Here we encounter two conflicting concepts with which we must come to grips in our time: the idea of national solidarity and the idea of international cooperation.

If one seeks to analyze experiences and reactions to the first postwar years, I hope one may say without being accused of bias that it is easier for the victor than for the vanquished to advocate peace.

In every man the memory of the struggles and the heroes of the past is alive. But these memories are not incompatible with the desire for peace in the future.

As a result of the World War, this old Germany collapsed. It collapsed in its constitution, in its social order, in its economic structure. Its thinking and feeling changed.

No change in the balance of political parties can alter the general determination that no class should be excluded from contributing to and sharing responsibility for the state.

During the past few years I have led a sometimes hard battle for German foreign policy.

As a consequence of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the officer corps of the old army became part of this class, as did that part of the younger generation who, in the old Germany, would have become officers or civil servants.