Booty Exhibition in Berlin. Captured Cannon.
Booty Exhibition in Berlin. Captured Cannon.
Germany has always been the land ofAusstellungen, or "exhibitions," and the war has only served to increase the number. In every city I was in during the two years I saw dozens ofKriegs-Ausstellungenadvertised. Every city has had exhibitions of artificial arms and legs with demonstrators showing how they work. Then they havedisplays of uniforms, guns, aeroplanes, ships and photographs. In Berlin they had an exhibition of the forts around Verdun. It was wonderfully made—everything in proportion, with tiny soldiers, wagons, wire entanglements etc. The greatest show they had when I was there was the "Booty Exhibition" in which all kinds of captured war material were displayed.
The Germans are very fond of walking, and the war has not decreased the pleasure which they find in this pursuit. Before the war the walkers did not carry their lunch with them, but now they must if they want to get anything to eat; and every afternoon you can see crowds of people starting out, each with a little package of lunch. The Berliners like to go to theGrunewaldwhere they stop at a little inn and order a cup ofKaffee-Ersatz, eat their sandwiches, and feel they are having a very nice time.
Sitting in a café with a cup of cold coffee before them, always has been and always will be the favorite amusement of the German people. Here they can read the magazines and papers and look around. Most Germans do not entertain their friends at home but meet them at a café, and each person pays for what he orders.
All through the war they have boat and track races, and these sports are very popular. Before the war they had aeroplane exhibitions, but these are not held any more. All the hospitals have concertsand moving picture shows for the wounded soldiers.
The main amusement of the people now is talking about things to eat. A man I know in Dresden meets eight of his cronies at aStammtischevery Saturday night. Before the war they discussed politics, art, music, literature and science, but he says now they talk only about eating. In March and April when we had that awful run of a vegetable calledKohlrüben, the man I know said hisStammtischwas going to get out a cook-book forKohlrüben, for they knew twenty-five different ways to cook them!
It has been said that the signVerbotenwas the most seen sign in Germany, but now that sign has a rival inOhne Bezugsschein, which means "without a clothes ticket." All the store windows are decorated with these cards and merchants are pushing forward these articles because they are more expensive than the articles which require a card, and most people would rather pay a few marks more than go to the trouble of getting a card.
Along in May, 1916, there were rumors of a ticket for clothes, but the people only laughed, "How could there be a ticket for clothes?" they asked and "What will we do if our clothes wear out and we can't get a ticket for any more?"
On the 10th of June the ordinance was published, and it went into effect on the 1st of August. Now the ticket is in full swing, and one must have a ticket to get all the articles of wearing apparel and household things that are not markedOhne Bezugsschein.
TheBezugsscheinwas not originated to make things uncomfortable for people in general, but toprotect the people who are poor and to keep the rich people from buying up the cheap useful articles that poorer people must have for winter. At first it was only cheap useful articles that were on the card, and articles of clothing that were over a set price could be bought without a card, but now many expensive things are on a card as well, and no matter what the price is, a man or a woman can have only two woolen suits a year.
The following list is from the ordinance of June 10, and it tells what things can be bought without a card. The prices quoted are the lowest prices of articles without a ticket. The first list is of articles which require no ticket at any price.
Men's ready made clothes without a ticket at the following prices and over.
All things for military use can be bought without a ticket.
Women's ready made clothes without a ticket at the following prices and over.
For every article of wearing apparel or cloth that is not in this list and is cheaper than the set price, one must procure aScheinin order to buy the article. This means that all the cheaper waists, dresses, aprons, pants, stockings, underwear and skirts require a ticket, also all the cheaper cloth by the meter. One cannot buy a yard of flannel, a wash rag or a dusting rag without a ticket. Nearly everything for children requires a ticket.
It is very troublesome to get a ticket, but if you know what you want before you go to the store, you can procure your ticket first, and this saves time. TheBezugsscheinstellenare scattered all over the city. Each district has a place, and you must get your ticket from the district in which you live. They have on file all theScheineyou have procured, so you can't get more than your allowance, and if you have moved from one place to another you must wait until they investigate what you have had in the other district before they will give you aSchein. You must show your passport or your police registration.
