Manifesto of the Ninety-Three
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The "Manifesto of the Ninety-Three" (; originally "To the Civilized World," , by "Professors of Germany") is a 4 October 1914 proclamation by 93 prominent Germans supporting
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
in the start of
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. The Manifesto galvanized support for the war throughout German schools and universities, but many foreign
intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...
s were outraged. The astronomer Wilhelm Julius Foerster soon repented having signed the document. With the physiologist Georg Friedrich Nicolai, he drew up the '' Manifesto to the Europeans''. They argued: Whilst various people expressed sympathy with those sentiments, only the philosopher Otto Buek and
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
signed Foerster and Nicolai's counter manifesto and it remained unpublished at the time. It was subsequently brought to light by Einstein. In 1921, a report in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' found that of 76 surviving signatories, 60 expressed varying degrees of regret, and some claimed not to have seen what they had signed.


Purpose and reaction

The manifesto was primarily designed to contradict the negative image of Germany being portrayed in the press by other countries (especially in Britain), which is indicated by the fact that it was published in ten different languages. In addition, the manifesto articulated moral indignation, laying charges against foreign governments, academic institutions, and scholars whom the authors believed had wronged the German nation. They also probably hoped to undermine support for the war among the civilian population of the Entente powers by demonstrating that German scientists — who at the time were very highly reputed — were fully in support of their country, thereby inducing the intellectuals of other European nations to put pressure on the governments of their respective countries. The reaction of both the European and American press, and of academic institutions around the world, indicate that the attempt was a failure.


Text

Here is the English translation (italics in original) as reprinted after the war:To the civilized world
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Signatories

The 93 signatories included
Nobel laureates The Nobel Prizes (, ) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make outstanding contributions in th ...
,
architect An architect is a person who plans, designs, and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...
s,
artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...
s,
chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...
s,
composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...
s,
philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
s,
physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...
s,
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
s,
poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...
s,
theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...
s and known college teachers. The German composer
Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; ; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer and conductor best known for his Tone poems (Strauss), tone poems and List of operas by Richard Strauss, operas. Considered a leading composer of the late Roman ...
refused to sign, on the basis that "Declarations about war and politics are not fitting for an artist."


