the Tsar arrived, instructing that it the general mobilization be cancelled and a partial one re-instituted. The Tsar wanted to hear how the Kaiser would respond to his latest telegram before proceeding. ‘Everything possible must be done to save the peace. I will not become responsible for a monstrous slaughter’.
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131
132Hollweg doing one thing and the Kaiser another?
133
134
135https://www.jstor.org/stable/259967?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
136
137more on it here?
138
139
140------
141
142
143https://archive.org/stream/Germany-and-Revolution-in-Russia-1915-1918/GermanyAndRevolutionInRussia1915-1918-DocumentsFromArchivesOfGermanForeignMinistry_djvu.txt
144The Counsellor of Legation in Stockholm to the 
145Chancellor 
146
147REPORT NO. 1484 
148
149A3g974 Stockholm, 26 November 1917 
150
151Subject: The situation in Petrograd. 
152
153One's joy at the courage and determination of the Bolshevik 
154government must not lead one to put too much faith in the 
155optimistic claims for the duration of their government being 
156made by the Bolsheviks here. For example, since Lenin's victory, 
157the representatives here have asserted every day that the efforts 
158to form a coalition with the other Socialist parties would un- 
159questionably be successful in the very near future, and that this 
160would secure the existence of the new government and ensure 
161its ability to act. So far these efforts have not only been un- 
162successful, but the very question of forming a coalition has led 
163to violent differences amongst the Bolsheviks themselves and to 
164the separation of a considerable number of their followers.
165
166
167	...It is in the light of this situation that the usefulness of Gold- 
168berg's activities, which were set in motion by Deputy Erzberger, 
169must be judged. However correct the policy of agreement, which 
170was laid down in the Reichstag on 1 9 July as a continuation of 
171Imperial Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg's policy, may be, 
172it must not tempt one to adopt the idea that a rapprochement be- 
173tween the German people and the Russian people — in the sense 
174of friendship between peoples — should be initiated through 
175negotiations between the majority parties and delegates of those 
176now in power in Russia. It is this idea that Goldberg has thrust 
177into the foreground. It would probably be a grave political error 
178even to seem to bind the future of Russo-German relations to 
179the fortunes of the men now in power in Russia. The duration 
180of their government will bring no more than a cease-fire and 
181possibly a formal peace. In the circumstances, and in view of the 
182violent shocks which are in all probability still facing Russia, 
183we shall not be able to take up proper peaceful communications 
184and a friendly, neighbourly relationship once more until some 
185considerable time has elapsed and a start is made in the gradual 
186restoration of order. That will be the time to begin working for 
187agreements, with the Russian people and with another Russian 
188government, such as those Goldberg has in mind. Until then, 
189only a cautious handling of commercial issues by representatives 
190of the actual government will be possible or to the point, and 
191only action of this kind will enable us to achieve a transition to 
192good relations, even with a new government and a Russia which 
193is not Bolshevik. Riezler 
194
195
196Hollweg had idea of truce with Soviets? but others had doubts
197
198
199https://books.google.com/books?id=1KO8DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT287&lpg=PT287&dq=%22Siegfried+Goldberg%22+%22Matthias+Erzberger%22&source=bl&ots=vQwQUNPxUq&sig=u2CCfYzUyXcrE99LMI5zbOmfjso&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjH8P6av9XWAhUB4SYKHQflB3sQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=%22Siegfried%20Goldberg%22%20%22Matthias%20Erzberger%22&f=false
200
201Sazanov was working with Erzberger and Goldberg on some peace efforts, said to have told them Lenin was the "real revolutionary leader."
202
203
204
205------
206
207
208https://archive.org/stream/LeninCompulsiveRevolutionaryPossony1964_201606/Lenin%20Compulsive%20Revolutionary%20Possony%201964_djvu.txt
209	Lenin assumed that “it will not be possible to get away early from this 
210damned Switzerland. ’’^ Yet German diplomats already were planning 
211the return of Lenin to Russia. A few weeks later, the German 
212Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, reported to the Emperor that 
213“immediately” upon learning of the Russian revolution — he received 
214this news during the afternoon of March 14 — he instructed the German 
215Minister to Switzerland to offer the Russian exiles passage through 
216Germany. It is not clear which channels were to be used ; the Germans 
217had a large number of contacts. These included Dr. Kornblum who 
218participated in the Bolshevik conference of 1915, and who at that time 
219apparently was in contact with von Bismarck ; Buchholz, whom Lenin 
220had known from Samara and Berlin ; Bagocki, who had been involved 
221at Cracow and who soon became the executive secretary of a committee 
222working for the return of the revolutionaries from Switzerland to Russia 
223; Shklovsky, who during 1916 was one of the persons who transmitted 
224money to Lenin. Also of importance in such work were the 
225correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung, Dr. Deinhard ; the German 
226left-socialist Paul Levi ; the promotor of the Youth International and 
227Lenin’s young German adherent, Willi Muenzenberg ; the Polish 
228socialist and former German journalist, Karl Radek ; a Swiss socialist, 
229Hermann von Boetticher ; finally, the several contacts which the 
230military attache had among the international Mensheviks ; and, of 
231course, Keskula and Moor. 
232
233	It was indeed simple to plant the idea. Already in 1915 Parvus had 
234dispatched Russian revolutionaries through Germany. The German 
235military wanted Lenin to organize sabotage campaigns. On December 
23629, 1916, Okhrana agent “Gretchen” reported that Lenin was still in 
237Switzerland and would not leave via Germany : even if he were able to 
238obtain the visa he would not use it — to avoid giving for a second time 
239the impression of collusion with the Central Powers. It would be 
240interesting to know the background of this perplexing “premature” 
241document. 
242
243
244Possony says Hollweg arranged for Lenin's tip "immediately" upon learning of the Russian revolution, and names a bunch of Bolsheviks involved in some plot to get him over there
245
246
247
248http://www.yamaguchy.com/library/pearson/lenin_36.html
249	Lenin assumed that “it will not be possible to get away early from this damned Switzerland.”(1)  Yet German diplomats already were planning the return of Lenin to Russia.  A few weeks later, the German Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, reported to the Emperor that “immediately” upon learning of the Russian revolution—he received this news during the afternoon of March 14—he instructed the German Minister to Switzerland to offer the Russian exiles passage through Germany.  It is not clear which channels were to be used ;  the Germans had a large number of contacts.
250
251
252
253https://books.google.com/books?id=WH8jCQAAQBAJ&pg=PT237&lpg=PT237&dq=Bethmann+Hollweg+Russian+exiles&source=bl&ots=tO4z0OporL&sig=QDQ973mIIIV2Gml2YKmpaiolv4k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwit3LW-ldbWAhUJ6SYKHQhcBssQ6AEITTAM#v=onepage&q=Bethmann%20Hollweg%20Russian%20exiles&f=false
254	At first the Germans remained passive observers of the revolutionary chaos: an offense on land, or by sea in the Gulf of Finland, might rally their enemy in defense of the homeland. Instead, they preferred to stoke the flames of revolt by helping exiled extremists return to Russia. OVer the previous eighteen months Count von Brockdorff-Rantzau, the German minister in Stockholm, had built up a network of of agents in contact with Russian exiles in Switzerland, inclding the leader of the Bolshevik faction, Lenin. On the fall of the tsar, Brockdorff-Rantzau urged the authorities in Berlin to use the radical socialists 'to create the greatest possible chaos in Russia', a policy welcomed not only by Chancellor Bethmann Holweg but also by Ludendorff, who from August 1916 was the principal architect of German strategy. On his initiative a train was provided on 9 April to take Lenin and some thirty companions back from Berne to Sassnitz, on the Baltic coast. It was agreed that, during the journey, the Russians would have no contact with any German.
255
256
257------
258
259http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=967
260	Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg on the Effects of the Russian Revolution (March 28, 1917)
261
262	The Russian Revolution in March of 1917 had an electrifying effect in Germany: it removed the Russian autocracy, the bogey that had persuaded the German Socialists to support the war in 1914. Also, the Russian experience furnished a model in practice of how economic issues, like bread shortages, could be exploited to bring democratic reform, and possibly an end to the war. Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856-1921) was keenly aware of this fact, as his note to an official in the foreign ministry makes clear. 
263
264	For your personal information and appropriate temporary use.
265
266	Efforts have already been made to influence the press along the lines ordered by His Majesty. I am paying all the more attention to this matter, because the Russian revolution naturally occupies the entire public intensely. The Social Democrats cannot be prevented from expressing their sympathy for the Russian revolutionaries; apart from the most radical wing, however, if my hopes are fulfilled, they can be prevented from comparing our situation with the Russian. The spread of antimonarchical tendencies does not seriously worry me for the time being. The position of the monarchy is strongly rooted in the broad masses of the people. A direct danger would, however, emerge if one were to label democratic demands, which are an unavoidable consequence of this war, simply as antimonarchical and if, as was common before the war, one were to recognize only the reactionaries as reliable pillars of the throne. Even military circles are going to have to convince themselves of this truth. A reactionary military dictatorship would lead us toward destruction. The course of events can make the satisfaction of democratic demands necessary during the war itself, in which case it is possible that the length of the war, the severity of sacrifice, and in the end developments in Russia, too, will make concessions appear insufficient that would have seemed adequate during the first year of the war. Without giving in to nervousness, one must be aware that a “too little” or “too late” can become fatal.
267
268	v. Bethmann Hollweg.
269
270
271Hollweg worried about "dangers to monarchy?" saying that if there wasn't reform, or if it were too little too late, it would be fatal. Seems to see a trend, driven by war, toward reform that is more than just "anti-monarchical." Hoped that German social democrats wouldn't compare their situation to Russia. Term "reactionary" has roots in French Revolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary), so maybe that's what Hollweg meant by "reactionaries" being counted on for support of a "reactionary dictatorship."
272
273Ok so basically he's saying don't overract, don't create a military dictatorship of reactionaries and dismiss those wanting democratic reform as "anti-monarchical."
274
275Sounds like he knew Ludendorff's military dictatorship was going to give rise to problems (e.g. socialism).
276
277	A reactionary military dictatorship would lead us toward destruction. The course of events can make the satisfaction of democratic demands necessary during the war itself, in which case it is possible that the length of the war, the severity of sacrifice, and in the end developments in Russia, too, will make concessions appear insufficient that would have seemed adequate during the first year of the war. Without giving in to nervousness, one must be aware that a “too little” or “too late” can become fatal.
278
279
280And I guess this means he thinks the people could rise up against a "reactionary military dictatorship," maybe not so different from Russia. But would depend on how they handle it.
281
282Meanwhile, he signs off on sending Lenin over to Russia.
283
284also, what does he mean by "Efforts have already been made to influence the press along the lines ordered by His Majesty." and "if my hopes are fulfilled, they can be prevented from comparing our situation with the Russian." Does he claim he can control the press? Probably, it wasn't anyone friendly to Germany controlling the press.
285
286
287------
288
289From his book:
290
291
292	dislike of Count Aehrenthal and the latter's method of conducting Austro-Hungarian policy. Even the devotion and determination with which the Russian Ambassador, Count Osten-Sacken, the type of the sound diplomat of the old school, threw himself personally into the maintenance of the traditional friendship between Russia and Germany could deceive no one as to the fact that more influential forces in St. Petersburg were carrying their hostility to the Monarchy of the Danube over to its ally, Germany.
293
294
295talking about spread of bolshevism?
296
297in intro sounds like he's complaining that Germany was encircled
298
299
300	...Edward Grey refrained, as far as he personally was concerned, from showing any actually unfriendly feeling against Germany. It is even questionable whether he himself recognised the full force of the aggressive tendencies of the Franco-Russian policy.
301
302
303what "aggresive tendencies" does he mean? Russia was having an arms build-up I guess
304
305complains about England siding with France and Russia a lot
306
307
308	...And if Germany saw a formidable aggravation of all the aggressive tendencies of Franco- Russian policy in England's pronounced friendship with this Dual Alliance, England on its side had grown to see a menace in the strengthening of the German fleet and a violation of its ancient rights in our Eastern policy. Words had already passed on both sides. The atmosphere was chilly and clouded with distrust.
309
310
311that sounds right
312
313
314	Finally the economic hostility of England to its German competitor had been given an acutely political character by our naval policy. And consequently Germany had, in my opinion, to W endeavour to reduce the main danger that it could not entirely remove (that danger being the alliance of France with Russia), by getting English support of this Dual Allliance restricted as far as possible. This made it necessary for us to try to come to an under- standing with England.
315
316	The Emperor was entirely in agreement with this policy and even described it to me in more than one discussion as the only possible procedure and the one that he himself would pursue with every personal means in his power.
317
318
319right, I think other sources say he wanted to break-up Russian-French alliance
320
321did he think he's actions that ended up starting a war would break-up this alliance somehow?
322
323
324	...It would not be going too far to say that the campaign of hate and contempt directed against us by the enemy during the war has drawn its munitions from this source as much as from Pan-Germanism.
325
326
327saying some kind of subversion going on from "the enemy"?
328
329
330	In general my efforts to put Government before party, which were the subject of so much criticism and contumely, had an ultimate object that I con- sidered as the principal goal of my internal policy and attainable by this method alone.
331
332
333claims he put country over party (did he?)
334
335
336	There could be no question to anyone who studied the matter without prejudice that Social Democracy combined its bitter struggle against historic fact and its countless Utopias, all alike economically and politically impossible, with important objects which were not only inspired by idealism but also adapted to the political and economic development of its world. Its followers, which it counted in millions, were principally recruited from a working-class which could claim to have done great things in the way of productive activities, and which was kept under very strict discipline by the economic organisations of the trades unions and the political organisations of the party. Only an erro- neous conception of the limitations of Government authority could cause anyone to suppose that such a power as this could be coerced by repressive measures.
337
338
339same as above, seems to be saying cracking down on socialists was a bad idea
340
341
342	The desire prevailing in various regions of the middle- class to keep Social Democracy permanently in the position of open hostility to the Realm and to the Government, even perhaps to drive it still further into such hostility, was not practical politics. It could not be reconciled with the responsibilities of a policy such as mine of a conservative and constructive character. I had already expressed my conviction to the contrary as Minister of the Interior when I, on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the German Labour Congress, declared that the adaptation of the Labour movement to the existing order of Society was the most important task of the times. And not long after I repeatedly and emphatically argued in the same sense when bringing forward the Labour Councils Act, a piece of legislation that unfortunately came to nothing. During the war I have firmly followed the same line, if possible with even stronger emphasis.
343
344
345claims he tried to stop this, but he failed.
346
347not starting the war would have been one way to prevent it.
348
349
350	There were continuous and considerable obstacles to every attempt to induce gradually the Social Democratic party to take a positive as distinct from a negative part in governmental responsibility. The negative attitude of Social Democracy towards Money Grants and Army Bills, its terroristic extravagances in wage disputes, its professions of internationalist tendencies, and its constant and most damaging attacks upon the Monarchy, made every statesman suspect to the mass of the middle-class who did not combat Social Democracy. The middle-classes had become partly convinced and partly accustomed to consider that the combating of Social Democracy at all times and on all occasions was the first requirement of sound statesmanship.
351
352
353I think he's saying most German politicians overreacted to the socialist campaign
354
355
356	...The spirit of Bismarck was always being invoked and that, too, although the most uncompromising adherents of his anti-Social Democratic policy could not possibly have ignored the change in conditions since his time. And if the Social ^Democrats themselves might excuse their bitterness by pointing to the persecutions that they had endured under the Act against Socialism, and to many a hard word in subsequent years, yet it was they themselves who played into the hands of their opponents and made it difficult to protect them from demands against them dictated by the spirit of auto- cracy and forced as exceptional legislation.
357
358
359sounds like he noticed a divide-and-conquer/polarization thing going on in Germany
360
361I guess this was kicked into overdrive with the Kapp Putsch, Versailles, Beer-Hall Putsch, 1919 Communist uprisings, etc. I guess it's a strat of just go back and forth with more and more insane partisan fighting until a group of extremists wins. Maybe Lenin used that to get Bolsheviks in power, and it looks like they used the same to get Hitler in power. So, possibly, Hollwegg may be referring to early stages of this in his own country.
362
363
364Is this the act he was referring to?
365
366https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/4/3/320/1837618/The-German-Act-against-Socialism
367
368"The German Act Against Socialism"
369
370signed in 1878
371
372dunno what it did but apparently organized socialism was in Germany since at least then.
373
374these organized for any sinister purpose? Okhrana was founded in 1880.
375
376
377https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_revolutions_of_1848%E2%80%9349
378	They were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, including the Austrian Empire. The revolutions, which stressed pan-Germanism, demonstrated popular discontent with the traditional, largely autocratic political structure of the thirty-nine independent states of the Confederation that inherited the German territory of the former Holy Roman Empire.
379
380
381back to his book:
382
383
384	...The confused and fluid condition of parties was most unfavourable to the conduct of foreign affairs. The external position of Germany, as I have described it, was far too serious to allow it to indulge in the luxury of heated internal conflicts which would be welcomed by an unfriendly foreign public opinion as evidence of weakness. For although political life requires an emancipated criticism both of men and of matters, yet a reckless extravagance in this respect must eventually run the risk of giving the appearance of political immaturity.
385
386
387hinting at stability at home affecting war abroad.
388
389so he knew all this, he knew that "democratic demands" were "an unavoidable consequence of this war," yet he started it anyway. Why?
390
391
392	...Many of the speeches on this occasion, speeches that were bound to make and did make bad blood abroad to no purpose, cannot but make us wonder whether the perils of our external situation were sufficiently realised in these discussions of our foreign policy ; even though on the other hand such perils were frequently over- estimated on the occasion of debates of Army Bills. The people as a whole showed no inclination for Chauvinistic impulses. The public read neither Nietzsche nor Bernhardi. And as the candidly mate- rialist tendencies of the day found ample activity and satiety in a fabulous business prosperity, the public had no thought for conquest or for empire; while this fundamental current of opinion was expressed with sufficient accuracy in the policy of the various parties in spite of the nationalist campaign of some of their leaders. 
393
394
395Saying leaders and public out of touch. Leaders more materialistic and nationalist, public didn't care about conquest or empire. But some of the political parties were more in touch with public.
396
397What does he mean by "the public read neither Nietzsche nor Bernhardi"?
398
399does he look down on the public (e.g. for not being as "sophisticated" in foreign policy as him?)
400
401
402What does Hollweg think about Nietzsche and Bernhardi?
403
404Bernhardi sounds like a war-mongering spy
405
406https://books.google.com/books?id=xYi0rBrQNIsC&pg=PA188&lpg=PA188&dq=Bethmann+Hollweg+Bernhardi&source=bl&ots=xqkE5t05NC&sig=H-qGRIz5nWLF-4vdP_DalBFf_Jc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiq8Y7dq9bWAhVIJiYKHcGHCr0Q6AEIPjAG#v=onepage&q=Bethmann%20Hollweg%20Bernhardi&f=false
407
408Hollweg sounds pro-war in this exchange.
409
410Hollweg shows he understands the dynamic that led to socialism and polarization in Germany, and that it was fomented by outside forces and that the war contributed to it. At the same time, he assured his foreign minister the socialists wouldn't emulate Russia while sending Lenin to Russia. Seemed content to blame it all on the generals after he acted to start the war.
411
412
413------
414
415pg 63 of hollweg book:
416
417	These documents established the fact that Russia had used the presence of Sir Edward Grey in Paris in April, 1914, on the occasion of the visit of the King and Queen of England, in order to bring about the conclusion of an Anglo-Russian Naval Convention through the intermediary of the French Government. The object of this was, as Count Benckendorff wrote to M. Sassonow, " to substitute something tangible for the altogether too abstract and pacific funda- mental idea of the Entente." It was also shown that Grey readily accepted the Russian proposal that was warmly pressed on him by the French Government, and applied for and obtained the consent of the English Cabinet. Further, that by arrangement the military and naval authorities took over the negotia- tions while the Government stood on one side in order if necessary to be able to deny any political engagements.
418
419	As soon as we heard of this we struck a warning note in a German paper, and instructed Prince Lichnowsky to indicate to Sir Edward Grey that we had reason to suspect disquieting developments.
420
421
422I wonder which journalist did that?
423
424pg 161
425
426	...At last on the 1st of August, there seemed to be a ray of hope. The well-known Lichnowsky telegrams arrived in which Grey personally, and through his private secretary, again reopened the question of the neutrality of France in a Russo-German war, and that of England in a war of France and Russia against Germany. The Kaiser, on receiving this news, and in the presence of his military and political advisers, at once decided that the disadvantage of delaying military preparations must, without question, be faced in spite of the fact that the intelligence was not improbably erroneous. Our Ambassador received immediate instructions from me to grasp the hand which seemed to be stretched out to us. If England would guarantee the neutrality of France we would undertake no military action against France. The Kaiser telegraphed in the same sense to King George. But it was a mirage that at once melted away, an unexplained misunderstanding. The avalanche could no longer be avoided. The avalanche that has destroyed the Europe of our day.
427
428
429what exactly is going on here? did he ignore the mediation proposal and instead just complain that England didn't guarantee the neutrality of France?
430
431
432pg 118
433
434
435	...The object was a Balkan Alliance exclusive of Serbia under the aegis of the Central Powers. The Serajevo incident was adduced as evidence that the conflict between Austria and Serbia was irreconcilable, and that the Monarchy must reckon with an obstinate and aggressive hostility from Serbia. The Emperor's manuscript summarised the argument briefly, and suggested that the pacific policy of the Powers was threatened if the agitation in Belgrade was left to itself. The Kaiser received both documents with the remark that he could only reply after consulting his Chancellor. On the after-noon of the same day the Kaiser received me and, the Under-Secretary of State, Zimmermann, who was representing the Secretary of State, von Jagow, then on leave. This was in the park of the new Palace at Potsdam. No one else was present. I had already made myself acquainted with the gist of the Austrian documents, a copy of which had been communicated to Herr Zimmermann. After I had reviewed their contents the Kaiser declared that he could not let himself be under any illusion as to the gravity of the position into which the Danube Monarchy had been brought by the Greater Serbia propaganda. It was not our business, however, to advise our ally what it must do in respect of the bloody deed at Serajevo. Austria-Hungary must settle that for itself. We must all the more abstain from any direct action or advice, as we must labour with every means to prevent the Austro-Serbian dispute developing into an international conflict. But the Emperor Francis Joseph must also be given to know that we would not desert Austria-Hungary in its hour of peril. Our own vital interests required the unimpaired maintenance of Austria. ...These views of the Kaiser corresponded with my own opinions.
436
437
438says he didn't want it to become a wider conflict, but in backing Austria he did help it become a wider conflict. Also says he didn't want to do anything to stop the Austria-Serbia conflict.
439
440He pins it on the Kaiser. But is that want the Kaiser actually believed?
441
442------
443
444pg 105 of his book he blames russia:
445
446	It was for Russia to decide. Russian policy again had it in its power to find a peaceable solution of the Serbian issue. M. Sassonow had himself admitted in conversation with Count Pourtales that the Serbian Government had deserved a lesson, and a word from St. Petersburg would have sufficed to induce the Serbs to guarantee such satisfaction as would have contented Austria, and would have brought about a modus vivendi. While it would be all over with European peace if those in power at St. Petersburg had only ears for the commands of Russia's " historical mission," which, according to the ancient Pan-Slav formula, required not only the protection of the Balkan States but also the patronage of the Slav population of Austria. But we know to-day that a breach of the peace of Europe was just what M. Sassonow had in view because he wanted Constantinople, and therefore required a European War.
447
448
449blames Sazanov and puts out the theory that Russia wanted the war to get Constantinople, echoing Bolsheviks.
450
451
452	...But there was more to it than this. Both military and civil advisers had succeeded in persuading the Tsar in these critical days that he could only save his Crown and Empire if he could divert into war passions the growing discontent in his country, whether due to Pan-Slav excitement or Socialist resentment. Similar suggestions the experience of this war tempts one to say similar temptations of the devil may have misled every- where shortsighted and unprincipled persons in irre- sponsible quarters. But in Russia such persons were powers in high places. And those who influenced them were the determined adherents of the acquisition of Constantinople. It was to these war-hawks that M. Sassonow had handed himself over when he decided in consultation with them at that Conference of the 21st of February that Russia must seize the Straits, and could only do so at the cost of a European War.
453
454
455claims the czar got bad advice, also that starting a war would redirect passions of socialism and discontent at home
456
457so I guess this is supposed to be some amazing flash of insight from hindsight for him? if he suspected Russia wanted war earlier then he would have known he was helping them.
458
459
460	...For M. Sassonow knew well enough when he said this to Sir G. Buchanan that M. Poincare", who as early as 1912 " had contemplated war without regret," would most certainly co-operate. He only wanted to know what England thought, because he could not make war against the will of England. Great Britain, allied as it was with Japan, had certainly resources enough for forcing Russia to give up all thought of war. M. Sassonow would only venture to open wide the gate of war, whose lock he had already picked, provided he could count on an arrned England taking its stand in the deadly breach. Everything depended on the attitude of England. And what did England do ?
461
462	The possibility of war that had, of course, at once presented itself to Sir E. Grey, had evoked from the English statesman strong expressions of abhorrence. He recognised that even from an English standpoint the Austro-Serbian dispute did not in itself require international treatment. If the ultimatum to Serbia did not lead to a collision between Austria and Russia FlCngland had no cause to trouble about it. But he (did nothing to localise the conflict. From the begin- ning he took it as a matter of course that Russia would intervene, and counted on this. No sooner had Russia made the cause of Serbia its own than he accepted this. And not only that. Not only did he fail to use any such strong language in St. Petersburg as might still have been effective, but, on the contrary, he plainly gave the Russian Cabinet to understand that he was unwilling to use such language. He told Prince Lichnowsky on the 24th of July that he felt that in view of the form of the Austrian ultimatum he was quite powerless to exercise a restraining influence over Russia. The English states- man even thought it necessary to inform M. Paul Cambon beforehand of his intention to make this communication to the German Ambassador. Did Sir E. Grey imagine that Cambon would enshrine this interesting communication in the secrecy of his heart ? Did he not know perfectly well that his Russian colleague would have the benefit of it at once ? And that was all that Sassonow wanted to know.
