Part 9

It is an hour's ride from Berlin to Potsdam, and you can easily see why the Hohenzollerns have chosen this as a place to live. It is so cunning, so little. The tiny houses are of a yellow color. It is a soldier town. Every man is a soldier, and soldiers practise all day long in front of the Town Palace of Frederick the Great. In the street in front of the palace is a tree, the "Petition-Linden," where people used to come to present their woes to old Fritz. On the other side of the palace is the statue of General Steuben, a replica of which was sent over as a gift from the Germans to America.

Potsdam is most beautiful at sunset. One can stand on the old bridge and look out over the water. When the shadows begin to fall, the old knights on the bridge seem to move and to climb down from their places. Hark! One can hear the click of their spurs, the rattle of armor. One by one they leave the bridge and move toward the old palace in the darkness.

A TRIP DOWN THE HARBOR OF HAMBURG.

My most unique experience in Germany was my trip down the Harbor of Hamburg, for strangers are absolutely forbidden near the docks, and foreigners poking around are arrested. My trip was made just by chance.

An American girl and I took a trip up to Hamburg Christmas week last year. I was offered letters of introduction to people there, but I said we didn't want them, that we were going only for fun, and we didn't want to be bothered by meeting strange people. I had been in Hamburg once several years before, but neither of us knew much about the place.

The first evening, or rather afternoon--it was dark at four o'clock--that we were there, we started out for a walk. We went through St. Pauli, the famous sailor quarter, where in times of peace the sailors spent their time when their ships were in port. As this was Christmas week, the shooting galleries and side-shows were open, but the places were not crowded, as it was too early. Only a few soldiers, sailors and children were walking about the place.

One place had a figure of a soldier in the window. He was stepping into a room where a woman was holding a little baby in her arms. On a card was printed what the soldier was saying, "Excuse me, young man, but I would like to make your acquaintance. I am your dad."

We branched off the main street of St. Pauli and went up a side street. It was pitch dark, and the streets were not well lighted. At the end of this street we came to some steps at the bottom of which was a foot-bridge that led to the water's edge. In the distance on the other side of the water was what looked like a great city of lights. We both held our breath when we saw this place--it looked like New York when you cross on the ferry. And ferry-boats were shooting all over the water. Great iron beams with regular rows of lights on their sides made them look like sky scrapers.

"It's New York! It's home!" cried my excited companion.

Great crowds of workmen--hundreds, thousands of them--were coming up the foot-bridge. They had come over on the ferry. I had my geography all mixed up and I said, "That is Altona over there. Let's go down and take a ride on the ferry and pretend that we are landing in New York."

We hurried down the narrow foot-bridge. The men that were hurrying up bumped into us. At the foot of the bridge was a ticket place. An elderly man in a blue uniform was standing beside it. We rushed over to him and asked, "Are we allowed to go over to Altona on the ferry."

He looked at us and then laughed and answered us in English: "That is not Altona. That is the great Hamburg docks. Where do you want to go?"

We told him that we did not know where we wanted to go, but that it looked so much like New York that we wanted to ride over.

It was a bitter cold winter night between Christmas and New Year's, and if he thought that we were either crazy or spies he never let on.

"Have you passports?" he asked.

We showed our papers, and he told us that if we promised to stay on the boat and to come back to him he would let us go. We promised, and he wrote our names, our Hamburg, Berlin and American addresses, our age and religion in a book, and he told us to buy a ticket.

The round trip cost five pfennigs, and the old man escorted us to the ferry and talked to us until the boat was ready to start. He said that night and day 15,000 men were employed on the docks, and that besides all the men coming over on the boats many more came over through a tunnel that ran under the water. He said that they were building many boats, and that the "Bismarck" would be the largest boat afloat--55,000 tons--and that the "Tirpitz" would be 32,000 tons, and that so far during the war there had been made a total tonnage of new boats of 740,000 tons and that 100,000 tons were under construction. Then he told us about the school for sailor boys at Finkenwerder where boys were being trained as sailors, not for war but for the merchant marine after the war. I said that I thought this was certainly very enterprising.

I did not realize what a wild night it was until our boat got started. The ferry tipped up and down, and the wind was like a knife. Boats were scooting all over the harbor, and we had a time to keep from bumping into things.

A boy of about twelve years was attending to the landings. He was a tough little kid, and he smoked one cigarette after another. And how he could swear! We wanted to ask him some questions, but neither of us had the courage. But finally he came over to us and almost blowing a puff of smoke into my face he said: "He is an old cab-driver and a _Schreihals_, and I hate him." He pointed to the pilot.

