In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

LEAGUE OF NATIONS 129
Rhineland, which they have occupied since 1919 (Chronik, 32, 55).
Hindenburg speaks both to nationalist assemblies and to their adversaries,
who claim to represent internationalism in the name of a German
democratic tradition. He is thus confronted with the impossible task of
affirming both the position of those who see the liberation of the
Rhineland as a victory over the League of Nations and the reaction of
those who praise it as the glorious result of the League's peace policy:
"In the evening, thousands of nationalist war veterans gathered on the
Platz der Republik for a torchlight procession, which made a gorgeous
and colorful image with its hundreds of flags. On the Neuer Markt,
however, no imposing republican rally took place" (Berliner Tageblatt,
March 21).
A different articulation of the tension between the German supporters
and the German enemies of "Geneva" appears in their conflicting ways
of structuring historical time. The nationalists claim that resisting and
fighting the obligations arising from the Treaty of Versailles is a necessary
precondition for Germany's future as a nation-and they are therefore
eager to keep alive the humiliating memory of Versailles as a motivational
resource. In contrast, Gustav Stresemann, who leads the German
delegation in Geneva, has conceived of a foreign politics according to
which the meticulous fulfillment of the Versailles treaty will ultimately
enable everyone to forget it-and thus prepare the way for a future that
is dissociated from the shameful past. [see Present vs. Past] On Friday,
September 10, after months of hectic international and national negotiations
(Chronik, 150f£.), Stresemann finally salutes Germany's entry into
the League of Nations with a programmatic speech: "Far be it from me
to speak of the problems the past. It is the task of the present generation
to look toward the future. Let me emphasize that if long deliberation has
preceded Germany's membership in the League of Nations, this may be
a guarantee of stability and fruitfulness" (Stresemann, 303). Aristide
Briand, the French prime minister and foreign secretary, expresses the
same desire for a rupture with the past in his promise to fight any future
urgings to make war: "No spirit of war here. If they rouse us against one
another, if they push us, we will brush aside the temptation, because this
would be the road to war, the road of blood, not our road" (Anneesmemoire,
69).
On March 17, one week after Germany's entry into the League of