463
464
465blames England for siding with Russia
466
467------
468
469
470https://archive.org/stream/leninwarhistorio00simo/leninwarhistorio00simo_djvu.txt
471	Volume ill focuses on very specifically on 
472
473the War Chancellory of Bethmann-Hollweg. it is based on 
474
475archival evidence, some ot the same used by Fritz Fischer, 
476
477but Hitter's conceptualization ot his study, as well as his 
478
479conclusions, are very different. Ritter calls for: 
480
481...insight into the countless individual 
482interrelation-ships that must be known if one is to 
483understand the course of political events and do 
484justice to the acts of commission and ommission of 
485
486
487
488llu 
489
490
491
492leading statesmen and soldiers, their successes as 
493well as their lailures. (35) 
494
495He places strong emphasis on the inability at Bethmann- 
496
497Holweg, whom he sees as "an estimable statesman of 
498
499character , "36 to rescue Germany from the throes of a 
500
501hopeless war. The reason was not weakness of will, with 
502
503which Bethmann-Holweg had been often charged, but a German 
504
505militarism eni lamed with nationalist passion. "In wartime, 
506
507politicians have always had a hard time gaining and 
508
509maintaining authority against successful generals. "
510
511
512
513Ritter says not Hollweg's fault but generals
514
515
516https://archive.org/stream/FischerFritzGermanysAimsInTheFirstWorldWar/Fischer,%20Fritz%20-%20Germany%E2%80%99s%20Aims%20in%20the%20First%20World%20War_djvu.txt
517	Fischer offers a very different pic- 
518ture. He shows how the civilian government, and that meant in the 
519first place Chancellor von Bethmann Hollweg, was in deep sympathy 
520with the general intent to fight the war in order to make Germany a 
521‘world power’, equal to Britain and Russia. Bethmann Hollweg 
522never questioned the need for drastic changes of the political map 
523of Europe and the Europe-dominated Africa.
524
525
526Fischer points out that Hollweg's aims come off as imperialist
527
528
529	...This in turn leads to a re-assessment 
530of the character of Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, the Imperial 
531Chancellor until the summer of 1917. Professor Fischer’s demonstra- 
532tion that Bethmann was, as early as September, 1914, committed to 
533a programme of widespread annexation has come as a shock to 
534many people, for whom the Chancellor seemed to be a moderate 
535and liberal figure attempting to stand out against the extreme de- 
536mands of the militarists and ultra-nationalists.
537
538
539doesn't seem shocking so far
540
541this also helped Bolsheviks propaganda later (revealing imperialist war aims of Tsar and other European governments)
542
543
544what was Hollweg's motivation?
545
546	...Professor Fischer also shows us the full scope of the German activi- 
547ties launched at the beginning of the war with the intention of sub- 
548verting the enemy governments. The attempts to make the Moham- 
549medans rise against their British, French and Italian colonial masters 
550failed, as did the support of the Irish revolution. The greatest result 
551this German policy of subversion achieved was in Russia. Originally 
552directed upon making the non-Russian nationalities revolt against 
553the Russian Tsardom the German operations did not produce a 
554strong response. But when the Germans proceeded to back social 
555revolution as well, the effect was world-shaking. By transporting 
556Lenin from Switzerland to Russia and by giving further help to the 
557Bolsheviks Germany was able to end the war in the east and to re- 
558alize her maximum program of conquest through the peace treaties 
559of Brest-Litovsk with the Ukraine and the Soviet Union as well as 
560through the subsequent treaty with Rumania at Bucharest. 
561
562
563Fischer also talks about German support for Lenin
564
565
566------
567
568
569https://archive.org/stream/ModernTimes_305/42024947-19032115-Johnson-Paul-Modern-Times-the-World-From-the-Twenties-to-the-Nineties-Revised-Edition-Harper-Collins-1991_djvu.txt
570	In the weeks before the outbreak of Armageddon, Bethmann Hollweg's secretary and confident Kurt Riezler made notes of the gloomy relish with which his master steered Germany and Europe into the abyss. July 7 1914: The Chancellor expects that a war, whatever its outcome, will result in the uprooting of everything that exists. The existing world very antiquated, without ideas.' July 27: 'Doom greater than human power hanging over Europe and our own people.' 30 Bethmann Hollweg had been born in the same year as Freud, and it was as though he personified the 'death instinct' the latter coined as the fearful decade ended. Like most educated Germans, he had read Max Nordau's Degeneration, published in 1895, and was familiar with the degenerative theories of the Italian criminologist Cesare Lom- broso. War or no war, man was in inevitable decline; civilization was heading for destruction. Such ideas were commonplace in central Europe, preparing the way for the gasp of approbation which greeted Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, fortuitously timed for publication in 1918 when the predicted suicide had been accom- plished. 
571
572
573Hollweg into some weird shit? I wonder what Riezler thought about it.
574
575
576
577------
578
579
580https://books.google.com/books?id=1Pp6BwAAQBAJ&pg=PP92&lpg=PP92&dq=%22The+Chancellor+expects+that+a+war,+whatever+its+outcome,+will+result+in+the+uprooting+of+everything+that+exists%22&source=bl&ots=I1UiRIXFPr&sig=0uDoOBD2EDOTTk3Z0QXKuvnWXbg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjT4YnpxtXWAhXKSCYKHYbQCL4Q6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=%22The%20Chancellor%20expects%20that%20a%20war%2C%20whatever%20its%20outcome%2C%20will%20result%20in%20the%20uprooting%20of%20everything%20that%20exists%22&f=false
581	...no one felt this pessimism more strongly than Reich Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg. He was, he confessed in 1912, 'gravely distressed by our relative strength in case of war. One must have a good deal of trust in God and count on the Russian revolution as an ally in order to be able to sleep at all.' In June 1913 he admitted to feeing 'sick of war, the clamour for war and the eternal armaments. It is hight time that the great nations quieted down again . . . otherwise an explosion will occur which no one deserves and which will harm all.' To the National Liberal leader Bassermann, he said 'with fatalistic resignation: "If there is a war with France, the last Englishman will march against us."' His secretary, Kurt Reizler, recorded some of his musings in his diary for 7 July 1914:
582
583		The Chancellor expects that a war, whatever its outcome, will result in the uprooting of everything that exists. The existing [world] very antiquated, without ideas . . . Thick fog over the people. The same in all Europe. The future belongs to Russia, which grows and grows and weights upon an ever heavier nightmare . . . The Chancellor very pessimistic about the intellectual condition of Germany.
584
585	On 20 July Bethmann returned to his Russian theme: 'Russia's claims [are] growing [along with her] enormously explosive strength . . . In a few years no longer to be warded off, particularly when the present European constellation persists.' A week later he told Rizler that he felt 'a fate [Fatum] greater than human power hanging over Europe and our own people'. That mood of near-despair, sometimes attributed by cultural historians to excessive exposure to the works of Nietzche, Wager and Schopenhaur, becomes more intelligible when the military realities of Europe in 1914 are considered.
586
587
588Hollweg weird, says in 1912 Germany's only hope to survive war is in Russian revolution
589
590
591another source for "count on the Russian revolution" quote:
592
593https://books.google.com/books?id=nAFfAr3dU_8C&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=%22One+must+have+a+good+deal+of+trust+in+God+and+count+on+the+Russian+revolution+as+an+ally%22&source=bl&ots=QfjTktDKQ8&sig=h3E_vNsnPZ1WQAsvRsLZuwOs9O8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja767u89XWAhUCTCYKHXE5BfUQ6AEIKTAB#v=onepage&q=%22One%20must%20have%20a%20good%20deal%20of%20trust%20in%20God%20and%20count%20on%20the%20Russian%20revolution%20as%20an%20ally%22&f=false
594
595also says "Bethmann himself increasingly gave way to fatalism: the death of his wife on 11 May 1914 can only have confirmed his sense of resignation."
596
597
598https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/arms_race_prior_to_1914_armament_policy
599	New weapons produced during the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s heightened existing tensions among European nations as countries strove to outpace their enemies technologically. This armaments race accelerated in the decade before 1914 as the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy squared off against the Triple Entente of France, Russia, and Britain. Germany’s fears of increases in Russian armaments, and British fears of the German naval buildup, contributed heavily to the outbreak and spread of the First World War in 1914.
600
601	...In short, none of the alliance leaders felt they lagged behind enemies and needed to catch up. They had no reason to believe an attack was imminent, but were confident that if one came they were well-equipped for success in battle. 
602
603	...Two years later, Europe again came to the brink of war. In July 1911 a German gunboat anchored in a French Moroccan port, provoking another crisis. The war scare reverberated all summer, each side speaking of insults to national honor and the need to fight. It finally blew over in October without triggering the widely anticipated showdown between alliance blocs.
604
605	Like the First Moroccan Crisis, however, serious consequences followed. In Germany, the Navy League, a pressure group for naval expansion, agitated for more ships. Furthermore, a new organization, the Army League, founded in 1912, similarly made propaganda for a massive increase in men and weapons. All patriots questioned whether Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1859–1941) was competently leading the nation and race. Feeling this pressure, the beleaguered emperor swore that next time, “I won’t chicken out.”
606
607
608	...The Russian “Great Program” of June 1914 proved more worrisome in Berlin, however, for peacetime army size would rise 45 percent to 1,885,000 by 1917. Russian forces would also improve qualitatively by expanding rapid-firing field guns to 8,358, dwarfing Germany’s total of 6,004 in 1914. Chief of the German General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke (1848-1916), was somewhat consoled that artillery strength per corps would still be greater, but all things considered, writes Norman Stone, “the pointers for the future were unmistakable.
609
610	It was no surprise, therefore, that Moltke grew increasingly anxious, pressing Minister of War Erich von Falkenhayn (1861–1922) for another troop increase. Moltke even changed his mind from the year before, backing Ludendorff and Army League radicals who believed that only universal conscription, which already existed on paper but not yet in practice, could save the day. It became clear in May 1914 that no further increase could be squeezed out of a stingy parliament whose Left wanted no more consumer taxes, and whose Right was bitterly protesting the new 1913 federal taxes on wealth. In response, Moltke pleaded with the Kaiser:
611
612		We must be aware that the offensive of almost the entire Russian army will be directed against our forces which remain in the east—to be precise, a Russian army which will, from 1917 onwards, probably already be fully outfitted and equipped in everything in a modern way, and which will be able to cross the border in the shortest time. ...We must not close our eyes to these facts that are so unfavorable to us!
613
614	Getting nowhere with his plea made Moltke - one who had no illusions about the ferocity of modern warfare - eager to sound the tocsins while the odds favored Germany. “If only things would finally boil over,” he declared in early June 1914. “We are ready—the sooner, the better for us.”
615
616
617so what was he (supposedly) thinking?
618
619https://books.google.com/books?id=nAFfAr3dU_8C&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=%22One+must+have+a+good+deal+of+trust+in+God+and+count+on+the+Russian+revolution+as+an+ally%22&source=bl&ots=QfjTktDKQ8&sig=h3E_vNsnPZ1WQAsvRsLZuwOs9O8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja767u89XWAhUCTCYKHXE5BfUQ6AEIKTAB#v=onepage&q=%22One%20must%20have%20a%20good%20deal%20of%20trust%20in%20God%20and%20count%20on%20the%20Russian%20revolution%20as%20an%20ally%22&f=false
620	...Bethmen Hollweg could console himself with the thought that, given time, the Anglo-Russian alliance showed every likelihood of collapsing from within.
621
622	Bethmann Hollweg's hopes were the stuff of Entente nightmares. Although Grey remained determined that Britain should retain a free hand, France could only endorse Sazanov's appeal in February 1914 that the Entente become a formal defensive alliance designed to deter Germany and Austria-Hungary. In April 1914 Grey agreed to the French suggestion that Russo-British naval conversations should take pace, a proposal to which the cabinet gave remarkably ready approval. The naval talks were of course secret, but a German agent in the Russian embassy in London passed on their details to Berlin. On 22 May the *Berliner Tagblatt* published the details, and on 11 June questions were asked in the House of Commons. Grey denied that Britain was under any obligations and denied that any negotiations were in progress-a technical truth in terms of treaty commitments, but a strategic fiction.
623
624	Grey had feared that, if known, the naval conversations would confirm German fears of Russia and strengthen the hand of what he saw as the war party in Germany against that of Belthmann Hollweg. His worries were realized. Grey saw the German ambassador on 6 and 9 July, and insisted that, although staff talks had taken place, the governments of the Entente were not politically committed to one another. But such artfulness, 'seeking a compromise between isolationism and policy of alliance in order to gain the advantage of both at the same time', smacked of deceit. Grey hoped to appeal to liberalism in Germany and yet betrayed his own sense of democratic accountability by misleading parliament--or at least so it seemed to Bethmann Hollweg. For Bethmann the possibility of a German-British rapprochement as a basis for German overseas expansion was now gone; threatened too was the idea that each could manage its own alliance in the event of a crisis, as it had in November-December 1912.
625
626	For more important, however, than these diplomatic setbacks was Germany's conviction that its encirclement was now complete. The fear which had accompanied German assertiveness gained the upper hand: the bull in the china-shop of European diplomacy began to see itself as a resigned sacrificial victim. For the Anglo-Russian naval talks gave the cue to the latent but pervasive Russophobia that gripped not only Bethmann Hollweg but also Motlke. The press and popular feeling played on the inevitability of a clash between Teuton and Slav. This emotive vocabulary did not seem inappropriate given the reality of the position. THe Russian army's budget-independently of the extraordinary capital grants--had grown from 406 million roubles in 1907/8 to 581 million in 1913/14. Spending on the navy nearly tripled over the same period, and in 1914 exceeded that of Germany. In 1913 the Russians introduced the 'grand programme', enacted in 1914, which aimed to increase the annual contingent of recruits for the army from 455,000 to 585,000, and to expand the total number of divisions from 114.5 to 112.5. The Russian war minister accompanied these enlargements with statements calculated to stoke German anxieties. THe German and Austro-Hungarian armies were already inferior to those of France and RUssia by over a million men in the sumer of 1914; by 1917 the Russian army alone would be three times the Size of Germany's. THe argument that, objectively, there was no chance of a RUssian challenge in economic terms did not figure in the calculations on the military balance. By 1914 French loans had enabled the construction of strategic railways so that RUssias mobilization could be accelerated, and the first troops be into battle within fifteen days. German plans drawn up on 1905 rested on the then-valid assumption that Germany would have six weeks in which to deal with France before turning east: the very existence of that planning assumption, which by 1913 was demonstrably wrong, added to Germany's sense of panic. In may 1914, therefore, Moltke's advocacy of a preventative war took on greater urgency, if not more precision: 'we must wage a preventative war', he told Gottlieb von Jagow, the foreign minister, 'to conquer our opponents as long as we still have a reasonable chance in this struggle.'
627
628	Both Jagow and Bethmann Hollweg resisted Moltke's suggestion. But the case for doing so seemed, in the self-absorbed atmosphere of Wilhelmine politics, to be growing weaker. As early as December 1912 Bethmann--who had visited Russia in that year--confessed: 'One must have a good deal of trust in God and count on the Russian revolution as an ally in order to be able to sleep at all.' 
629
630
631
632Hollweg knew Germany's chances were bleak, Russia was stronger, and that England would side with Russia, yet he played chicken with Russia and sabotaged England's warning anyway.
633
634https://www.britannica.com/biography/Helmuth-Johannes-Ludwig-von-Moltke
635
636Moltke, the guy who kept calling for "preventative war," goes on to do a terrible job commanding divisions in Western front. Died a few years later after abdicating.
637
638
639from taylor:
640
641	Moltke had hoped to knock France out of the war within six weeks and then throw the whole combined weight of the German and Austrian armies against Russia. His own errors of judgment and failure of nerve—he had weakened his striking force in the west to bolster the hard-pressed eastern front—helped to cheat him of the victory that was in his grasp. Stolid as an ox—and hardly more imaginative—the French commander-in-chief, General Joseph Joffre, retreated as best he could under the sledgehammer blows of the enemy, then sensing a slackening, lowered his head and butted back. The three-day French counterattack (September 6-9) on the Marne and along the Nancy-Verdun front, brilliantly improvised by Joffre’s subordinate commanders, shivered the German offensive.
642
643
644https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/arms_race_prior_to_1914_armament_policy
645	Recent seminal works by David Stevenson, David G. Herrmann, and Annika Mombauer have refined this discussion by emphasizing the desire of Moltke and other leading military and civilian officials to exploit the July Crisis in order to wage a “sooner the better” preventative war. 
646
647
648Moltke might have been in the "pro-war" camp too
649
650
651https://books.google.com/books?id=nAFfAr3dU_8C&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=%22One+must+have+a+good+deal+of+trust+in+God+and+count+on+the+Russian+revolution+as+an+ally%22&source=bl&ots=QfjTktDKQ8&sig=h3E_vNsnPZ1WQAsvRsLZuwOs9O8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja767u89XWAhUCTCYKHXE5BfUQ6AEIKTAB#v=onepage&q=hollweg&f=false
652
653pg 131
654
655	Billow in 1909 and Bethmann Hollweg in 1912 each expressed the view that wars were caused not by the ambitions of princes and politicians, but by the action of the press on public opinion. The evidence to support their belief was sparse.
656
657pg 140
658
659	Part of the apocalyptic vision of war entertained by Bethmann Holweg, by the Tsar, and by Grey rested on the assumption that war would not be accepted by the working class.
660
661
662pg 110
663
664	Thus, on the afternoon of 30 July Moltke bypassed Bethmann Holweg and urged Conrad to mobiilze against Russia, not Serbbia, and assured him that Germany would follow suit.
665
666pg 107
667
668	Bethmann Hollweg ws nonttheless slow to realize the gravity of the criss which confronted him. On 25 July Germany's ambassador in St. Petersburg had reported that Russia was not likely to be held back
669
670pg 91
671
672	What is striking about the 'blank cheque' is not that it was issued but that it was indeed blank. The council had made little effort to discuss the implications of what it was going. Its decisions followed from previous events rather than from a projection as to the future. Falkenhayn wrote to Moltke expressing the view that neither he nor Bethmann Hollweg beleived that Austria-Hungary would follow through the forceful language which it had so far employed. But Bethmann Holweg had done little to inform himself on precisely this point. When on 9 July he told the minister of the interior, Clemens von Delbruck, of the impending Austrian ultimatum he confessed that he had no idea of its contents; furthermore, so little was he disturbed by his own ignorance that he used it as a device to still Delbruck's alarm. The fatalism which had increasingly gripped the chancellor had become a device to ease him of responsibility for his actions. Later in the same month he was to express the view that 'a fate greater than human power hangs over the situation in Europe and over the German people'. The Kaiser too felt that the affairs of nations were beyond individual control and were subject to the inscrutable will of God. Thus, nobody in Germany attempted to guide and manage events in July 1914.
673
674	Such an extraordinary abdication of responsibility is all the more remarkable in view of the fact that Bethmann Hollweg's calculations did not exclude the possibility of a major European war.
675
676
677
678https://books.google.com/books?id=xFgTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA86&lpg=PA86&dq=St.+Petersburg+had+reported+that+Russia+was+not+likely+to+be+held+back&source=bl&ots=nEfA55w05z&sig=ro4mWNteQRZqavT6wgeYrFQGqAE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwif_ozakdbWAhXDOiYKHexwCogQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=St.%20Petersburg%20had%20reported%20that%20Russia%20was%20not%20likely%20to%20be%20held%20back&f=false
679	Any military preparations by Russia, even if designed to counter Austria-Hungary alone, would have been sufficient to prompt German mobilization. This is obviously true if Germany is seen as an aggressive power, already committed to European war, and certainly not disposed to pass up the opportunity of having its eastern frontier protected by Austrian operations against the Russians and so being freed to concentrate in the weest. But it is also applicable in the context of a more reactive interpretation, of Germany's self-imposed image as the tragic victim: the sense of being in a corner, the preoccupation with time which not only the mobilization timetable but also the political management of the crisis generated, combined with fear of Russia and the obligation to Austria-Hungary to make Russia's partial mobilization as intolerable to Germany as general mobilization.
680
681	Bethmann Hollweg was nonetheless slow to realize the gravity of the criss which confronted him. On 25 July Germany's ambassador in St. Petersburg had reported that Russia was not likely to be held back by fear of domestic disorder. Despite this clear indication that the strategy of a short, sharp Austro-Serbian war would misfire, the German chancellor continued to pursue that objective.
682
683
684------
685
686http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=802
687	 The Army Intervenes in the Crisis: Helmuth J. L. von Moltke to Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (July 29, 1914)
688
689	General von Moltke pushed for preemptive German mobilization against Russia. He accepted the likelihood that this step would bring the French into the fray. Moltke regarded a two-front war as inevitable. His thinking reflected a growing fatalism on the part of many military leaders who believed that Germany’s position had weakened steadily since the beginning of the century. 
690
691
692apparently Hollweg subscribed to this fatalism idea?
693
694
695Moltke certainly did. Is suspicious.
696
697https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmuth_von_Moltke_the_Younger
698
699campaign against publication of his pamphlet might be interesting.
700
701------
702
703
704https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/riezler_kurt
705
706Reizler had a diary presumably including some of the wierd shit Hollweg said/did
707
708	From Riezler’s diary and correspondence the reader derives information about the intentions of the German leadership, the latter’s justification for a “preventive war” (Bethmann Hollweg to Konrad Haußmann, 1919), memoranda on war aims (“September Program”, Mitteleuropa under German hegemony), war crimes in Belgium, as well as the extensive annexation wishes of the German military, politicians, and entrepreneurs:
709
710		The military […] wants to annex half the world (letter from 24 August 1914); […] it will be terrible after the war; the belief in violence that dominates so many people and the empty phrases that will be used (letter from 25 August 1914).[1] 
711
712
713
714	... The July Crisis and the First World War
715
716	The Reich chancellor’s policy in the summer of 1914 closely resembled that of Riezler’s – his advisor on political warfare in the Reich Chancellery – favored concept before the war of a “bluff” strategy:
717
718		If a government, led astray by the bluff method, has ventured too far […], then it is perhaps no longer capable of retreating even when this would be the reasonable thing to do – the consideration of personal interests, the ambitions of governments or the anticipated storm of indignation by the nationalists can bring about war, something that factual concerns alone could not justify.[3]
719
720	In July of 1914, Bethmann Hollweg did not consider an alternative, but rather accepted the belligerent escalation of his course of action. “If the war doesn’t come,” Riezler noted in an entry on 8 July 1914 in his subsequently assembled notes, “if the Tsar does not want it or advises a distraught France for peace, then this gives us the chance to break up the Entente.” In September 1914 Riezler drafted the “September Program.” To his fiancé he wrote, the “staging [was] very good. Incidentally, the war was not wanted, but still calculated and it broke out at the most opportune moment.”[4] He explained to Theodor Wolff (1868-1943), “undoubtedly Germany played a risky game out of fear. […] It is highly possible that because Russian willingness was underestimated, the game was thought to be less risky than it in fact was.”[5]
721
722
723Hollweg "bluffing" with Russia, Reizler goes along with it, leads to war
724
725
726from Taylor:
727
728	Localized war was, in fact, the official catchword in Berlin and Vienna. The sooner it came, the better, according to the experts. 
729
730	The bolder Austria became, and the more strongly she was supported, “the more likely Russia is to keep quiet,” said Herr Gottlieb von Jagow, the German Secretary of State (Foreign Minister).
731
732	On this theory, Bethmann-Hollweg—a political lightweight a bare notch above Berchtold’s level—Jagow, and the German General Staff kept trying to prod Austria into hostilities before anyone could intervene. The intervention which they probably feared the most was that of their master, the Kaiser, and they took care that the information of the developing international crisis which reached him on board the Hohenzollern was as little, and as late, as possible. (One more illustration of how fictitious the Kaiser’s claim to supreme responsibility had become.) No direct German interests were involved in the dispute between Austria and Serbia. Berlin officialdom was trying to push Germany’s Austrian allies into war for their own good, and to strengthen the alliance. The Habsburg Empire was visibly crumbling, the Wilhelmstrasse argued; only military victory over the forces of South Slav irredentism could save it. To achieve this result the risk of a general European conflict had to be accepted.
733
734
735
736https://www.jstor.org/stable/41637868?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
737
738
739Hollweg apparently advocated playing chicken with Russia, Sazanov doing the same for Germany on the other side
740
741
742------
743
744
745http://home.wlu.edu/~patchw/His_224/1914.htm#4
746	Riezler (1882-1955) was a professional diplomat who worked in the press department of the German Foreign Office.  He greatly admired and sometimes collaborated with the Imperial German Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, and Riezler was one of the very few people to whom the chancellor spoke freely on the eve of the First World War.  The surviving entries from Kurt Riezler’s diary offer perhaps the best insight into the thinking of Germany’s head of government during the July Crisis.
747
748
749claims Riezler admired Hollweg
750
751
752
753http://digifindingaids.cjh.org/?pID=2737638
754	After writing works on classical Greek economics, he became a foreign affairs writer for the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung in 1906. The following October he was hired by the Foreign Office Press Chief, where he attracted the notice of Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, eventually becoming his advisor. In August 1914 Riezler joined the chancellor at the German headquarters in Luxemburg. He worked for the chancellor for several years, most notably drafting the September Program, a plan outlining Germany's postwar plans.
755
756
757	...By January 1915 the tone of Riezler's letters had edged somewhat more pessimistic than the tone of several months prior. Letters in January mention a New Year's visit by the Kaiser to his troops. Several later letters reference troop movements on the Eastern front, such as the actions of the Austrians in Serbia or Croatia, and future worries about the plans of the Russians. Some letters mention interactions with other political figures or advisors to the German Chancellor, such as August von Trott zu Sulz. Military actions such as the U-boat blockade of England are also mentioned. In April 1915, Kurt Riezler suggests to Kaethe that they marry as soon as possible.
