Petition of the intellectuals

© Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin Ludwig Quidde

On 9 July 1915, the physicist Albert Einstein, the sociologist Max Weber, the pacifist Ludwig Quidde, and more than 100 other prominent Germans speak out against the „assimilation or incorporation of politically independent nations or those accustomed to independence“. The call comes to be known as the „petition of the intellectuals“. The signatories are thus reacting to a proclamation initiated by Reich Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and signed by 1,347 professors, civil servants, artists, and writers calling for comprehensive German territorial acquisitions in the east and west.