When our boat came to the second landing it slid under the end of a great black thing that hung over us. "That is the 'Imperator,'" said our sailor boy. It had been raised up out of the water to keep it from rotting, and this made it look bigger than ever. Some of its port holes showed lights. Just back of the "Imperator" the boy pointed out the "Bismarck." What a monster it was! It was all lighted up with electric lights. We could see workmen moving around on it, and we could hear the click of their hammers. The "Tirpitz" could hardly be seen. It lay beyond the "Bismarck" and the pelting snow blinded our view.

We passed all sorts of boats, cruisers, torpedo boats, supply boats, and steamers. I have never seen such a busy place as that harbor.

"You are foreigners," said the boy, "and the old boss on the docks doesn't allow foreigners out here. But I suppose he saw that you were girls and you wouldn't know much. We have got to be careful of spies. We have arrested twenty already. The last one I spotted myself. He was drawing a plan on a paper. I can tell you nothing gets by me. I can see you two are harmless."

We made a circle around the harbor. When we came near the cruisers, coming back, one of the biggest ones broke loose from the group and began to move slowly away.

"Do you see that?" said the boy, "she is going out again. She has been here for three weeks. She has been in many a fight. I can tell you she is a devil." The boat had but a few lights showing, and in a minute she was lost in the darkness.

On our ferry coming back were several hundred workmen. They were not cripples but big strong men. When we got off the dock at St. Pauli they all jumped off and ran. We ran too, for we were nearly frozen stiff. The old man in blue was waiting for us, and with chattering teeth we thanked him and told him how much we had enjoyed our trip.

"Wouldn't you like to come in and get warmed up a bit?" he asked and he took us into a little office where a great fire was burning. He talked to us about America. I think he must have been a mate on a steamer.

It was just six o'clock when we ran up the foot-bridge. A boat-load of workmen ran up with us. At the top we stood a minute and looked out over the harbor. A sea of lights! A bay of boats! More workmen! The old man in blue had said: "We are getting ready for the Hamburg of to-morrow."

THE KRUPP WORKS AT ESSEN.

Standing in the main square before the town hall of Essen is a large bronze monument, representing not a king, nor yet a hero, but a man clad in a simple citizen's coat. His right hand rests on an anvil, and his penetrating eyes are overhung by a thinker's brow. The granite pedestal bears the name of "Alfred Krupp."

Long ago England knew the process of making cast steel, but she carefully kept it a secret. In 1800 Friedrich Krupp, the father of Alfred, began to experiment. He worked early and late. His friends told him that he was wasting his time, but Friedrich worked on. After eleven years he discovered the precious secret, and in 1818, on the present site of the Essen works, he built eight furnaces, each with one crucible. He employed only two laborers. And that was the beginning of the great Krupp works at Essen.

His son Alfred was born in 1812, just one year after the great discovery was made, and in 1842 Alfred assumed entire charge of the works. His father had been able to cast steel only in small masses. In 1855 Alfred Krupp sent a block of steel weighing 4500 pounds to the London Exhibition, and he was able to cast steel in one mass weighing more than 100,000 pounds. Alfred Krupp died in 1887, and it was under him that the Krupp works grew, to such enormous proportions.

Alfred Friedrich Krupp, the third in line, was born in 1854 and died in 1902. He was known as the cannon king. When he died nearly all his wealth went to his daughter Bertha. In 1906, at the age of twenty years, Bertha Krupp was married to a plain German gentleman with only a "von" to his name, Herr von Bohlen and Halbach. They have four children living and one child dead, and they live very quietly at "Villa Hügel" in Essen, a lovely villa built on the hills above the town. In 1900, before his marriage, Herr von Bohlen was an attaché at the German embassy at Washington. Bertha Krupp is the second richest person in the German empire, running the Kaiser a close second, and when this war is over her wealth may surpass his.

Essen lies twenty-two miles north of Düsseldorf on the main railway to Berlin. This is a very thickly populated district, and the center of a network of railways which makes it accessible to the Westphalia coal fields. It is a gloomy-looking town of gray slate roofs, only brightened by emerald green shutters. The whole town depends on the Krupp plant for their livelihood, except the store-keepers and a few hundred men who manufacture woolen goods, cigars and dyes.

The present Krupp works cover over 150 acres, and the daily output in time of peace is 1977 tons, and many times greater in time of war. In 1907 they employed 64,354 workmen, and each year this number had increased. They make all kinds of guns of all calibers--guns for naval and coast defenses, siege guns, fortress guns, field guns, armor shields and disappearing carriages for hoisting and transporting machinery for ammunition. They produce crucible, Martin, puddled and Bessemer steel, and also steel castings. They make ammunition with fuses and bursting charges, armor piercing shells, explosive steel shells, torpedo shells, cast iron shells, shrapnel, case shot and fuse setters. Besides these warlike productions they make railway material, engineering material, and sheet iron for motor cars.

