During the war Einstein was a founder and supporter of the New Fatherland League which sought to establish after the war a supranational organization to prevent future wars. He gleefully smuggled pacifist literature to his friend Nicholai in prison. In 1915 he signed a declaration by this League criticizing annexationist policies of the Chancellor. Although Einstein was not religious in the traditional sense, he was proud of being a Jew. Suffering is indeed more acceptable to me than resort to violence.
Force breeds only bitterness, hatred and reaction.
In 1922 he made a trip to Paris to discuss with political figures methods of preventing wars, and returning to Germany he spoke again in the Reichstag at a meeting of the German Peace Federation calling for goodwill between peoples of different languages and cultures. In a German pacifist publication Einstein explained how war blocks international cooperation and culture by destroying intellectual freedom, chaining the energies of the young to the engines of destruction, and causing economic depression. Einstein supported the League of Nations, but he resigned from the League Committee on Intellectual Cooperation in 1923 when France did not agree to arbitration concerning Germany's war-reparations payment. He felt that the League was merely a tool of the dominant nations. In 1928 Einstein began recommending that individuals refuse military service and any participation in war activities.