Jener Kaiser Nochmals!

Lener Kaiser Nochmals!

The Dismissal (of Bismarck), an historical antimonarchist play by Emil Ludwig, was produced for the first time at Berlin and has caused a good deal of comment in the press; although the people, surprisingly enough, refrained from any outward manifestation of their contempt or approval. The absence of rotten eggs and other uncomplimentary gifts is considered by the antiroyalist press as nothing short of a 1923 miracle; even the monarchist journals are not too enthusiastic for Wilhelm. Herewith some comments:

A prominent German Republican: " If the German monarchist movement depended merely upon the person of Wilhelm II, we republicans would not have to worry."

The Lokal Anzeiger, Berlin daily: " Why did Kaiser Wilhelm try to suppress this play? Well, he fares very badly in it; but, despite his charges of malice against the author, it must have painfully struck his conscience that much of it is only too good a likeness, is only too true. Of course, Emil Ludwig could not have written this play before the war. He had first to free himself from the conventional prejudices and fetters from which we all suffered then. We all look on these things with different eyes now that a catastrophe has opened thema catastrophe for which Wilhelm was certainly responsible to some extent."

By the Deutsche Tageszeitung, monarchist paper: " He (Bismarck) did not even know how to smoke a pipe! "

By the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Hugo Stinnes' quasi-reactionary organ: " The performance was good enough for well-meaning people. The Kaiser looked like an infantry captain and Bismarck like an old clergyman. His two sons, Herbert and Bill, might have passed for shabby underlings employed in a lawyer's office, but never as the Counts they were.''

By the Vorwarts, Socialist newspaper : " Wilhelm fared much too well."