758
759	One folder holds letters from Kurt Riezler in Moscow to Kaethe Liebermann. These letters describe the city and its changed circumstances after the Bolshevik Revolution. Riezler commented on the collapse of the city bourgeoisie and observed the rich and the nobility begging on the street, but also attended the opera, ballet, and theatre while there. While in Moscow he often sent packages to Kaethe of goods such as coffee, tea, furs, and soap.
760
761
762what did he think of Bolshevik revolution?
763
764
765Rizler wrote this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septemberprogramm
766
767creating evidence for Germany's imperial war aims. His diary was also used by Fischer to the same effect.
768
769
770------
771
772
773https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2cx744/what_were_the_german_war_aims_of_world_war_i/
774
775
776Reddit post claims Brest-Litovsk cited as reason for Treaty of Versailles, I guess for assigning expansionist motives to Germany. "September program" document by Reizler also used to assign war guilt to Germany, but that was released at a later time and cited by Fischer well after WWII.
777
778
779
780What's up with September program? is it a legitimate document? why not discovered until later?
781
782
783https://www.wwnorton.com/college/history/ralph/workbook/ralprs34.htm
784
785kindof reminds me of Tanaka Memorial and protocols
786
787
788http://roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot.com/2015/11/septemberprogramm-vsbrest-litovsk.html
789	Septemberprogramm (German for September Program) was a plan drafted by the German leadership in the early weeks of the First World War. It detailed Germany's ambitious gains should it win the war, as it expected. The plan was never officially adopted or put into practice and was only discovered long after the war by historian Fritz Fischer, who concluded the expansionary goals were Germany's motives for going to war in the first place. That interpretation has been very controversial. The modern consensus is that it was more of a discussion document and not a formally adopted government policy.
790
791
792still, if it is active measures, and Riezler wrote it, why not have it "surface" earlier? (say ahead of Versailles treaty).
793
794Questionable if Riezler wrote it at all.
795
796Could also be the kind of thing where it can be used to a greater effect after all the people involved/with knowledge of the document are dead. Like if it was "more of a suggestion"/talking points and not a secret plan to take over the world, it would make sense to wait until it would be easier to construe the document as a serious and secret plan to take over the world.
797
798
799https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septemberprogramm
800	The Septemberprogramm was based on suggestions from Germany's industrial, military, and political leadership.[5][6] However, since Germany did not win the war, it was never put into effect. As historian Raffael Scheck concluded, "The government, finally, never committed itself to anything. It had ordered the September Programme as an informal hearing in order to learn about the opinion of the economic and military elites."
801
802
803
804https://archive.org/stream/FischerFritzGermanysAimsInTheFirstWorldWar/Fischer,%20Fritz%20-%20Germany%E2%80%99s%20Aims%20in%20the%20First%20World%20War_djvu.txt
805	Bethmann Hollweg included the plan of creating a ‘continuous 
806central African colonial empire’ in his September programme, and 
807this ambitious overseas programme continued thereafter to hold a 
808permanent place among Germany’s war aims. 
809
810	...The last part of this sentence shows that the Chancellor was already 
811influenced by the reverse on the Marne. Nevertheless the special 
812significance of the September Programme for the history of the de- 
813velopment of Germany’s intentions during the First World War lies 
814in two points. First, it was no isolated inspiration of the Chancellor’s: 
815it represents the ideas of leading economic, political-and also mili- 
816tary-circles. Secondly, the main ideas set forth in it remained, as we 
817shall see, the essential basis of Germany’s war aims right up to the 
818end of the war, although modified from time to time to fit changing 
819situations. 
820
821
822Fischer says sep program was permanent part of German war aims
823
824
825------
826
827https://books.google.com/books?id=9JmNeibfCqQC&pg=PT308&lpg=PT308&dq=%22Riezler+diary%22+edited&source=bl&ots=m8NOUBtxza&sig=ak3OldzNmBvH0qxSR0HC_v1ozF0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQrMDU5dXWAhXM5SYKHWD0AsUQ6AEIPzAH#v=onepage&q=%22Riezler%20diary%22%20edited&f=false
828
829Fischer controversy very negative on Hollweg, then Erdman publishes a portion of Reizer diary.
830
831Fritz Stern says Erdman (Karl Dietrich Erdmann?) had a copy of Reizler diary, but didn't let anyone else see it, but he got a copy from Reizler's daughter. Says Reizler was a Nazi.
832
833https://books.google.com/books?id=9JmNeibfCqQC&pg=PT304&lpg=PT304&dq=%22Fritz+Stern%22+Versailles&source=bl&ots=m8NOUCkxvc&sig=ckZSvzWw2h17a3v2DeTX798G0KI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKucyf6dXWAhWM7CYKHfmXCZIQ6AEITzAI#v=onepage&q=Versailles&f=false
834
835
836don't trust this guy
837
838
839odd that apparently he is the only other one with the super secret copy of Reizler's diary
840
841
842https://books.google.com/books?id=7OlybcTufdgC&q=Bethman+Hollweg#v=snippet&q=Bethman%20Hollweg&f=false
843
844Fritz Stern says:
845
846	The legend of German innocence and Bethmann Hollweg's irenic passion has been effectively exploded.
847
848
849Seems right as far as I can tell. But why is he saying this? why does he care?
850
851
852	...Wat Germany did and Bethmann Holweg said has now been quite thoroughly investigated--thanks to the impetus given by Fritz Fischer and Egmont Zechlin.
853
854
855Likes Fischer?
856
857
858	...Bethmann's thoughts and aspirations are difficult to reconstruct because his private papers were destroyed in 1945. The best remaining source is the diary of his longtime political assistant and secretary, Kurt Riezler, which I have been allowed to read and which is the principal source for these reflections.
859
860
861What kind of shit is this
862
863
864------
865
866
867https://archive.org/stream/OriginsOfTheFirstWorldWar/OriginsOfTheFirstWorldWar-DavidE.Kaiser_djvu.txt
868	Wolfgang Mommsen, while supplying many correctives to more extreme interpretations, has concluded that war broke out largely because the German government failed to function effectively in 1914, leaving Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg unable to resist the influence of the military.
869
870
871But he started the war (as far as I can tell) by doing sketchy shit behind others backs without "the influence of the military." He did like to blame the military though.
872
873
874https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Mommsen
875	In Mommsen's view, the foreign policy of the Second Reich was driven by domestic concerns as the German elite sought distractions abroad to hold off demands for democracy at home. This argument places Mommsen in the Primat der Innenpolitik (primacy of domestic politics) school against the traditional Primat der Aussenpolitik (primacy of foreign politics) school as an explanation for foreign policy. For Mommsen, the major responsibility for the outbreak of the First World War rests on Germany's shoulders. Furthermore, the November Revolution of 1918 did not go far enough and allowed the pre-1918 elite to continue to dominate German life, thus leading inevitably to the Third Reich. Mommsen has written books condemning appeasement.
876
877
878https://books.google.com/books?id=zqj-oHp4KsgC&pg=PA536&lpg=PA536&dq=%22Wolfgang+Mommsen%22+Versailles&source=bl&ots=5mQVq3Vovn&sig=JCUCmtBf5XLEEVNqwgBziBnbOhY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiilfr_sdbWAhXB5CYKHQV-AxsQ6AEIOzAD#v=onepage&q=%22Wolfgang%20Mommsen%22%20Versailles&f=false
879
880
881https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/inevitable-world-war/#!
882	From the 1920s to 1960s, a loose consensus reigned among historians that like a toxic and volatile stew that shattered its cauldron, but for which there was no single chef, the war was a tragic accident. This interpretation was demolished by the work of Fritz Fischer, whose book War of Illusions announced that Germany planned for and sought such a war. Elaborating on his earlier, and earthshaking work, Germany’s Aims in the First World War, Fischer argued that war was inevitable ever since 1912, when the so-called German “war cabinet” met and concluded that Germany had to go to war before it was outmatched by Russian troops and hardware.
883
884	Widening the Fischerian angle, another German historian, Wolfgang Mommsen, argued that the cascade of crises, from partial mobilizations to regional wars to popular panics since the start of the century, had, by 1914, reached a kind of critical mass. Describing what he calls “a topos of inevitable war,” Mommsen concluded that, by sheer repetition of recurring emergencies, a sense of fatalism had settled on both the principal actors and their populations. War came because most Europeans thought it had to come.
885
886
887Mommsen a little iffy
888
889weird writing style also
890
891
892https://web.archive.org/web/20040709215112/http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/historian/hist_mommsen_02_versailles.html
893	All of a sudden, we are confronted with what the bulk of the Germans considered an entirely unjust treaty. So resistance against this Treaty was enormous. I think that the strongest resistance concerned the territorial concessions in the East. Nobody was willing to concede that much territory to the new Polish State. Nobody was willing to accept willingly the system of reparations.
894
895
896I thought it was more the "war guilt," humiliation and economic strain that the public disliked...
897
898
899	..."Basically, I think one can say the Treaty was harsh, but understandable. It created in Germany a political climate in which it was exceedingly difficult for a democratic system to develop. Somewhat less harsh treaties certainly would have been good, on the other hand. The allied governments were under the pressure of their own public, which demanded the Germans to pay for it all.
900
901
902this doesn't sound right.
903
904
905https://web.archive.org/web/20171004072321/http://mrdoran.net/uploads/3/1/6/7/3167511/domestic_factors_in_german_foreign_policy.pdf
906
907http://mrdoran.net/uploads/3/1/6/7/3167511/domestic_factors_in_german_foreign_policy.pdf
908	In a way, Bethmann Hollweg deliberately discounted public opinion in matters of foreign policy, but he could afford to do so only if all sections of the government were willing to take a common stand on controversial issues vis-avis public opinion. The chancellor, hwoever, became less and less capable of seeing that his principle was ahdered to .
909
910	The chancellor believed that the only way out was to conduct foreign policy in almost absolute secrecy, holding back from the public at large, and even from the party leaders, all but the most elementary information.  Bethmann Hollweg was fully aware that be doing this he exposed himself to vicious attacks from Convservatives and extreme nationalists alike, as his polic inevitably appeared to ousiders inconsistent and weak.
911
912
913sounds like an excuse.
914
915
916	...By far the most serious challenge to Bethmann Holweg's foreign policy came, however, from the General Staff. The military leaders were extremely concerned about the prospect that thr main premise of the Shclieffen Plan, namely, a slow Rusisan mobilization which would allow the Germany Army to crush France before the Russians became an effective military danger, was being undermined by the progress of Russian armaments, and in particulary by th eccompletion of the railways in western Russia. Their apprehensions were not reduced by the rather ambiguous reaction to press charges that Russia was preparing a war against Germany.
917
918
919Sounds like what Moltke was saying. If this is what they believed, it conveniently allows the Russian government to decide when Germany starts a  war.
920
921
922	...The political calculation of the German governemtn amounted to gambling with very high stakes indeed. Bethmann Holweg himself called it a "leap in the dark" which was dictated by the "most severe duty." The chancellor's position was no longer strong enough to get any alternative accepted by the inner ring of the ruling elite. his pla was a fairly precise reflection of the deep division within the government itself. It was a compromise between two rival schemes. It did not directly work for war; rather, it favored a diplomatic solution of the crisis. Still, it satisfied the request of the military establishment insofar as it did noting to avoid war.
923
924
925sounds like an excuse
926
927
928	The attempt to maneuver Russia into a position in which *she* would have to decide about peace or war was not dictated only by the considerations that otherwise the Social Democrats might not rally behind the government. It was equally influenced by the calculation that only in this way could the forthcoming crisis by exploited diplomatically, and with the afterthought that, provided the Russians shrank back from extreme measures, the fears of the German General Staff could be positively disproved.
929
930
931wasn't Hollweg warned that the Russians wouldn't back down?
932
933
934	...In the last analysis, we may conclude, the causes of the First World War must be sought not in the blunders and miscalculations of the governments alone, but in the fact that Germany's governmental system, as well as Austria-Hungary's and Russia's, was no longer adequate in the face of rapid social change and the steady advance of mass politics.
935
936
937
938------
939
940https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/spiegelspecialgeschichte/d-54841257.html&prev=search
941
942	...The imperial empire under William II, on the one hand, contributed to the chaos, for German troops occupied considerable parts of the former tzar empire. But at the same time the diplomats of His Majesty invested millions to keep the Bolsheviks in Central Russia in power, because only these were ready to accept a German victory-peace, and because no one in Berlin believed that a real socialism would come to its feet.
943
944	"The Bolsheviks are great fellows, and have made everything very beautiful and well done so far," wrote Diplomat Kurt Riezler, who at that time decisively determined the German policy on Russia.
945
946	It is unlikely to be clear how much money the imperial Germany at the end of 1917 gave the Bolsheviks. There was no doubt that there were considerable amounts. In the archive of the Federal Foreign Office you can find an amazing document. On November 25, 1917, the Foreign Minister's liaison officer telegraphed to Berlin at the headquarters in Bad Kreuznach:
947
948		"The current Petersburg government is struggling with great difficulties, banks denying it any financial support that their government needs urgently to obtain the food for the people and the army ... Is it possible for her to meet the urgently needed money of the difficulties and her slogan in the people and the army, it will be able to hold itself until the armistice is closed, which is what Lenin has recognized, so he turns to us ... Supreme Army leadership considers it highly desirable if the Lenin government succeeds in making money. "
949
950	The Federal Foreign Office backed out: "Further financial support for the Bolsheviks is needed." A few days later, Riezler maintained that the Bolsheviks "now have money". 
951
952
953http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/books/chapters/reds.html
954	On January 9, 1915, the German ambassador to Constantinople, H. Wangenheim, reported to Berlin that he had been approached by a Dr. Alexander Helphand, who was "definitely pro-German" and who advocated "the total destruction of czarism and the division of Russia into smaller states." Germany would be successful, said Helphand, if it "kindled a major revolution in Russia.... The interests of the German government were therefore identical with those of the Russian revolutionaries." Helphand offered to organize the rising but would need considerable sums of money and wanted to present his plan to Berlin.
955
956	The Germans were willing to consider any plan to destabilize Russia and take her out of the war. Helphand was summoned to Berlin on March 6. He saw Kurt Reizler, an aide of Chancellor Theobald Bethmann-Hollweg, to whom he gave an eighteen-page memorandum entitled "Preparations for Mass Political Strikes in Russia." Helphand proposed that the Germans subsidize a splinter group of the Social Democratic Worker's Party, who called themselves "The Majority" (Bolsheviks), and whose leader, Lenin, lived in Switzerland in exile. His plan was quickly approved: the next day Arthur Zimmerman, an undersecretary in the Foreign Ministry, asked the Treasury for 2 million marks to fund Russian revolutionary propaganda, half of which was turned over to Helphand.
957
958
959Parvus met Reizler and gave him his plan which was "quickly approved"
960
961dunno about source though
962
963
964https://books.google.com/books?id=1KO8DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT291&lpg=PT291
965	It is conceiable that Lenin, alleging upon disembarking from the platform that he was Platten, did confer with German officials. If so, it is possible that he saw Kurt Riezler, Bethmann's assistant for political warfare. Riezler later told a friend that he had sent an emissary to the train but that the talk took place only on the ferry Between Germany and Sweden.
966
967
968
969
970https://archive.org/details/Germany-and-Revolution-in-Russia-1915-1918
971	In November 19 14 it became clear to Germany's leaders that 
972they had failed to achieve a decisive victory in the first phase 
973of the war. The transformation of the war in the West and in 
974the East into a one-front engagement was, according to Falken- 
975hayn, the Chief of the General Staff, the shortest way to victory. 1 
976It could be effected only if Germany concluded peace with one 
977of the principal partners of the Entente. 
978
979	Zimmermann, the Under State Secretary in the Foreign Min- 
980istry, concurred with this opinion in a memorandum dated 27* 
981November. 2 He wrote : 'The aim of our policy in this war, con- 
982ducted with such uncommon sacrifice, must be not only an hon- 
983ourable, but also a lasting peace. In order to achieve this aim 
984I regard it as desirable that a wedge should be driven between 
985our enemies, so that we may conclude an early separate peace 
986with one or the other. 5 In the subsequent years of the war, to 
987isolate one of the enemy powers and conclude a peace with it 
988was the principal aim of the German foreign policy.
989
990	Behind this policy there was a tremendous profusion of 
991activity and confusion of thought. The Foreign Ministry, 
992having lost its peace-time functions, took over its management. 
993The German missions in the neutral countries were the Minis- 
994try's busiest outposts. Politicians, journalists, members of noble 
995families, university professors, directors of banking houses, in- 
996dustrialists, cranks, and crooks were involved. Large amounts of 
997money were spent by the government in order to achieve this 
998aim.
999
1000	France and Russia were the most likely targets for the policy 
1001of separate peace. But in Russia, apart from the possibility of 
1002concluding peace with the established regime, there was another 
1003way open to Germany. This was to give support to the revolu- 
1004tionary movement, to weaken the existing regime not only by 
1005military defeats but also by disruptive revolutionary agitation, 
1006both nationalist and socialist, and finally to conclude peace with 
1007a government dependent upon German good-will.
1008
1009	...It was Dr. Helphand,2 alias Parvus, by origin a Russian Jew, 
1010a Social Democrat who attempted to stand above the 
1011Bolshevik-Menshevik controversy, who did much to attract 
1012the attention of the German government to the possibilities of 
1013a revolution in Russia. From the spring of 19 15 till November 
1014191 7, Helphand played the most important part in Germany's 
1015relations with the Russian revolutionary movement, in spite of 
1016the fact that some socialists distrusted him, and that he may 
1017have been by-passed when the various German agencies 
1018acquired their own contacts.
1019
1020	...Although the centre of political power had shifted, at the 
1021outbreak of the war, from Berlin to the seat of the Highest Army 
1022Command, it was the Foreign Ministry, and not the General 
1023Staff, who played the leading role in the policy of support of 
1024the revolutionary movement. It was pursued with the approval, 
1025and, in broad outline, with the knowledge of the highest mili- 
1026tary levels, and in co-operation with the Political Section of the 
1027Deputy General Staff in Berlin/ The Political Section, first 
1028under Nadolny and later with Hiilsen at its head, played an 
1029important part in the implementation of this policy. But the 
1030initiative came, most of the time, from the Foreign Ministry.
1031
1032
1033funny that the only funding the Bolsheviks could find was from people bent on seeing Russia destroyed
1034
1035
1036	...The support of the left wing of the Russian revolutionary 
1037movement, political and financial, was the policy of the Foreign 
1038Ministry throughout the war. It was initiated while Jagow 
1039was the State Secretary, and Zimmermann the Under State 
1040Secretary in the Auswartiges Amt; it was carried on, more 
1041intensively, by Zimmermann after Jagow's resignation and later 
1042by Kuhlmann, who saw its consummation and decline in the 
1043final stages of the war. 
1044
1045
1046Foreign Ministry under Bethmann Hollweg primarily responsible. Zimmerman and Jagow being SoS, then Kuhlmann at end.
1047
1048
1049	...It was a policy beset by difficulties. The servants of the 
1050German state had to deal, however indirectly, with un- 
1051pleasant facts of revolution, with the demi-monde of revolution- 
1052aries in exile, and also with the subtle distinctions among the 
1053various revolutionary groups. Minister Diego Bergen, the trusted 
1054official in Wilhelmstrasse, the central office of the Foreign 
1055Ministry, who, after the Great War, served both the Weimar 
1056Republic and Hitler's regime as Ambassador to the Holy See, 
1057dealt with this policy efficiently from the beginning of 1 915 till 
1058the end of 191 7. He was in constant touch with Helphand, 
1059but not entirely dependent on him; he could distinguish be- 
1060tween the more and less effective types of revolutionaries and 
1061he took them for what they were : enemies of the Tsarist regime 
1062and advocates of the cessation of hostilities and peace. 
1063
1064
1065This guy Diego Bergen also closely involved.
1066
1067https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_von_Bergen
1068
1069the guy who helped install Lenin also wanted a fascist pope
1070
1071
1072	...The policy bore the mark of the highest security rating; 
1073its outline becomes clear from the documents printed in this 
1074volume. Its implementation, carried out by many agents, is 
1075obscure to a degree. Often the search in the archives of the 
1076Foreign Ministry is unrewarding: the words 'the matter was 
1077settled by word of mouth' appear too often. As few records as 
1078possible were made; it is surprising that so large a number of 
1079relevant documents were recorded and preserved. This is 
1080often due to the urgency of the matter in hand : the amount 
1081of documents for April and November of 1 9 1 7 is higher than 
1082for any other period. The return of the political emigres after 
1083the March revolution and the German reaction to the Bolshevik 
1084seizure of power were matters urgent to both parties involved. 
1085In more tranquil periods, the men involved could be sum- 
1086moned to Berlin for consultations. No record of these talks was 
1087preserved. 
1088
1089	Some of the men who took part in the formulation of German 
1090war-time policy recorded their experiences. But the memoirs of 
1091I.udendorff, Kuhlmann, Hoffmann, or Erzberger 1 do not en- 
1092lighten the reader much as to the official attitude towards the 
1093revolution in Russia. They may have been unaware of the 
1094consistency of the policy as Bergen conducted it; they may 
1095have regarded it as an incident which should remain hidden in 
1096the government archives, or they may have just forgotten. Kiihl- 
1097mann certainly knew about it but chose to be uninformative 
1098in his memoirs. Ludendorff, when referring to Lenin's journey 
1099across Germany, did so with 'bated breath'. 
1100
1101
1102deleting records
1103
1104
1105	...There is no evidence among the documents of the Foreign 
1106Ministry that Lenin, a circumspect man, was in direct contact 
1107with any of the official German agenicies. How much he knew 
1108about the activities of the men around him is difficult to tell. 
1109Hanecki, alias Fiirstenberg, and Radek, both officially Austro- 
1110Hungarian subjects, did, as well as Helphand, have some 
1111contacts with the Germans. 1 But it cannot be said even about 
1112Radek and Fiirstenberg, who had more contacts with the 
1113Germans than anyone else among the Bolsheviks, that the 
1114interests of the Imperial German government lay close to their 
1115hearts. A socialist revolution was their aim. To achieve and 
1116further it they were prepared to use every means.
1117
1118
1119Germans using Bolsheviks, Bolsheviks using Germans
1120
1121
1122	...It includes the transport of the Russian 
1123revolutionaries through Germany. Lenin's contingent was the 
1124first of these transports; later, a number of them was organized 
1125from Switzerland and Belgium. The criterion the German 
1126government used for their approval was the attitude of the men 
1127who were to be allowed transit through Germany to the question 
1128of continuation of the war. 
1129
1130
1131tried to only send revolutionaries who wanted to stop the war
1132
1133
1134	...The two letters from Ludendorff and from Mirbach (docu- 
1135ments Nos. 134 and 136) are a suitable epitaph to the German 
1136policy towards the revolution in Russia. 
1137
1138
1139should read these
1140
1141
1142what do they say bout Parvus/Helphand and his "intel network"
1143
1144
1145
1146	The State Secretary to the Foreign Ministry 
1147
1148	TELEGRAM NO. 40 
1149
1150	A 1451 General Headquarters, 13 January 1915, 12.20 a.m. 
1151
1152	Received: 13 January, 1.43 a.m. 
1153
1154	We intend to send Riezler 1 to meeting with Russian Revolution- 
1155ary Parvus in Berlin with more detailed instructions. Please 
1156telegraph time of Parvus's arrival to me here. Parvus must not 
1157know that Riezler comes from General Headquarters. 
1158
1159	Jagow 
1160
1161	1 Kurt Riezler, born 1882. In May 191 3 Riezler became a Permanent Assistant 
1162in the Foreign Ministry. In August 1914 he was detailed to attend the Kaiser at 
1163the General Headquarters. In January 1915 he was transferred to the Imperial 
1164Chancery. In September 191 7 Riezler went to the Legation in Stockholm as a 
1165Counsellor to run the newly created Russian section there. In April 1918 he was 
1166recalled to Berlin, and in the same month he left to work with Count Mirbach, the 
1167Minister in Moscow. After Mirbach 's assassination in July Riezler carried on the 
1168business of the Legation until his recall to Berlin at the end of August 1918. 
1169
1170
1171
1172Jagow says to send Riezler to meet up with Parvus and plot some more.
1173
1174All these people are sketchy. Jagow was the one who called up Vienna and told them to ignore British mediation proposals.
1175
1176This telegram in reponse to proposition to talk with Parvus
1177
1178
1179	The Minister in Copenhagen to the Under State Secretary 
1180	August 1915 
1181
1182	Your Excellency, 
1183
1184	Dr. Helphand, with whom I have recently had repeated and 
1185detailed conversation, yesterday told me that he had received 
1186a telegram from Arthur Cohn's Verlag fur Sozialwissenschaften 
1187in Munich, informing him that only the first part of his essay had 
1188arrived. With the permission of the Foreign Ministry, I had sent 
1189three further instalments, but these have not yet arrived in 
1190Munich. Dr. Helphand is worried because he is afraid that the 
1191essay may appear too late and not, as he intends, by i September 
1192at the outside. Perhaps Your Excellency could make sure that 
1193the dispatch of the manuscripts is undertaken *at once*. 
1194
1195	I have now got to know Helphand better, and I think that 
1196there can be no question that he is an extraordinarily important 
1197man whose unusual powers I feel we *must* employ for the dura- 
1198tion of the war and should, if at all possible, continue to use later 
1199on — whether we personally agree with his convictions or not. 
1200He has a plan, conceived on a grand scale...
1201
1202	...It *might perhaps* be risky to want to use the powers ranged behind Helphand, but it would *certainly* be an admission of our 
1203own weakness if we were to refuse their services out of fear of not 
1204being able to *direct* them. 
1205
1206	I have not yet abandoned this hope. 
1207
1208	Those who do not understand the signs of our times will never 
1209
1210	I understand which way we are heading or what is at stake at this 
1211moment. 
1212
1213	Your Excellency, this moment is too grave for us to indulge 
1214in sentimentality, so let me close. 
