Josef Schumpeter, “Fallt den Hasspredigern in die Arme!” — Summary

This file is a short primary-document excerpt embedded in Ulrich Hedtke’s Schumpeters Grazer Konflikte. Its scope is Schumpeter’s 1916 reply to a Verband »Para pacem« questionnaire asking whether one should already oppose practices that would obstruct postwar relations among peoples: slander of national character, refusals of business, correspondence, scholarly exchange, travel, exhibitions, and foreign goods. Schumpeter answers emphatically yes, turning the questionnaire into a compact wartime argument against cultural nationalism.

Ich ergreife vor allem die Gelegenheit zu sagen, daß mir das Auftreten des Verbandes »Para pacem« zu den wenigen erfreulichen und hoffnungsvollen Dingen in der intellektuellen und moralischen Atmosphäre der Gegenwart zu gehören scheint.

English translation: I seize above all the opportunity to say that the emergence of the association "Para pacem" seems to me to belong to the few gratifying and hopeful things in the intellectual and moral atmosphere of the present.

His thesis is that resistance to hatred must begin before peace, because hatred is not only a by-product of war but a force seeking to survive it. Those who “deepen and poison” the rupture in the “Kulturwelt” threaten postwar reconciliation in cultural, political, and economic life.

Möglichst schnelle Aufnahme des Kampfes gegen das verabscheuungswürdige Treiben jener, die ihr Bestes tun, den Riß in der Kulturwelt zu vertiefen und zu vergiften, namentlich auch zu verhindern, daß sich die Völker sobald wie möglich nach dem Friedensschluß kulturell, politisch und wirtschaftlich versöhnen, scheint mir vor allem eine moralische Pflicht zu sein.

English translation: To take up as swiftly as possible the struggle against the abominable activities of those who do their utmost to deepen and poison the rift within the cultural world, and in particular to prevent the peoples from being able to reconcile themselves culturally, politically, and economically as soon as possible after the conclusion of peace, seems to me above all to be a moral duty.

The reply’s first conceptual move is ethical: intellectuals must oppose not only lies about enemies but also the emotional discipline of hatred within their own communities. Schumpeter defines the wartime function of intellectuals as counter-nationalist responsibility rather than patriotic amplification.

Und wenn die »Intellektuellen« überhaupt eine Funktion im Leben der Völker unter Umständen wie den gegenwärtigen haben, so ist es die, sich dem Haß des eigenen Volkes entgegenzustemmen und gegen jene Front zu machen, die ihn schüren.

English translation: And if the "intellectuals" have any function at all in the life of peoples in circumstances such as the present, it is to set themselves against the hatred of their own people and to make common front against those who fan it.

The second move reframes reconciliation as national self-interest. Schumpeter does not argue from sentiment alone. Nations depend on international exchange for culture, knowledge, goods, and vitality; isolation is not strength but self-impoverishment.

Keine Nation auf dieser Erde kann ein würdiges Dasein führen ohne alle die andern.

English translation: No nation on this earth can lead a worthy existence without all the others.

This anti-autarkic claim is the center of the text. Foreign books, pictures, drama, goods, and travel are not favors to foreigners but sources of one’s own development. To invoke “culture” while rejecting intimate relations with the wider cultural world is, for Schumpeter, a contradiction.

Wer glaubt, ohne intime Wechselbeziehung mit der gesamten Kulturwelt überhaupt leben zu können, der hatte nie das Recht, das Wort »Kultur« auch nur in den Mund zu nehmen.

English translation: Whoever believes he can live at all without intimate interrelation with the entire cultural world never had the right so much as to utter the word "culture".

The structure of the answer thus moves from praise of Para pacem, to moral obligation, to prudential argument, and finally to a warning about the spirit in which anti-hate work must be conducted. If boycott nationalism prevails, the damage will fall on the living generation as moral and intellectual regression.

Geschieht das nicht und lassen wir den Dingen ihren Lauf, so müssen wir moralisch und intellektuell verarmen und unter das Niveau herabsinken, das die, die vor uns waren, schon erreicht hatten.

English translation: If this does not happen and we let things run their course, we must become morally and intellectually impoverished and sink beneath the level that those who came before us had already attained.

Schumpeter’s closing condition is severe: opposition to hate must not become a performance meant to make one’s own nation look better than enemy nations. It must begin with acknowledgment of wrongdoing at home and direct itself against domestic tendencies that would obstruct postwar cooperation.

Vielmehr müssen wir von der Erkenntnis und von dem Bekenntnis ausgehen, daß auch bei uns gerade genug gesündigt wurde, und auf Grund dieser Einsicht muß der Kampf gegen jene eröffnet werden, die das bei uns getan haben, und gegen jene Tendenzen, die auf unserer Seite das Zusammenarbeiten der Völker nach dem Kriege zu verhindern suchen.

English translation: Rather, we must proceed from the recognition and acknowledgement that we too have sinned quite enough, and on the basis of this insight the struggle must be opened against those who have done so among us, and against those tendencies which on our side seek to prevent the cooperation of peoples after the war.

For that reason he rejects reciprocal denunciation. The relevant field of action is one’s own public sphere, where responsibility can actually be exercised.

Kein Wort sollte dabei gegen fremde Völker und die Leute fallen, die bei diesen ähnliche Tendenzen vertreten.

English translation: Not a word in this should be directed against foreign peoples or against those among them who represent similar tendencies.

The text’s relevance lies in its precise diagnosis of postwar danger: military enmity can become a lasting cultural order if intellectuals legitimate boycotts, contempt, and segregation. Schumpeter’s core concepts—moral duty, intellectual responsibility, interdependence of nations, and self-critical patriotism—form a concise doctrine of reconciliation. He does not ask intellectuals to be apolitical; he asks them to fight the hatred produced by their own side.