It Cannot be Stormed Page 4

  The trial ended with a sentence of six months’ imprisonment for all the defendants, with a period of remand which gave the sentence the significance of an acquittal. The farmers rightly regarded this as a sign of the half-heartedness of the System and they celebrated a victory. But Ive was uneasy; he sensed a deadlock. He not only sensed it in regard to the farmers’ struggle, he suspected it applied to himself as well. Actually nothing had been decided either by the trial or by the events which had led up to it. All that had occurred so far was no more than the merest reflex action. The only thing was that this Movement had been carried through with a degree of determination which gave it importance and left a feeling of hope which persisted. Claus Heim and Hamkens, who were now the uncontested leaders of the Movement, had sacrificed their farms to save their farms. The whole force of the Movement, which was beginning to spread to all parts of the province, was directed towards preserving their property in the face of a System that was threatening it for some unknown reason. In this struggle it seemed to Ive that there was too great a time-lag between effort and result. The value of this period lay in the energy which had produced it. Time and again Heim, Hamkens and Ive had referred to the solidarity of the farmers, had compared it with the solidarity of the workers, but at that time solidarity had only been a hypothesis. It was a good thing that this hypothesis had been realised, had become once more a matter of course, after having been submerged for so long.

  But this was not enough. Everyone felt that this could not be enough. All along, even while the farmers were still only protesting against the exorbitant taxes, what the authorities had feared more than the Movement itself had been the dangers that they knew must arise from it, and they had armed themselves against these dangers, in whatever form they might appear. Now farmers from all over the country were looking towards the province, anxious to discover what signs there were which might apply to themselves.

  The parties and political organisations were asking: ‘What do you really want?’ and they were prepared, should they get an unsatisfactory reply, to provide guild programmes.

  The farmers, too, came to Hamkens and Heim and Ive and asked: ‘What now?’

  Hitherto it had been more or less a joke, a clumsy, mad, bucolic joke, with a quite calm purpose in the forefront. Ive enjoyed a joke of this kind. The farmers felt that their existence, the very kernel of their existence—the farm—was threatened, and they protected themselves with the means offered them, the means nearest to hand, against a System that was inimical to them, not merely seemed to be, but actually was, since it was governed by interests which were anything but the interests of the farmers. Yet it claimed the right to manage their affairs. Hitherto it had all been clear and simple. The farmers spoke of the System, they did not speak of the State; there must be a State, they said, and what then? The power in the hands of the people! Who were the people if not themselves? The farmers did not bother themselves much as to whether the Constitution was good or bad. But: what is decreed is decreed!

  And then there was Article 64 which read: ‘Particularly to protect commerce, agriculture and industry.’ It was concise and clear. We farmers are in the right, and the System is in the wrong, it is corrupting the Constitution (whether it be good or bad). They had never been particularly good Christians, the farmers up in the north, but they had always been able clearly to differentiate between God and Satan. God signified the real essence of everything, Satan stood for corruption. The System belonged to Satan.

  ‘Our cause is a good one,’ said the farmers, ‘a good cause is the concern of all; therefore we are fighting for all, and all must fight for us.’

  This was the point that gave Ive hope.

  ‘There are two ways,’ said Ive. ‘Either we must strengthen our position; we must carry the Movement into the whole country, with the single object of preserving the status of the farmers, come what may. . .’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hamkens, ‘we farmers want no more than that’

  ‘Or, ‘ continued Ive, ‘we must act from the outset as the advance guard of a new reality, we must aim at a complete transformation of the German position. We must not stand as the country against the town; we must be the germ of a new State, revolutionary, if you will, and we must leave no stone unturned.’

  ‘That,’ said Claus Heim, ‘is what we should aim at.’

  Old Reimann, the representative from the emergency committee of South Dithmarsch, looked at Hamkens and Heim: ‘These two ways are one way,’ he said, ‘and what I think is that a talent has been put into our hands and we must not hide it in a napkin.’

  Ive turned to him: ‘What we have before us is no longer a joke. You must know the extent of your strength and whether your confidence is not too great for your strength. You wanted solidarity, now you have it. The workers could find no other means of liberation than solidarity. Today we can see what they have won. We know what a temptation it is to dig oneself more comfortably into the System instead of destroying it. If you give way to it, you will change nothing. Do you want to give way or to change things?’

  ‘To change things,’ said Heim and old Reimann at once, and Hamkens too said, ‘Change things.’

  So the farmers’ struggle continued; the machinery of administration saw to that. But the struggle had taken on a different aspect. Claus Heim saw to that, and Ive, and all who were of their way of thinking, and there were many of them. Almost imperceptibly the centre of gravity was shifting. Ive realised that it was impossible to force an issue which had not its roots in the cause from the outset. Revolutions are not made by a wave of the hand. But in this Movement something was rooted which was striving for wider, deeper and more emphatic expression. One thing developed out of another, the time had come to indicate direction and tempo. The farmers were making a stand against the impenetrable cover of the System, and already behind the cover of the farmers’ front was developing the germ of the new growth which was destined to replace the System. It was a spontaneous development, the inevitable outcome of the struggle; it was not the result of a considered programme. The whole province was in the hands of the farmers’ leaders. All business that concerned the farmers—and very soon more than this—was being withdrawn from official hands.