The clothes ticket is a large piece of paper with a place for your name, address and occupation. The clerks write on the paper the article you wish and how many of each article. For every kind of an article a separateScheinis needed. On the back of the ticket it tells that it is not transferable and that the misuse of it makes you liable to six months imprisonment or a fine of 15,000 marks. It also saysthat it is good only in the German Empire. This is not supposed to be a joke.
If anything happens to a person's clothes, like loss by fire, new clothes can be procured if the person can prove that the fire was an accident. An American I knew had all his clothes stolen except the suit he was wearing. He went to the police and explained his case, and after a few weeks he got a permit to get some more clothes.
When a man gets a new suit he has to turn in his old suit. These old suits are repaired and are put away for the soldiers when they come home from the war. Germany forgets no details.
The limit of things that a person can buy is rather indefinite, for some people require more clothes than others. Some men get twelve shirts a year, and others get only six. Two woolen suits are allowed and six pairs of stockings.
Since April, 1917, a ticket has been required for shoes, and each person is allowed two pairs of shoes a year. This is really the hardest restriction of the whole war, for the leather is so poor that hardly the best would last six months. Shoes for men are not as bad as the shoes for women, and the soldiers have very good shoes, but when I left Berlin the only kind of shoes that a woman could buy was fancy patent leather with cloth tops, the soles of which were like paper. What the German women are going to do for shoes this winter I do not know. I could not get any shoes at all. In the summer of1916 I had a pair made for sixty marks, but the next summer they wouldn't make any to order, and I wear so small a size that I could not get any shoes to fit me in Berlin.
When I left for Denmark I was very shabby looking. I had a nice silk suit and a pretty hat, but that was the extent of my wardrobe. The girls in the boarding-house where I lived bought nearly everything I had. They were just wild to buy my things, and I sold what they could wear because I knew I could get more and they could not. It was a pity that I am so small, because they could hardly get into what they bought. The daughter of the boarding-house keeper with whom I lived was going to have her winter suit made out of a portière that she had dyed a nice brown color. She had used up all her tickets and couldn't buy any woolen material. As I was going away I let the girls get tickets in my name. This was very nice of me, for I had to go and get the tickets myself, and I had to wait in line to get them.
The ticket is very hard on girls about to be married, as a German girl must furnish the house and have at least two dozen sets of sheets and pillow cases and about one hundred towels. As one person can get only two sheets a year on the ticket, it would at that rate take a girl twelve years before she could be properly married. So the scheming of getting things without a ticket was as great asthe scheming of getting food without a card, and the government cannot prevent it.
A week before I left Berlin, a printed card was hung up in my room at the boarding-house. It said, "After August 1 people coming to this boarding-house for an extended stay must bring their own bedding with them. The washing will be done every four weeks." It was signed "The Boarding-House Union." I was glad that the washing was to be done every four weeks, because I was seven weeks at that boarding-house, and I never once had clean sheets. After three weeks the sheets got a kind of gray color, and then they never seemed to get any dirtier. Special provisions are made at hotels where each guest must be furnished with a clean sheet.
The clothesScheinis especially designed to limit the sale of woolen goods, and many German women who had never worn silk before in their lives are wearing it now, because wool is so expensive. The ticket is very hard on the dry-goods merchants, the tailors and the men's furnishers, and they complain that their business is frightful, but Germany doesn't care for the individuals, she is looking out for the country as a whole.
It is not only clothes that are getting scarce in Germany, but every kind of manufactured articles as well. Many articles of furniture cannot be bought at all now, even second-hand, and the prices for things still in stock are enormous. A German girl I know was going to be married, and she wanted twin brass beds. She tried all over Dresden but could not get two single brass beds alike. She could not even order them, because she was told by the merchants that they were not being made any more. A perfectly plain brass bed, single size, was 390 marks.
All the old stock of manufactured articles, furniture, cooking utensils, goods by the yard, tablecloths, towels and sheets are being bought up by the people, because they say that the new stock which will be manufactured after the war will be of an inferior quality, and it will be years before they can get the good grade of goods again.
