In this part, now, concepts should be treated that are of an extraordinary significance to our ‘neutrals’ and in whose name the protest against the Reich often occurred, in 1870 as well as in 1933. A protest behind which the entire Western world stood. And so finally it would become serious — and all comfort would cease — if the previous chapters had not already treated subjects that are related most closely to that which is now to be discussed — to such an extent that all the preceding observations should be read only in connection with those now following, for the understanding of which they prepared materials. In the name of ‘culture’ or ‘freedom’ did Nietzsche, Burckhardt, Overbeck and many others protest, openly or covertly, from Basel, against the Reich; the Dutch pamphleteers entered in the name of human culture when they wished to deal a proper blow to the Reich; the Scandinavian North of Georg Brandes, Ibsen, Björnson, Strindberg consciously or unconsciously derived its right to existence with regard to the Reich from the argument that it accomplishes something significant for European culture to a greater degree than the Reich does.
