# "Hymn of Hate" -- Why did the Germans (in 1914) hate England so much? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 7, 2011, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515 "2011-04-07T13:43:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/1 "2011-04-07T13:43:21Z")
[Ernst Lissauer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Lissauer) wrote [the following](http://www.hschamberlain.net/kriegsaufsaetze/hassgesang.html) at the outbreak of WWI. It got him a medal from the Kaiser. > [@](#): > > French and Russian, they matter not, > A blow for a blow and a shot for a shot! > We love them not, we hate them not, > We hold the Weichsel and Vosges gate. > We have but one and only hate, > We love as one, we hate as one, > We have one foe and one alone. > He is known to you all, he is known to you all, > He crouches behind the dark gray flood, > Full of envy, of rage, of craft, of gall, > Cut off by waves that are thicker than blood. > Come, let us stand at the Judgment Place, > An oath to swear to, face to face, > An oath of bronze no wind can shake, > An oath for our sons and their sons to take. > Come, hear the word, repeat the word, > Throughout the Fatherland make it heard. > We will never forego our hate, > We have all but a single hate, > We love as one, we hate as one, > We have one foe and one alone — > > _ENGLAND!_ Why **was** that? Why did German patriots/nationalists of the time hate England so particularly? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/2 "2011-04-07T14:14:32Z")
Because they could beat the French and the Russians. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/3 "2011-04-07T14:50:11Z")
Because the great German race was inferior to Britain when it came to wealth, navy and empire. They had only recently caught up in industry and the Kaiser wanted a free hand in Europe as the obvious dominant nation on the continent. England said no. Or. It’s just a song and there are probably anti Russian and French songs too. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/4 "2011-04-07T15:16:23Z")
Family arguments are the worst. Also, England was interfering in a continental dispute, where they had no legitimate interest. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/5 "2011-04-07T15:35:14Z")
Lissauer was kind of carried away by the whole declaration of war thing. He sort of apologized for it a year later when it became controversial. But basically, he blamed England for getting involved. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/6 "2011-04-07T15:35:41Z")
Bwuh? Britain is 40 miles from the continent. Anyway, given how interconnected the great powers of Europe have always been, it’s hard to imagine how they could not have had an interest. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/7 "2011-04-07T15:39:42Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Family arguments are the worst. Yeah, the Kaiser, the Tsar and the King of England were all first cousins (through their grandmother Queen Victoria). What happened to the idea that dynastic marriages are supposed to **prevent** wars? ---
**Author:** ![kingpengvin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9dc877/32.png) [@kingpengvin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingpengvin)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/8 "2011-04-07T16:28:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yeah, the Kaiser, the Tsar and the King of England were all first cousins (through their grandmother Queen Victoria). What happened to the idea that dynastic marriages are supposed to **prevent** wars? With **that** War? The same thing that happened with all the other ideas to prevent wars, such as Alliances, Arms races, and neutral buffer states. Funny thing is you can use all those things to be a catalyst of war too especially when you mix in ubernationalism, grudges, and good old fashioned hatred. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/9 "2011-04-07T16:34:37Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > Also, England was interfering in a continental dispute, where they had no legitimate interest. Except for that “scrap of paper” . . . ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/10 "2011-04-07T17:02:17Z")
There was considerable [anti-German feeling in Britain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-German_sentiment) well before the outbreak of WWI, for reasons including increasing German economic might, military buildup and the suggestion that Germany supported the Boers in South Africa (i.e. the Kruger Letter). _" The Saturday Review (London) suggested “be ready to fight Germany, as Germania est delenda” (Germany needs to be destroyed)…"_ There were (not all that unjustified) war scares in England in the years leading up to WWI. _“In 1894 Alfred Harmsworth had commissioned author William Le Queux to write the serial novel The Great War in England in 1897, which featured Germany, France and Russia combining forces to crush Britain. Twelve years later Harmsworth asked him to repeat this, promising the full support of his formidable advertising capabilities. The result was the bestselling The Invasion of 1910 which originally appeared in serial form in the Daily Mail in 1906 and has been referred to by historians as inducing an atmosphere of paranoia, mass hysteria and Germanophobia that would climax in the Naval Scare of 1908-09.”_ And of course caricatures of “the Hun” as a murderous beast became popular in England after the war started (again, not entirely unjustified considering atrocities committed by the Germans in Belgium). So hate of an almost cartoonish quality was not unique to Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/11 "2011-04-07T19:03:44Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Bwuh? Britain is 40 miles from the continent. Anyway, given how interconnected the great powers of Europe have always been, it’s hard to imagine how they could not have had an interest. Historically England sure avoided Continental entanglements when it suited her. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/12 "2011-04-07T19:17:19Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Historically England sure avoided Continental entanglements when it suited her. Or him, as it were. Yes, a gentleman always knows how to slip out of an entanglement . . . 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/13 "2011-04-07T20:54:32Z")