1215
1216	Yours, &c., 
1217
1218	Brockdorff-Rantzau 
1219
1220
1221Brockdorff telling Zimmerman he thinks they can use Parvus and his connections
1222
1223
1224
1225
1226	The Minister in Bern to the Chancellor 
1227
1228	Bern, 30 September 1915 
1229
1230	The Estonian Keskiila 1 has succeeded in finding out the con- 
1231ditions on which the Russian revolutionaries would be prepared 
1232to conclude peace with us in the event of the revolution being 
1233successful.
1234
1235
1236Hollweg apparently interested in using Russian revolution to get separate peace since 30 September 1915
1237
1238
1239	According to information from the well-known 
1240revolutionary Lenin, the programme contains the following 
1241points : 
1242
1243	1 . The establishment of a republic. 
1244
1245	2. The confiscation of large land-holdings. 
1246
1247	3. The eight-hour working day. 
1248
1249	4. Full autonomy for all nationalities. 
1250
1251	5. An offer of peace without any consideration for France, 
1252but on condition that Germany renounces all annexations 
1253and war-reparations. 
1254
1255	On Point 5, Keskiila has observed that this condition 
1256does not exclude the possibility of separating those national 
1257states from Russia which would serve as buffer states.
1258
1259
1260Hollweg also thinking about dissolving Russian empire at this time as well
1261
1262
1263	6. The Russian armies to leave Turkey immediately — in 
1264other words, a renunciation of claims to Constantinople 
1265and the Dardanelles. 
1266
1267	7. Russian troops to move into India. 
1268
1269	I leave open the question as to whether great importance 
1270should in fact be attached to this programme, especially as 
1271Lenin himself is supposed to be rather sceptical of the prospects 
1272of the revolution. He seems to be extremely apprehensive of the 
1273counter-campaign recently launched by the so-called Social 
1274Patriots. According to Keskula's sources, this counter-move- 
1275ment is headed by the Socialists Axelrod, Alexinsky, Deutsch, 
1276Dneveinski, Mark Kachel, Olgin, and Plekhanov. They are 
1277unleashing vigorous agitation, and are supposed to have large 
1278financial resources, which they appear to draw from the govern- 
1279ment, at their disposal. Their activities could be all the more 
1280dangerous to the revolution as they are themselves old 
1281revolutionaries, and are therefore perfectly familiar with the 
1282techniques of revolution. In Keskiila's opinion, it is therefore 
1283essential that we should spring to the help of the revolutionaries 
1284of Lenin's movement in Russia at once.
1285
1286
1287Romberg telling Hollweg they should "spring to the help of the revolutionaries of Lenin's movement in Russia at once."
1288
1289
1290	He will report on this 
1291matter in person in Berlin. According to his informants, the 
1292present moment should be favourable for overthrowing the 
1293government. More and more reports of workers' unrest are 
1294being received, and the dismissal of the Duma is said to have 
1295: 1 roused universal excitement. However, we should have to act 
1296quickly, before the Social Patriots gain the upper hand. 
1297
1298	I have the honour to enclose two agitationary publications of 
1299the Social Patriots, which they are supposed to be distributing 
1300in enormous quantities. 2 
1301
1302	Even if, as I have said, the prospects of a revolution are un- 
1303ccrtain and Lenin's programme is therefore of doubtful value, 
1304ils exploitation could still do invaluable service in enemy terri- 
1305tory. If skilfully distributed it could, in my opinion, be especially 
1306effective in France, in view of the notorious ignorance of the 
1307French in foreign, and particularly Russian affairs. If I receive 
1308no instructions from Your Excellency to the contrary, I shall 
1309give it to various French confidential agents for distribution 
1310iniong the ranks of the opposition. I can imagine that, by 
1311opening the prospect of a separate peace between Germany and 
1312the Russian Democrats, which would, of course, involve the loss 
1313of the French billions, one could provide the opposition with 
1314hi extremely valuable trump card to play against M. Delclasse 
1315Mid in favour of a separate peace with us. 3 
1316
1317
1318suggests spreading some Leninist propaganda in Francce.
1319
1320
1321	Lenin's programme must not, of course, be made public, first 
1322because its publication would reveal our source, but also be- 
1323i ause its discussion in the press would rob it of all its value. 
1324
1325	I feel that it should be put out in an aura of great secrecy, so that 
1326it creates a belief that an agreement with powerful Russian 
1327â–  ircles is already in preparation. 
1328
1329	Quite apart from the French aspect, I would ask you first of 
1330.ill to discuss this information with Keskiila, so that nothing 
1331may be spoiled by premature publication. R 
1332
1333	' Keskiila was a member of the Estonian National Committee, working, in 
1334iu ii/.ri land and in Sweden, for the independence of his country from the Russian 
1335I mpire. He was in contact with the German Legation in Bern from September 
1336i i|i .|. Later, he worked with Steinwachs, the German agent (see document No. 12). 
1337
1338	In April 1 91 7 Keskiila apparently negotiated with the representatives of the Allied 
1339countries, especially of England and Russia, in Stockholm. When he got to know 
1340about these negotiations, Steinwachs dropped him. His activities are well docu- 
1341mented in one of the Bern mission files, entitled 'Keskiila'. Cf. O. H. Gankin and 
1342H. H. Fisher, The Bolsheviks and the World War, Stanford University Press, 1 940, 
1343p. 249. 
1344
1345	2 Only one of these enclosures remains in the file, the other was lost. It is a collec- 
1346tion of essays entitled 'Voina'; Axelrodand Plekhanov were two of the contributors. 
1347
1348	3 Jagow's marginal note: 'I regard a distribution in France as dangerous; 
1349nothing ever remains discreet there. If this became public our work in Russia 
1350would become much more difficult, and the measures against the revolutionaries 
1351would be tightened. I shall telegraph Romberg to this effect.' The telegram (No. 
13521081) was dispatched on 4 October (Russland Nr. 61, volume 123). 
1353
1354
1355Jagow says he wants to keep the work in Russia for the revolutionaries secret.
1356
1357
1358
1359
1360
1361
1362
1363	The Minister in Copenhagen to the Chancellor 
1364
1365	21 December 1915 
1366
1367	Dr. Helphand, who returned from Berlin yesterday, visited me 
1368today and gave me his report on the results of his journey. He 
1369emphasized that he had been extremely civilly received in all 
1370the most important government offices, and that he had been 
1371given the definite impression that his suggestions had found 
1372approval with authoritative circles, both in the Foreign 
1373Ministry and in the Treasury.
1374
1375	...Dr. Helphand continued by saying that about 20 million 
1376roubles would be required to get the Russian revolution com- 
1377pletely organized. This total could not possibly be distributed 
1378.11 once, as there would then be a danger of its source being dis- 
1379covered. However, in view of the fact that the beginning of the 
1380action was imminent, he had suggested at the Foreign Ministry 
1381l hat the sum of one million roubles should at once be put at the 
1382disposal of his confidential agent. This confidential agent en- 
1383l irely shared his view that the revolution would be set in motion 
1384about 9-22 January and that, even if it did not immediately 
1385
1386	I ;ike hold of the whole country, it would certainly prevent any 
1387return to stable conditions from taking place. In 1905 the bour- 
1388geois parties had supported the revolution and had voluntarily 
1389paid the wages of the striking workers. Now, however, the bour- 
1390geoisie was unfavourable to the movement and the revolution- 
1391ary committee was therefore forced to bear the entire cost.
1392
1393	...Brockdorff-Rantzau
1394
1395
1396Chancellor knew that his staff planed to fund and start Russian revolution, and Bolsheviks seemed to know that no party friendly to Russia would fund it.
1397
1398
1399	...The State Secretary to the Minister in Copenhagen 
1400
1401	TELEGRAM NO. 952 
1402
1403	AS 6213 Berlin, 26 December 1915 
1404
1405	In reply to report No. 489 
1406
1407	Your Excellency is authorized to pay one million roubles to 
1408Helphand. The corresponding sum should be drawn from the 
1409Legation Cashier [Legationskasse] . T 
1410
1411	Note for Count Pourtales. 
1412
1413	Count Rantzau will have to be informed that Dr. Helffe- 
1414rich's opinion of H[elphand]'s fantastic financial project is by 
1415no means as favourable as HTelphandl thinks. T 
1416
1417	1 JAGOW 
1418
1419
1420some, perhaps including Jagow, appear skeptical at first.
1421
1422
1423another interesting telegram: German agent Steinwachs in Jan 1916 talking about propaganda going to Lenin and some rambling pamphlet about a Kerensky government
1424
1425
1426doc from outside this collection on summary of Hollweg conversation with a general here:
1427
1428http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=810
1429	February 1, 1916
1430
1431	Today General von Falkenhayn explained his view of the situation to me as follows:
1432
1433	1) Russia
1434	Although the internal situation is bad, there is no prospect of a complete collapse in the near future. The army will not be capable of conducting any larger offensive even early in the year. Their worth is indicated by the fact that the Bessarabian army, formed from the best army corps and fully rested, has not been able to accomplish much against the Austrian troops, who are not particularly good. 
1435
1436	2) France
1437	Internal conditions and morale in the country are not good. Army is good. Its morale is better than a year ago.
1438
1439	3) England
1440	As is shown by the armed services bill, England is determined to fight this war to the bitter end. 
1441
1442
1443why did he dislike England so much in his writings and speaches? same deal here: http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/bethmannspeech1914.htm
1444
1445
1446
1447
1448
1449	The Minister in Copenhagen to the Foreign Ministry 
1450
1451	March 1917, 12.55 P- m - 
1452
1453	Received: 21 March, 4.00 p.m. 
1454
1455	Dr. Helphand, with whom I discussed events in Russia, ex- 
1456plained that, in his opinion, the conflict was now primarily be- 
1457tween the moderate liberals and the Socialist wing. He had no 
1458doubt that the latter would gain the upper hand. However, the 
1459victory of the Social Democrats in Russia would mean peace. 
1460The men at present in power apparently wished to continue the 
1461war, and the leaders of the faction in favour of this policy were 
1462Miliukov and Guchkov. Both these men would try to delay the 
1463convening of the Constituent National Assembly, since they knew 
1464that the moment the National Assembly had any influence, the 
1465continuation of the war would be out of the question. 
1466
1467	When I asked him what he considered the attitude of the 
1468army to be, Dr. Helphand replied that there might well be some 
1469desire to continue the war among the Officer Corps, and 
1470especially among the higher-ranking officers, but that the rank 
1471and file wanted peace, and that it was highly significant that the 
1472ordinary soldiers, without exception, fraternized with the 
1473workers. 
1474
1475	Dr. Helphand believes that as soon as the amnesty for political 
1476offenders comes into force, there will be an opportunity to work 
1477effectively against Miliukov and Guchkov through direct con- 
1478tact with the Socialists.
1479
1480	Brockdorff-Rantzau 
1481
1482
1483So their intel from Parvus says provisional government wants to continue the war (and trying to delay the constituent assembly for that purpose), soldiers don't want to continue, and the socialists want peace and are the ones to support.
1484
1485
1486"there might well be some desire to continue the war among the Officer Corps"
1487
1488apparently, Germans thought that the amnesty for political prisoners would be their moment to strike.
1489
1490
1491	...The State Secretary to the Foreign Ministry Liaison Officer 
1492at General Headquarters 
1493
1494	Berlin, 23 March 1917 
1495
1496	The Imperial Minister in Bern has sent the following telegram: 
1497'Federal Counsellor [Bundesrat] Hoffmann has been told that 
1498leading Russian revolutionaries here wish to return to Russia 
1499via Germany as they are afraid to travel via France because of 
1500the danger from submarines. Please send instructions in case 
1501applications to this effect should be made to me. Romberg.' 
1502
1503	Since it is in our interests that the influence of the radical 
1504wing of the Russian revolutionaries should prevail, it would 
1505seem to me advisable to allow transit to the revolutionaries 
1506there. I would therefore support the granting of permission. 
1507Would Your Excellency please inform the High Command of 
1508the Army and ask for their opinion in this matter? 
1509
1510	ZIMMERMANN
1511
1512
1513	...The Liaison Officer at General Headquarters to the Foreign 
1514
1515	Ministry 
1516
1517	TELEGRAM NO. 37 I 
1518
1519	AS 1148 25 March 1917, 12.15 a.m. 
1520
1521	Received: 25 March, 1.15 a.m. 
1522
1523	High Command of the Army instructs me to telegraph as follows: 'No objections to transit of Russian revolutionaries if effected in special train with reliable escort. Organization can be worked out between representatives of Hlb 1 in Berlin and Foreign Ministry.' 
1524
1525	Lersner 
1526
1527
1528	...The Under State Secretary to the Minister in Bern 
1529telegram no. 348 
1530
1531	Berlin, 26 March 1917 
1532
1533	Special train will be under military escort. Hand-over at fron- 
1534tier-station, either Gottmadingen or Lindau, by responsible 
1535official of the consulate. Send information immediately concern- 
1536ing date of journey and list of names. Information must reach 
1537here four days before frontier-crossing. General Staff unlikely to 
1538object to individual personalities. In any case, return transport 
1539to Switzerland is guaranteed. Bussche 
1540
1541
1542Foreign ministry asks military for opinion on sending train of radicals (their idea?) military says sounds good, foreign ministry wants to be kept up-to-date with passengers, schedule, dates.
1543
1544
1545
1546	...Captain Hiilsen {Political Section of the General Staff in 
1547Berlin] to the Foreign Ministry 
1548
1549	Berlin, 30 March 1917 
1550
1551	A confidential agent working for us, who spent a few days in 
1552Switzerland on our behalf and returned here on 29 March 191 7, 
1553reports the following: 
1554
1555	'A large number of the Russians living in Switzerland wish to 
1556return to Russia. In principle, the Entente agrees with this plan, 
1557but those members of Russian revolutionary parties who favour 
1558an immediate peace are to be kept out of Russia by English 
1559pressure. Three such Russian revolutionaries were refused entry 
1560into France in the last few days, although they had been issued 
1561with passports by the Russian consulate in Bern. These Russian 
1562revolutionaries asked me, in confidence, to suggest to the Ger- 
1563man government that it should help them to reach Russia in 
1564spite of all this, and they made the following suggestion : 
1565
1566	It was considered 
1567advantageous to Germany to bring out the members of Lenin's 
1568party, the Bolsheviks, who were about forty in number. Among 
1569them were Lenin and Rjasanov in Bern, and Semjonov, 
1570Grigoriev, Abranov, Dora Dolin, and Marie Gutstein in 
1571Zurich. The fact that twenty to thirty so-called 'revolutionary 
1572patriots' and Mensheviks who were in favour of continuing the 
1573war would travel through at the same time seemed unimportant, 
1574as they would get back to Russia in any case, with the aid of the 
1575Entente.'""
1576
1577	A decision on this proposal is humbly requested here. 2 Our 
1578confidential agent is available for co-operation. 
1579
1580	Hulsen
1581
1582
1583so some of the Russian revolutionaries said it would be advantageous for Germany to transfer Lenin to Russia. Apparently the Entente was trying to stop this from happening (which would only make Germany want to do it more).
1584
1585Hadn't they already decided to send them four days earlier?
1586
1587
1588	The Minister in Copenhagen to the Foreign Ministry 
1589
1590	2 April, 5.45 a.m. 
1591
1592	Had detailed discussion with Scavenius about the situation in 
1593Russia. The Minister rates the political significance of the 
1594Socialist Skobolev's inflammatory speeches lower than the press 
1595of the Entente countries might lead one to believe. Nevertheless, 
1596Scavenius does see in them a sign that the English are also in 
1597contact with the extremist Socialist circles. 
1598
1599	In face of the Russian revolution, we can, in my opinion, 
1600adopt one of two attitudes: 
1601
1602	Either we are both militarily and economically in a position 
1603to continue the war effectively until the autumn. In that case it 
1604is essential that we try now to create the greatest possible degree 
1605of chaos in Russia. To this end, any patently apparent inter- 
1606ference in the course of the Russian revolution should be 
1607avoided. In my opinion, we should, on the other hand, make 
1608very effort surreptitiously to deepen the differences between the 
1609moderate and the extremist parties, for it is greatly in our 
1610interests that the latter should gain the upper hand, since a 
1611drastic change would then be inevitable and would take forms 
1612which would necessarily shake the very existence of the Russian 
1613empire. However, even if the moderate wing should remain in 
1614power, I could not imagine a transition to normal conditions 
1615taking place without considerable turmoil. Nevertheless, I think 
1616that it would be preferable, from our point of view, to back the 
1617extremist element, as this would be a more thorough way to 
1618work and would lead more quickly to some conclusion. In all 
1619probability, we should, in about three months time, be able to 
1620count on the disintegration having reached the stage where we 
1621could break the power of the Russians by military action. If we 
1622were now to launch a premature offensive, we should only give 
1623all the various centrifugal forces a motive for uniting and even, 
1624perhaps, lead the army to rally in its fight against Germany. 
1625
1626	If, on the other hand, we are not in a position to continue the 
1627war until the end of this year with any likelihood of success, then 
1628we should try to achieve a rapprochement with the moderate 
1629parties now in power and to convince them that if they insist 
1630on continuing the war, they will merely be doing the work of the 
1631English for them, opening the gates to reaction, and thus 
1632jeopardizing even such freedom as they have won. As an addi- 
1633tional argument, it should be pointed out to the Miliukovs and 
1634the Guchkovs that, in view of the uncertainty of the position 
1635in Russia, the English might attempt to reach an agreement 
1636with us, at the expense of the Russians. 
1637
1638	Brockdorff-Rantzau 
1639
1640
1641Brockdorff has terrible ideas. Says it would be good to back extremist element to cause chaos if they think they can continue the war, otherwise to sue for peace.
1642
1643Also said to hold off attacking lest the unite the factions, setting the stage for Kerensky's push.
1644
1645If they listened to Brockdorff at all, apparently they thought they should continue the war.
1646
1647
16482 April 1917 - Rantzau asks the new SoS he should meet Helphand
1649
1650
1651
1652	The Under State Secretary to the Minister in Bern 
1653
1654	Berlin, 2 April 191 7 
1655
1656	According to information received here, it is desirable that tran- 
1657sit of Russian revolutionaries through Germany take place as 
1658soon as possible, as the Entente has already begun to work 
1659against this move in Switzerland. I therefore recommend all 
1660possible speed in your discussions with representatives of the 
1661committee. „ 
1662
1663	BUSSGHE 
1664
1665
1666apparently, Entente trying to stop Lenin from getting to Russia helped motivate Germany to send him over.
1667
1668
1669	The Minister in Bern to the Foreign Ministry 
1670
1671	4 April, 7.20 p.m. 
1672
1673	Platten, the secretary of the Social Democratic party, came to 
1674see me on behalf of a group of Russian Socialists and, more 
1675particularly, of their leaders, Lenin and Zinoviev, to voice a 
1676request that a number of the most important emigres, twenty to 
1677sixty at the most, be allowed to travel through Germany im- 
1678mediately. Platten states that matters in Russia are taking a 
1679turn dangerous to the cause of peace, and that everything 
1680possible should be done to get the Socialist leaders here to 
1681Russia as soon as possible, as they have considerable influence 
1682there. Unfortunately, he said, many of the emigres had no identity 
1683documents and, except for Lenin and Zinoviev, they were very 
1684anxious that their names should not be mentioned at all. Apart 
1685from this, they were prepared to submit to any conditions, such 
1686as travelling through without any stops and in sealed or even 
1687shuttered compartments. However, they did insist that none of 
1688them be left behind, that their carriage be assured extra- 
1689territorial rights, and that each of them be accepted regardless 
1690of his position for or against continuation of the war. For their 
1691part, they promised to make efforts in Russia to secure the re- 
1692lease of a number of German prisoners. Platten, who wants to 
1693travel to Stockholm to set up an information service, would join 
1694up with the emigres and would be prepared personally to 
1695guarantee each one of those travelling and to provide them with 
1696an authorization from [one word garbled]. This authorization 
1697should, if possible, contain no names. Platten could take the 
1698emigres to the frontier together with a German official, and 
1699could take them through the frontier post one by one. 
1700
1701	Since their immediate departure would be greatly in our 
1702interests, I urgently recommend that permission should be 
1703granted at once, accepting the conditions laid down. Taking 
1704into account the suspicious nature of the Russians, who would 
1705not at first believe in the possibility of safe transit, together with 
1706the ruthless counter-activities of the Entente and the differences 
1707of opinion among the emigres themselves, there would otherwise 
1708be a considerable danger of their allowing their decision to be 
1709altered again. If we show them unreserved confidence, we shall 
1710put them into a friendly frame of mind. I would consider it 
1711especially helpful that we should show our confidence in the 
1712Swiss Socialists by accepting their guarantee as a sufficient one. 
1713This would place us high in their estimation and would, I hope, 
1714enable us to establish a permanent relationship which would 
1715be extremely useful for maintaining connexions with Russia. 
1716Platten admits himself that there are two sides to the question 
1717of the justification and the logic of the conditions laid down by 
1718the emigres for their journey. He said that they believed that they 
1719had, in this way, insured themselves against being com- 
1720promised in Russia, and that, after laboriously reaching agree- 
1721ment, one should not reopen any discussion. Their departure 
1722should take place not later than Friday. Finally, Platten regards 
1723it as quite impracticable to consider the possibility of so-called 
1724Social Patriots, i.e. opponents of peace, presenting^ themselves 
1725for the journey. Please telegraph at least provisional instructions 
1726as to whether or not the Russians should hold themselves in 
1727readiness for Friday. Romberg 
1728
1729
1730Lenin has demands, wants a sealed car, travel immediately, and for some pro-war exiles to go too. Minister in Bern thinks their passage is important to their interests and urges foreign ministry to accept. Cites "ruthless counter-activites of the Entente"
1731
1732
1733	The Minister in Bern to the Foreign Ministry 
1734	6 April, 10.25 P- m - 
1735
1736	In reply to telegram No. 394. 1 
1737
1738	Platten reports about twenty members of Lenin's party ready 
1739
1740	to leave. 
1741
1742	However, it is still possible that important Social Revolution- 
1743aries (the party of Weiss) 2 may join them. As yet, however, 
1744agreement with them has not been possible, and it is very doubt- 
1745ful whether the discussions with them can be finished in time. 
1746There is therefore an urgent desire that the journey be post- 
1747poned until Sunday night, as great value should be laid on the 
1748participation of the Social Revolutionaries because of the im- 
1749portant role that they played in the outbreak of the revolution. 
1750The simultaneous appearance of the leaders of both parties in 
1751Russia would make a deep impression and would considerably 
1752further active work for peace. I therefore urgently recommend 
1753that this wish be fulfilled and the journey be postponed until 
1754Sunday night. 
1755
1756
1757Minister in Bern seems to think that sending over the radicals will begin "active work for peace," as told to foreign ministry
1758
1759why wasn't peace working out between them and the provisional government?
1760
1761
1762	The Minister in Bern to the Foreign Ministry 
1763
1764	9 April, 4.10 a.m. 
1765
1766	The emigres expect to encounter extreme difficulties, even legal 
1767prosecution, from Russian government because of travel 
1768through enemy territory.
1769
1770
1771But they wanted to be persecuted, didn't they
1772
1773the secrecy surrounding the whole thing (and German support for Bolsheviks) probably didn't help. For some "bourgeois," seems pretty clear that they regarded Bolsheviks as little more than a foreign plot. An invitation to attack them.
1774
1775
1776	The Minister in Copenhagen to the Foreign Ministry 
1777
1778	9 April, 1 1 .50 a.m. 
1779
1780	Dr. Helphand has requested to be informed immediately of the 
1781arrival in Malmo or Sassnitz of the Russian refugees travelling 
1782from Switzerland through Germany. Helphand wishes to meet 
1783them in Malmo. 
1784
1785	Please telegraph information immediately. 1 
1786
1787	Brogkdorff-Rantzau 
1788
1789	1 Reply: Telegram No. 260, Berlin, 10 April. 'Russian emigres from Switzerland 
1790will arrive Sassnitz at noon Wednesday. Zimmermann' (WK 2 seer, volume 32). 
1791In Radek's contribution to Platten's pamphlet Die Reise Lenins durch Deutschland 
1792(Berlin, 1924), p. 66, Radek wrote: 'In Stockholm Parvus tried to see Lenin in the 
1793name of the Central Committee of the German Social Democrats; Ilyich not only 
1794refused to see him, but asked me, Vorovski and Hanecki, together with Swedish 
1795comrades, to record this attempt.' Radek and Hanecki were the two closest con- 
1796tacts of Helphand's among the Bolsheviks. 
1797
1798
1799Parvus asked to meet Lenin along the way, Lenin refuses him and asks for attempt to be recorded. Perhaps a way for Lenin to shake off accusations of being a German spy.
1800
1801By some indications, issue of Lenin being a German spy appears to have been divisive. Kerensky and his backers, army officers, those who hated Lenin attached themselves to this idea, those who followed him dismissed it.
1802
1803Army officers, intel people, officials would in particular have more reason to suspect Lenin of being a German agent.
1804
1805
1806	Memorandum by Ow- Wachendorf 
1807
1808	Berlin, 11 April 191 7 
1809
1810	Herr von Hiilsen informs me that the Russians' journey has so 
1811far been extremely harmonious. An officer in civilian clothes 
1812visited the carriage here while it was in transit. He stated that 
1813Platten had said, on behalf of the Russians, that they were very 
1814gratified with the co-operation shown by the German govern- 
1815ment. Ample food had been provided, though the Russians had 
1816only wanted little. In Berlin, milk had been made available for 
1817the children. 
1818
1819	The Russians' train missed its connexion in Frankfurt, so that 
1820their carriage was somewhat delayed. The Russians will there- 
1821fore have to spend the night at Sassnitz. Good accommodation 
1822has been assured them there, in a locked room.
1823
1824
1825a different impression of the trip than some give
1826
1827
1828	Memorandum by Ow- Wachendorf 
1829
1830	Lersner has telephoned as follows : 
1831
1832	1. His Majesty the Kaiser suggested at breakfast today that 
1833the Russian Socialists travelling through Germany should be 
1834given White Books and other literature, such as copies of the 
1835Easter Message and of the Chancellor's speech, so that they may 
1836be able to enlighten others in their own country. 
