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in politics and above all not to put the army in the position of being
responsible for a coup d'etat, let alone a revolution. Accordingly,
what will happen is this. The army will wait until the time shall come
when in
some way or other trouble arises that calls for intervention. Such
trouble is not far off, perhaps a year off, perhaps lO, but not longer.
Then, the army, being in duty bound to intervene, will put back into
power throughout the country the old fashioned, efficient, highly
educated, well trained kind of civil servants, and there will be a
return to honesty and decency in national life.
 
 
 It is a striking fact that nobody in Germany expressed such an opinion
as this. I may perhaps comment on it to this extent. Some of the
elements out of which the theory is constructed are obviously true and
correspond to relatively permanent factors in Germany, but the
combination, especially in the more elaborate form in which it was
stated to me, is far too elaborate to satisfy me, at least.
 
 
                       * * * * * * *                        
 
 
Having now set down, so far as I can remember them, the more
significant things said to me while I was in Germany, I shall try to
draw a
few conclusions.
 
 
 I am satisfied that there is a deep cleavage in Germany, and that
on the whole there are relatively few people (relatively, that is to
say,
to the numbers in England or the United States) who are neither
ardently favorable to the government nor ardently hostile. I think
there can be little doubt that for a clear majority the question of
where they stand politically is as important as any other question. In
other words, the cleavage is real and it is significant day in and day
out for most poople, and constantly