Just to illustrate the scarcity of manufactured articles I will tell the story about my typewriter. When I first went to Germany I rented a SmithPremier for three months for thirty marks. Every one said that this was a great bargain. When the three months were over I sent the typewriter firm a check in payment for three months more. I didn't hear anything from them for about a month, when one day a young man called on me and said that he had come for the typewriter, that his firm was not renting typewriters any more, but that I could buy it if I wished, for 390 marks. Reckoning a mark as a quarter as the Germans do, that meant nearly one hundred dollars for a very old rattle-trap typewriter that any one could buy in America for fifteen dollars.
I told the young man that I would not be threatened into buying his typewriter, and that if he took it away he would have to give me back my entire thirty marks even though I had had it a month. We argued for about an hour, and then he went away. The next day I got a letter saying that I could keep the typewriter the remaining two months, but that at the end of that time I must either give it up or buy it. At the end of the two months I sent another check for thirty marks, but the next day a girl messenger dressed as a boy appeared, handed me back my check, took my typewriter under her arm and disappeared. I hoped carrying it would make her good and tired.
I did not want to lay out 400 or 500 marks for a typewriter, and I had an awful time. It was absolutely impossible to rent a typewriter anywhere inBerlin, and I went everywhere. I put an advertisement in the paper and I got only six answers and upon going to all of these six places, I found that at each place the typewriter was a "Mignon," a little toy machine where you had to turn a wheel whenever you struck a letter.
After spending four days hunting, I finally bought a "Pittsburg Visible." I paid sixty-five marks for it, and it wasn't like any typewriter I have seen before—or since. It was very curious to look at—a long, thin affair with very weak prongs that were always getting twisted around each other. It must have been twenty-five or thirty years old. I was always in terror for fear something would happen to it, and whenever we had a guest I yelled, "Be careful and don't bump the typewriter," or "Don't lay your hat on the typewriter." When I first used it, it had the bad habit of getting stuck in the middle of a line, but after I had had it a year, it worked pretty well and I became very much attached to my little "Pittsburg Visible."
During the year I had my typewriter, typewriters became scarcer and dearer than ever, indeed it was impossible to buy any kind of a second-hand visible typewriter, and the new ones were about 600 marks. New correspondents coming over had an awful time and most of them had to borrow typewriters from friends. As most of the typewriters were of American make, it was hard to get a typewriter repaired, as the parts came from America. Ribbons and carbonpaper were very expensive, and although typewriter paper doubled its price, it was cheaper than the paper here in America.
At the time I sold my little Pittsburg Visible in June 1917, I was living in a German boarding-house in Berlin. I believe in advertising, so I put an "ad" in the "Lokal-Anzeiger" which read: "For sale—cheap, visible typewriter, Pension Kostermann, Savigny-Platz 5." I thought that it was a very nice "ad" and it cost me one mark ninety pfennigs.
I will never forget the day my "ad" came out. Before I was up at seven A. M. the maid knocked at my door and said that I was wanted at the telephone. It was some one about the typewriter. That was the beginning. The phone rang all day long, and all the next day. People came in droves, and they would not go away even after the typewriter was sold. They wanted to know what kind it was, and they left cursing themselves that they had not come earlier.
Before I advertised in the paper I had decided to hold out for my price, one hundred marks. At 10.30 A. M. I was offered ninety marks, but I said one hundred was my price. At 11.30 there was a lull in the callers, but the telephone rang like wild. A little Jew came in and offered me fifty-three marks for my typewriter. I was standing there looking very much insulted at the idea of any one daring to offer me fifty-three marks for my good machine, when suddenly the landlady appeared atthe door of my room. "Fräulein McAuley," she said severely, glaring at the Jew, "I want this to cease. The maids have done nothing this morning but answer the phone and go to the door about your typewriter. Do you understand?"
I felt squelched and begged her pardon, and when she left banging the door after her, I looked helplessly at the Jew. "Sixty-five marks," he said sympathetically. "Make it sixty-six," I said, "and you can have it." "Done," he answered, and I sold my typewriter at the profit of one mark after having it a year.