  Claus Heim had more decisions to make than the President of the Province, and the emergency committee more than the Parish Council. The community took on a new meaning for the farmers—that of the closest comradeship in need; instead of being grouped in districts they formed battle zones, to which the characteristic features of the landscape gave natural boundaries; and were not the hamlets and little market towns dependent on the country?

  The summons went out to them to join up and the summons was to become more urgent—to be changed into a threat.

  ‘Self-government,’ that was the cry.

  ‘Self-government?’ questioned the reporters, who came from the town to interview the farmers, raising their eyebrows, ‘surely that is a democratic idea!’

  ‘Whether it is democratic or not,’ said the farmers, raising their eyebrows, ‘is all one to us. We thought that your System was democratic?’

  ‘Give it good to the Land League!’ said the reporters, who suddenly discovered that they had always been sympathetic towards the farmers.

  ‘You do not understand us, ‘ said the farmers, ‘your battle is not our battle.’

  ‘The farmers of the whole country,’ wrote Ive, ‘must be welded together, not into societies and unions—they can go on and attend to their own business, and the individual farmer can keep up his membership, if he has always been a member. But what we have accomplished in Schleswig-Holstein must become the aim of all the provinces: unconditional solidarity of the farmers. Self-government of the farming communities, and elimination of the direction of the System, which is inimical to the farmers, in matters concerning the farmers. We are a member of the State and not the least important; we form, just as do the organised workers, as it were, a State within the State, acting as an equal among
equals, from strength to strength. We have made a beginning; we have set out on this path because it is the only one possible for us. We have been assigned the task of setting an example, and our goal is still before us, the reorganisation of German affairs.’

  But Ive was divided in his mind as he wrote. He felt that there was something thin and immature about this. He had let the idea fall, as it were a shaving from his work. But he was soon to win popularity. For the authorities took action. Police surrounded the building, searched the printing and editorial offices, snatched up any papers they could find and, before Ive knew where he was, he found himself involved in legal proceedings.

  ‘Treason against the State and the Reich,’ said the judge at the Enquiry.

  Against the State, because Ive was obviously planning to overthrow the Constitution, and against the Reich because this obviously could only be accomplished by the separation of the province from Germany.

  ‘Can it be possible,’ said Ive to himself, ‘that they think that more dangerous than my attempts at incitement?’

  The Judge of the Enquiry also seemed to find the story rather a thin one—he hurriedly handed the documents over to the prosecution, with a friendly ‘I leave it to you.’ But the public prosecutor turned over the pages of The Peasant, from the first to the last number, red pencil in hand, and before Ive knew where he was again, he had twenty-seven libel actions round his neck.

  This happened at a propitious moment, for the spring was urging the farmers to sow their fields and the summer was before them with all its work and, if they attended meetings punctually when required in order to ward off the encroachments of the machinery of administration, they did not go out of their way to do so. So that everything was comparatively quiet in the country and yet nobody could interpret this as a sign of submission. Then something happened. Hamkens was arrested; demands for payment poured into the houses—the distraints began once more.

  ‘So you are at it again?’ asked the farmers. ‘This is sheer arrogance. But do as you like!’

  Hamkens was silenced now, and Heim was the great man.

  [1] The name of the President of the Province, Kürbis, means pumpkin.

  III

  The District Officer of Beidenfleth was a strictly just man who never failed to observe the letter of the law. He, therefore, knew nothing of conflicts of conscience. The farmers’ struggle was a constant thorn in his side, but he never swerved from his duty. He appeared as a witness in the oxen case, and the evidence he gave, as he stood broad-shouldered and unmoved before the statue of Charles the Great, weighed heavily against the farmers in the eye of the law. He testified to the same facts as the defendants, using the same expressions, the only difference being that he regarded the things that had happened as unlawful, whereas the defendants considered them justifiable. Coming between him and the defendants, the second witness for the prosecution, the District President of Itzehoe—a thin, nervous man, perpetually at pains to bring about a settlement—produced an almost comic effect. The farmers had no grudge against the District President. They regarded him merely as the tiresome representative of a tiresome system. But the District Officer of Beidenfleth, though himself of farmer’s stock and tradition, did not range himself with the farmers, and took no part in their solidarity. Nor did he change his attitude later on; he never hesitated to carry out a boycott or a threat. When the second wave of oppressive official measures swept the countryside, he carried out his duties with his usual inflexibility, regardless of the fact that his instructions frequently fell on deaf ears.

  One night, just as he was going to bed, a terrific report was heard outside his house. A window-pane was broken. The District Officer came out to see what was happening. All he could discover was the burnt remains of some fire works. In accordance with his duty, he reported the incident in detail to his superiors in the office of the District President, without attempting to offer any explanation. The President was greatly agitated. He informed the Press that a bomb had destroyed the house of the District Officer; and the newspapers printed this item of news with prominent headlines.