1837
1838	2. In the event of the Russians being refused entry into Sweden, 
1839the High Command of the Army would be prepared to get them 
1840into Russia through the German lines. 
1841
1842	3. The High Command of the Army would also be prepared 
1843to get those Russians who are still in Switzerland into Russia 
1844through our lines.
1845
1846
1847Kaiser and german High Command of Army were interested in seeing their passage, prepared to bring them through enemy lines if necessary.
1848
1849
1850	The Minister in Bern to the Foreign Ministry 
1851
1852	15 April, 4.46 a.m. 
1853
1854	The Socialist National Counsellor Grimm has asked Federal 
1855Counsellor Hoffmann for his help in getting permission to travel 
1856to Stockholm and back. From Stockholm, he might possibly 
1857travel on to Petrograd. Grimm believes that his presence is 
1858necessary to counteract Branting's activities against peace, that 
1859it is essential that the opportunity to conclude a separate peace 
1860be exploited, and that general peace would then follow. 
1861Although Hoffmann is a personal opponent of Grimm, of whose 
1862character he has a poor opinion, Hoffmann is inclined to recom- 
1863mend that permission be granted. Although it is well known that 
1864Grimm has bitterly attacked us, he has nevertheless stood 
1865resolutely in opposition to war; he played a leading part at 
1866Zimmerwald and at Kiental, and has close connexions with the 
1867extreme left in Russia and France and with the Liebknecht 
1868group. As far as his work for peace is concerned, Hoffmann 
1869considers him to be absolutely honest, and says that he is work- 
1870ing to secure for the Proletariat the credit for having restored 
1871peace to the world.
1872
1873
1874irony
1875
1876
1877seems some thought that the revolutionaries would work for peace, and that was their intention.
1878
1879
1880	...Grimm made the same request to me personally today, ex- 
1881pressing himself extremely intelligently. 
1882
1883	He would like to achieve the following in Petrograd : 
1884
1885	1 . Procure permission, either official or at least from the Com- 
1886mittee, for the Russian emigres in Switzerland, especially the 
1887Social Revolutionaries, who would have great influence on the 
1888peasants, to return to Russia through Germany. Without a 
1889cover of this kind, they do not dare to make the journey. 
1890
1891	2. Sound out the possibilities of peace, and,_ if possible, give 
1892us his impressions through the Swiss Legation in Moscow. 
1893
1894
1895they want peace and apparently want to achieve it through influencing the peasants
1896
1897
1898	...He further believed that an official German counter- announcement should 
1899be made to the Lvov manifesto, announcing our renunciation of 
1900annexations and war reparations, in order to strengthen the 
1901peace party in Russia. I would add here that the Russian 
1902revolutionaries have warned us against making any announce- 
1903ment which could give the impression that we are gambling on 
1904the revolution resulting in Russian military disorganization. 
1905Thus, they say, the publication of the Kaiser's congratulations 
1906to Stochod, Field-Marshal Hindenburg's alleged statements 
1907that the revolution was serving his own ends, and statements in 
1908the press such as Reventlow's article in the Deutsche Tages- 
1909zeitung of 12 April have all done incalculable damage. 
1910
1911
1912Did they have a problem with a "peace party" and "war party" in Russia?
1913
1914Were they gambling on the revolution resulting in Russian military disorganization? apparently Hindenburg, the Kaiser, and Reventlow thought so. Revolutionaries told them not to make that impression.
1915
1916
1917	Both Hoffmann and President Schulthess appear to be parti- 
1918cularly nervous as a result of the American declaration of war, 
1919and they seem worried that the opportunity of making peace 
1920with the Russians might not be exploited. They suggest that we 
1921might perhaps renounce annexations in the East and satisfy 
1922ourselves with the creation of frontier states with guaranteed 
1923autonomy.
1924
1925
1926Some in Germany suggest renouncing annexations and having independent "buffer states" to increase chances of peace after American intervention.
1927
1928
1929	In these circumstances, I feel that I should recom- 
1930mend that Grimm both be given permission to make and 
1931actually make his journey, even if our Socialists should express 
1932opposition. Since Grimm successfully organized the journey of 
1933Lenin and his comrades, which was of great value to us,
1934
1935
1936journy of Lenin "of great value" to them
1937
1938
1939	and since he has also lately been maintaining the attitude we would 
1940have him maintain in the Tagwacht and the Swiss National 
1941Council, it would be hard to understand if we were to try to 
1942prevent him from making this journey. As he is very ambitious, 
1943he would take it as a grave insult and would be in a position to 
1944do us a great deal of damage through his connexions with the 
1945revolutionary camp in every country. He asks for an assurance 
1946that he will be allowed to travel both ways unobstructed, taking 
1947a number of proclamation and other publications with him. 
1948I feel that we should allow him to enjoy the same treatment as 
1949the emigres from Brussels. He can do no damage on the military 
1950side, and he may be decidedly useful politically. What is certain 
1951is that the Russian revolutionaries will listen to Grimm, a Swiss 
1952whom, as one of the men of Zimmerwald, they like and trust, 
1953rather than to German Socialists, especially those of Scheide- 
1954mann's group. 
1955
1956	I request a decision as soon as possible. _. 
1957
1958	Romberg 
1959
1960
1961so they wanted to send this Grimm guy because they thought it would get them clout with the socialists
1962
1963
1964in followup Zimmeran quickly accepts, wants to give him passage both ways.
1965
1966
1967then Zimmerman says Cheidemann and Ebert gave warnings that Grimm was "pro-Entente" and should not be given passage. Minister in Bern says he and Federal Consellor think it was a good idea and it is too late. Says its all good because Grimm wants a separate peace with Russia.
1968
1969Say Scheidemann and Ebert hold a grudge and/are are opposed for politically motivated reasons. Says:
1970
1971
1972	In my opinion, it is now our business to stir 
1973up Russian [one word garbled] with all available means, and, to 
1974do so, we should not reject the co-operation even of a man like 
1975Grimm, whatever his motives or views may be. 
1976
1977
1978sounds like this guy of the mind of stirring up trouble in Russia
1979
1980
1981	Received: 17 April, 8.00 a.m. 
1982
1983	For the Secretary of State. 
1984
1985	Dr. Helphand has returned from Stockholm today, where he 
1986was negotiating with the Russian emigres from Switzerland.
1987
1988
1989Brockdorff says Parvus was "negotiationg" with Russian emigres from Switzerland, wanted to see Zimmerman
1990
1991
1992	High Command of the Army has following message for Political 
1993Section of General Staff in Berlin: 
1994
1995	'Steinwachs sent following telegram from Stockholm on 
1996	17 April 1917: 
1997
1998	' "Lenin's entry into Russia successful. He is working exactly 
1999as we would wish. Hence cries of fury of Entente Social Demo- 
2000crats in Stockholm. Platten was turned back by the English at 
2001frontier, a fact which has aroused considerable attention here." 
2002
2003
2004General staff seem to think Lenin doing their work for them.
2005
2006Apparently, wanted a military advantage out of Lenin's work.
2007
2008
2009	...The Minister in Bern to the Foreign Ministry 
2010
2011	27 April, 1.47 p.m. 
2012
2013	The secretariat of the organizing committee of the Russian 
2014revolutionary emigres in Zurich has asked me, through the inter- 
2015mediary of a reliable Swiss Social Democrat, to get permission 
2016for its five members, Martov, Martin [one syllable garbled], Axel- 
2017rod, Semkovski, and Astrov, together with their associates, to 
2018travel through Germany to Sweden immediately, under the 
2019same conditions as Lenin's group.
2020
2021
2022Romberg really gung-ho on sending more revolutionaries, Lenin, Grim, and now these guys. Always wants to send them ASAP
2023
2024
2025	The Minister in Bern to the Chancellor 
2026
2027	 April 191 7 
2028
2029	Platten, who had accompanied the Russian revolutionary Lenin 
2030and his followers on their journey through Germany, visited 
2031me today to thank me on their behalf for services rendered. 
2032Unfortunately Platten was prevented from accompanying his 
2033fellow travellers to Russia. He was stopped at the frontier by an 
2034English officer, who cancelled his entry permit. 
2035
2036	Lenin, on the other hand, received a splendid welcome from 
2037his followers. It can be said that three-quarters of Petrograd 
2038workers are behind him. The propaganda among the soldiers is 
2039more difficult ; the opinion seems to be widespread among them 
2040that we are going to attack them.
2041
2042
2043Romberg, Bethmann-Hollweg appear to be interested in "propaganda among soldiers." Romberg says it is more difficult because of "widespread opinion" Germany will attack them.
2044
2045Also seems true a German offensive would be against Bolshevik interests, while a Kerensky offensive was very much in their interests.
2046
2047
2048	It is not clear yet which 
2049	course the revolution will take. Perhaps it will be enough to 
2050substitute several members of the Provisional Government, like 
2051Miliukov and Guchkov, by socialists. In any case it would be 
2052absolutely necessary to increase the number of the partisans of 
2053peace by an influx from abroad. It is therefore recommended 
2054that those emigrants who are prepared to leave should receive 
2055the same facilities as Lenin and his comrades. The greatest speed 
2056is recommended, as it is to be feared that the Entente will exercise 
2057pressure on the Swiss government to prevent their departure. 
2058
2059
2060thinking about overthrowing government with socialists, sending in "partisans of peace" to get a separate peace (or propagandize soldiers?). Basically saying this is working and we should do more. Germans apparently to become Bolshevik Taxi agency.
2061
2062
2063	Platten said there were a number of Russian revolutionaries 
2064in Germany whose dispatch to Russia he recommended. From 
2065Platten's remarks it became clear that the emigrants lack the 
2066means for the conduct of their propaganda, while the means of 
2067their enemies are unlimited. The funds collected for them 
2068went mainly to the Social Patriots. I shall have an agent in- 
2069vestigate the delicate question of whether it may be possible to 
2070let them have such means without offending them. In the mean- 
2071time I would be grateful for telegraphic information about 
2072whether the revolutionaries are being supported in any other way
2073
2074'* Romberg 
2075
2076	1 Marginal note by Pourtales: 'I have spoken to Romberg. With that, the last 
2077sentence of his dispatch was settled.' 
2078
2079
2080Romberg in message to Hollweg wants to support revolutionaries with more money. Apparently, Hollweg is in on plans to support Bolsheviks and propagandize Russian soldiers.
2081
2082
2083another chain (54): Zimmermann says to Brockdorff a "wounded and maimed" counter-protest to Lenin in support of troops had 50,000 people. Minister in Stockholm says he and von Heidenstam think it's true:
2084
2085	Herr von Heidenstam considers that report is very likely 
2086true, as both the political line Lenin is pursuing and his peace 
2087propaganda are completely independent, and he is thus now 
2088in a position of violent opposition to the government. According 
2089to a report received today from the Telegram Bureau, he has 
2090been summoned before the Workers' Council for this reason. 
2091
2092	There have been large demonstrations in favour of peace, led 
2093by students, in front of Kazan cathedral, at which violent 
2094speeches were made against England and the United States, and 
2095more moderate ones against France. The assassination of 
2096General Katshalinski is considered significant because he was 
2097a spokesman of the new government. 
2098
2099	Anarchy is on the increase. Lucius 
2100
2101
2102Seem to be happy people are getting assassinated and there is violent opposition to government, as well as "violent speaches" against U.S., England, and France. Signed "Anarchy is on the increase. Lucius"
2103
2104
2105doc 56 says apparently Herr von Bergen has a connection with Lenin's crew.
2106
2107
2108
2109doc 57 "Herr Baier" wants to fund Bolsheviks and makes it sound like some kind of humanitarian peace effort.
2110
2111Notable that the idea of "separate peace" vs. "global peace" would make peace harder in on sense--"separate peace" could be seen as a foreign plot, a trick, and so predispose people to be against peace.
2112
2113
2114	The State Secretary to the Minister in Stockholm 
2115dispatch no. 227 
2116
2117	Berlin, 9 May 1917 
2118
2119	Dr. Helphand, who was well known in the Russian revolution 
2120of 1905 under the pseudonym 'Parvus', has done us a number 
2121of notable services in the course of the war, especially, working 
2122under the Imperial Minister in Copenhagen, in influencing the 
2123Danish trades unions in a direction extremely favourable to us. 
2124Since then, Dr. Helphand has been granted Prussian citizen- 
2125ship. He is travelling via Copenhagen to Stockholm, where he 
2126expects to arrive within the next few days, with the object of 
2127working for our interests at the impending Socialist congress. 
2128He will also try to establish contact with the Swedish trades 
2129unions. 
2130
2131	I would ask Your Excellency to be friendly and helpful to- 
2132wards Dr. Helphand, who will call at the Legation, and to give 
2133him all possible assistance. 
2134
2135	Zimmermann 
2136
2137
2138seems pretty clear they see Parvus as their agent, Brockdorff as his handler
2139
2140could be why Brockdorff overly enthusiasitc--wanted to be his handler.
2141
2142
2143	The Under State Secretary to the Minister in Stockholm and 
2144to the Minister in Bern 
2145
2146	Berlin, 10 May 1917 
2147
2148	1. TELEGRAM NO. 666 
2149
2150	Please let loose, through your agent, agitation for publication of 
2151military and political agreements made with France and Eng- 
2152land by old regime in Russia before the war. „ 
2153
2154	Stumm 
2155
2156	2. telegram no. 56 i 
2157
2158	Please draw the attention of the emigres returning to Russia, 
2159through suitable agents, to the idea that they should demand 
2160from their government the publication of agreements made by 
2161the old Russian regime with England and France. „ 
2162
2163	Stumm 
2164
2165
2166undersecretary managing the propagnada via telegram, wants propagandists to draw attention to military agreements of old regime with England and France
2167
2168for whatever reason, whether aware of this or not, appears Lenin did that (or close to it:)
2169
2170
2171https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/may/14.htm
2172	V. I.   Lenin
2173	War and Revolution
2174	A LECTURE DELIVERED MAY 14 (27), 1917
2175
2176	...That is why the question of treaties, such a simple question, is deliberately and disgracefully confused by the whole press. You say that we have a revolutionary government, that there are ministers in that government who are well-nigh socialists Narodniks and Mensheviks. But when they make declarations about peace without annexations, on condition that this term is not defined (because it means taking away German annexations and keeping our own), then we say: Of what value are your “revolutionary” cabinet, your declarations, your statements that you are not out for a war of conquest, if at the same time you tell the army to take the offensive? Don’t you know that we have treaties, that these treaties were concluded by Nicholas the Bloody in the most predatory fashion? You don’t know it? It is pardonable for the workers or peasants not to know that. They did not plunder, they read no clever books. But when   educated Cadets preach this sort of stuff they know perfectly well what these treaties are about. Although they are “secret” treaties, the whole diplomatic press in all countries talks about them, saying: “You’ll get the Straits, you’ll get Armenia, you’ll get Galicia, you’ll get Alsace-Lorraine, you’ll get Trieste, and we’ll make a final carve-up of Persia.” And the German capitalist says: “I’ll seize Egypt, I’ll subjugate the European nations unless you return my colonies to me with interest.” Shares are things that can’t do without interest. That is why the question of treaties, itself a clear, simple question, has touched off such a torrent of barefaced outrageous lies as those that are now pouring from the pages of all the capitalist newspapers. 
2177
2178	Take today’s paper Dyen. Vodovozov, a man absolutely innocent of Bolshevism, but who is an honest democrat, states in it: I am opposed to secret treaties; let me say this about the treaty with Rumania. There is a secret treaty with Rumania and it says that Rumania will receive a number of foreign peoples if she fights on the side of the Allies. The treaties which the other Allies have are all the same. They wouldn’t have started to subjugate nations if they had not had these treaties. To know their contents you do not have to burrow in special journals. It is sufficient to recollect the basic facts of economic and diplomatic history. For decades Austria has been after the Balkans with an eye to subjugation. And if they have clashed it is because they couldn’t help clashing. That is why, when the masses demand that these treaties should be published, a demand that is growing more insistent every day, ex-Minister Milyukov and the present Minister Tereshchenko (one in a government without socialist ministers, the other in a government with a number of near-socialist ministers) declare that publication of the treaties would mean a break with the Allies.
2179
2180	Obviously, you can’t publish the treaties because you are all participants in the same gang of robbers.
2181
2182
2183did Lenin want the Germans to think they could control him?
2184
2185
2186	The Minister at The Hague to the Chancellor 
2187
2188	8 May 1917 
2189
2190	Among the numerous Russians who are at present living in 
2191Holland — there are about 2,600 civilian refugees and 300 
2192soldiers from German prisoner-of-war camps in Rotterdam 
2193alone — there is considerable dissatisfaction with the Russian 
2194authorities here, and a certain section of these people is in 
2195sympathy with the Russian revolution. 
2196
2197	The opportunity has just arisen to make contact with a 
2198representative of this last section, and, on this occasion, as had 
2199seemed likely, it appeared that the present situation could 
2200probably be very profitably exploited for the advancement of 
2201our political aims. 
2202
2203	The personality in question is a certain Vladimir Futran. 
2204This man would appear to have escaped from a prisoner-of-war 
2205camp at Doberitz. He is a revolutionary of Lenin's group, and, 
2206although he has had no very complete education, is an intelli- 
2207gent man.
2208
2209	Whether or not, or to what extent his revolutionary opinions 
2210are genuine, what motives underlie his action, and how far he 
2211is governed by self-seeking and material aims, it is of course 
2212impossible to say so soon. On the whole, he gives the impression 
2213of being a political fanatic with a desire to avenge some in- 
2214justice suffered by himself or his class. 
2215
2216
2217so Hollweg interested in "exploiting" Russian revolution and "Lenin's group" "for the advancement of our political aims."
2218
2219
2220	...The 'Russian Peace League' could be made to serve as a 
2221starting-point for agitation among the Russian prisoners of war 
2222in Germany and Austria. Agitation of this nature could be so 
2223directed as to help those elements in Russia which appear useful 
2224to us at the moment, for example Lenin's group
2225
2226
2227Apparently want to help "Lenin's group," and Minister at the Hauge proposes supporting Bolshevik fronts in Holland and propagandizing Russian prisoners of war in Germany for this purpose. Asks for "funds" for the "agitation."
2228
2229
2230doc 61 29 May 1917
2231
2232
2233Apparently Zimmerman had hopes for Kerensky to conclude a separate peace, but believes this was sabotaged by French and English influence. Some say their contacts in Russia should be given a time limit to secure a separate peace before advancing, although Zimmerman says this would be a mistake and wants to hold out longer lest he fractured Russians be united.
2234
2235
2236	The State Secretary to the Minister in Bern 
2237
2238	3 June 191 7 
2239
2240	Secret reports show that the governments of the Entente coun- 
2241tries continue to show great anxiety about Russia. The spread 
2242of the idea of peace has not been stopped even by the latest — 
2243and only temporary — consolidation of the provisional govern- 
2244ment. The despairing advances of the Russian troops cannot 
2245dissimulate the growing disorganization and unwillingness to 
2246fight of the Russian army. Lenin's peace propaganda is growing 
2247steadily stronger, and his newspaper Pravda already prints 
2248300,000 copies. Work in the armament factories is either at a 
2249standstill, or has sunk to very low production figures. The trans- 
2250port crisis continues to grow more acute and, as a result, the 
2251supply of food to the towns and the army is suffering. There is 
2252therefore absolutely no possibility of the Entente receiving help 
2253from that quarter. „ 
2254
2255	ZlMMERMANN 
2256
2257
2258Is this what they wanted?
2259
2260seems like they didn't worry too much about Kerensky's push
2261
2262
2263doc 64
2264
2265	Since it would seem desirable to return as many followers of Lenin as possible, we support the application.
2266
2267
2268supported Lenin and intereted in getting his followers into Russia
2269
2270
2271	The Counsellor of Legation in Stockholm to the Chancellor 
2272
2273	11 July 1917
2274
2275[july days 16-20 July in Gregorian Calendar]
2276
2277	No. 7 of the Russische Korrespondenz Prawda 1 reports that no 
2278agreement was reached in the negotiations between the Russian 
2279Bolsheviks Ganecki, Vorovski, and Radek, and the German 
2280Social Democrats Haase, Ledebour, and Herzfeld. The Bol- 
2281sheviks, who reject any suggestion of working with the 'Social 
2282Patriots', are shocked by the fact that the German left-wing 
2283Socialists should want to negotiate with the pro-Entente 'Social 
2284Patriots'. On this point, the newspaper makes the following 
2285comment : 
2286
2287	'The participation of the German Social Patriots in this 
2288"Work for Peace" is, of course, very distasteful to them, but, 
2289in order to have the pleasure of meeting the fathers of the 
2290Russian offensive, they are prepared — under protest, of course 
2291— to accept even this misfortune. The Russian Workers would 
2292like to know what attitude the Spartacus group takes to this 
2293decision made by the Independents.' 
2294
2295	According to reports from Petrograd in the newspapers here, 
2296and according to other sources, the influence of Lenin's group 
2297has unfortunately lessened. In a decision concerning a vote of 
2298confidence in the provisional government — a decision more or 
2299less bringing to an end the deliberations of the Workers' and 
2300Soldiers' Council — the Bolsheviks, reinforced by the inter- 
2301nationalist Social Democrats and the Ukrainians, only raised 
2302126 votes, while the majority was able to dispose of 543 votes. 
2303The waning of the Bolsheviks' influence must be seen as the 
2304result, partly of the offensive, and partly of the inordinate de- 
2305mands made by Lenin's group. These demands, of which the 
2306most extreme is the expropriation of the big capitalist concerns 
2307(especially of all banks and all the larger industrial and com- 
2308mercial undertakings) and the big landowners, aim at the 
2309detachment of all the various individual peoples from Russia 
2310and their formation into separate republics. It must be added, 
2311however, that, on the Ukrainian question, the Bolsheviks have 
2312somewhat changed their position, and that they now only de- 
2313mand a strong degree of autonomy for the Ukrainians, not their 
2314total detachment. Pravda for 28 June writes: 
2315
2316	'The failure of the politics of the provisional government and 
2317its coalition cabinet grows more apparent from day to day. The 
2318"Universal Act" published by the Ukrainian Central Council 
2319and accepted by the All-Ukrainian Soldiers' Congress on 1 1 
2320June 4 is documentary evidence of this failure. 
2321
2322	"This act says: "The Ukrainian people should have the right 
2323to dispose of its own life in its own land, without detaching itself 
2324from Russia and without breaking away from the Russian state. 
2325Only our Ukrainian assembly has the right to promulgate laws 
2326guaranteeing order here in the Ukraine; laws concerned with 
2327the maintenance of order within the whole of the Russian state 
2328should be passed by the All-Russian Parliament." ' 
2329
2330	These are perfectly explicit words. They say, with all possible 
2331clarity, that the Ukrainian people does not at present wish to 
2332separate from Russia. It demands autonomy, but does not in 
2333any way dispute the necessity for or the sovereignty of the 'All- 
2334Russian Parliament'. 
2335
2336	A remarkable thing is that the Petrograd Cossacks' Council 
2337has declared itself against the detachment of the Ukraine. 
2338Although the majority of Cossacks come from the Ukraine, and 
2339although they have always attached importance to a certain 
2340degree of autonomy, they nevertheless feel that they are 
2341historically an inseparable part of the whole Russian army. 
2342Moreover, they played such a decisive and, to them, glorious 
2343role in crushing the liberal and democratic elements in all earlier 
2344attempted revolutions, that one could hardly expect thern to 
2345show genuine sympathy for the parties whose aim is to divide 
2346up Greater Russia. 
2347
2348	I have the honour humbly to enclose a violent attack against 
2349the offensive from the Helsinki newspaper Volna, which accom- 
2350panied the Korrespondez Prawda. Stobbe 
2351
2352	1 Die russische Korrespondenz Prawda, was edited in German by Hanecki in 
2353Stockholm.
2354
2355
2356Did Hollweg tell people he thought Lenin would split Russia into smaller countries? author of letter says the purpose of Lenin's liquidating banks and such is to split Russia into separate countries. "These demands, of which the 
2357most extreme is the expropriation of the big capitalist concerns 
2358(especially of all banks and all the larger industrial and com- 
2359mercial undertakings) and the big landowners, aim at the 
2360detachment of all the various individual peoples from Russia 
2361and their formation into separate republics."
2362
2363Hints at bigger hopes for Lenin, and very unrealistic ones. Author seems to be dismayed that Bolsheviks changed their tune on Ukraine independence.
2364
2365Seem to be concerned with Lenin's influence lessening.
2366
2367If this is what they expected from Lenin, small wonder they pushed for concessions at Brest-Litovsk.
2368
2369
2370===========
2371
2372after this point, Hollweg no longer Chancellor of Germany--office ended 13 July 1917
2373
2374http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-chancellor-theobald-von-bethmann-hollweg-resigns
2375	The chancellor owed his final downfall, however, to his failure to manage the civil unrest within Germany, reflected in the feuding Reichstag. During the summer of 1917, as parliamentary debate raged over a proposed peace resolution, Bethmann Hollweg found himself unable to continue to balance the feuding elements of the German government, especially the majority Socialist Party—which was itself alienating its most radical leftist elements by aligning with a center-left coalition—and the conservative right, which predictably enjoyed the support of Hindenburg and Ludendorff. Having previously committed—reluctantly—to an unrestricted naval policy that had led the United States to declare war on Germany the previous April, Bethmann Hollweg was seen by the center-left, the authors of the Reichstag peace resolution, as a warmonger and by the right as a weakling for supporting the efforts to broker a peace.
2376
2377	Exhausted, Bethmann Hollweg rose in the Reichstag on July 9 to respond to his critics: “My position does not matter…I myself am convinced of my own limitations…I am considered weak because I seek to end the war. A leading statesman can receive support neither from the Left nor the Right in Germany.” The following day, he resigned as chancellor.
