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HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

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CHAPTER VII<br />

CITIZEN OF THE WORLD<br />

WHEN the Second World War was nearing<br />

its end, the question foremost in the minds<br />

of Englishmen was how to organize the coming<br />

peace so as to forestall a repetition of the horrible<br />

ordeal to which they and their European allies had<br />

been subjected for five long years. Plans, realistic<br />

and Utopian, were aired in press and parliament<br />

by pubhcists and statesmen. In these discussions,<br />

Heine's analysis of the German mind was often recalled<br />

and Heine's advice to Germany's neighbors<br />

to be eternally on guard was given wide circulation.<br />

Heine, the political and social thinker, came more<br />

and more to the fore, while Heine, the singer of<br />

love and of nature, receded to the background.<br />

Vernon Bartlett, a member of the British House<br />

of Commons, quoted Heine as his authority on<br />

the necessity of taming the German spirit because<br />

it was fundamentally Pagan despite its Christian<br />

veneer. The Englishman's Prescription for Ger-<br />

[164]

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