I explained to the landlady that I had not put the telephone number in the paper, and she was pacified. Her daughter admired the American way in which I had made the sale, and the following day she put an "ad" in the same paper for a pair of field glasses she had. "All the soldiers will want them," she said. They prepared for a rush such as I had had for the typewriter, and not a soul answered the advertisement. Both mother and daughter blamed me for it. I think they thought that I had done something more than merely advertise in the paper.
When you move from one place to another in Berlin it takes just about three days to get all the food cards in order again. Here is what you would have to do if you move from one suburb of Berlin to another, say from Charlottenburg to Wilmersdorf. This is for all foreigners—even neutrals.
First you go to thePortieror janitor of the building where you live in Charlottenburg, and he gives you three green slips which you fill out. These slips tell your name, age, occupation, religion, nationality, where you were born and where you last lived. After they are filled out thePortiersigns them. ThePortierkeeps one slip, sends one to the magistrate of Charlottenburg and gives you the third. With this green slip you go to the Charlottenburg police. In the first room a policeman looks up your record which you are surprised to find filed in a little box, and if your record is all right he sends you into the next room where the chief presides. The chief of each police station has charge of all the foreigners, and at the little branch police station onMommsenstrasse where I reported in June the chief told me he had over five hundred foreigners in his district.
You present your green slip, which the man outside has stamped, and your passport to the chief, and after more filing and stamping both on the slip and on your pass, you are ready to move. As soon as you get to Wilmersdorf the newPortiergives you three white slips to fill out. They are very similar to the green ones and ask the same questions. ThePortiersigns these, and he keeps one, sends one to the magistrate of Wilmersdorf, and with the third white slip, your green slip and your pass, you go to the police in Wilmersdorf. Here they file and stamp and then give you back your pass and the white slip which has been stamped for the bread commission.
It is not necessary to go to the bread commission in Charlottenburg, but you must take all your food cards and your white slip with you to the bread commission in Wilmersdorf. Here they look over all your cards very carefully to make sure you are not trying to cheat them and then they give you an entirely new lot of cards cutting them off up to date so you can't get more than your share of food. So far moving has been easy, but the worst part of the business is to come, and that is getting registered to buy meat, eggs, butter, sugar and potatoes at certain stores. Lately this registering has been somewhat simplified, and you can get registered at thebread commission for all the articles except meat, but when the registering was first introduced each person had to go to theRathausor city hall himself and get registered for each article. This meant that one had to stand at least an hour—for there were always such crowds—at five different rooms waiting to have your sugar, meat, butter, potato and egg cards stamped so that you would be allowed to buy these articles, and after you were registered you could buy them only in a certain store, but if you weren't registered you couldn't buy these articles at all. This registering scheme was a very good one, for since it has been introduced there has been no standing for any of these articles, and when the people go for their butter or eggs they find it waiting for them, and the food controllers give each shopkeeper just as much of each of these articles as he can show he has customers registered to buy that article in his store. This has also done away with a lot of sellingOhne Karte, or without a card, for the shopkeeper does not dare to sell without cards, for then he would not have enough for his registered customers and then the police would get after him.
Just to show you what a trouble this registering is I will tell you of the time I had getting registered to buy an egg. I got the egg card easily enough. I had lived at a boarding-house before and I did not even know that you had to be registered for eggs. I took my egg card and went to Herr Blumfeld,an egg-dealer near by, and told him I wanted to buy the egg due on my card. That week we got only one egg apiece. Herr Blumfeld said that he would gladly sell me the egg, but first I would have to go to the magistrate of Charlottenburg and get registered to buy from him, but that after I got registered I could always buy eggs from him.
That didn't sound so hard, so I took the egg card and went to the court-house, which was about six stations on the underground. The court-house was black with people madly rushing to and fro with cards in their hands, red cards, green cards, yellow cards and blue cards. There were soldiers, prosperous looking business men, maids, children, well-dressed women, and women with shawls on their heads. Guides were stationed everywhere, but the people did not seem to be able to find the room they wanted.
I asked a guide where the egg room was, and he pointed it out to me, "Eierzimmer91." I had to go up five flights of stairs, for all the registering rooms were on the top floors. About seventy-five people were ahead of me waiting to be registered to buy eggs. It was about an hour before my turn came, and then I presented my card and said, "I would like to buy eggs from Herr Blumfeld on Pestalozzistrasse."
