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 is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
in the start of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. 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 reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...
s were outraged. For instance, some military actions by Germany were called elsewhere the
Rape of Belgium
The Rape of Belgium was a series of systematic war crimes, especially mass murder and deportation and enslavement, by German troops against Belgian civilians during the invasion and occupation of Belgium in World War I.
The neutrality o ...
.
The astronomer
Wilhelm Foerster
Wilhelm Julius Foerster (16 December 1832 – 18 January 1921) was a German astronomer. His name can also be written Förster, but is usually written "Foerster" even in most German sources where 'ö' is otherwise used in the text.
Biography
A ...
soon repented having signed the document. Soon, with the physiologist
Georg Friedrich Nicolai, drew up the ''
Manifesto to the Europeans''. They argued,
Whilst various people expressed sympathy with these sentiments, only the philosopher
Otto Buek and
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
signed it and it remained unpublished at the time. It was subsequently brought to light by Einstein.
A report in 1921 in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' found that of 76 surviving signatories, 60 expressed varying degrees of regret. 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, laid 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 this attempt was a failure.
Text
Here is an English translation (italics in original):
To the civilized world
/ref>
Signatories
The 93 signatories included Nobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
laureates, artists, physician
A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
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, chemist
A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...
s, theologian
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
s, philosophers, 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 ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
s, 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 and known college teachers. The German composer Richard Strauss refused to sign, on the basis that "Declarations about war and politics are not fitting for an artist."
List of signatories
# Adolf von Baeyer, chemist: synthesized indigo, 1905 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
# Peter Behrens, architect and designer
#Emil Adolf von Behring
Emil von Behring (; Emil Adolf von Behring), born Emil Adolf Behring (15 March 1854 – 31 March 1917), was a German physiologist who received the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the first one awarded in that field, for his discovery ...
, physiologist: received the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physiology of Medicine
#Wilhelm von Bode
Wilhelm von Bode (10 December 1845 – 1 March 1929) was a German art historian and museum curator. Born Arnold Wilhelm Bode in Calvörde, he was ennobled in 1913. He was the creator and first curator of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, now c ...
, art historian and curator
# Aloïs Brandl, Austrian-German philologist
#Lujo Brentano
Lujo Brentano (; ; 18 December 1844 – 9 September 1931) was an eminent German economist and social reformer.
Biography
Lujo Brentano, born in Aschaffenburg into a distinguished German Catholic intellectual family (originally of Italian desce ...
, economist and social reformer
#Justus Brinckmann
Justus Brinckmann (23 May 1843 – 8 February 1915) was the first director of the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg.B ...
, art historian
# Johannes Conrad, political economist
#Franz von Defregger
Franz Defregger (after 1883 Franz von Defregger) (30 April 1835 – 2 January 1921) was an Austrian artist known for producing genre art and history paintings set in his native county of Tyrol.
Biography
Franz Defregger was born on 30 April 183 ...
, Austrian artist
#Richard Dehmel
Richard Fedor Leopold Dehmel (18 November 1863 – 8 February 1920) was a German poet and writer.
Life
A forester's son, Richard Dehmel was born in Hermsdorf near Wendisch Buchholz (now a part of Münchehofe) in the Brandenburg Province, Ki ...
, anti-conservative poet and writer
# Adolf Deissmann, Protestant theologian
#Wilhelm Dörpfeld
Wilhelm Dörpfeld (26 December 1853 – 25 April 1940) was a German architect and archaeologist, a pioneer of stratigraphic excavation and precise graphical documentation of archaeological projects. He is famous for his work on Bronze Age site ...
, 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 ...
, 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 studie ...
, Catholic priest and church historian
#Karl Engler
Carl Oswald Victor Engler (5 January 1842 – 7 February 1925) was a German chemist, academic and politician. He wrote a Handbook of Industrial Chemistry in 1872. He is remembered for his early work in indigo.
Biography
Engler was the son of a pas ...
, chemist
# Gerhard Esser, Catholic theologian
#Rudolf Christoph Eucken
Rudolf Christoph Eucken (; 5 January 184615 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, and ...