Plans have been made to erect a gigantic branch of the Krupp works at Munich. These works will cover one hundred acres, and the city of Munich recognizing this opportunity for further developments, has provided enough ground for private industries that are bound to follow Krupp.

The house of Krupp has worked out an elaborate scheme for the benefit of their workingmen. It is not a charity scheme, but a building scheme for both workmen and employer. The scheme was carried out by Alfred Friedrich Krupp. He built 5469 dwellings, well lighted houses, with as much space between them as possible and each with a little garden. All the houses have good water. Three thousand of the houses were built within fifteen minutes' walk from the works. The men longest in the firm's employ and with the largest families were given the selection of the houses.

Policemen and teachers are eligible to become tenants of the dwellings. The leases are very binding and forbid the carrying on of business in the houses, sub-letting, quarreling with the neighbors, disorderly noises, the building of additions, misuse of the drains, the keeping of animals that are disturbing to the neighbors, smoking stove-pipes without covers and the lighting of the fire with oil.

The tenant on the first floor must clean the pavement every day before nine A. M., except Sundays and holidays when it must be done on the preceding day between three and four P. M. The rent of the houses runs from $15 a year for two rooms, to $85 for five or six rooms with a cellar.

The Essener Hof is a hotel run by the Krupps, and it is intended for the guests of the Krupps who are doing business with the firm. Then there is a boarding-house for bachelors and widowers. This boarding-house was started in 1855 with two hundred men and now it has over a thousand.

For the community of workers there are many stores, twenty-five grocery stores, two slaughter-houses, a bakery, a flour mill, an ice plant, a brush factory, two tailors, two shoemakers, a laundry, a hotel, eleven restaurants, three cafés, nine beerhalls and two clubhouses.

There is a whole staff of doctors to look after the workmen and their families, and the strict medical treatment prevents contagious diseases. The laws of the German empire require certain classes of workmen to be insured against old age and broken-down constitutions. This came through the efforts of Bismarck, and it applies to all workmen with a salary not exceeding $500 a year. Alfred Krupp gave $250,000 to the workmen, the interest of which is used as a fund to encourage them to build their own houses and as a help for the needy. It is loaned to the workmen at a very small rate of interest.

Besides these benefits he established private schools the purpose of which is to qualify the children of the workmen to earn honest profitable livings. A fee of five cents a month is charged to each pupil, but if the child remains fifteen months, seventy-five cents is placed in the savings bank to his credit.

Krupp realized that a contented body of workmen brings about better results than unhappy ones, and he felt that his scheme was not only a philanthropic one but also a good business investment.

In the war of 1870 Krupp guns were used, and in this present war they have played a star role. The Kaiser sent his personal thanks to the house of Krupp for all that they have done for Germany. Frau Bertha is very proud of her works and also of the nickname of her howitzers: "Busy Berthas."

MUNICH IN WAR TIME.

No matter what you want to do in Germany if you are a foreigner, even a neutral, you have to go to the police. If you want to take a trip, the first thing that you do is to go to the police and ask them if you are allowed to go where you want to go, and then if you are allowed to go you must return to the police exactly twenty-four hours before you start and get your passport stamped.

Then you take your bread card, your butter card, your meat card and your potato card to the bread commission. They cut off tickets for as long as you are to be away, and in return they give you a traveling bread card, a little book with twenty tickets in it. Each ticket is good for either a roll or a piece of black bread, and for each week you receive forty tickets. In the hotels where you stop you receive a meat card on the days when meat is served.

As soon as you arrive at your destination you must go to the police and register. Here they write your whole history down on a field-gray card. One would think that it was an easy matter to slip away and the police would never know. This can be done very easily, but if you are caught you get in an awful muddle. Police come through the trains unexpectedly and ask to see your passport. If it is not in order you are liable to be imprisoned, and you must pay a fine for every day that you are not registered. Sensible people follow all the police rules. They are well advertised and one cannot fail to know them.

An American lady I know went from Berlin to Munich without registering at the police station. A man came through the train and asked her for her pass, and when he saw that it was not stamped she was ordered to report to the Munich police at once. When she got to Munich she forgot to go to the police for three days, and when she went there the good-natured Bavarian policeman let her off.

"I am so glad," she said, "I would not know what to wear if I went to jail.'"