Britain’s strategy had always been to avoid a Continental commitment and fight European war by proxy by financing coalitions. If one coalition was defeated it was always possible to assemble another. The Navy was, rightly, seen as the first defence of the home islands and the means of imposing Britain’s will on anyone else, and a large conscript army on the European model was neither necessary nor desirable. As late as July Asquith was still expecting that Britain would be able to stand aside from the coming European war. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/14 "2011-04-08T00:52:39Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > There was considerable [anti-German feeling in Britain](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-German_sentiment) well before the outbreak of WWI, for reasons including increasing German economic might, military buildup and the suggestion that Germany supported the Boers in South Africa (i.e. the Kruger Letter). > > _" The Saturday Review (London) suggested “be ready to fight Germany, as Germania est delenda” (Germany needs to be destroyed)…"_ > > There were (not all that unjustified) war scares in England in the years leading up to WWI. > > _“In 1894 Alfred Harmsworth had commissioned author William Le Queux to write the serial novel The Great War in England in 1897, which featured Germany, France and Russia combining forces to crush Britain. Twelve years later Harmsworth asked him to repeat this, promising the full support of his formidable advertising capabilities. The result was the bestselling The Invasion of 1910 which originally appeared in serial form in the Daily Mail in 1906 and has been referred to by historians as inducing an atmosphere of paranoia, mass hysteria and Germanophobia that would climax in the Naval Scare of 1908-09.”_ And these books were latecomers in the genre. “huns attack England” had been a theme in British popular literature of the time. Invasion was a common theme. War of the Worlds was actually an offshoot of that branch of books. Even before these ‘invasion’ themes you could see the change in England. Prior to the Franco-Prussian war the foreign antagonists in popular books were almost always French (even though the two nations were allies in the Crimean War). Afterwards they trended quickly to become Germans. > [@](#): > > And of course caricatures of “the Hun” as a murderous beast became popular in England after the war started (again, not entirely unjustified considering atrocities committed by the Germans in Belgium). > > So hate of an almost cartoonish quality was not unique to Germany. England is also the nation that worked so hard diplomatically to isolate Germany from any potential allies in the hopes that the thought of facing almost all of the rest of Europe would keep them at bay. That didn’t work out so well. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/15 "2011-04-08T04:48:38Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Yeah, the Kaiser, the Tsar and the King of England were all first cousins (through their grandmother Queen Victoria). What happened to the idea that dynastic marriages are supposed to **prevent** wars? George V was [Tsar Nicholas’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_II_of_Russia#Family_background) first cousin, but it was through the Danish connexion, not Queen Victoria. The Tsar’s mother, Dagmar of Denmark, was the sister of Alexandra of Denmark, who married King Edward VII. The Tsarina Alexandra was also first cousin to George V, but that was via Victoria. Alexandra’s mother, Princess Alice, was a daughter of Queen Victoria. Nicholas and the Kaiser were not first cousins, but second cousins, once removed, via descent from Frederick William III, King of Prussia. > [@](#): > > Nicholas, his wife Alexandra, and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany were all first cousins of King George V of the United Kingdom. > > Nicholas’ mother, the Empress Marie, born Princess Dagmar of Denmark, was the sister of Queen Alexandra, the consort of Edward VII, and the mother of George V. The Empress Alexandra was the daughter of Princess Alice, herself a daughter of Queen Victoria, thus making Edward VII her uncle, and cousin to the Emperor Wilhelm, on her mother’s side; and equally a direct descendant of Queen Victoria. The Emperor Wilhelm was a son of Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, also named Victoria, who married Crown Prince Frederick of Germany. Nicholas and Wilhelm were not each other’s first cousin, but they were second cousins, once removed, as each descended from Frederick William III, King of Prussia, as well as third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandsons of Tsar Paul I of Russia. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/16 "2011-04-08T15:55:45Z")
Prior to the start of the war I believe the Germans generally liked and respected England (especially the Kaiser). War can turn that around in a hurry, however. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/17 "2011-04-08T16:30:44Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > George V was [Tsar Nicholas’s](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_II_of_Russia#Family_background) first cousin, but it was through the Danish connexion, not Queen Victoria. The Tsar’s mother, Dagmar of Denmark, was the sister of Alexandra of Denmark, who married King Edward VII. > > The Tsarina Alexandra was also first cousin to George V, but that was via Victoria. Alexandra’s mother, Princess Alice, was a daughter of Queen Victoria. > > Nicholas and the Kaiser were not first cousins, but second cousins, once removed, via descent from Frederick William III, King of Prussia. Ignorance fought. Boy, are there any two royals in Europe who **aren’t** at least cousins to some degree?! It’s like there’s this one big extended Royal Family of Christendom. Even extends, or did, to Orthodox Christendom. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/18 "2011-04-08T17:11:16Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Prior to the start of the war I believe the Germans generally liked and respected England (especially the Kaiser). War can turn that around in a hurry, however. The rumor is generally considered false that in 1914 Wilhelm said, “This never would have happened if Grandmother were alive!” He did, apparently, shove everyone out of his way to embrace her at her deathbed. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/19 "2011-04-09T03:23:50Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > Prior to the start of the war I believe the Germans generally liked and respected England (especially the Kaiser). War can turn that around in a hurry, however. No. Germans wanted to be be respected by England. But that’s definitely not the same as fellow-feeling. There was a powerful current of resentment (interestingly, in Japan, too) against England. The English, for their part, looked upon Germany merely as a threat, and did so pretty much from the first moment of unification. That stung Germany, badly. But it’s only one small moment in a history of absurd and costly miscalculations of European diplomacy. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2011, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hymn-of-hate-why-did-the-germans-in-1914-hate-england-so-much/577515/20 "2011-04-09T03:28:33Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > There was a powerful current of resentment (interestingly, in Japan, too) against England. It must have been pretty muted. Japan was one of England’s closest allies in 1914.