"Where is yourAusweiskarte?" the lady at the desk asked. I told her I had none and had never heard of one.
"I can't register you for eggs without anAusweiskarte. So you will have to go home to yourPortierand get one."
I took the underground and hurried home. ThePortiersaid that he had noAusweis, or permit cards, and that I would have to go to the bread commission and get it. After waiting at the bread commission in line for an hour, I succeeded in getting anAusweiscard, and then I rushed back to the magistrate. This time I had to wait only half an hour, and at last I came to the desk and was registered to buy an egg from Mr. Blumfeld of Pestalozzistrasse.
I had spent the whole day trying to get that egg, and I was happy in the thought that my efforts were not in vain. As I rode back on the underground I was trying to decide, "Would I eat my egg for breakfast or for dinner? Would I have it boiled or fried?" and then the awful thought came to me, "What if the egg was bad?" That would be too cruel!
It was just seventeen and a half minutes to eight when I got back to the egg shop of Herr Blumfeld. He was sweeping. I waved my card triumphantly, "I have it," I cried. He leaned his broom against the counter and pointed to a sign hanging over the stove, "Eier ausverkauft" (Eggs sold out). I looked at it, then staggered, and then fainted dead away in the greasy arms of the astonished Herr Blumfeld,Eier-Grosshändler.
"Gobble! Ah a gobble!" That is what it sounds like when you hear the newspaper sellers crying out their wares on Potsdamer Platz in the evening. But this is really not what they are saying. They are saying,Abendausgabeor "Evening Edition."
It is a pretty sight, the Potsdamer Platz—cabs rattling along, jingling street-car bells, the square black with civilians and gray with soldiers, wagons drawn up to the sidewalks loaded down with bright-colored fruit and vegetables, women selling flowers—violets, roses, lilies-of-the-valley—Zehn Pfennige ein Sträusschen, and above all the other sounds the cries of "Gobble! Gobble Ah-a-gobble!"
Compared with our big American newspapers a German paper is a very little affair. Its pages are about half as big as the pages of our papers, and in the morning they usually have only eight pages, and in the evening six. There are no glaring headlines to a German paper, and no red ink is used. Even when Kitchener was drowned or Americadeclared war, it appeared in the papers as a headline with letters no more than three-quarters of an inch high.
There is absolutely nothing sensational about a German newspaper, even in war time. They all look alike, and one has to look at the date of the paper to make sure that it is not the paper of the day before. They have no cartoons, and they rarely have any pictures. The Sunday supplement has few "funnies" and never any colored pictures. There are no spicy scandals, no sensational divorce trials and no tales of thrilling murders with the picture of the house where the dark deed was committed marked with an X. Then there is no woman's page and no society column. You ask, well, what have they in their papers?
A Reading-Room for Soldiers on the West Front.
A Reading-Room for Soldiers on the West Front.
On the first page is the war news, very brief. Itgives the General Staff's report from all the war fronts, and this report is signed by the general on each of these fronts. The second page is devoted to news of a more local character. They often print interviews on this page. They make more of a feature of interviews in Germany than we do in America. On the other pages they have sports, the drama, music, stories, and always one article of literary character. One of the big features on the front page is the printing of the under-sea boat booty. Whatever is printed in the German newspapers is the truth as far as it goes, but not everything that is known is printed. What the people really get is the truth without details. The people would like to read these details, but they do not get them. One of the most surprising things that was printed was Zimmermann's letter to Mexico. It came out in all the papers, for Zimmermann thought that the best thing to do was to publish it. It was not very popular with the German people.
One of the things that was not printed in the German papers was the great spy scandal in Norway. I never heard one word about it until I came to Norway. The papers are controlled by a censor. Once last summer theBerliner Tageblattwas shut off for three days. They printed something which the censor did not like, but the general public never found out what the offending article was.
There are three great publishing houses in Berlin. First, the August Scherl Company, which publishesthe daily newspaperLokal-Anzeiger, a morning and an evening paper which has a very large circulation among the poorer class of people and is used for small advertisers. Scherl also publishesDie Woche, a weekly well known in America;Die Gartenlaube, a magazine for women;Der Tag; andDer Montag, a newspaper which comes out every Monday.