2378
2379weird
2380
2381others say Reichstag peace resolution had something to do with his downfall
2382
2383
2384
2385after this, Georg Michaelis became Chancellor
2386
2387
2388according to Wikipedia: "[Michaelis] remained in this position until 1 November 1917, when he was forced to resign after coming under fire for refusing to commit himself by endorsing a resolution passed by the Reichstag favouring peace without annexation or indemnities."
2389
2390===========
2391
2392
2393	Memorandum for the State Secretary 
2394
2395	Berlin, 17 July 1917 
2396
2397	Dr. Helphand, who has returned from Stockholm, had a favour- 
2398able impression of his various discussions with the Russian 
2399revolutionaries. He said that the influence of Lenin, and of the 
2400other groups working for a general peace, was continuing to 
2401grow, in spite of all the claims to the contrary made in the press 
2402of the Entente countries.
2403
2404Parvus tells them Lenin influence only growing after July 16 (July Day Jul 16-Jul 20). Says don't believe the "Entente" media.
2405
2406
2407	The offensive had only taken place 
2408because the Americans and the English had made it a con- 
2409dition for the supply of money and raw materials, especially of 
2410cotton.
2411
2412
2413Says Americans and English strong-armed Kerensky into the push (If true would mean Americans and English bear major responsibility in installing Lenin)
2414
2415
2416	The soldiers had only been won over to making the 
2417offensive by being told that they could see for themselves that 
2418the negotiations made since the outbreak of the revolution had 
2419not succeeded in bringing peace, whereas a successful offensive 
2420would lead quickly and surely to this result. Disappointment 
2421had already set in, and would result in a further softening-up 
2422of the army.
2423
2424
2425refers to negotiations (which ones?), said soldiers were told negotiations weren't working for peace, so a push would bring Germany to table.
2426
2427presumably, the Germans would be more reluctant to reach an agreement for peace if they believed they had an ace up their sleeve with Lenin (esp. with respect to propagandizing army). Additionally, if they believed Lenin had a chance, would prefer to try to install him and negotiate with him over Kerensky for better terms.
2428
2429
2430	 This had already reached such a degree, even 
2431before the offensive, that the army, through the person of 
2432Brusilov, had said that the collapse of the armed forces could 
2433only be prevented by an immediate offensive.
2434
2435
2436apparently command of Russian army (Brusilov?) somehow reached conclusion that a push would be the only way to prevent collapse of armed forces.
2437
2438IIRC Denekin called for deep withdrawal and repair of morale of armed forces. Time to re-organize "democratization" of army was needed, and an inadverdant "advantage" of such a plan would be they Russian army would be fighting defensively, for their homeland, and so would have more much-needed morale.
2439
2440However the Russian army reached the conclusion that was the complete opposite of every indication and common sense.
2441
2442
2443	...Helphand also told me, after asking me to treat this in- 
2444formation with the utmost confidence, that the Russians were 
2445not going to allow any discussion of the question of war-guilt 
2446at the congress which is beginning in Stockholm in the middle 
2447of August. They did not want to quarrel, but to do useful work 
2448for the preparation of peace. Similarly, they were not going to 
2449let themselves be drawn into any consideration of French wishes 
2450concerning Alsace-Lorraine, and they were hopeful that this 
2451question, too, might be got round. For the moment, however, 
2452care must be exercised to prevent the English from getting wind 
2453of the matter prematurely and thwarting the attendance of the 
2454French. 
2455
2456
2457Parvus and Zimmermann apparently interested in Stockholm conference. IIRC a lot of countries barred people from attending. Parvus appears to be spreading rumors about it. 
2458
2459
2460	The Chancellor to the Foreign Ministry Liaison Officer 
2461at General Headquarters 
2462
2463	Berlin, 26 July 191 7 
2464
2465	Withreference to telegram No. 52751 from Operational Depart- 
2466ment to Lieutenant-Colonel von Haeften, I request that General 
2467Ludendorff be told the following: Compliance with secret 
2468Order I a 4000 given to Eastern Command and Army Group 
2469Mackensen would mean a new offer of peace to Russia, or would 
2470at least be interpreted as such by Russian press and public 
2471opinion in Russia. I do not consider present moment suitable 
2472for such a step. If our counter-offensive is strong enough to make 
2473those now in power in Russia fear its continuation, then they, 
2474or in the event of their removal, their successors, will try to make 
2475contact with us of their own accord.
2476
2477
2478Michaelis says to wait for more favorable circumstances for peace, push and make them ask for it, or wait for Lenin. Apparently subscribing to the idea that their efforts with Bolsheviks would come to fruition and give them better terms.
2479
2480This comes around the beginning of German counter-offensive, after July days.
2481
2482
2483	If it is not strong enough, 
2484then these steps, which, in addition bear the stamp of extreme 
2485haste, will only have harmful effects. I should therefore be very 
2486grateful if the intended statement could be temporarily shelved, 
2487and if General Ludendorff could give me an opportunity to ex- 
2488press an opinion before he formulates new principles for propa- 
2489ganda at the front. We must be very careful that the literature 
2490with which we are aiming to further the process of disintegration 
2491inside Russia does not achieve the directly opposite result. 1 This 
2492is especially true of the furtherance of separatist tendencies, 
2493which are falling into disrepute. For example, the Ukrainians 
2494still reject the idea of total secession from Russia. Any open 
2495intervention on our part in favour of an independent Ukrainian 
2496state would undoubtedly be exploited by the enemy in order to 
2497denounce the existing nationalist currents as German creations.
2498
2499
2500Said they should increase "separatists tendencies" and "disintegrate" Russia. Talks about how they might be able to get Ukraine. Maybe seeds of the idea of Brest-Litovsk here. Might figure mines in Ukraine would help their war-effort in the West.
2501
2502
2503	Michaelis 
2504
2505	1 E. Vandervelde, who spent two weeks touring the Eastern front in June 1917, 
2506wrote in his Three Aspects of Russian Revolution (London, 1918, p. 134) : 'It seems that 
2507this propaganda, while admirably organized and splendidly carried on has the 
2508same fault that we find in all German enterprises of this sort; it over-reaches its 
2509mark, and provokes finally, by its ponderous insistence, a psychological reaction 
2510which is the one result that its organizers failed to foresee.' Vandervelde also noticed 
2511the similarity between German propaganda and the views of the Bolsheviks, the 
2512Mensheviks, and the Internationalists (p. 133). Bruce Lockhart wrote in The Two 
2513Revolutions (London, 1957, p. 93) : '. . . most of the Bolshevik propaganda, including  Lenin's articles, which reached the Russian front was disseminated by the Germans, 
2514who, either with or without the connivance of Lenin, were able to buy the Bolshevik 
2515newspapers in Stockholm and reproduce them.' 
2516
2517
2518So Germans would take Bolshevik newspapers, reproduce them and print them on their own. Then give to Russian soldiers, who Lenin had ordered to distribute propaganda to the peasants.
2519
2520
2521one aside: the Tsar must have been intercepting all of these if Okhrana involved. Wouldn't be very hard to convince Tsar, royalty, top "bourgeois" officials that Lenin was a German agent. Things were set up so that would be easy if they wanted to do so.
2522
2523The perception of Lenin as a German agent could be of great importance for events in WW1 and subsequent events. Did any of the Bolsheviks themselves suspect him? Intercepts from German communications like these would certainly bolster such a case. What did Stalin think, or profess to think? Did the idea that Lenin was a German agent have any bearing on his death?
2524
2525
2526no 60 (10 August 1) Brockdorff telling Foreign ministry about report in RUssian newspaper "Reich" that Lenin, Parvus are German agents.
2527
2528
2529	The Under State Secretary to the Minister in Copenhagen 
2530	1 8 August 1917 
2531
2532	The suspicion that Lenin is a German agent has been energetic- 
2533ally countered in Switzerland and Sweden at our instigation. 
2534Thus the impact of the reports on this subject supposedly made 
2535by German officers has also been destroyed. 
2536
2537	The statement claimed to have been made by Haase has been denied. _ 
2538
2539	Jdussche 
2540
2541
2542not helping with the whole "Lenin isn't a German agent" thing.
2543
2544Did they think of him as a German agent?
2545
2546
2547	The State Secretary to the Foreign Ministry Liaison Officer 
2548at General Headquarters 
2549
2550	 29 September 1917 
2551
2552	For the information of the High Command of the Army. 
2553
2554	The military operations on the Eastern front, which were pre- 
2555pared on a large scale and have been carried out with great suc- 
2556cess, were seconded by intensive undermining activities inside 
2557Russia on the part of the Foreign Ministry. Our first interest, in 
2558these activities, was to further nationalist and separatist en- 
2559deavours as far as possible and to give strong support to the 
2560revolutionary elements. We have now been engaged in these 
2561activities for some time, and in complete agreement with the 
2562Political Section of the General Staff in Berlin (Capt. von 
2563Hiilsen). Our work together has shown tangible results. The 
2564Bolshevik movement could never have attained the scale or the 
2565influence which it has today without our continual support. 
2566There is every indication that the movement will continue to 
2567grow, and the same is true also of the Finnish and Ukrainian 
2568independence movements. 
2569
2570
2571did they really think it was all them?
2572
2573
2574	According to the most recent reports received here, the situa- 
2575tion in Russia is that the country, whose economic life has been 
2576shattered, and which is only just being held together by English 
2577agents, could be expected to collapse as a result of any further, 
2578fairly powerful shock.
2579
2580
2581were they happy about this?
2582
2583	
2584	...The preparations for the Finnish rising are, as the High Com- 
2585mand of the Army knows, busily under way and are being sup- 
2586ported to a considerable extent. However, it is unlikely that they 
2587can be maintained right through the winter if the Finnish hopes 
2588in us are disappointed this autumn and the country is made de- 
2589pendent on Russia by the food shortage which must be expected 
2590in the spring. On the other hand, in face of the weakness of the 
2591Russians, we could expect the Finnish rising to break out now 
2592and to reach a successful conclusion if we were to preserve 
2593Finnish confidence in us — a feeling very much in our interests — ■ 
2594by occupying the Aaland Isles, which dominate the Gulf of 
2595Bothnia, and by forcing the Russian Army Command to with- 
2596draw some of the troops stationed in Finnland, by putting pres- 
2597sure on them at the front. 
2598
2599
2600apparently had idea that weakening Russia would give them opportunities to grab colonies of Russian empire
2601
2602
2603	...In the second telegram, No. 1493 of 6 October 
2604(AS 3761), Ludendorff acknowledges the undermining activities in Russia of the 
2605Foreign Ministry and of the Political Section of the Deputy General Staff, expresses 
2606thanks for the allocation of large amounts of money for it, and stresses the value 
2607of this work, especially in Finland. He shares the view that the occupation of the 
2608Aaland Islands would be of great political value to Germany, but could be accom- 
2609plished only if the German lines of communication could run across Sweden. 
2610
2611
2612Ludendorff credits Foreign Ministry with subversion operations in Russia
2613
2614Seems like there was an understanding that Chancellor (at this point Michaelis) and the foreign ministry were in charge of this--Michaelis felt fine with directing Ludendorff not to engage in certain propaganda operations. Appearence is that Ludendorff is involved but had not taken charge of these.
2615
2616
2617===========
2618
2619From this point,  Georg von Hertling was Channellor (1 November 1917 – 30 September 1918)
2620
2621supported Hollweg and was "seen as puppet of Ludendorff"
2622
2623===========
2624
2625
2626notes on doc 72 are interesting
2627
2628says that day after October revolution, Parvus acted shady and lost German trust.
2629
2630also says Parvus' plan for a Socialist conference in Stockholm was "aimed at by-passing the Imperial German government" which one could think would weaken it and contribute to its overthrow (not sure exactly how)
2631
2632posits that Parvus hoped for a socialist revolution in Germany, and was encouraged by the success in Russia.
2633
2634an aside: wouldn't this be predictable? from the beginning German Foreign Ministry wonders about motivations of their socialist "agents." But reading what they say and do makes it clear: they want to spread socialism around the world. Lenin himself promised a socialist revolution in Germany, and apparently some in German foreign ministry had the idea of even funding socialist propaganda within their borders.
2635
2636That the socialists would turn around and spread socialism in Germany (and apparently were for a long time) would be obvious to anyone. It was what they said they would do.
2637
2638The success in Russia was said to have inspired socialists that socialism could spread to other countries. Hollweg's assurance that this wouldn't happen in Germany is a strange one.
2639
2640
2641=============
2642
2643after this, Georg Graf von Hertling was Chancellor (from 1 November 1917 - 30 September 1918)
2644
2645=============
2646
2647
2648Doc 73 (8 November 1917) Lucius urges Foreign Ministry not to push for peace, don't want to look weak (due to English), wait to see if Bolsheviks victory certain.
2649
2650
2651Apparently subscribe to idea that Bolsheviks would give them better terms, seem to be very interested in general in getting favorable terms from the peace (apparently nobody believes in "peace without indemnities or annexations")
2652
2653Doc 74, others--they didn't talk much about a cease-fire until after Bolsheviks installed.
2654
2655
2656Doc 75--Ludendorff says Bolsheviks winning is "desirable from our point of view." Wants to exploit for propaganda purposes.
2657
2658
2659	The Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister to the Chancellor 
2660
2661	Vienna, 10 November 1917 
2662
2663	Your Excellency, 
2664
2665	The revolution in Petrograd, which has at least temporarily 
2666placed the power into the hands of Lenin and his followers, has 
2667come sooner than we had thought possible.
2668
2669
2670how long where they planning on fighting the war and subverting Russia? apparently had plans to break up Russia, so something more long-term in getting colonies.
2671
2672
2673	Whether or not the 
2674Maximalists will be in a position to establish themselves and to 
2675exercise governmental power for any length of time, even on the 
2676scale on which this was done under Kerenski, will emerge in the 
2677next few days. However, numerous signs seem to me to indicate 
2678that this question will be answered in the affirmative. 
2679
2680	If Lenin and the Bolsheviks should succeed in maintaining 
2681their power, then they will be forced to carry out with the 
2682utmost vigour the governmental programme which they have 
2683formulated. In this context, their promise to bring Russia a 
2684'democratic peace' will occupy first place, and we therefore seem 
2685to have reached a decisive turning-point in the peace question. 
2686
2687
2688clearly saw the opportunity for a separate peace, even before this guy pointed it out
2689
2690
2691	As I am considerably the younger of the two of us, I am far 
2692from wishing to take the initiative or to offer suggestions to 
2693Your Excellency, who has much greater experience on which 
2694to draw. However, as, after our many discussions about the 
2695ramifications of the peace question
2696
2697
2698says "the peace question" something Hertling talks about a lot.
2699
2700
2701	Whether or not Lenin and his colleagues will have the power 
2702to maintain their supremacy for any considerable time is probably 
2703a question which nobody can answer. For this very reason, how- 
2704ever, it would seem essential to exploit this moment, and to 
2705offer them all the help that they would need to produce faits 
2706accomplis in the peace question. If the Leninists were to succeed 
2707even in bringing about the promised armistice, then, it seems to 
2708me, we should have won almost a complete victory on the 
2709Russian sector, for, if it achieved an armistice, the Russian 
2710army, in its present state, would surely pour back into the hinter- 
2711land in order to be on the spot when the estates are distributed. 
2712In the present circumstances, an armistice would make this 
2713army vanish, not to reappear at the front within the forseeable 
2714future. 
2715
2716
2717points out (correctly I think) that if government might be temporary, now is the time for peace. Says that the soldiers would all want to fall back to stop their things from being collectivized anyway (dunno about that analysis...).
2718
2719one would thin if government were unstable, declaring peace would be the way to bolster it and stabilize it.
2720
2721in their communications, come off as caring more about imperial ambitions than freeing up troops for war on Western front.
2722
2723
2724	From what I know of Lenin's ideas and intentions, they are 
2725directed first of all towards renewing the attempt to achieve 
2726general peace, and next, if the Western powers would not permit 
2727the former, towards concluding a separate peace with us. 
2728
2729
2730so would they decide, if to act as imperialistically as possible, that sabotaging general peace would be the way to go?
2731
2732
2733	According to reports received from Petrograd, Lenin has already 
2734approached the Western Powers with a view to obtaining their 
2735agreement to the conclusion of a general peace, and, according 
2736to my information, has given them only a short time in which to 
2737answer his request. If, as we can presume with reasonable cer- 
2738tainty, the other Entente Powers refuse, then Lenin will be 
2739faced with the decision to turn his idea of a separate peace with 
2740the Central Powers into a reality. However, he will only wish to 
2741do this, or be able to, if we accept the formula, peace 'without 
2742annexations or reparations'. 
2743
2744We should certainly be furthering this course of development 
2745if we were once again to announce to the men in power in 
2746Russia in some sufficiently friendly way that we still adhere to 
2747the principles for peace which we have formulated, that is, those 
2748set out in the peace resolution passed in the Reichstag, in Herr 
2749von-Kuhlmann's speech, in my various announcements, and in 
2750our answers to the Pope's peace note. On the basis of such 
2751declarations by the Central Powers, and after the rejection of a 
2752general peace without annexations or reparations by the Western 
2753Powers
2754
2755
2756interesting--wanted to make an effort for general peace, but assumed that the Western Powers would reject it?
2757
2758
2759	Lenin could then easily make advances towards a 
2760separate peace with us within the terms of his programme, and 
2761could proceed to the conclusion of an armistice. Since the 
2762Maximalists' programme includes the concession of the right to 
2763self-determination of the non-Russian peoples of Russia, the 
2764question of what should finally be done with Congress Poland, 
2765Courland, Livonia, and Finland could well be left to be decided 
2766in the course of peace negotiations. It would be our business to 
2767ensure that the desire for separation from Russia and for political 
2768and economic dependence on the Central Powers be voiced from 
2769within these nations. In view of what I have said, I therefore 
2770believe that we could influence the development of the situation 
2771in Russia favourably to our aims, if, as soon as possible, we were 
2772to make declarations to the effect stated and such as would be 
2773sufficient to enable the Maximalists to enter into direct negotia- 
2774tions with us without any fears. As far as I am concerned, I 
2775would consider allowing myself to be interviewed, for the 
2776reports received from Petrograd offer sufficient grounds for a 
2777comprehensive answer. 
2778
2779
2780came off as goal was for Lenin to conclude separate peace and then for them to grab territory from Russian empire (which is what happened)
2781
2782
2783	In view of our great military successes on the Italian front, 
2784there is now no reason to fear that a statement in these terms 
2785could be interpreted as a sign of our weakness : nor can I see that 
2786any other harmful effects could result from such a step. In 
2787addition, a further advantage which we should gain from this 
2788step is that we should take every gust of wind out of the sails of 
2789our Socialist parties, with whom Lenin is already trying to open 
2790relations. Lenin's desire to negotiate with the Socialist parties 
2791of the Central Powers about peace is, in the last analysis, only 
2792an attempt to kindle the social revolution in the states of the 
2793Central Powers, as a defence for Russia in place of his now 
2794almost useless military apparatus. However, if we, as govern- 
2795ments, take up the basic standpoint of peace without annexa- 
2796tions or reparations, then the ground will be removed from 
2797under the feet of this new Socialist conference before it assembles ; 
2798and it seems to me important that we should make such a meet- 
2799ing superfluous. 
2800
2801
2802very interesting. Says another reason to call for peace without annexations or indemneties is to "take wind out of sails" of socialists, which had been previously discussed as dangerous and supported by Lenin.
2803
2804
2805Is the Austro-Hungaian minister a good guy? seems like he's trying to use Foreign Ministry logic to argue for declaring peace without annexations or indemnities.
2806
2807comes off as trying to be very polite. Also mentions previous conversations with Hertling in writing.
2808
2809	
2810	I should be most obliged to Your Excellency if you would be 
2811good enough to examine the ideas which I have developed here, 
2812and to give me your opinion of the matter as soon as possible. In 
2813my opinion, we should not allow this moment to pass un- 
2814exploited, nor miss any opportunity of bringing the war in the 
2815East to an end. For the second time, we are being offered the 
2816chance of achieving this end by quick action. I doubt whether 
2817the possibility will arise again in such favourable circumstances. 
2818I need not enumerate the opportunities, both military and 
2819political, which will be offered to us, and especially to Germany, 
2820if we can finish with the Russians now. I would, on the other 
2821hand, like to emphasize the economic factor, for, after a break 
2822with the Western Powers, Russia will be forced to rely econo- 
2823mically on the Central Powers, who will then have the oppor- 
2824tunity of penetrating and reorganizing Russian economic life. 
2825The significance of this for the future needs no further comment. 
2826
2827	Yours, &c, 
2828	Czernin 
2829
2830
2831wants him to do it ASAP and talks about how great the future would be if opportunity taken
2832
2833
2834	P.S. Since I ended this letter, a telegram has arrived from 
2835Petrograd, containing the basic principles for an offer of peace, 
2836decided on by the Soviet Congress, and these confirm the accu- 
2837racy of the idea, which I expressed above, that Lenin's group 
2838is determined to put its peace programme into effect as quickly 
2839as possible and that it is, for the moment, still proposing a 
2840general peace. However, it must be clear to the Maximalists that 
2841a general peace cannot develop from their suggestions, since 
2842their ideas are by nature directed more against the Western 
2843Powers than against us. I therefore think that the premises 
2844underlying my suggestions have been reinforced by the offer of 
2845peace made by the Soviet Congress.
2846
2847
2848points out that general peace can't happen from them since Maximalists are crazy and anti-Western.
2849
2850
2851	1 This letter was one of two enclosures sent by Herding, the Imperial Chancellor, 
2852to Kuhlmann on 1 2 November. Herding was in Munich at the time and Czernin's 
2853letter was handed over to him by Thun, the Austro-Hungarian Minister there. 
2854Herding expressed his agreement in principle with Czernin's arguments, but re- 
2855served the right to define his attitude more precisely later. He asked Kuhlmann 
2856what proposals he had to make. 
2857
2858
2859apparently this letter was passed around, so people would know that Chancellor knew of this.
2860
2861
2862https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/peace_initiatives
2863	Confronted with the British inquiry, Richard von Kühlmann (1873-1948), Germany’s recently installed foreign secretary, decided to act. He did so because of rising peace sentiment in Germany among the liberal and socialist parties; concern that the Austrians, then in the midst of the Armand-Revertera conversations, might pursue a separate peace of their own; and a belief that Britain wanted out of the war, even if it meant making major concessions to the Germans. On 11 September, German leaders agreed marginally to scale back the economic and strategic guarantees they wanted in Belgium, especially by giving up the German navy’s demands for permanent bases along the Flanders coastline. This stance gave Kühlmann something to offer the British; he proceeded to send a version of the new German position to the Spanish minister in Brussels, the Marquis de Villalobar (1864-1926), for transmission to London. Villalobar told his own superiors, who notified the British ambassador in Madrid that high-level German officials were interested in peace communications – a more ambiguous message than Kühlmann intended.
2864
2865
2866Kullman involved in peace efforts before
2867
2868as far as I can tell, they never expressed agreement for "peace without annexations or indemnities"
2869
2870
2871https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottokar_Czernin
2872	At a conference between Germany and Austria-Hungary on 17–18 March 1917 on the goals of the war, he suggested inter alia the cession of territory of the Central Powers to arrange a fast peace with the Entente. In his view, the declaration of war by the United States was a disaster and a victory for the Central Powers became improbable. More precisely, he suggested that Germany should abandon Alsace-Lorraine and Belgium in return for large territorial gains in Poland. In Count von Czernin's scenario Austria-Hungary would be compensated with primarily Romanian territory.
2873
2874
2875apparently still wasting time with carving up territories at some point.
2876
2877
2878
2879doc 79 (11 November 5.10 a.m.) Still thinking of a peace deal that's not too harsh. Also something about secret agents in Petrograd.
2880
2881
2882Doc 81 interesting, says the Bolsheviks have brought instability, says there is a civil war as of 12 Nov 1917
2883
2884
2885Doc 82
2886
2887Kuhlmann tells Hertling Count Czernin's bid for peace would make Germany look weak
2888
2889Kühlmann is the guy involved in weak and ultimately unsuccessful peace efforts earlier (see: https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/peace_initiatives)
2890
2891according to wikipedia page, he was involved in making Armenian genocide worse
2892
2893
2894
2895
2896
2897------
2898
2899
2900https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor#CITEREFCecil1996
2901	Until the late 1950s, the Kaiser was depicted by most historians as a man of considerable influence. Partly that was a deception by German officials. For example, President Theodore Roosevelt believed the Kaiser was in control of German foreign policy because Hermann Speck von Sternburg, the German ambassador in Washington and a personal friend of Roosevelt, presented to the president messages from Chancellor von Bülow as messages from the Kaiser. Later historians downplayed his role, arguing that senior officials learned to work around him.
2902
2903
2904
2905------
2906
2907
2908http://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/paul-von-hindenburg
2909	Hindenburg participated in the intrigues that led to Bethmann’s dismissal in July 1917 and saw to it that the chancellor’s successors remained no more than figureheads. He accepted the increasingly unrealistic war aims of the militarists and nationalists. The shrewd common sense that had been a hallmark of his earlier career gave way to a passivity ironically replicating that of Wilhelm II.
2910
2911	...His appointment of Adolf Hitler as German chancellor in January 1933 gave the Nazi regime badly needed legitimacy. It thereby laid the groundwork for the destruction of the Germany Hindenburg loved after his fashion and served according to his best lights.
2912
2913
2914------
2915
2916https://books.google.com/books?id=Y4pLQ1jC1JIC&pg=PA474&lpg=PA474&dq=Bethmann+Hollweg+resignation&source=bl&ots=ikyOrvaw47&sig=zSRs_EpEsS15sH_KRbjyobWNyJ0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNz6mcr9rWAhWB5oMKHe6iDVg4ChDoAQgsMAI#v=onepage&q=Bethmann%20Hollweg%20resignation&f=false
2917	Count Czernin (1872-1932), the foreign minister, warned the German statesmen that Austria-Hungary would not be able to survive a fourth war winter. Unless peace was concluded within a few months, a revolution of the people would overthrow the monarchies. Even a bad peace wuld at least ave the social order. CCzernin cautioned the Germans that their own conditions were only slightly etter than those of Austria and that the tide was running against them.