List of signatories

#
Adolf von Baeyer Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer (; 31 October 1835 – 20 August 1917) was a German chemist who synthesised indigo dye, indigo and developed a Von Baeyer nomenclature, nomenclature for cyclic compounds (that was subsequently extended a ...
, chemist: synthesized indigo, 1905 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry # Peter Behrens, architect and designer # Emil Adolf von Behring, physiologist: received the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine # Wilhelm von Bode, art historian and curator #, Austrian-German philologist # Lujo Brentano, economist and social reformer # Justus Brinckmann, art historian # Johannes Conrad, political economist # Franz von Defregger, Austrian artist # Richard Dehmel, anti-conservative poet and writer # Adolf Deissmann, Protestant theologian # Wilhelm Dörpfeld, architect and archeologist (including site of ancient Troy) # Friedrich von Duhn, classical archaeologist #
Paul Ehrlich Paul Ehrlich (; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology and antimicrobial chemotherapy. Among his foremost achievements were finding a cure fo ...
, awarded the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, initiated chemotherapy, "the magic bullet" #
Albert Ehrhard Albert Joseph Maria Ehrhard (14 March 1862 – 23 September 1940) was a German Catholic theologian, church historian and Byzantinist. He was the author of numerous works on Early Christianity. Biography Born in Herbitzheim (Alsace), Ehrhard stu ...
, Catholic priest and church historian # Karl Engler, chemist #, Catholic theologian #
Rudolf Christoph Eucken Rudolf Christoph Eucken (; ; 5 January 184614 September 1926) was a German philosopher. He received the 1908 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his earnest search for truth, his penetrating power of thought, his wide range of vision, a ...
, philosopher: winner of the 1908 Nobel Prize for Literature # Herbert Eulenberg, poet and playwright # Henrich Finke, Catholic church historian #
Hermann Emil Fischer Hermann Emil Louis Fischer (; 9 October 1852 – 15 July 1919) was a German chemist and List of Nobel laureates in Chemistry, 1902 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He discovered the Fischer esterification. He also developed the Fisch ...
, chemist: 1902 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry # Wilhelm Foerster, also signed counter-manifesto # Ludwig Fulda, Jewish playwright with strong social commitment # Eduard von Gebhardt, painter # Jan Jakob Maria de Groot, Sinologist and historian of religion #
Fritz Haber Fritz Jakob Haber (; 9 December 1868 – 29 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrog ...
, chemist: received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for synthesizing ammonia #
Ernst Haeckel Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; ; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, natural history, naturalist, eugenics, eugenicist, Philosophy, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biology, marine biologist and artist ...
, biologist: coined the words "ecology, phylum, stem cell," developed "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" # Max Halbe, dramatist # Adolf von Harnack, Lutheran theologian #, playwright # Gerhart Hauptmann, dramatist and novelist: received the 1912 Nobel Prize in Literature # Gustav Hellmann, meteorologist # Wilhelm Herrmann, Reformed theologian #
Andreas Heusler Andreas Heusler (10 August 1865 – 28 February 1940) was a Swiss philologist who specialized in Germanic studies. He was a Professor of Germanic Philology at the University of Berlin and a renowned authority on early Germanic literature. Lif ...
, Swiss medievalist # Adolf von Hildebrand, sculptor # Ludwig Hoffmann, architect # Engelbert Humperdinck, composer: including "Hänsel und Gretel" # Leopold Graf von Kalckreuth, painter # Arthur Kampf, history painter # Friedrich August von Kaulbach, painter # Theodor Kipp, jurist #
Felix Klein Felix Christian Klein (; ; 25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician and Mathematics education, mathematics educator, known for his work in group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and the associations betwe ...
, mathematician: group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry; "the Klein bottle" # Max Klinger, Symbolist painter, sculptor, printmaker, and writer # Aloïs Knoepfler, art historian # Anton Koch, Catholic theologian # Paul Laband, professor of law # Karl Lamprecht, historian # Philipp Lenard, physicist: winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize for Physics for cathode rays research # Maximilian Lenz, painter # Max Liebermann, Jewish Impressionist painter and printmaker #
Franz von Liszt Franz Eduard Ritter von Liszt (2 March 1851 – 21 June 1919) was a German jurist, criminologist and international law reformer. As a legal scholar, he was a proponent of the modern sociological and historical school of law. From 1898 until 1917 ...
, jurist and legal scholar (cousin of the composer) # Ludwig Manzel, sculptor #, theologian #, statistician #, Catholic theologian # Eduard Meyer, historian # Heinrich Morf, linguist # Friedrich Naumann, liberal politician and Protestant pastor # Albert Neisser, physician who discovered the cause of gonorrhea # Walther Hermann Nernst, chemist: third law of thermodynamics, won the 1920 Nobel Prize in chemistry # Wilhelm Ostwald, chemist: received the 1909 Nobel Prize in Chemistry # Bruno Paul, architect, illustrator, interior designer, and furniture designer. #
Max Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (; ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quantum, quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial con ...
, theoretical physicist: originated quantum theory, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918 # Albert Plohn, professor of medicine #, author and politician # Max Reinhardt, Austrian-born, American stage and film actor and director # Alois Riehl, philosopher # Carl Robert, philologist and archeologist #
Wilhelm Röntgen Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (; 27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923), sometimes Transliteration, transliterated as Roentgen ( ), was a German physicist who produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays. As ...
, physicist: known for X-rays, awarded 1901 Nobel Prize in Physics # Max Rubner, physiologist and hygienist # Fritz Schaper, sculptor # Adolf von Schlatter, Evangelical theologian #, theologian #
Gustav von Schmoller } Gustav Friedrich (after 1908: von) Schmoller (; 24 June 1838 – 27 June 1917) was the leader of the "younger" German historical school of economics. He was a leading ''Sozialpolitiker'' (more derisively, ''Kathedersozialist'', "Socialist of ...
, economist # Reinhold Seeberg, theologian #, historian #
Franz von Stuck Franz Ritter von Stuck (February 23, 1863 – August 30, 1928), born Franz Stuck, was a German painter, sculptor, printmaker, and architect. Stuck was best known for his paintings of ancient mythology, receiving substantial critical acclaim with ...
, symbolist/Art Nouveau painter, sculptor, engraver, and architect #
Hermann Sudermann Hermann Sudermann (30 September 1857 – 21 November 1928) was a German dramatist and novelist. Life Early career Sudermann was born at Matzicken, a village to the east of Heydekrug in the Province of Prussia (now Macikai, in southwestern ...
, dramatist and novelist # Hans Thoma, painter # Wilhelm Trübner, realist painter # Karl Vollmöller, playwright and screenwriter # Richard Voss, dramatist and novelist # Karl Vossler, linguist and scholar #
Siegfried Wagner Siegfried Helferich Richard Wagner (6 June 18694 August 1930) was a German composer and conductor, the son of Richard Wagner. He was an opera composer and the artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930. Life Siegfried Wagner ...
, composer, son of Richard Wagner # Wilhelm Waldeyer, anatomist: named the chromosome # August von Wassermann, bacteriologist: developed the "Wassermann test" for syphilis #
Felix Weingartner Paul Felix Weingartner, Edler von Münzberg (2 June 1863 – 7 May 1942) was an Austrian Conducting, conductor, composer and pianist. Life and career Weingartner was born in Zadar, Zara, Kingdom of Dalmatia, Dalmatia, Austrian Empire (now ...
, Austrian conductor, composer and pianist # Theodor Wiegand, archeologist # Wilhelm Wien, physicist: received the 1911 Nobel Prize for work on heat radiation # Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, classical philologist # Richard Willstätter, organic chemist: won the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for structure of plant pigments # Wilhelm Windelband, philosopher #
Wilhelm Wundt Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt (; ; 16 August 1832 – 31 August 1920) was a German physiologist, philosopher, and professor, one of the fathers of modern psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy and biology, was t ...
, physician, psychologist, physiologist, philosopher, "father of experimental psychology"


See also

*
Septemberprogramm The ''Septemberprogramm'' (, literally "September Program") was a memorandum authorized by Chancellor of Germany, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg of the German Empire at the beginning of World War I. It was drafted on 9 September 1914 by t ...


References


General references

* Herbert Gantschacher "Warpropaganda and the manifesto of the Ninety-Three" in Herbert Gantschacher "VIKTOR ULLMANN ZEUGE UND OPFER DER APOKALYPSE - WITNESS AND VICTIM OF THE APOCALYPSE - Testimone e vittima dell'Apocalisse - Prič in žrtev apokalipse - Svědek a oběť apokalypsy" - Complete original authorized edition in German and English language with summaries in Italian, Slovenian and Czech language, ARBOS-Edition , Arnoldstein-Klagenfurt-Salzburg-Vienna-Prora-Prague 2015, page 185. *


External links


Original manifesto
{{DEFAULTSORT:Manifesto Of The Ninety-Three Cultural history of World War I German Empire in World War I Political manifestos World War I publications 1914 documents Denialism World War I propaganda