Germany in War Time: What an American Girl Saw and Heard

DEDICATION TO MY MOTHER WHO SHARED THE TRIALS OF TWO YEARS IN GERMANY WITH ME

PREFATORY NOTE.

This book is the product of two years spent in Germany during the great war. It portrays what has been seen and heard by an American girl whose primary interest was in art. She has tried to write without fear or favor the simple truth as it appeared to her.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PAGE Getting into Germany in War Time 1 Soldiers of Berlin 7 The Women Workers of Berlin 20 German "Sparsamkeit" 35 The Food in Germany 49 What We Ate in Germany 62 How Berlin is Amusing Itself in War Time 69 The Clothes Ticket 81 My Typewriter 88 Moving in Berlin 93 What the Germans Read in War Time 98 Precautions Against Spies, etc. 108 Prisoners in Germany 115 Verboten 128 The Mail in Germany 132 The "Ausländerei" 140 War Charities 146 What Germany is Doing for Her Human War Wrecks 159 Will the Women of Germany Serve a Year in the Army? 173 The Kaiserin and the Hohenzollern Princesses 184 A Stroll Through Berlin 196 A Trip Down the Harbor of Hamburg 207 The Krupp Works at Essen 218 Munich in War Time 228 From Berlin to Vienna in War Time 242 Vienna in War Time 256 Soldiers of Vienna 267 Women Warriors 279 How Americans Were Treated in Germany 286 I Leave Germany July 1, 1917 292

GETTING INTO GERMANY IN WAR TIME.

Now that America and Germany are at war, it is not possible for an American to enter the German Empire. Americans can leave the country if they wish, but once they are out they cannot go back in again.

Since the first year of the war there has been only one way of getting into Germany through Denmark, and that is by way of Warnemünde. After leaving Copenhagen you ride a long way on the train, and then the train boards a ferry which takes you to a little island. At the end of this island is the Danish frontier, where you are thoroughly searched to see how much food you are trying to take into Germany. After this frontier is passed you ride for a few hours on a boat which carries you right up to Warnemünde, the German landing-place and the military customs of Germany.

When I went to Germany in October, 1915, the regulations were not very strict, travelers had only to show that they had a good reason for going into the country, and they were searched--that was all. But during the two years I was in Germany all this was changed. Now it is very hard for even a neutral to enter Germany. Neutrals must first have a visé from the German consul in Denmark. It takes four days to get this visé, and you must have your picture taken in six different poses. Also, you must have a legitimate reason for wanting to go into the country, and if there is anything the least suspicious about you, you are not granted a permit to enter.

Travelers entering Germany bring as much food with them as they can. You are allowed to bring a moderate amount of tea, coffee, soap, canned milk, etc.; nine pounds of butter and as much smoked meat as you can carry. No fresh meat is allowed, and you must carry the meat yourself as no porters are allowed around the docks. This is a spy precaution.

The butter and meat are bought in Copenhagen from a licensed firm where it is sealed and the firm sends the package to the boat for you. You must be careful not to break the seal before the German customs are passed. The Danes are very strict about letting rubber goods out of their country, and one little German girl I knew was so afraid that the Danes would take her rubbers away from her, that she wore them on a hot summer day.

The boat which takes passengers to and from Warnemünde is one day a German boat and the next day a Danish boat. If you are lucky and make the trip on the day the Danish boat is running, you get a wonderful meal, and if you are unlucky and strike the German day, you get a poor one. After getting off the boat, you get your first glimpse of the German Militär, the soldiers at the customs.

The travelers are divided into two classes--those going to Hamburg and those going to Berlin. Then a soldier gets up on a box and asks if there is any one in the crowd who has no passport. The day I came through only one man stepped forward. I felt sorry for him, but he did not look the least bit disheartened. An officer led him away. Strange to say, four days later we were seated in a hotel in Berlin eating our breakfast when this same little man came up and asked if we were not from Pittsburg, and if we had not come over on the "Kristianiafjord." When I said that we had, he remarked: "Well, I am from Pittsburg, too, and I came over on the 'Kristianiafjord.'"

"But I did not see you among the passengers," I said.

"No," he answered, "I should say not. I was a bag of potatoes in the hold. I am a reserve officer in the German army, and I was determined to get back to fight. I came without a passport claiming to be a Russian. It took me three days to get fixed up at Warnemünde because I had no papers of any kind. The day I had everything straightened out and was leaving for Berlin, a funny thing happened. I was walking along the street with an officer when a crowd of Russian prisoners came along. To my surprise one of the fellows yelled at me, 'Hello, Mister, you'se here too?' And I knew that fellow. He had worked for my father in America. As he was returning to Russia, he was taken prisoner by the Germans. I had an awful time explaining my acquaintance to the authorities at Warnemünde, but here I am waiting to join my regiment."

