Every time has its Romanticism, its poetic presentation of life – ours does as well. It is harder and crueler than the earlier version, but it is just as romantic. The Steel Romanticism of our time manifests itself in intoxicating actions and restless deeds in service of a great national goal, in a feeling of duty raised to the level of an unbreakable principle. We are all more or less romantics of a new German form.

Instead of an exhausted lassitude that capitulates to, denies, or flees from the seriousness of life, a heroic view of life steps forth and sounds out in the marching steps of brown columns, accompanying the farmer as he pulls the plowshare through fields, giving the worker meaning and higher purpose in its difficult struggle for existence, never leaving the unemployed in despair, and furnishing the great work of German reconstruction with an almost soldierly rhythm. It is a kind of Steel Romanticism that has made German life worth living: a Romanticism which does not try to escape and hide in the blue distance from the hardness of existence – a Romanticism which rather has the courage to confront problems and stare into their pitiless eyes without flinching. This new attitude gives Germany tempo and power for its constructive work . . . Only pure artistic and cultural striving, willingly and wholeheartedly filled with it, will last to conquer the future.