Foerster soon regretted signing the ″Manifesto of the Ninety-Three″ and with Nicolai drew up the ″Manifesto to the Europeans″ as an intellectual atonement, one which expressed hope that Europe's sense of a common culture could bring an end to the calamitous First World War.
While a number of intellectuals of the period were sympathetic to the contents of the document, aside from the authors, only renowned German-born physicist Albert Einstein and German philosopher Otto Buek signed it.
Following the October 1914 publication of the ″Manifesto of the Ninety-Three″, which was an attempt by a sizable group of German artists and intellectuals to justify Germany's militarism and position during the First World War,[a] one of its original signatories, Wilhelm Foerster, as well as dissenters Albert Einstein, Georg Friedrich Nicolai, and Otto Buek rebutted the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three's contents by supporting and signing the ″Manifesto to the Europeans″ instead.
[2] This document urged scholars and artists alike to support a common world culture (principally European) and to transcend "nationalistic passions".
[5] By the time World War I came to a close, Nicolai had been imprisoned by the German state but made a dramatic escape to Denmark in a fragile Albatross aircraft.
It would consequently be a duty of the educated and well-meaning Europeans to at least make the attempt to prevent Europe—on account of its deficient organization as a whole—from suffering the same tragic fate as ancient Greece once did.
For we must not, after all, give up the hope that their raised and collective voices—even beneath the din of arms—will not resound unheard, especially, if among these "good Europeans of tomorrow," we find all those who enjoy esteem and authority among their educated peers.