2918
2919	Yet the Germans considered Czernin a frightened pessimist. Following the line of Ludendorff, Bethmann-Hollweg argued that time was now working for the Central Powers. When Count Czernin came to Germany in May 1917, nobody was willing to discuss with him methods for eaching a negotiated peace. Instead the Germans insited upon a discussion of the future of the Baltic and Balkan countries as well as of Russian Poland. All of them were to remain under the direct or indicrect control of the Central Powers, with Germany claiming the lion's share. Czernin, however, was not interested in annexations but in peace, and he informed Matthias Erzberger (1875-1921), a deputy of the German Reichstag, of his grave worries. Erzberger, a member of the Center party, had originally been a school teacher and represented a district of small peasants in South Wurttemberg. A clever, active, and versatile man, he had gained a reputation and won contacts with the government and with industrialists. During the war he had propagated a program of annexations and agitated for the opening of unrestricted submarine warfare. The government had sent him on occasional missions abroad.
2920
2921	But Erzberger was too soberly judicious not to recognize the shift in the military balance. In fact, in the summer of 1917 the Supreme Command itself began to indicate that the war could not be ended in 1917 and demanded from the government an intensive preparation of the people for the continuation of the war beyond the coming winter. These impressions changed Erzberger's political outlook, and he decided to act. In the first days of July the Social Democrats had urged the government to grant the equal franchise and make a public declaration on its wilingness to conclude a peace without annexations and contributions. On July 6 Erzberger made a speech in a closed session of the main committee of the Riechstag in which he proved that the assumptions and expectations which had led to the unrestricted submarine warfare were thoroughly mistaken. Although the German submarines had actually sunk more ships than had been considered possible, the Allies had not only British shipping but the whole world tonnage at their disposal. It was clear that the predictions made by the German navy chiefs, that England would be defeated before the harvest, had been utterly erogenous, and it was doubtful whether the submarine war could ever bring decisive results.
2922
2923	This sharp criticism of the government gave the justification for Erzberger's demand that the Reichstag should assume the leadership in a policy toward peace negotations through a public declaration on Germany's purely defensive war aims. Erzberger succeeded in rallyng the whole Center party into cooperation with the Progressives and Social Democrats for strengthening the position of the German parliament.
2924
2925
2926
2927http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=931
2928	Erich Ludendorff vs. Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (July 1917) 
2929
2930	As chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856-1921) was generally a voice of moderation, particularly after Paul von Hindenburg (1847-1936) and Erich Ludendorff (1865-1937) replaced Erich von Falkenhayn at the Supreme Command of the Army in the summer of 1916. Bethmann Hollweg's hopes for Woodrow Wilson's mediation at the end of 1916 came to nothing, and, over the chancellor's objections, Hindenburg and Ludendorff forced the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare in March 1917. Bethmann Hollweg remained in office until July, when the passage of the famous “Peace Resolution” forced his resignation and replacement by Georg Michaelis (1857-1936). Here, we see Ludendorff helping to force Bethmann’s resignation by appealing to the Kaiser. 
2931
2932	On the morning of July 6, Erzberger, the busybody member of the Center Party’s parliamentary faction, gave a speech in the Reichstag (Main Committee). He is to my mind a downright despicable product of partisan politics
2933
2934
2935saying the speech for peace was politically motivated?
2936
2937	
2938	but he has been raised to an important position not only by the most narrow-minded of his political friends, but also by the government itself. This speech could hardly be excelled in its cowardly retreat from all trace of energy to continue the war. He put forward a resolution in favor of a peace “without annexations, etc.” News of the resolution immediately got to General Ludendorff. I was at this very moment presenting a report to Ludendorff when Lieutenant Colonel Bauer, who had himself been informed by a member of parliament, dashed into the room. “Now it is high time for the Chancellor to go,” were his closing words.
2939
2940
2941why did they decide the peace resolution was a "high time" for Hollweg to go?
2942
2943
2944	In the train to Berlin, there were bright spirits over the prospect of the fight ahead. The plan for the campaign was set. The Chancellor must go, and General Ludendorff is going to give a brilliant speech in parliament, in which he “would expose the complete stupidity, in fact the criminality of this parliamentary cowardice.” [ . . . ]
2945
2946
2947In any case, Ludendorff planned some kind of campaign to bring down Hollweg
2948
2949
2950	Things in Berlin, however, proceeded much differently than we had assumed. The [ . . . ] Kaiser went first to Bethmann Hollweg, informed himself there and then gave short shrift to both top generals as soon as they appeared, so we returned dejected to Kreuznach on the evening of July 7.
2951
2952	The Field Marshall was deeply upset. He naturally found the whole business outrageous, while Ludendorff’s bitterness toward the Chancellor only grew.
2953
2954
2955So Kaiser gets in touch with Hollweg first, appears to side with him, Hindenberg (?) and Ludendorff upset by this.
2956
2957
2958	We were thus ordered by the Kaiser to remain in Kreuznach. There the consternation remained great. There was no way things could stay like this. [ . . . ]
2959
2960	General Ludendorff played his last trump against the Chancellor. He asked to be relieved of his position and – Hindenburg joined him. Whether or not they were serious does not matter. It happened. The Kaiser received news of it by telephone from Kreuznach (July 12). Very angry, he summoned both generals but saw himself compelled by the force of Bethmann Hollweg’s reasoning, to the effect that: “I cannot remain in power if the generals resign.” [ . . . ]
2961
2962
2963so Ludendorff and Hindenburg threaten to resign if Hollweg not deposed.
2964
2965Hollweg's own reasoning seems to have aided the Kaiser's decision.
2966
2967
2968
2969------
2970
2971
2972https://ww1live.wordpress.com/tag/karl-max-von-lichnowsky/
2973
2974
2975Are these the "famous Lichnowsky telegrams?"
2976
2977
297829/7/1914
2979
2980Lichnowsky sends a telegram summarizing a conversation with Grey saying England can't stay neutral in a conflict between Germany/Austria-Hungary and Russia/France if mediation fails.
2981
2982Meanwhile, Hollweg implies that Germany plans to invade Belgium.
2983
2984
29851/8/1914
2986
2987Tyrell, Grey's private secretary tells Lichnowsky that if Germany doesn't attack France Britain can remain neutral and guarantee French neutrality. Grey calls him to confirm. Lichnowsky sends this offer to Berlin. Berlin gladly accepts.
2988
2989They decide to mobilize German armies eastward, and Motlke is unhappy that Schlieffen plan not being followed.
2990
2991Grey wants to know about Germany's intentions for Belgium warning of "serious consequences" if Berlin doesn't provide assurances.
2992
2993Later in the evening they get another telegram saying Lichnowsky must have misunderstood Grey's comments and they made no guarantee of French neutrality or offer to stay neutral. Kaiser is furious and orders invasion on the West.
2994
2995
2996who was right? did Lichnowsky "misunderstand" Grey, or did Grey pull the rug out from under Berlin via Lichnowsky?
2997
2998
2999
3000https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Max,_Prince_Lichnowsky
3001	Between 23 and 30 July, Sazonov having declared that Russia would not tolerate an attack on Serbia, all attempts to mediate the crisis were rebuffed by Germany. In the meantime, Serbia had replied to the Austrian ultimatum and Berchtold was "content ... with the Serbian reply".
3002
3003	"On the 30th July, when Berchtold wanted to come to terms, we sent an ultimatum to Petrograd [Russia], merely because of the Russian mobilisation, although Austria was not attacked; and on the 31st July we declared war on Russia, although the Czar pledged his word that he would not order a man to march, as long as negotiations were proceeding – thus deliberately destroying the possibility of a peaceful settlement."
3004
3005this true?
3006
3007	...The pamphlet became a formative and primary source in the minds of all the allied politicians who arranged the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919.
3008
3009interesting that he wanted to blame Germany during the war. Whether he knew it or not he set-up Versaiiles.
3010
3011
3012not many people refer to "the Lichnowsky telegrams" like Hollweg does. Only thing google finds is this:
3013
3014https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-july-crisis-made-august-1914-looking-for-advice.385002/page-3
3015
3016
3017
3018https://archive.org/stream/revelationsofpri00lich/revelationsofpri00lich_djvu.txt
3019	In trying to explain what prompted Prince 
3020Lichnowsky to wite his memorandum for 
3021" the family archives," nearly all the Ger- 
3022man editors lay great stress upon his alleged 
3023personal vanity and his resentment at seeing 
3024his efforts toward strengthening the bonds 
3025between England and Germany made a grim 
3026joke by the outbreak of the world war. The 
3027
3028	Prince is also called a simple-minded person, 
3029completely taken in by the deceptive courtesy 
3030of the British diplomats and possessing none 
3031of the qualifications necessary to make him 
3032a profitable representative of the Kaiser at 
3033the Court of St. James's. All through the 
3034comments, from extreme Pan-German to so- 
3035cialistic, runs a vein of sarcastic criticism of 
3036the peculiar " ability " shown by the Ger- 
3037man Foreign Office in picking its Ambassa- 
3038dors. 
3039
3040
3041	All the Pan-German and annexationist 
3042papers take occasion to link up Prince Lich- 
3043nowsky with Dr. von Bethmann Hollweg, the 
3044former Imperial Chancellor, and make the 
3045latter responsible for the appointment of the 
3046" pacifist " Prince. In doing this they renew 
3047all their old charges of weakness and pacif- 
3048ism against the ex-Chancellor, and intimate 
3049that he may be the next German formerly 
3050occupying a high place in the Government to 
3051write memoranda for his family archives. 
3052Some of the papers did not wait to write 
3053regular editorials about the memorandum, 
3054
3055
3056https://books.google.com/books?id=DBwTBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA957&lpg=PA957&dq=%22Prince+Lichnowsky%22+socialism&source=bl&ots=5sqtKrqkc3&sig=aVjUX5W5SoJhMwm9nLjBx5OYgHM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwip1IHTytrWAhXGxYMKHapwApg4ChDoAQgxMAU#v=onepage&q=%22Prince%20Lichnowsky%22%20socialism&f=false
3057	In Lichnowsky's view, Britain would definitely support Russia nd France in any war defending Serbia against Austrian aggression. Jagow in particular, however, believed that LIchnowsky had been duped by the British. In August 1914 on the Britih declaration of war against Germany, Lichnowsky left his post, returned to Germany, and retired from the diplomatic service.
3058
3059	In a privately circulated pamphlet in 1916, Lichnowsky asserted that his efforts to prevent the outbreak of World War I had not been supported by the German government. This pamplet, published in January 1918 without his permission and widely distributed by the Allies, caused his expulsion from the Prussian upper house of parliament in April 1918.
3060
3061
3062
3063Edward Grey is sketchy.
3064
3065Maybe Lichnowsky was a good guy? or even both could have wanted to start war.
3066
3067
3068------
3069
3070pg 110 of his book:
3071
3072	We earnestly advocated in Vienna the acceptance of the mediation desired by Grey, and in spite of the strongest pressure had failed.
3073
3074
3075
3076then he blames England for not curbing Russian mobilization.
3077
3078	...The various English measures for mediation had always presented the aspect of pressure on Vienna, while pressure on St. Petersburg such as that which we had applied in Vienna was conspicuous by its absence. That is the real reason why our mediation proved in practice to be hopeless.
3079
3080
3081makes a lot of excuses. All Vienna had to do was not invade, Serbia agreed to most of the demands and the one not accepted could have been better served by international arbitration.
3082
3083
3084pg 128
3085
3086	...It would have been a heavy blow to the interests of our ally if we had participated in such an arbitration, as von Jagow rightly termed it, so long as Austria did not itself desire the interference of the Powers in its settlement with Serbia. We should only have been open to reproach if we had refused every offer of mediation. 
3087
3088
3089some kind of excuse for refusing mediation proposals
3090
3091
3092taylor book:
3093
3094	Lichnowsky’s dispatch reached the Wilhelmstrasse at about the same moment as a message from Vienna informing the German government that Austria would declare war on Serbia the next day, or at the latest on July 29. Thereupon Bethmann-Hollweg committed either an incredible blunder, or—as Albertini and some other historians believe—an act of almost equally incredible duplicity. Acting upon instructions from the Kaiser, he forwarded to Vienna Sir Edward Grey’s suggestion about German good offices, but on his own initiative he omitted a key passage in the message he had received from the German Embassy in London which stressed the seriousness of the British warning, and he failed to indicate any official German endorsement of the suggestion; he merely asked for the Austrian views about it. He even allowed his colleague, Jagow, to call in the Austrian Ambassador, and in effect to advise him that the Austrians should pay no attention to any British suggestions that Berlin might feel obliged, for the sake of the record, to forward.
3095
3096
3097sounds like Hollweg didn't like what Lichnowsky was saying about seriousness of the situation so he deleted that line. Wikipedia cites Fischer but Albertini sounds like a better source. Possibly, Lichnowsky was creating problems for their plans, which could be why press crucified him later.
3098
3099
3100-------
3101
3102
3103https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmermann_Telegram
3104	The proposal was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence. Revelation of the contents enraged American public opinion, especially after the German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann publicly admitted the telegram was genuine on March 3, and helped generate support for the United States declaration of war on Germany in April.
3105
3106
3107Arthur Zimmerman not doing Germany any favors
3108
3109
3110https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Zimmermann
3111	Arthur Zimmermann (5 October 1864 – 6 June 1940) was State Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the German Empire from 22 November 1916 until his resignation on 6 August 1917. His name is associated with the Zimmermann Telegram during World War I. However, he was closely involved in plans to support rebellions in Ireland and in India, and to assist the Bolsheviks to undermine Tsarist Russia.
3112
3113
3114right he shows up in the Bolshevik docs a lot
3115
3116
3117should look into later
3118
3119
3120point is it is weird that the same guys who started the war later sabotaged German's war efforts and helped the Bolsheviks.
3121
3122
3123------------
3124
3125
3126clio-deceieved
3127
3128
3129------------
3130
3131
3132
3133
3134https://www.jstor.org/stable/2538811?seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents
3135	...from June 1919 through the Third Reich, key elements of the German bureaucracy mounted a massive and successful campaign of disinformation that purveyed false propaganda through a wide range of channels. These included the War Guilt Section (Kriegsschuldreferat) of the Foreign Ministry, which disseminated its official stance on war guilt most notably through two agencies which it recruited to this end--the Working Committee of German Associations (Arbeitsausschsuss Duetscher Verbande) annd the Center fo the Stady of the Causes of the War (Zetralstell zue ERforschung der Kiregsculdfrage)--as well as a parlimentary Comittee of Enquiery (Untersuchungsausschuss). Writers were also engaged either directly or indirectly by the Foreign Ministry to propogate its views, to organize translations of foreign studies sympathetic to the German cause, and to channel the Whilhelmstrasse's official line to German schools and dimplomatic missions via newspapers and radio.
3136
3137
3138Writers "engaged either directly or indirectly by the Foreign Ministry"--what does that mean? Reminds me of Hollweg and I think others in the foreign ministry speaking as if they could plant stories in the press at will. Would be good to know which journalists they were in contact with.
3139
3140
3141	...By selectively editing documentary collections, suppressing honest scholarship, subsidizing pseudo-scholarship, underwriting mass propaganda, and overseeing the export of this propaganda especially to Britain, France, and the United States, the patriotic self-censors in Berlin exerted a powerful influence on public and elite opinion in Germany and, to a lesser extent, outside Germany.
3142
3143
3144So they would also send propaganda abroad.
3145
3146	
3147	Their efforts polluted historical understanding both at home and abroad well into the post-1945 period. Indeed, the acrimonious debate since 1983 concerning the originality of Kurt Riezler's diaries especially during the critical July crisis is but the most outward symptom of this ongoing historical conundrum.
3148
3149
3150Is he trying to say German propagandists are still at it to this day? who does he think is paying them?
3151
3152there were some oddities with Reizler's diary, like that Fritz Stern was somehow the only other person in the world with a copy and some of the things he wrote seemed off.
3153
3154
3155	The significance of the campaign of official and semi-official obfuscation and perversion of fact extends well beyond the history of Germany or the origins of the Great War. It raises basic questions concerning the role of the historian in society, scholarly integrity, decency, ad public morality. It further illustrates the universal problem of establishing the critical record of events that are sufficiently vital to the national interest to become the objects of partisan propaganda. What is the present generation, for example, to make of the collective and concerted efforts of eminent German scholars purposefully to distort their countrymen's study of history and sociology of knowledge? Does a perverse law operate whereby those events that are most important are hardest to understand because they attract the greatest attention from mythmakers and charlatans? And is a nation well-served when its intellectual establishment conspires to obstruct honest investigation into national catastrophes, upon which past, present, and future vital national interests can be reassessed? The far-reaching effects of the resulting disinformation are incalculable.
3156
3157
3158"is a nation well-served when its intellectual establishment conspires to obstruct honest investigation into national catastrophes, upon which past, present, and future vital national interests can be reassessed?" the answer is no, and maybe that was the idea...
3159
3160	
3161	Several other, related issues require to be addressed tangentially. Nazi expansionism clearly fed upon the fertile intellectual basis laid down for it by the patriotic self-censors in the 1920s. In other words, Adolf Hitler's radical "revisionism" was already well-rooted in public and elite opinion under the Wiemar Republic.
3162
3163
3164German ww1-guilt propaganda helped give rise to Nazis.
3165
3166
3167goes on to say Jagow and Zimmermann sent out the first war-guilt propaganda
3168
3169
3170	only the Independent Socialists (USPD) demanded that Germany reveal the truth concerning the origins of the war, regardless of where the blame lay.
3171
3172
3173interesting--any back and forth going on here? would be interesting to see if the "german propagandists" and socialists were helping each other out.
3174
3175
3176	On November 21, 1918, Kurt Eisner, Minister-President of the revolutionary government in Bavaria, instructed his envoy in Berlin to press the Provisional Government of Friedrich Ebert to publish all documents pertinent to the outbreak of the war. Two days later, Eisner provided Munich newspapers with excerpts from the reports of the Bavarian plenipotentiary at Berlin in July/August 1914 to show that the war had been orchestrated by what Eisner termed "a small horde of mad Prussian military" me as well as "allied" industrialists, capitalists, politicians, and princes. 
3177
3178
3179whats up with that
3180
3181later, says Bernhard W. von Bulow was cheif of "general staff" of the War Guilt Section of the Foreign Minstry. Was assigned to this post by Brockdorff-Rantzau. Matthias Erzberger also favored Bulow's appointment. Bulow was the chancellor of Germany before Hollweg and was ambassador to Italy during the war.
3182
3183some were worried about "Kautsky documents" Karl Kautsky was a guy tasked by socialists in the provisional government to find docs about what German politicians did to start the war.
3184
3185So right away they start a socialist vs proto-fascist fight.
3186
3187
3188	...Bulow's most immediate task in 1919 was to do the spade work for the upcoming "negotiations" with the victorious Allies in Paris. An ardent nationalist and zealous bureacrat, Bulow began to comb the recently published Soviet documents concerning the Tsar's foreign policy before July 1914 for incriminating materials that could bee used against the Allies at Paris, and next studied and published critiques of the various "colored books" put out by Belgium, Britain, France, and Rumania to show that they were incomplete and inaccurate. Yet his greatest task was to prepare the case against the Allied charge that Germany (and Austria-Hungary) was solely responsible for the Great War, and the accompanying demand for the surrender and trial of major "war criminals" (later, Article 228 of the Versaiiles treaty)--a demand that threated to reach into the very chambers of the Wilhelmstreasse.
3189
3190
3191seems like Bulow did a bad job of negotiating for Germany at Versailles.
3192
3193Bulow was also chancellor for awhile and iirc involved in prolonging war and helping install Lenin
3194
3195actually not sure how Bulow was involved, thought I saw his name come up, maybe worth looking into further.
3196
3197
3198	On January 7, 1919, Erzberger convened a special meeting with representatives of the Foreign Office and the erstwhile Supreme Command of the Army (O.H.L.). It was decided that Bulow would undertake research in the diplomatic records on the issue of war guilt; Major Bodo von Harbou, a former assistant to General Erich Lundendorff, was entrusted with similar work in the military records. ...Morever, the Office's head, Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, the former German ambassadr to the United States, asked Jagow, who had been Foreign Secretary in 1914, to prepare the pivotal position paper on the July crisis--along with the former head of his political secion, Wilhelm von Stumm.
3199
3200
3201I wouldn't trust these guys for the job... wasn't Jagow involved in starting/prolonging the war too? would be a conflict of interest. Burlow was also in with the Foreign Ministry at the time.
3202
3203	pg 12
3204
3205	Bulow, who had gone to assist Brockdorff-Rantzau at Paris, was of course fully aware of the delicate nature of his task. As he returned official diplomatic records to Berlin, he instructed the later head of the Kriegschuldreferat, Hans Freytag, to lock them up in a special safe so taht "in case the entente should demand them"--as they apparently intended to reserve the right to do (later, rticle 230 of the Versailles treat)--"they can be got out of the way easily."
3206
3207
3208Bulow working for Brockdorff-Rantzau, conspiring to get documents on German gov war gult "out of the way easily
3209"
3210
3211	And in assembling his documents, Bulow might well have been aware of Fouche's *bon mot* cited at the beginning of this article the legation secretary in an uncharacteristically candid moment informed Freytag that "any nation can be charged successfully" on the basis of its documents; "I would undertake 'to prove' conclusively from the archives of any nation that it, and it alone, is responsible for the war--or for whatever else you like." In keeping with this spirit of selection, Bulow divided the documents that he assembled into two categories, marked "defense" and "offense."
3212
3213
3214Kindof sets the tone for the "war guilt" debates to follow--I guess nationalists spent their time blaming other countries while socialists saw this and decided to blame their own governments.
3215
3216
3217	...The immediate result of these efforts was the "proessor's memorandum" of May 27, 1919. Submitted to the Allies by Hans Delbruck, Max von Montgelas, Albrecht Mendelssoh-Bartholdy, and Max Weber, all members of the Heidelberg Associatin for a Policy of Justice, the document asserted that Germany in 1914 had conducted a "defensive war against Tsarism," "the most dreadful system of enslavement . . . ever devised befor the present peace treaty." ...most likely, it was also penned by Bulow, well before the professors ever arrived at Paris. ...Weber in his heart of hearts at least knew better, and privately confessed to Delbruck that he "shuddered" at the thought of "what might be in our documents."
3218
3219
3220They come up with a heap of bullshit to present to versailles and have some professors sign-off on it.
3221
3222pg 13
3223
3224	The crisis situation in this respect reached a fever pitch on two occasions: May 7, 1919, when the Allies handed the Germans the text of the proposed peace accord; and June 16, 1919, when Premier Geroges Clemenceau presented Berlin with an ultimatum either to accept the offered terms or to renew the fighting. The Germans reacted on May 28 by submitting to the Allies a second *White ook, which Brockdorff-Rantzau concurrently released for publication; its core was the famous professors' memorandum previously mentioned. Of course, these German efforts at "revision," as the campaign to overturn war-guilt charges was now labeled, had virtually no effect on the Allies. The Reich had no choice but to accept the Diktak on June 28, 1919.
3225
3226
3227Brockdorff-Rantzau inolved a lot in the negotiations for Versailles? maybe worth looking into more.
3228
3229The versailles terms were ridciulous--the campaign to force Germany to accept them is also suspicious, iirc Foch was involved. Basicially forced it on them and set things up to piss off Germany and give rise to the Nazis.
3230
3231
3232pg 13
3233
3234	The editors for the project--initially estimated to run for four months and to three volumes--preferably would have to be "respectable" scholars not immediately attached to the Foreign Ministry. ...Thime and Lepsius were paid 2,000 Mark per month and provided with research and technical staff by the Foreign Ministry. In time, Thimme became managing editor of the mammoth project. The Wilhelmstrasse, for its part, not only directed the three editors on how to prepare the materials for publication, but also attached to them a special supervisor who was to evaluate possible public reaction to the documents selected for publication. Its War Guilt Section exercised final veto power over all volumes. The Foreign Ministry officially treated the documentary project as "secret" and "confidential" in order to camouflage its involvement therein.
3235
3236
3237sounds like they couldn't shake the Foreign Ministry being involved
3238
3239
3240pg 15 says the got Foreign Office docs in "Die Grosse Politik," but were missing docs from the General Staff, the War Ministry, the Navy Office, and "the bureaus responsible for economic preparations for the war." General Staff and War Ministry files were "almost totally destroyed" during the war.
3241
3242This could be very interesting--what would files from other agencies say about Germany's war guilt? The foreign ministry docs make them look totally guilty, but other docs like the Nicky-Willy telegrams paint a more nuanced picture. Burtsev was the one to "uncover" those, and the story around them makes it sound like they weren't included in whatever this group produced.
3243
3244
3245	...Imanuel Geiss has shown with specific reference to the July 1914 crisis that the editors failed to include (perhaps destroyed) a number of utterly critical documents: the discussions on July 5 and 6 at Potsdam not only among German leaders but also with Austro-Hungarian representatives;
3246
3247
3248possibly whatever in there would have made them look ever worse...
3249
3250
3251	the detailed analysis of the Viennese ultimatum to Serbia, missing in Die Gross Politik but handed to the Baden plenipotentiary on July 2; virtually any and all talks held by the Chancellor of the State Secretary and Under Secretary of the Foreign Office with representatives of foreign powers in July 1914;
3252
3253
3254ditto for these--maybe would show collusion? who knows
3255
3256
3257	any and all contacts between Wilhelm II and his political as well as military leaders after the monarch's return from his northern cruise on July 27;
3258
3259
3260presumably Wilhelm was pissed, at least he was angry (I think during the cruise) according the Taylor
3261
3262
3263	and, last but not least, any and all notes pertaining to important telephone calls, telegraphs, or other verbal communications.
3264
3265
3266dunno what would be in these. I guess the call from Jagow about British mediation would be interesting.
3267
3268pg 17 -- interesting that Thimme was denied a doctorate for Die Grosse Politik but Alfred von Wegerer was.
