Memory of the First World War and Political Objectives (1918–1939)

Document 1: Tomb of the Unknown Warrior in Westminster Abbey, London

Document 2

When the existence of the Empire was threatened in 1899 by the Boer War,* I offered my services to England, raised a volunteer ambulance corps and served at several military engagements . . . I received medals for my service. . . .

When the war broke out in 1914 between England and Germany, I raised a volunteer ambulance corps in London, staffed by Indians living in London at the time, chiefly students. Its work was acknowledged by the authorities to be valuable. Lastly, in India when a special appeal was made at the war conference in Delhi in 1918 by Lord Chelmsford for Indian recruits [to serve in the British armies in the war, I struggled at the cost of my health to raise a corps in Kheda until the very end of the war. . . . In all these efforts at service to Britain, I was motivated by the belief that it was possible by such services to gain a status of full equality in the Empire for my countrymen. . . .

But all that hope was shattered. I saw that Britain’s reforms in India . . . were only a method of further robbing India of her wealth and of prolonging her servitude. I came reluctantly to the conclusion that the British connection had made India more helpless than she ever was before, politically and economically.

*an armed conflict in southern Africa, which pitted the British colonial authorities against rebellious Boer (Dutch) settlers

The economy is of secondary importance. World history teaches us that no people became great through economic success alone: it was actually economics that brought them to their ruin. Nations die when their races disintegrate. Germany, too, did not become great through economics.

A nation that loses its honor becomes politically defenseless, and then becomes enslaved also in the economic sphere. With that in mind, we must call to account the criminals of November 1918.* It cannot be that two million Germans should have fallen in vain and that afterwards one should sit down as friends at the same table with traitors. No, we do not pardon, we demand vengeance!

The dishonoring of the nation must cease. For those who betrayed their Fatherland at Versailles, the gallows is the proper place. Our streets and squares shall once more bear the names of our heroes; they shall not be named after Jewish traitors. The administration of the state must be cleared of the rabble that is being fattened at the stall of the political parties and international finance. We must demand the disclosure of all secrets that now surround the signing of the peace treaty. With thoughts of love? No! But in holy hatred against the Jewish cabal and their enablers who have ruined us!

We demand the immediate expulsion of all Jews who have entered Germany since 1914, and of all those who have gained their wealth through trickery on the Stock Exchange or through other shady transactions.

*a reference to the so-called “stab-in-the-back” theory, which held that German soldiers had not lost the war, but had been betrayed by corrupt politicians and financiers eager to accept defeat