A Field Book-Store in France.
A Field Book-Store in France.
A second great company is the Rudolf Mosse Company which publishes the well-knownBerliner Tageblatt, a morning and an evening paper. The third and perhaps greatest company is the Ullstein Company which publishes theVossische Zeitung, a morning and evening paper; theBerliner Morgenpost, a paper read by the working class;B. Z. am Mittag, a little sheet which comes out at noon andis easily the most popular paper in Berlin; theBerliner Illustrierte Zeitung, a splendid weekly which sells for ten pfennigs. Everybody in Berlin reads this weekly, for it has good war articles, fine stories and many interesting pictures. There are many other papers published in Berlin, such as the 8Uhr Abendblatt, a sheet which comes out at seven in the evening, and theTägliche Rundschau, a splendid paper of literary character.
The morning papers cost ten pfennigs and the evening papers cost five pfennigs. Last summer theB. Z. am Mittagraised its price to ten pfennigs, but the public refused to pay the price and in four days it was back to 5 pfennigs again.
All the larger papers have what they call aBriefkastenor a letter box, which is an information and clipping bureau combined. Here forty or fifty people are employed all day long clipping and filing things. Any one can go to this bureau or write to them and is given information free of charge. They even give medical advice free.
The large publishing houses publish books. The Ullstein Company makes a specialty of books for one mark each. They published the "Voyage of the U Deutschland" by Captain Paul König, and every one in Germany read this book.
There is one newspaper in Berlin published in English. It is supposed to be an American paper, but its Americanism was of a very peculiar brand. This paper is called theContinental Times. Themost prominent socialistic paper is called theVorwärts. It is allowed a good deal of freedom but once in a while it is suppressed. On the 19th of April of this year 3000 working men and women gathered on Unter den Linden. It was the only approach to a strike or a riot that I saw as long as I stayed in Germany. TheVorwärtswas against this movement, and mostly through its influence the people went back home. The paper has a tremendous influence. Maximilian Harden's pamphletZukunftis universally read with much interest and curiosity. Harden is allowed about the same privileges in Germany as Bernard Shaw is allowed in England.
German Soldiers on the West Front Reading War Bulletins.
German Soldiers on the West Front Reading War Bulletins.
In the main cities in the territory captured by the Germans, in Lille, Brussels, Warsaw, Lodz andVilna, they have established very good papers printed in German. Then they have papers issued for the soldiers at the front, like theChampagner Kamerad, and theLandsturm. These papers contain war news, stories, jokes and poems.
A Traveling Library for Soldiers.
A Traveling Library for Soldiers.
German newspapers never call their enemies ugly names, and they have remained very dignified sheets. English newspapers are very much read in Germany. These papers are only four days old, and as most of the Germans of the better class read English, they are in great demand. In any of the leading cafés or at the newsdealers one can have theLondon Times, theDaily Mail, theDaily Telegraph, theIllustrated London News, theGraphic,SphereandPunch. French and Italian papers are also to be had. American papers came very irregularly,but even yet a few leak through, and when I left in July I saw American papers up to April 30. If news in an English paper does not coincide with that in the German paper, the German reader does not believe it—that is the only impression it makes on him.
In Berlin they do not have great war bulletins in front of the newspaper offices as we do at home. The nearest approach to our bulletins is in Copenhagen, where they hang bulletins, printed in very large letters, in the second-story window of the newspaper office. A German war bulletin is about as big as an ordinary sheet of typewriting paper, and it is hung low in the newspaper office window where every one takes his turn reading the fine print. Sometimes the bulletins are written by hand with a lead pencil. Other bulletins are printed on single sheets of paper and are distributed on the streets free.
The number of pamphlets written about the war is endless. Every doctor and every professor in Germany seems to have written a book, and every phase of the war has been touched upon. Most of the books are gotten up in a very attractive way with soft backs. They have very few stiff-backed books in Germany. Since the war many books on art, music, science, medicine and literature have been published.