  ‘Loyal subjects,’ they wrote, ‘recoil with horror from such methods of political conflict.’

  And again: ‘We hope that the authorities will redouble their precautions for the safety of the country.’

  The account went on to say that a commission of enquiry had immediately been sent to the scene of the criminal attack, but its findings could not yet be published. They were never published.

  The farmers shook their heads— ‘But it can’t have done the District Officer any harm.’

  Hinnerk, too, shook his head: — ‘A bomb?’ That was news to him. All the same it gave him something to think about.

  ‘A bomb,’ said the President, shocked. Whatever were things coming to in his district? He at least was not to blame; he had done all he could to mitigate the trouble in his district, everything that he could possibly do. And that was all the thanks he got! No, it was not worth while to continue the regime of tolerance.

  One night, just as he was going to bed, a terrific report was heard outside his house. Several window-panes were broken. The district messenger came out to see what was happening. All he could discover was the burnt remains of a bomb. Without doubt this was no firework—it was an explosive that had torn the coping from the front of the house.

  ‘An attempt to blow up the house,’ declared the police, and the newspapers reported it with prominent headlines.

  ‘It is time that an end is put to this criminal behaviour,’ they wrote. And again, ‘We challenge the authorities to take the most stringent measures to ensure for the peaceful citizen the safety to which he has a right.’

  The farmers shook their heads — ‘But it can’t have done the District President any harm.’

  Hinnerk, too, shook his head— ‘An explosion?’ He bent down over the coping stone, surrounded by the curious crowd that had collected in front of the President’s house.

  ‘In my judgment,’ he said, ‘that is not gunpowder, it is black powder, common or garden black powder, wrapped up in this integument,’ and he held up a bit of blackened sticking-plaster.

  ‘But at any rate,’ he said to the sergeant, who was ordering the crowd to disperse, ‘the fellow must have had some experience.’

  ‘An explosion,’ said the President of the Government Board in Schleswig, when he heard the news. He paid very little attention to the Farmers’ Movement, regarding it as a sporadic outburst stirred up by professional agitators. He regarded with disapproval the inefficiency of the subordinate administrative departments. Was not he himself on excellent terms with the heads of the agricultural organisations? Were not his negotiations with the leading gentlemen of the Green Front carried on peaceably and with propriety? An example must be made to frighten these bomb-throwers.

  One night, just as he was going to bed, a terrific report was heard outside his house. All the window-panes were smashed. The porter went out to see what was happening. All he could discover was the burnt remains of a bomb and a few pieces of broken iron. The whole facade of the governmental building from top to bottom was damaged. ‘An infernal machine,’ said the expert who was called in immediately. The newspapers reported it with prominent headlines.

  ‘There was fortunately no loss of life,’ they wrote, ‘but undoubtedly this was only a lucky chance.’ And again, ‘All this preposterous fooling with infernal machines is an insult to the authority of the State.’

  The farmers no longer shook their heads. ‘Well,’ they said, ‘it won’t have done the chief Bumble any harm.’

  But Hamkens, who had completed his month’s imprisonment for opposition to distraint, said:

  ‘We farmers don’t want this sort of thing. This has nothing to do with the farmers,’ he said, ‘alien elements. . .’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Ive. ‘I know that expression “alien elements.” That’s what is always said when one’s own cause begins to stink in the nostrils.’


  And Hinnerk sneered: ‘Since when has the mite been alien to the cheese?’

  ‘We farmers don’t want this sort of thing,’ said Hamkens.

  ‘Am I an alien?’ asked Claus Heim. Hamkens was silent.

  Ive did not want a breach and he decided to hold Hinnerk in a bit. But Hamkens was not long out of humour: for the farmers after all did want that sort of thing, and soon explosions were heard all over the place; not only in Holstein but in Oldenburg and in Lüneburg as well. The newspapers had published photographs of the pieces of iron that were found, together with detailed instructions for making the infernal machine. Ive too printed the police reports in full.

  In his editorial he wrote:

  ‘Bomb outrages have nothing to do with the Farmers’ Movement as such. We are not an organisation: we have no power to limit the activities of the individual so long as they are not directed against the Movement itself. It is for the police, and not for us, to quell bomb outrages.’

  ‘Nonetheless,’ wrote the Itzehoe Advertiser, ‘we know who is morally responsible for these criminal attacks.’

  Ive made great fun of the word ‘moral.’ It seemed to him somewhat foolish to demand any but revolutionary morality from a revolutionary. Of course, he knew that his manner of writing and acting was demagogic, but he was taking part in a battle, and from time immemorial battles had not been waged by methods of gentle persuasion, and in time of war grenades had never been filled with sugar. What mattered to him was, not whether demagogy was morally irreproachable or not, but whether it served its end well or ill. He differentiated between primitive and artistic demagogy and was inclined to use either as occasion demanded.

  The Communist deputy, who had come from the town to observe the Movement, raised his eyebrows and said, ‘This is pure Communism.’