Friedrich von Bernhardi

Friedrich Adam Julius von Bernhardi (22 November 1849 – 11 July 1930) was a Prussian general and military historian.

Quotes

The statesman who wishes to learn from history should above all things recognize this one fact—that success is necessary to gain influence over the masses, and that this influence can only be obtained by continually appealing to the national imagination and enlisting its interest in great universal ideas and great national ambitions. Such a policy is also the best school in which to educate a nation to great military achievements. When their spirits are turned towards high aims they feel themselves compelled to contemplate war bravely, and to prepare their minds to it...We may learn something from Japan on this head. Her eyes were fixed on the loftiest aims; she did not shrink from laying the most onerous duties on the people, but she understood how to fill the soul of the whole people with enthusiasm for her great ideals, and thus a nation of warriors was educated which supplied the best conceivable material for the army, and was ready for the greatest sacrifices. We Germans have a far greater and more urgent duty towards civilization to perform than the Great Asiatic Power. We, like the Japanese, can only fulfil it by the sword.
- Germany and the Next War, translated by Allen H. Powles (1912) ch. 13

Political morality differs from individual morality, because there is no power above the state.
- Translation quoted as the epigraph of "The Searchlights" by Alfred Noyes, in Collected Poems (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1920) vol. 3, p. 5