It was in September, 1916, that I made my last trip to Munich. One seldom sees French prisoners in Berlin, but all the way from Berlin to Munich I saw them working in the fields. All of these prisoners had on blue coats and their famous bright red trousers. They made gay spots on the dull German landscapes.

Every little farm had geese, and every little town had its little garrison of soldiers, training. In some places the soldiers were out in the fields drilling. They were running, jumping and shooting.

The center of attraction of our whole train was a young sailor from the "Deutschland." He was a fine young fellow and he smiled at everybody. At every station he got out and bought something to eat. He seemed to have an endless appetite and a very long purse.

As one gets farther and farther into Bavaria, the wayside shrines begin to appear. They are everywhere along the roads and in the fields. At different places harvest workers could be seen gathered around the shrines in prayer.

When one is many, many miles away from Munich, one can see the two towers of the _Frauenkirche_, red towers with green tops. These towers are the symbol of Munich.

Outwardly, the only change that one can see in Munich is the substituting of soldiers for students, and it really spoils the place, for while the military spirit suits Berlin so well, it seems out of place with these more gentle southern people. The Bavarian uniforms are trimmed around the collar with a blue and white braid that looks like the edging on a child's petticoat. It is hard to understand how such artistic people could choose such a thing, but a Bavarian's artistic sense is in his mind and not in his dress. The Bavarian soldiers have a reputation all over Germany for being very fine warriors.

The loss of the old Prince Regent Luitpold meant much to these people, and his son can never hope to be as popular even if he did have to wait seventy years before he came to the throne. The Crown Prince Rupert is more popular than his father. He is nearly always with his troops at the front, and even when his eldest boy died, he felt that he could not get away. He said, "This is no time for a soldier not to be attending to his duty." His next son, Prince Albert, is now the heir to the throne. He is a beautiful little boy and is tremendously popular in Munich. The old Müncheners say that he is very much like what Ludwig II was when he was a boy.

Most things to eat are much more plentiful in Munich than in Berlin. For instance, a man can have a pint of milk every day and a woman can have more than that. Ham costs only seventy cents a pound without a card, and on meat days it can be bought in any of the restaurants. The meat portions in the Munich restaurants are one hundred and eighty grams while in Berlin they range from fifty to forty grams; and in Bavaria the price for the portion is no higher.

Vegetables and fruit are very plentiful, but butter and eggs are scarcer than in Berlin. One person gets only fifty grams of butter each week and one egg. In Berlin we generally got eighty grams of butter and never less than an egg and a half a week.

In Bavaria everything is divided among the people. For instance, if a man who lives in the country near Munich has a load of hay for sale, he brings that load of hay to Munich to what they call the central station. They have all kinds of central stations in Munich, for grain, for meat, for eggs, for vegetables, and for butter. The load of hay which the man brings is divided up and given out where it is most needed; he does not dare to sell the load of hay himself.

It is just the same with eggs. Suppose that you had a brother in the country, and he wanted to send you one hundred eggs to pack for the winter. He could not send you the eggs direct. He would have to send them first to the central station, and if eggs were plentiful that week, the central station would let you have the eggs; but if eggs were scarce and were needed elsewhere, you are given only a small part of the eggs. This plan is followed in everything. Even if you raise a pig, you cannot keep all the meat yourself, you must sell a part of it to your neighbor if he needs it.

The rolls in Munich are much better than in Berlin, and they seem to be made of entirely white flour. Cheese is very scarce in Berlin, but in Munich there is plenty of cheese, and it is very cheap. Pure coffee can be bought at a dollar a pound without a card, and although there is a sugar card the same as in Berlin, still all the restaurants and cafés serve pure sugar.

The price of beer has not been affected much by the war and beer that was twenty-eight pfennigs before the war is now thirty-four pfennigs, and the Hofbräu beer, or the beer made by the royal brewery, is thirty-two pfennigs. Fine malt beers such as Bock Beer and Märzen Beer are prohibited from being made, as they take too much malt and saccharine.

One evening when I was there we walked through the Mathazerbräu, the greatest beer hall in the world. The place was one mass of people drinking beer, soldiers and officers and women. Most of the guests brought their supper with them, and everybody was smoking. It was like walking through a thick fog, there was so much smoke.

We went to a lot of theaters, cafés and cabarets, and they were always full. Everywhere we went we had trouble in getting a seat. Everybody seemed to be having a very nice time. They were not hilarious, but they seemed to think that staying at home and moping would not help matters. The most astonishing part was the vast amount of money spent everywhere. Some cabarets only served champagne, and the spenders ordered it by the quart. No one got drunk in spite of the amount of fluid they poured into them.