, philosopher: winner of the 1908 Nobel Prize for Literature
# Herbert Eulenberg, poet and playwright
# Henrich Finke, Catholic church historian
# Hermann Emil Fischer, chemist: 1902 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry
#Wilhelm Foerster
Wilhelm Julius Foerster (16 December 1832 – 18 January 1921) was a German astronomer. His name can also be written Förster, but is usually written "Foerster" even in most German sources where 'ö' is otherwise used in the text.
Biography
A ...
, also signed counter-manifesto
# Ludwig Fulda, Jewish playwright with strong social commitment
#Eduard von Gebhardt
Franz Karl Eduard von Gebhardt (13 June 1838 – 3 February 1925) was a Baltic German painter of portraits and historical scenes, and a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
Biography
He was born to Ferdinand Theodor von Gebhardt (1803� ...
, painter
# Jan Jakob Maria de Groot, Sinologist and historian of religion
#Fritz Haber
Fritz Haber (; 9 December 186829 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydroge ...
, chemist: received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for synthesizing ammonia
# Ernst Haeckel, biologist: coined the words "ecology, phylum, stem cell," developed "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"
# Max Halbe, dramatist
# Adolf von Harnack, Lutheran theologian
# Carl Hauptmann, playwright
#Gerhart Hauptmann
Gerhart Johann Robert Hauptmann (; 15 November 1862 – 6 June 1946) was a German dramatist and novelist. He is counted among the most important promoters of literary naturalism, though he integrated other styles into his work as well. He rece ...
, 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.
Life
...
, Swiss medievalist
#Adolf von Hildebrand
Adolf von Hildebrand (6 October 1847 – 18 January 1921) was a German sculptor.
Life
Hildebrand was born at Marburg, the son of Marburg economics professor Bruno Hildebrand. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg, with Kaspar von ...
, sculptor
#Ludwig Hoffmann Ludwig Hoffmann or Hofmann may refer to:
* Ludwig Hoffmann (architect) (1852–1932), German architect
* Ludwig Hoffmann (Waffen-SS) (1908–1945), Hauptsturmführer (Captain) in the Waffen-SS
* Ludwig Hofmann (footballer) (1900–1935), German ...
, architect
# Engelbert Humperdinck, composer: including "Hänsel und Gretel"
# Leopold Graf von Kalckreuth, painter
#Arthur Kampf
Arthur Kampf (28 September 1864 in Aachen – 8 February 1950 in Castrop-Rauxel) was a List of German painters, German painter. He was associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting.
Life
Kampf studied under Peter Janssen, among others, ...
, history painter
#Friedrich August von Kaulbach
Friedrich August von Kaulbach (2 June 1850 in Munich – 26 July 1920 in Ohlstadt, Germany) was a German portraitist and historical painter.
Biography
He was born to a family that included several well known artists and began his studies wit ...
, painter
# Theodor Kipp, jurist
#Felix Klein
Christian Felix Klein (; 25 April 1849 – 22 June 1925) was a German mathematician and mathematics educator, known for his work with group theory, complex analysis, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the associations between geometry and grou ...
, 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
Paul Laband (24 May 1838 – 23 March 1918) was a German jurist and the German Empire's leading scholar of constitutional law.
Life and work
Labant was born into a Jewish family and converted to Christianity in 1857. He studied law at Breslau, H ...
, professor of law
#Karl Lamprecht
Karl Gotthard Lamprecht (25 February 1856 – 10 May 1915) was a German historian who specialized in German art and economic history.
Biography
Lamprecht was born in Jessen in the Province of Saxony. As a student, he trained in history, politic ...
, historian
#Philipp Lenard
Philipp Eduard Anton von Lenard (; hu, Lénárd Fülöp Eduárd Antal; 7 June 1862 – 20 May 1947) was a Hungarian-born German physicist and the winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1905 for his work on cathode rays and the discovery of ...
, 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, jurist and legal scholar (cousin of the composer)
# Ludwig Manzel, sculptor
# Joseph Mausbach, theologian
# Georg von Mayr, statistician
# Sebastian Merkle, Catholic theologian
#Eduard Meyer
Eduard Meyer (25 January 1855 – 31 August 1930) was a German historian. He was the brother of Celticist Kuno Meyer (1858–1919).
Biography
Meyer was born in Hamburg and educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums and later at the univer ...
, historian
# Heinrich Morf, linguist
#Friedrich Naumann
Friedrich Naumann (25 March 1860 – 24 August 1919) was a German liberal politician and Protestant parish pastor. In 1896, he founded the National-Social Association that sought to combine liberalism, nationalism and (non-Marxist) sociali ...