At Warnemünde, after the people are divided into groups, they are taken into a large room where the baggage is examined. At the time I came through we were allowed to bring manuscript with us, but it had to be read. Now not one scrap of either written or printed matter can be carried, not even so much as an address. All the writing now going into Germany must be sent by post and censored as a letter.

When I came through I had a stack of notes with me and I never dreamed that it would be examined. I was having a difficult time with the soldier who was searching me when an officer who spoke perfect English came up and asked if he could help me. He had to read all my letters and papers, but he was such a slow reader that the train was held up half an hour waiting for him to finish reading them. Nothing was taken away from me, but they took a copy of the London Illustrated News away from a German who protested loudly, waving his hands. It was a funny thing to do, for in Berlin this paper was for sale on all the news stands and in the cafés. But sometimes the Germans make it a point of treating foreigners better than they do their own people. I noticed this many times afterward.

After the baggage was examined, the people had to be searched. The men didn't have to undress and the women were taken into a small room where women searchers made us take off all our clothes. They even make you take off your shoes, they feel in your hair and they look into your locket. As I had held up the train so long, I did not have much time to dress and hurried into the train with my hat in my hand and my shoes untied. As the train pulls out the searcher soldiers line up and salute it. Searching isn't a very nice job, and when my mother went back to America the next spring, no less than four of the searchers told her that they hated it and that when the war was over the whole Warnemünde force was coming to America.

The train was due in Berlin at 9 o'clock at night, but we were late when we pulled in at the Stettin Station. We had a hard time getting a cab and finally we had to share an automobile with a strange man who was going to the same hotel. At 10 o'clock we were in our hotel on Unter den Linden. From the window I could look out on the linden trees. The lights were twinkling merrily in the cafés across the way. Policemen were holding up the traffic on the narrow Friedrichstrasse. People were everywhere. It did not seem like a country that was taking part in the great war.

SOLDIERS OF BERLIN.

Berlin is a city of soldiers. Every day is soldiers' day. And on Sundays there are even more soldiers than on week days. Then Unter den Linden, Friedrichstrasse and the Tiergarten are one seething mass of gray coats--gray the color of everything and yet the color of nothing. This field gray blends with the streets, the houses, and the walls, and the dark clothes of the civilians stand out conspicuously against this gray mass.

When I first came to Berlin, I thought it was just by chance that so many soldiers were there, but the army seems ever to increase--officers, privates, sailors and men right from the trenches. During the two years that I was in Berlin this army remained the same. It didn't decrease in numbers and it didn't change in looks. The day I left Berlin it looked exactly the same as the day I entered the country. They were anything but a happy-looking bunch of men, and all they talked about was, "when the war is over"; and like every German I met in those two years, they longed and prayed for peace. One day on the street car I heard a common German soldier say, "What difference does it make to us common people whether Germany wins the war or not, in these three years we folks have lost everything." But every German soldier is willing to do his duty.

The most wonderful thing about this transit army is that everything the soldiers have, from their caps to their shoes, is new, except the soldiers just coming from the front. And yet as a rule they are not new recruits starting out, but men who have been home on a furlough or men who have been wounded and are now ready to start back to the front. To believe that Germany has exhausted her supply of men is a mistake. Personally, I know lots of young Germans that have never been drafted. The most of these men are such who, for some reason or other, have had no army service, and the German military believe that one trained man is worth six untrained men, and it is the trained soldier that is always kept in the field. If he has been wounded he is quickly hurried back to the front. By their scientific methods a bullet wound can be entirely cured in six weeks.

German men have never been noted dressers, and even at their best the middle and lower classes look very gawky and countrified in civilian clothes. You cannot imagine how the uniform improves their appearance. I have seen new recruits marching to the place where they get their uniforms. Most of them have on old ill-fitting clothes, slouch hats and polished boots. They shuffle along, carrying boxes and bundles. They have queer embarrassed looks on their faces. Three hours later, this same lot of men come forth. They are not the same men. They have a different fire in their eyes, they hold themselves straighter, they no longer slouch but keep step. The uniform seems to have made new men of them. It should be called "transform," not uniform.

At the Friedrichstrasse Station one can see every kind of soldiers at once. There the men arrive from the front sometimes covered with dust and mud, and once I saw a man with his trousers all spattered with blood. The common soldiers carry everything with them. On their backs they have their knapsacks, and around their waists they have cans, spoons, bundles and all sorts of things. These men carry sixty-five pounds with them all the time. In one of their bags they carry what is known as their eiserne Portion or their "iron portion." This consists of two cans of meat, two cans of vegetables, three packages of hard tack, ground coffee for several meals and a flask of whisky. The soldiers are not allowed to eat this portion unless they are in a place where no food can be brought to them, and then they are only allowed to eat it at the command of a superior officer. In the field the iron portions are inspected each day, and any soldier that has touched his portion is severely punished.