Balcony speeches
As a balcony speeches or balcony speeches refers to two short speeches of the German Emperor Wilhelm II. On July 31 (the first balcony speech) and August 1 (2nd balcony speech) in 1914 from the balcony above the portal IV of the Berlin City Palace at one in the Lustgarten gathered crowd.
The speeches took place during the so-called "mobilization crisis " in the last days of the July crisis immediately before the outbreak of the First World War , after the Austro-Serbian war had already started with the symbolic bombardment of Belgrade on July 29th and a German-Russian war immediately was imminent. The German ruler tells the population how the situation in Germany should be assessed from his point of view in view of the escalation of events, calls on the Germans to unity, willingness to make sacrifices and allegiance and threatens Germany's enemies with the "sword".
First balcony speech
In the first balcony speech, which Wilhelm gave on July 31st against the background of the Russian full mobilization, he opened a "difficult hour" for the people: "Envious people everywhere force us to just defend themselves", which is why the German people with the "sword in the Hand ”would have to defend himself if he did not succeed in getting the“ opponents to see at the last minute ”. He recommended his subjects to go to church and pray for the preservation of the peace and for “our good army” and declared that “stimulating Germany” and an attack on the German Reich would cost his opponents dearly.
Second balcony speech
Wilhelm gave the second balcony speech on the evening of August 1, 1914, on the occasion of the German declaration of war on Russia . This took place after the Russian Empire failed to comply with the ultimate German request to withdraw its general mobilization. It was the emperor's first war speech in the First World War. In it, the emperor took up his pathetic, richly pictorial diction from the previous day and thanked those gathered for their “love and loyalty” in the days of the diplomatic crisis. In view of the military involvement with foreign countries, he invoked national unity and granted his domestic opponents (i.e. the social democracy ) in a generous rhetorical gesture “forgiveness” for their attacks in the past. Finally he vowed in a solemn gesture that he knew “no parties and no more denominations”, instead “we [...] today are all German brothers and only German brothers”. He took up this formula in a modified form in his speech to the Reichstag on August 4, 1914, in which he announced: "I no longer know any political parties, I only know Germans". Finally, the emperor once again borrowed the language of chivalry to express his hope “to God” that “our good German sword will emerge victorious from this difficult battle”, if the neighbor does not want it otherwise and Germany does not grant peace .
Further speeches
The balcony speeches were followed on August 4 by the emperor's speech at the opening of the Reichstag (convened by ordinance of August 2, 1914) in the White Hall of the palace in front of the members of the parliament. In a personal follow-up to the speech from the throne preformulated by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg , Wilhelm II once again referred to the words of his address on the balcony of August 1 and repeated the call to the parties for a truce . Subsequently, he let the party leaders pledge allegiance to them and renounce party disputes during the war.
Wilhelm's last speech at the beginning of the war, entitled “To the German People”, was written and published on August 6, 1914 in the Reichsanzeiger . In January 1918 Wilhelm repeated the address for a record recording . From this appeal (not, as is sometimes wrongly assumed, from one of the actual balcony speeches) comes the famous saying of Kaiser Wilhelm II about the outbreak of war: “The sword must now decide. In the midst of peace we are attacked by the enemy. So on! to the weapons!"
swell
- War review. Contemporary compilation of important events for the World War, certificates, rallies, battle reports and time reports. Edited by the daily review. Vol. 1: From the causes of the war to around the end of 1914, Berlin 1915, p. 37.
- Goerd Peschken , Hans-Werner Klünner: The Berlin Castle. Classic Berlin . Propylaen, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-549-06652-X , p. 453.
Web links
- Wording of the balcony speeches of July 31 and August 1, 1914 ( Memento of December 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- Speech by Wilhelm II to the Reichstag (August 4, 1914)
- Appeal of Wilhelm II to the German People (August 6, 1914)
- Sound recording of the appeal of August 6, 1914 (subsequently set to music on January 10, 1918)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Georg Vorwerk: Language Lessons for an Emperor: The test recordings for the appeal of Kaiser Wilhelm II to the German people at the beginning of the First World War ( Memento from December 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (accompanying article to the Document of the Month November 2006 of the German Broadcasting Archive ).