, liberal politician and Protestant pastor
# Albert Neisser, physician who discovered the cause of gonorrhea
# Walther Hermann Nernst, physicist: third law of thermodynamics, won the 1920 Nobel Prize in chemistry
#Wilhelm Ostwald
Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (; 4 April 1932) was a Baltic German chemist and philosopher. Ostwald is credited with being one of the founders of the field of physical chemistry, with Jacobus Henricus van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst, and Svante Arrhen ...
, chemist: received the 1909 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
#Bruno Paul
Bruno Paul (19 January 1874 – 17 August 1968) was a German architect, illustrator, interior designer, and furniture designer.
Trained as a painter in the royal academy just as the Munich Secession developed against academic art, he first ca ...
, architect, illustrator, interior designer, and furniture designer.
#Max Planck
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918.
Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...
, theoretical physicist: originated quantum theory, awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918
# Albert Plohn, professor of medicine
# Georg Reicke, author and politician
# Max Reinhardt, Austrian-born, American stage and film actor and director
# Alois Riehl, philosopher
#Carl Robert
Carl (Karl) Georg Ludwig Theodor Herwig Joseph Robert (8 March 1850, Marburg – 17 January 1922, Halle an der Saale) was a German classical philologist and archaeologist.
He began his studies of ancient philology and archaeology at the Uni ...
, philologist and archeologist
# Wilhelm Röntgen, physicist: known for X-rays, awarded 1901 Nobel Prize in Physics
# Max Rubner, physiologist and hygienist
#Fritz Schaper
Fritz (Friedrich) Schaper (31 July 1841, Alsleben – 29 November 1919, Berlin) was a German sculptor.
Life
He was orphaned at an early age, and was sent to Halle to receive instruction at the Francke Foundations. After being apprenticed as ...
, sculptor
# Adolf von Schlatter, Evangelical theologian
# August Schmidlin, 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 t ...
, economist
# Reinhold Seeberg, theologian
# Martin Spahn, historian
# Franz von Stuck, symbolist/Art Nouveau painter, sculptor, engraver, and architect
# Hermann Sudermann, dramatist and novelist
# Hans Thoma, painter
# Wilhelm Trübner, realist painter
#Karl Vollmöller
Karl Gustav Vollmöller (or Vollmoeller; 7 May 1878 – 18 October 1948) was a German philologist, archaeologist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and aircraft designer. He is most famous for the elaborate religious spectacle-pantomime '' The Mira ...
, 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 conductor, composer and pianist.
Life and career
Weingartner was born in Zara, Dalmatia, Austria-Hungary (now Zadar, Croatia), to Austrian parents. ...
, Austrian conductor, composer and pianist
#Theodor Wiegand
Theodor Wiegand (October 30, 1864 – December 19, 1936) was one of the more famous German archaeologists.
Wiegand was born in Bendorf, Rhenish Prussia. He studied at the universities of Munich, Berlin, and Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau ...
, archeologist
#Wilhelm Wien
Wilhelm Carl Werner Otto Fritz Franz Wien (; 13 January 1864 – 30 August 1928) was a German physicist who, in 1893, used theories about heat and electromagnetism to deduce Wien's displacement law, which calculates the emission of a blackbody ...
, physicist: received the 1911 Nobel Prize for work on heat radiation
#Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
Enno Friedrich Wichard Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (22 December 1848 – 25 September 1931) was a German classical philologist. Wilamowitz, as he is known in scholarly circles, was a renowned authority on Ancient Greece and its literature ...
, classical philologist
#Richard Willstätter
Richard Martin Willstätter FRS(For) HFRSE (, 13 August 1872 – 3 August 1942) was a German organic chemist whose study of the structure of plant pigments, chlorophyll included, won him the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Willstätter invente ...
, organic chemist: won the 1915 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for structure of plant pigments
# Wilhelm Windelband, philosopher
# Wilhelm Wundt, physician, psychologist, physiologist, philosopher, "father of experimental psychology"
See also
* Septemberprogramm
The ''Septemberprogramm'' (, literally "September Program") was a memorandum authorized by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg of the German Empire at the beginning of World War I (1914–18). It was drafted on 9 September 1914 by the Chancel ...
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