[583] In this way it becomes an example from which you yourself, and perhaps I myself partly, can and will derive some more universal statements. When in Germany^a 1919--or 1918 first, and then further, 1919--the First World War^b came to an end, through the revolutionary ^cmovement in which the German emperor and all the different German princes were thrown out and Germany was transferred into a republic under the leadership of the Social Democratic Party (which combined Marxist^d principles with democratic principles)--in this moment, two very opposite attitudes developed in this tense situation. The one came from the Lutheran tradition, which is all-decisive for the German situation. This Lutheran tradition is determined partly by Luther himself, but Luther^e himself and Lutheranism are largely determined by the structure of Germany in the age of the Reformation^f, in the 16th and already in the 15th century, by an innumerable mass of small princes with absolute authority^g over their subjects, and the beginning of a bureaucracy and a standing military force under the control of these princes. In this situation, Lutheranism developed a point of view which one can call negative-transcendental, namely the attempt to save the individaul [sic.] soul^h on the basis of the Christianⁱ message of justification by faith^j, but LEAVING history ^kto the earthly powers without interfering from the side of the Church. This was quite different in the Calvinistic^l countries where, in the NAME of the law^m of Godⁿ, which confirms the natural law^o, the Catholic^p princes were attacked by the Protestants^q, the revolution was preached and carried through, and the authorities were dispossessed. In Lutheranism this never happened. And during the Thirty Years' War