Newspapers have to keep down to a certain size on account of the scarcity and cost of paper, butbooks are no more expensive than they were before the war, and they have book sales the same as we have in America. A few weeks before I left, Wertheim's large department store had a sale of English-German dictionaries, very large books at four marks each. They had a window decorated with these books, and they were soon all snapped up, for the Germans said that they could see no reason why they should not go on with their study of English because the English were enemies.
Newspapers Published for the Soldiers since the War.
Newspapers Published for the Soldiers since the War.
Newspapers in Captured Cities.
Newspapers in Captured Cities.
The war has not spoiled the German's love of reading romances, and so many novels of the cheaper type have been written that a society has been formed to keep the boys and girls from reading them. They have automatic book stands in all railway stations where you put twenty pfennigs in the slot and get a novel. There are many cheap editions of patriotic songs printed in small pocket volumes convenient for soldiers in the trenches.
SOLDATEN!Vorsicht bei Gesprächen!Spionengefahr!
This sign is hanging in every street car, train coupé, restaurant, store and window with a war map in Germany, and it warns the soldiers to be careful in their speaking, that dangerous spies travel about.
Germany is trying to prevent things that she does not wish known from becoming known by locking them up even in the mouths of her soldiers, and if she were as clever at concealing her tactics abroad as she is at home, Zimmermann's famous letter to Mexico would never have been found.
Not only the soldiers on the streets must keep quiet, but the soldiers in the field as well, and each soldier has written directions that in case he is taken prisoner he shall give no information to the enemy. He must not tell the number of his regiment, his age or what district he is from, for all these things give the enemy important information. It is especiallyimportant that the enemy shall not know what regiment is opposing them.
All the foreigners in Germany are under police control, but none of the enemy civilians are interned except the English. The Americans, Russians, French, Belgians and Italians are free except that they must report once a day to the police, and they cannot go from one city to another without a permit. Most of the Americans get off with going to the police only once a week. The Poles have to go twice a week. All neutral foreigners must go to the police and register when they change their address. The Germans must do this too in order to get a bread card. The food cards have been great things for weeding out criminals and spies, for no one can get a card unless he is registered at the police, and many famous criminals who have been evading the police for years have been caught since the war.
There are very few slums in Germany, but in Berlin they have a few dens where crooks hold out, and bread cards can be bought for fifty pfennigs to one mark. An American boy I knew in Berlin who spoke German like a native, used to dress in old clothes and visit these places. Sometimes he was taken for a foreigner but nearly always for a German. He said that the men made signs from one table to the other when they had anything to sell. He often bought cards for fifty pfennigs. One crook that he got acquainted withwas a German who went around begging, saying that he was a Belgian refugee. He had some kind of a medal to show people and his begging business netted him a nice little income.
The boy said that the slums were rather "slow," very little drinking and a great deal of planning of things that they were afraid to carry out, for a German crook hasn't much courage. One café that the boy often visited was the "CaféDalles," which means "Café Down and Out." It was situated right near the Kaiser's Berlin palace. One night in the summer of 1916 it was raided just a few minutes before the boy got to the place. Through this raid the police discovered that some one was manufacturing bread cards by the thousands each week. They were an almost perfect imitation of the real cards. Of course even the clever Berlin police could not control all the crooked work that was going on with the food cards, but they kept things pretty well under hand. One scheme that was worked was, when a family changed their residence, to register an extra one in the family. I used to wonder often that the Germans had the nerve to do this, for they were terribly afraid of being caught.
In Germany a foreigner uses his passport on every occasion, and one must always carry it. You can't send a telegram out of Germany without showing your pass, and then if you send it in any other language than German, you must make a Germantranslation of the message at the bottom of the sheet.
No foreigner, not even a neutral, is allowed to go to the seaside unless he has a doctor's certificate, and even then it is hard to get a permit. No kodaks are allowed at the seaside, and one is not allowed to sketch. Now they are very strict about any one taking pictures in or around Berlin.
When you come into Germany, you are not allowed to bring either a kodak or a Bible with you. One can easily see the reason for the kodak being prohibited, but people are always surprised when their Bibles are taken away from them. In all wars the Bible has been used as a place for concealing secret messages and the garb of a priest, nun, or minister has been a favorite disguise for spies.