3269
3270pg 18
3271
3272	...The widely acclaimed story that the Foreign Ministry marked several of its files "not to be shown to William Langer" may be apocryphal, but the case of Geroge Hallgarten is documented. In 1931, Hallgarten was denied access to the foreign relations records as his work might "compromise" Germany's "present or future interests in China." Refusing to take no for an answer, Hallgarten reapplied for permission to use official materials, and was finally let in. By chance, he was handed the files on German policy with regard to Delago Bay--files that Thimme had assured scholars did not exist. Moreover, upon returning after the Second Wolrd War to reexamine the dossiers on China that he had been given in the early 1930s, Hallgarten discoveered that potentially damaging documents had been removed before he was handed the materials, and later returned the their folders.
3273
3274
3275trying to deny certain people access?
3276
3277
3278	...After the publication of Die Grosse Politik, the Foreign Ministry sought to assure the widest ossible dissiemination of the series' findings, both at home and abroad. Legation Secretary Freytag of its War Guilt Section had suggested as early as December 1919 a massive propaganda campaign to propagate the official German position on war guilt, but Bulow did not deem the moment right as the indiscriminate use of propaganda during the First Wolrd War had rendered large segments of the populace skeptical of any government-directed information. Nevertheless, Freytag clung to his plan to make certain "that this propaganda never be allowed to die."
3279
3280
3281this might be worth looking into more--how obvious was their propaganda?
3282
3283	...the Foreign Ministry eventually decided to establish several independent bureaus under the umbrella of its Kreigshuldreferat. These eventually functioned on both an overt and a covert level; at the public level, they disseminated the official view on the origins of the war, while behind the scenes they sougt to promote those who followed the official line and to silence--indeed, eventually to hound out of office--those who put forth independent and/or unacceptable interpretations.
3284
3285
3286Foreign Ministry not doing Germany any favors.
3287
3288If active measures, what would their intention be? First guess was they wanted it to be believable enough for the right to buy it and obvious enough for the left/socialists to be angry at it.
3289
3290pg 19
3291
3292	...And while much of the nation gradually had gotten over the initial shock of the harsh terms handed down at Versailles, the Allied demand in January 1921 for reparations in the amount of 226 billion Mark, with annual payments over the next 42 years, once again came to the aid of the Foreign Ministry's "revisionist" endeavors.
3293
3294
3295remember a few incidents like this--like Poincare showing up to occupy the Rhuhr. Depending on their level of influence in allied countries, could keep having them act in ways to "remind" Germany of the shame of the war and Versailles and incubate the Nazis. Would be worth looking into these incidents in more detail.
3296
3297
3298	The "general staff" remained the War Guilt Section of the Foreign Ministry. It was headed by Hans Freytag in 1919-20, Professor Richard von Delbruck in 1921-22, and Friedrich Stieve from 1922 until 1928. The bureau made the basic decisions as to wich publications crtitical of the official German line were to be attacked, by whom, and in which journals; or whether they were to be ignored.
3299
3300
3301Should look into these guys later.
3302
3303
3304pg 20
3305
3306	The Kriegsschuldreferat was also active in attempting to influence the publication of archival materials in other countries. In 1924, Stieve produced a four-volume collection of the reports of the erstwhile Russian Ambassador in Paris, A. P Izolvsky, designed to show that these two entente powers had nurted "imperialistic war aims" against Germany. The core of the publication consisted of 500 secret documents, purchased by the Wilhelmstreasse for 48,000 Mark--in reality, a bribe paid to the archivist of the Soviet embassy at Paris to smuggle the materials out.
3307
3308
3309paying-off Soviets so they could create propaganda about Izolvsky?
3310
3311pg 21 War Guilt Section founding intitutes like "Center for the Study of the Causes of the War" to spread propaganda
3312
3313pg 22
3314
3315	...Nor is it possible to gain any accurate insight into the number of idependent scholars and journalists engaged by the Wilhelmstrasse in a similar function. While Geiss speaks of a small army of such publicists, Heinemann tends toward a much smaller number. In the main, these writers were paid modest honorariums of perhaps seveeral hundred Mark in order to pen three of four articles per month for leading newspapers, which, in turn, passed them on to the provincial press. Most prominent among this group were the Munich journalist Hermann Lutz and the army's specialist on Belgium, Colonel Schwrtfeger; the latter was also paid by the Foreign Ministry to compile an eight-party guide to Die Grosse Politik for the nonprofessional reader One of the few foreign writers directly subsidized by the Wilhelmstrasse appears to have been Milos Boghitschewitsch, the former Serbian charge d'affaires to Germany, who wrote articles for the Foreign Office during the 1920s and who aparently was paid in that most rare of commodities at Berlin, gold.
3316
3317
3318buying off journalists for their campaign.
3319
3320
3321	It is striking that not a single eminent historian of the 1920s bothered to undertake serious research and publication on the origins of the war. I contrast to the post-1945 period, they left eh debate by default in the hands of the Foreign Ministry and its minions.
3322
3323
3324what's up with that?
3325
3326
3327	In the main, the member organizations were patriotic clubs such as Rettet die Ehre and the Duetsch Fraunasschuss zuer Bekampfung der Krigschuldiuge, but they also included the Caritias-Verband, the World council of Churces, and the German City League.
3328
3329
3330The world council of churches involved?
3331
3332
3333	It is estimated, for example, that in 1925 alone, the Working Committee conducted 1,456 such undertakings in behalf of the reviionist campaign. Moreover, it effectively penetrated the daily press, maintaining contacts to no less than 1,500 newspapers through the 35 major news agencies in Berlin.
3334
3335
3336I wonder how many of these "press contacts" ended up supporting the Nazis?
3337
3338
3339pg 25 says World Council of Churches was aiding the "Foreign Ministry's campaign" around 1922. Since when did it become a KGB front? earliest I can find in Sword and Shield is 1961
3340
3341pg 26
3342
3343	As previously noted, Wegerer had been sent to the United States in 1925 to assist te Senate in a possible documentary series on the origins of the war; he also used the occasion to contact eminent historians such as Sidney B. Fay, Bernadotte E. Schmitt, William Langer, Carlton J. Hayes, and Ferdinand Schhevill. The immediate upshot was that the Foreign Ministry purchased 250 copies of Fay's sympathetic two-volume *The Origins of the War* and had its diplomatic represenatvie overseas dsitribute the books free of charge.
3344
3345
3346so they had some agents in the U.S., elsewhere overseas
3347
3348
3349	...It is impossible to pinpoint the effect of this propaganda, either in Germany or overseas. Needless to say, the cumulative effect of ten years of continuous activity in this area must have taken its toll. Several German states, such as Baden Bavaria, Sachen-Anhalt, Wurttemberg, and Waldeck, openly adopte ADV materials for classroom instruction. ...The DV, for its part, routinely organized talks at high schools and seminars at universities on the issue of the "war-guilt lie," and this moilization especially of the youth could only have paved the way for their favorable reception of Adolf Hitler's "revisionist ideas."
3350
3351
3352brainwashed a generation
3353
3354
3355	Likewise, the oversseas distribution of materials combting Article 231 of the Versailles treaty must have had its effects, however imprecise they may be to define. At least one generation of university students was raised on the apologias presentd them by historians such as Siney B. Fay and Harry E. Barnes in the United States, and writers such as Edmund Morel in England as wella s Victor Marguiritte and Alfred Fabre-luce in France. This pollution of American, British, and French historical understanding of the origins of the Great War must have helped to undermine faith in the need to maintain the irenic clauses of the 1919 treaty. It remains an open question whether it also contributed to isolationism in the United States and pro-appeasement thinking in England in the 1930s.
3356
3357
3358interesting--propaganda campaign actually successful overseas? maybe at least enough to make appeasement tenable. Seems like most of the propaganda now is saying Germany is entirely to blame for the war, e.g. Sally Marks saying Versailles "not tough enough"
3359
3360	
3361	...The activities of both the Center for the Study of the Cause of the War and the Working Committee of German Associations lost much of their impact and political value after January 1933. Celebrating the fourth anniversary of his appointment as Chancellor, Hitler on January 30, 1937 informed the Reichstag that he was officially "revoking" the German signature on the document wherein a "weak government" had been "pressed" to accept Germany's guilt for the First World War. Therewith, the semi-official revisionist campaign was stripped of its reason to exist--or, more precisely, it was subsumed by the state.
3362
3363
3364Hitler came into power 1933 along with a shift in their propaganda
3365
3366
3367	pg 28
3368
3369	...Furthermore, while the second World War for many non-German scholars merely served once more to "prove" Berlin's responsibility for the First, the tone in what emerged as teh Federal Republic of Germany (1949) was set again by historians such as erdmann, Herzfeld, Ritter, Rothfels, and Zechlin, who now adopted the line that while Hitler (rather than Germany) was to blame for the Second World War, no such blame could be attributed to the First.
3370
3371
3372seen some of these names--was Erdmann the "other guy" with access to Reizler's diary? an "Erdmann" was named as such by Fritz Stern. Ritter is a name I've seen before. Ritter said the war wasn't Bethman-Hollweg's fault.
3373
3374	In reaching this stance, they seconded Wergerer, ignored Albertini, and vilified Fischer.
3375
3376
3377intersting they attack Fischer but ignore Albertini--Albertini strikes me as an honest man.
3378
3379
3380Herwig says there was also an investigation into the origins of the war by the Reichstag, independent of the foriegn ministry, although it became politicized. It did investigations but Hermann Goring dissolved it after August 30, 1932 and "ordered the dstruction of all available published volumes of its findings." Says "the combersome nature of the investigative process was due, in part, to the Foreign ministry's desire to keep documents tied up in committee and thus from public scrutiny for an indefinite period."
3381
3382
3383	pg 30
3384
3385	...The most sensational investigation was that of the second subcommittee, charged with evaluating the possibility of a negotiate peace in 1917-18. 
3386
3387
3388this is something I'd like to know... Herwig says Karl Helferich and Hindenburg were involved, but all they did is grandstand and blame socialists.
3389
3390	...Hindenurg ended is soliloquy by announcing hat the "good core" of the army, that is, its officer corps, could not be blamed for the defeat; rather, it had been "stabbed in the back" (von hinten erdolcth) by certain pacifist and socialist elements at the home front. Therewith, a legend was officially born, one that was to have fatal consequences for the Republic.
3391
3392
3393so Hindenburg started this?
3394
3395	Unsurprisingly, the patriotic self-censors in the Foreign Ministry barred publication of even a single volume of the findings of the second subcommittee for frear of adverse reaction both overseas and among the German clergy; further, they assured that even the upublished material would not see the light of day by indiscriminately stamping "secret" on 28 of the 37 folders of documents.
3396
3397	...The third subcommittee, dealing with possible German violations of international law, was most closely supervised by the Foreign Ministry, which provided as "expert" none other than Dr. Johhanees Kriege, the erstwhile head of the legal section of the Imperial Foreign Office. In fac, Kriege undertook numerous visits to the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II at Haus Doorn in the Netherlands, ostensibly to keep the empoeror informed of his efforts.
3398
3399
3400Foreign Minister continues to fuck everything up
3401
3402Kriege worth looking into?
3403
3404	pg 32
3405
3406	...The admittedly brutal deportation of Belgian workers was attributed solely to the inadequate organization of German transports. When the Belgian government formally protested these mental gymnastics at Berlin in 1927, the German military reacted by suggesting that the government buy up all remaining volumes of the findings of the third subcommittee and distribute them gratis at home.
3407
3408worth looking into--what exactly did they do in Belgium?
3409
3410
3411	...Whearas the Foreign Ministry had refused to hand over only potentially incriminating documents to the Untersuchungsausschuss, the army and navy between 1924 and 1928 proved adamant in their refusals to assist in any way the work of the fourth subcommittee dealing with the collapse in 1918. ...Major Otto von Stulpnagel of the Defense Ministry bluntly wanred that any opening of army archives would have "long-range consequences" for German policies not only domestically but also with regard to the Reich's "future world standing."
3412
3413
3414Army and Navy also acting sketchy.
3415
3416
3417	Hence it was decided that official affidavits on the stratgic ramifications of the  great spring offensive in France in 1918 would be handled by the former general staff cheif of Army Group Crown Prince Rupprecht, General Hermann von Kuhl, and on the politcal and military implications of "Operation Michael" by Colonel Schwertfeger, one of the Foreign Ministry's paid publicists; ...Kuhl, as was to be expected, reiterated Hinidenburg's brazen "stab-in-the back" theory, adn argued that the army had been quite prepared to continue the war into 1919--had it not been for the systematic revolutionary planning of the Socialists.
3418
3419
3420Have I seen the name Kuhl before? looks like they were trying to cover up the decision to continue the war
3421
3422
3423	Delbruck countered by arguing that General Erich Ludendorff's "total war" strategy, which had gambled all on a decisive military victory in 1918, had greivously overestimated German resolve as well as reosurces, and thereby had directly contributed to the collapse. By reversing the relationship between goals and means, Ludendorff had displayed a shocking degree of "unbridled egoism, megalomania, and a lack of responsibility." When Delbruck's statemetns found their way into the press in 1924, Schwertfeger, Colonel Wolfgan Foerster of the Reichsarchiv at Postdam, and the historian Hans Herzfedl viciously attacked Delbruck for his "unfounded, superficial, and misleading" interpretation. The so-called "Ludendorff controversy" reached its climax on November and December 1924, wheen the Cabinet twice agreed to sustain General Hans von Seeckt's veto of the planned publication of the findings of the fourth subcommittee for fear that this might harm "the moral fiber of the army."
3424
3425
3426did Ludendorff benefit from politicization?
3427
3428
3429pg 34
3430
3431	The most controversial investigation, of course, was that the first subcommittee, charged with assessing Germany's role in the July crisis. There, after all, was the heart of Article 231 of the Versailles treaty The Foreign Ministry was acutely sensitive to possible Allied charges that this committee was stacked with its minions, and hence the Wilhelmstrasse encouraged the Reichstag to engage "nuetral" experts. The choice fell upon the Munic publicist Hermann Lutz and the Freiburg jurist Hermann Kantorowicz. Despite the fact that Lutz was closely associated with the revisionist campaign conducted by the Foreign Ministry, his affidavit, completed in 1924, proved embarrassingly balanced. Lutz placed Serbia and Russia t the top of the list of those responsible for the war, closely followed by Austria-Hungary, and then by the rest of the parties involved. Lutz's evaluation of the Habsburg policy of brinkmanship in July 1914 at once drew the ire of fellow investigators Max von Montgelas and Richard von Delbruck, both itimately involved with the Foreign Ministry's revisionist endeavors. Indeed, the Wilhelmstrasse "encouraged" Lutz to "revise" his affidavit; in its second form, the Gutachten placed Vienna in a more favorable light. Nevertheless, the Foreign Ministry again used its veto power to delay publication of Lutz's affidavit for half a decade (until 1930).
3432
3433
3434Foreign Ministry shooting itself in the foot.
3435
3436
3437pg 35 Wilhelmstrasse attacked and tried to censor this guy Kantorowicz who investigated Germany's role in starting the war. He had blamed German politicians for ignoring peace efforts from other countries, and other things. Later he was one of the 25 professors dismissed by the Hitler regime.
3438
3439	...Kantorowic'z earlier work "The Spirit of English Policy and the Phantom of Germany's Encirclement," published in 1929, was among the books burned on the Nazi's pyre of ignorance in May 1933.
3440
3441
3442Seems like they exploited national pride in this case to get people to do stupid things. If their national pride is hurt and they can be convinced certain ideas or people are insulting their national pride, it's easier to get them to attack those people or ideas.
3443
3444
3445pg 36
3446
3447	...And as recently as February 1964, West Germany's Foreign Minister, Gerhard Schroder, acting up on the recommendations of Gerhard Ritter and Karl Deitrich Erdmann, formally rescinded Goethe Institute travel funds awarded Fritz Fischer for a planned lecture tour of the United States, a tour that Ritter equated with "a national tragedy."
3448
3449
3450probably only helping Fischer. I guess they were politicizing history, making it harder for people to figure out the truth.
3451
3452
3453	...Apparently, the Foreign Ministry was quite prepared once more to take on the role of patriotic self-censor. It was only through the efforts of a dozen American scholars, led by Klaus Epstein, that Fischer's visit came about. Ritter not only spoke of what he decried as Fischer's penchant for "political masochism," but poured out all his bitterness in a letter to Klaus Epstein's father, Fritz, a scholar also hounded out of German academia after 1933, by referring to Fischer as "an old Nazi, who had so quickly managed to convert to democracy" after 1945.
3454
3455
3456I think Mika would call this "a gift."
3457
3458It is interesting they attack Fischer like this but ignore Albertini, even though (I think Herwig said) Fischer mostly just re-introduced Albertini. It's worth looking into Fischer and Epstein more. Whatever Fischer's motivations, it looks like he caused a fight among historians.
3459
3460Do they use "divide and conquer" among historians and other professionals? If they can create a fight, they can drag otherwise well-meaning historians into it at well. Maybe Herwig himself was caught up in this around 1987.
3461
3462
3463pg 37
3464
3465	Memoirs and Historical Falsification
3466
3467	Last but not least, attention should be drawn to several attempts to suppress or to "revise" memoirs after the First World War. One of the most celebrated cases involved General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger. The former Chief of the General Staff had died in 1916, and his widow with the assistance of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, had prepared by the spring of 1919 a detailed memoir that promised to shed light on Moltke's role before and during the July crisis. Before the book could go to press, however, Eliza von Moltke was paid a visit by "certain persons" who advised her not to publish her husband's papers. Stiener, in turn, was informed by the Prussian envoy at Stuttgart, Legation Secretary Hans Adolf von Moltke (!), that "Berlin did not desire" General von Moltke's memoirs in print; an unnamed general, who had served both Wilhelm II and Moltke, also sought out Steiner to caution against publication of the book. These efforts were successful, and the Erinnerungen eventually put out by Eliza von Moltke in 1922 proved devoid of any information on the origins of the war. Moreover, Moltke's papers thereafter were so carefully "ordered" by self-appointed patriotic censors that, in the words of John Rohl, "they contain not a single document worth reading from the pre-War period."
3468
3469
3470This is interesting... not much information though. "Certain persons?"
3471
3472This could be out of character for the censors in post-WW1 Germany too. Didn't Ludendorff point to Moltke as one of the people to "stab Germany in the back?" If anybody stabbed Germany in the back it would be him. So you'd think they'd want his papers published.
3473
3474	The same is rumored about the papers of Field Marshal von Hindenburg, which allegedly were "ordered" by the late nationalist historian Walther Hubatsch; the Hindenburg family to date has refused to deposit them with the Federal Military Archive at Friedburg.
3475
3476
3477Still keeping this papers under wraps? at least as of 1987. Apparently, the Nazi conspiracy is still alive! Hitler must have all the papers in his secret base in Argentina.
3478
3479
3480	Three important collections of papers barely escaped destruction. Those of Admiral Georg Alexander von Muller, Chief of the Navy Cabinet to 1918, were earmarked for destruction upon the officer's death--an order fortunately not executed by this son, Sven. Yet when published by Walter Gorlitz after the Second World War, the diaries incredibly appeared in a "carefully expurgated version," although the authentic text is highly readable.
3481
3482
3483Worth checking out?
3484
3485
3486	Likewise, in the case of Kurt Reizler, Chancellor von Bethmann Holweg's intimus, the papers were slated for destruction. The conservative historian Hans Rothfels both during the Second World War and thereafter advised Rizler against publication in order not to repon the debate concerning the origins of the Great War. After Riezler's death in 1965, his brother destroyed what he termed "private" parts of the Nachlass, and neither the Foreign Office at Bonn nor the Federal Archive at Koblenz could persuade Walter Riezler to turn the papers over to them. It was only through the repeated pressures of historians both in Germany and abroad to secure the critical memoir that Reizler's sister, Mary White, eventually consented to publication. Not surprisingly, the Reizler materials were carefully "ordered" by Karl Dietrich Erdmann in book form; thereafter, they remained closed to scholars at the Bundesarchiv at Koblenz for another eight years. Upon becoming available, the very originality especially of Reizler's notes during the July crisis was challeneged in 1983.
3487
3488
3489I knew there was some weird shit going on with Reizler's notes.
3490
3491
3492	...A final curiosity is the case of Prince Philipp zu Eulenburg-Hertefeld. ...Eulenburg had entrusted his voluminous correspondence to Professor Johanes Haller
3493
3494
3495then Haller keeps finding excuses to delay publishing them, finally published in 1976.
3496
3497
3498	...It would be tedious to continue to list similar cases of suppression or revision of memoirs and diaries. Suffice it to say that these examples should provide an insight into the business of patriotic self-censorship during the Weimar Republic and thereafter. What has been entirely omitted in this article are the cases where editors were engaged to ghostwrite memoirs--such as those of Admirals Karl Donitz and Erich Raeder--in order to preclude public debate on vital issues of national interest.
3499
3500
3501It's weird that there's so much "patriotic self-censorship" so long after the war.
3502
3503
3504pg 40 -- talks about possible motivations
3505
3506	...In short, the high bureaucracy was not interested in personnel purges in 1919. Nor were the dominant Social Democrats. In fact, the SPD never demanded that the senior statesmen and diplomats of the empire be held accountable. The resulting irony was that the Republic'sCommittee of Enquiry, for example, relied for many of its "expert" affidavits upon the very men who had been in positions of power and responsibility in July 1914, men such as Gottleib von Jagow and Johanes Kreig. By failing to clean house in 1919, by failing to confront the matter of Germany's role in the origins of the First World War brutally and honestly, and, above all, by failing to chase the patriotic censors from their temples of influence, the first leaders of the Weimar Republic did their country a great disservice.
3507
3508
3509What's up with that?
3510
3511
3512	...Conversely, the patriotic censors with their campaign of obfuscation, delay, preemptive historiography, and mass propaganda made quite certain that the issue would never be allowed to die, as Hans Freytag had foreseen as early as 1919. Max Weber, despite his signature on the "professors' memorandum" of May 1919, in time came to lament this turn of events. "Every document that comes to light after decades," he sadly noted, "revives the undignified squabbling, the hatred and anger, instead of at least *decently* burying the war and its end."
3513
3514
3515	...Yet the war-guilt game was dangerous because, as Karl Kautsky had put it in 1919, it was "not only a scholarly question for historians," but "an eminently practical question for politicians." For the authors of the war, the answer to the question of who was responsible amounted to a "death sentence" as they surely would be "cast among the politically dead. . . , stripped of all power."
3516
3517
3518So a selfish-motivation was possible for war-guilt propaganda
3519
3520pg 42
3521
3522	In retrospect, the revisionist campaign conducted by men such as Bulow, Draeger, Freytag, Montgelas, Shucking, and Thimme, amont others, retarded critical appraisal of the origins of the war until the 1960s. A certain orthodoxy on the war-guilt issue developed; Europe, in the immortal words of David Lloyd Geroge, had simply "slid" into the war in 1914 with roughly equal amounts of ignorance and naivete. It simply cannot be stressed enough that by linking the war guilt issue very early on to the campaign to "revise" the Versailles treaty, the patriotic censors virtually precluded sober and rational investigation into the matter.
3523
3524
3525Versaille made arguing against war-guilt a matter of life-and-death for the country of Germany.
3526
3527It seems like all they had to do was show that their politicians acted against the will and best interests of the public and turn them over. The main argument against the Versailles treaty, as far as I can tell, is that the German people didn't ask for the war and didn't want the war--their politicians did. While they shcemed to keep the war going, Germans were protesting and got the Reichstag to call for a general peace. The argument is that you shouldn't punish a whole country of people for the actions of a few politicians who were acting against them in the first place.
3528
3529If they had actually been able to get out the truth about the origins of the war and had better representation at Versailles, they might have been able to argue that. But I guess the Foreign Ministry had other ideas.
3530
3531
3532	...Last but not least, both Bulow and Stresemann realized that the Wilhelmstrasse's campaign against Article 231 of the Versailles treaty also served a highly useful domestic purpose: the "national alibi" constituted a convenient integration factor by rallying the political spectrum from Vorwarts to Volkisher Beobachter, that is, from Social Democrat to National Socialist, round this one great patriotic issue.
3533
3534
3535Could be used to unite Germany, but also lead to a dangerous kind of nationalism...
3536
3537	An additional domestic benefit was that the vigorous persuance of "revisionism" on the part of the Wilhelmstrasse might take some of the thunder out of the charges of "defeatism" and "softness" constantly leveled against the Republic by its right-wing detractors over the issue of "fulfilment" of the Versailles treaty, and thereby benefit Sresemann's flexible and moderate revisionist diplomacy.
3538
3539	Unfortunately, the events of 1932-33 were to sshow that this national consensus was tenuous at best; the seamingly diametrically opposed poles of extreme nationalism and national inferiority (engendered by the war-guilt charge) were to be brutally but effectively exploited by the extreme right, the real "winners" of the revisionist campaign. In short, by delaying an open and honest discussion on the origins of the First World War for four decades, the self-censors did their party to bring about a political climate receptive to the radical "revisionist" ideas of Adolf Hitler and his supporters.
3540
3541	At the risk of belaboring the obvious, I will conclude this overview of how Clio was deceived in Germany by suggesting that the moral and institutional lessons to be learned have not lost any of their crispness and validity over the decades. It servers no national interest to obfuscate and derail intellectual inquiry. Miscalculated risks are rarely glossed over simply by selectively editing pertinent documents and by having paid publicists tout the desired line through government-controlled presses and publishers. "PPreemptive historiography" may succeed in the short run; over time, it is likely to be uncovered as the sham that it is. In the final analysis, it was nothing short of a tragedy that, in the words of Hermann Hesse, "90 or 100 prominent men" conspired in the supposed interests of the state "to deceive the people on this vital question of national interest." Nor was Hesse in doubt as to the effectiveness of the campaign of "patriotic self-censhorship," informing Thomas Mann in 1931 of his opinion that "of 1,000 Germans, even today 999 still know nothing of [our] war guilt." Little wonder, then, that Fritz Fischer's Griff nach der Wletmacht had such an explosive impact precisely thirty years later.