A man I knew in Berlin came over by way of Holland. He had a Bible, a prayer-book and a Chicago telephone book with him. He was astonished when they took the Bible and the prayer-book away from him and allowed him to keep the telephone book. It was winter when he came over, and he had on a coat with turn-back cuffs. He lives in Chicago, and he had acquired the habit of sticking street-car transfers in his cuffs. When he was searched the searcher found a transfer in the cuff, and the American was marched off to an officer. The German officer looked at the transfer long and interestedly and then laughed, "Why, I know that line, I have been in Chicago myself."
On this same boat was a preacher. The preacher was sure that he as a member of the cloth would have no trouble, and then he had a stack of credentials sky-high. When he was searched more closely than the rest he grew insolent and said things, and as a result he was held up three days until his friends in Germany helped him out.
My mother was nearly held up on the German border when she left Germany. A German lady in Dresden asked her to take some presents to her daughter in America, and among the things were two little bibs worked in a cross stitch design that were to be given to the daughter's child. The officials at Warnemünde seemed to think that the designs meant something, and they studied over them a long time, but finally after half an hour they gave them back to mother but with an air of not being sure what the cross stitch designs really were.
The greatest role for spies in this war is that of Red Cross worker. Here they have much freedom, and they can get very near the front. Then a sick or wounded man will tell things that a well man will not. Also, it is not so hard for them to transmit messages to their fellow conspirators. In every country Red Cross workers are closely watched.
Another kind of spy is the newspaper spy. There was a newspaper spy in Berlin when I was there. He posed as being verydeutschfreundlich, and his good cigars and quantities of spending-money got him lots of information. When newspaper men aretaken to the front, they have to sign a paper that they will not leave Germany for a month after their return. They also have to sign a paper that they will not hold the German government responsible in case of anything happening to them.
They tell all sorts of spy stories in Germany, and some of them sound very far-fetched. Here is a typical one. In East Prussia a nun was found weeping in a railway station. She had a funeral wreath in her hands. A sympathetic crowd gathered around her and tried to comfort her. Finally, a little boy in the crowd cried, "Oh, look, mother, what big hands she has!" The crowd looked, and sure enough they were big—they were a man's hands. And the nun was found to be a man, a Russian spy.
An American girl I knew was arrested as a spy. She was summering in a little town in the Westphalia district. She was an ardent photographer, and she could not see anything without wanting to snap it. The second day there, she was out walking and discovered what she considered a neat bit—green trees and a factory in the distance. She snapped the picture and just then a voice behind her asked what she was doing. She looked around and there stood a German soldier who told her to come with him. She went. She was taken to a guard house where her pass was examined and the film developed. When the films came out it was found she had a picture of a bridge and two munitionfactories. They gave the girl two hours to get out of the town. She never dreamed it wasverboten.
All the munition factories, granaries, wharves, supply places and flying-places in Germany are guarded night and day, and if any one goes poking around these places he is told to "move on." If any one can spy on any of these locked-up places he must be very clever.
Every thirtieth person in Germany is a war prisoner. Every fifth man is a Russian.
In Germany there are now nearly 2,000,000 prisoners of war. In the summer of 1916 the Central Powers held 2,658,283 prisoners, and of this number 1,647,225 were held in Germany. This was before Roumania fell, and then the number was greatly increased.
They have 150 large prison camps and five hundred small prison camps in Germany, and there are hundreds of places where the working prisoners live. The largest camps are at Guben and Czersh, where the prisoners are mostly Russians. The camps at Zossen, Wunsdorf, Nuremberg and Ratisbon are also very large.
The camps are divided into military divisions, and they are run like real military camps. The common prisoners sleep in dormitories, and they are furnished with a straw mattress, a pillow and colored bed covers. The men must keep their own beds clean, and they are compelled to take a bath every day. Many of the prisoners are employed aroundthe camp, some of them helping in the cooking and the baking. In a camp of 10,000 prisoners it is no easy task to get the meals ready.
The prisoners, especially on the east front, are compelled to be vaccinated against cholera, typhoid and small-pox, and every prisoner must be disinfected for lice and fleas, even his clothes. Every Russian prisoner must have his head shaved. Prisoners are employed as barbers.