Part 11

Look where you would you were sure to find some new _Ersatz_ brazenly staring you in the face. Clothing, furniture, toys, pictures, drugs, tapestries, bicycles, tools, hand-bags, string, galoshes, the very money in your pocket, were but imitations of the real thing. Examine the box of matches you acquired at last with much patience and diplomacy and you found it marked, “Without sulphur and without phosphorus”—a sad fact that would soon have made itself apparent without formal announcement. The wood was still genuine; thanks to their scientific forestry, the Germans have not yet run out of that. But many of their great forests are thinned out like the hair of the middle-aged male—and the loss as cleverly concealed. There has been much Teutonic boasting on this subject of _Ersatz_, but since the armistice, at least, it had changed to wailing, for even if he ever seriously believed otherwise the German had discovered that the vast majority of his laborious substitutes did not substitute.

As we are carefully avoiding the mention of food, the most grievous source of annoyance to the rank and file of which we can speak here is the lack of tobacco. In contrast with the rest of the country there were plenty of cigars in Berlin—apparently, until one found that the heaps of boxes adorning tobacconists’ windows were placarded “_Nur leere Kisten_,” or at best were filled with rolls of some species of weed that could not claim the most distant relationship to the fragrant leaf of Virginia. I indulged one day, before I had found the open sesame to the American commissary, in one of the most promising of those mysterious vegetables, at two marks a throw. The taste is with me yet. American officers at the Adlon sometimes ventured to leave food-supplies in the drawers of their desks, but their cigars they locked in the safe, along with their secret papers and real money. In the highest-priced restaurant of Berlin the shout of, “Waiter, bring two cigarettes!” was sure to focus all eyes on the prosperous individual who could still subject his fortune to such extravagance. Here and there along Friedrichstrasse hawkers assailed passers-by with raucous cries of “English and American tobacco!” Which proved not only that the German had lost all national feeling on this painful subject, but that the British Tommy and the American doughboy had brought with them some of the tricks they had learned in France.

These street-corner venders, not merely of the only real tobacco to be publicly had in Berlin, but of newspapers, post-cards, and the like, were more apt than not to be ex-soldiers in field gray, sometimes as high in rank as _Feldwebels_. Many others struggled for livelihood by wandering like gipsies from one cheap café to another, playing some form of musical instrument and taking up collections from the clients, often with abashed faces. Which brings us to the question of gaiety in Berlin. Newspapers, posters, and blazing electric signs called constant attention to countless café, cabaret, cinema, and theater entertainments. Every one of them I visited was well filled, if not overcrowded. On the whole they were distinctly immoral in tone or suggestion. Berlin seems to be running more and more to this sort of thing. There is something amiss in the country whose chief newspaper carries the conspicuous announcement: “NAKEDNESS! Fine artistic postals now ready to be delivered to the trade,” or with the city where scores of street-corners are adorned by crowds of men huddled around a sneaking vender of indecent pictures. Similar scenes offend the eye in most large cities the world over, of course, but something seemed to suggest that Berlin was unusually given to this traffic. The French claim that theirs is at heart the moral race and that the Boche is a leader in immorality, and they cite many instances of prisoners found in possession of disgusting photographs as one of the proofs of their contention. Peephole shows were not the least popular of the Berliner’s evening amusements. His streets, however, were far freer of the painted stalkers by night than those of Paris, and the outcasts less aggressive in their tactics. Gambling, and with it the police corruption that seems to batten best under the democratic form of government, was reported to be growing apace, with new “clubs” springing up nightly. Under the monarchy these were by no means lacking, but they were more “select,” more exclusive—in other words, less democratic. Even the government had taken on a Spanish characteristic in this respect and countenanced a public lottery, ostensibly, at least, for the benefit of “sucklings.”

At the middle-class theaters the same rarely musical and never comic inanities that hamper the advancement of histrionic art in other countries still held sway, with perhaps an increasing tendency toward the _risqué_. The crowd roared as of yore, munched its black-bread sandwiches between the acts, and seemed for the moment highly satisfied with life. In contrast there were always seats to be had at the performances of literary merit and at the opera, though the war does not seem to have subjected them to any special hardships. The investment of a ticket at the house of song brought high interest—particularly to the foreigner, for the best orchestra seats were still eight marks at matinées and twelve in the evening, a mere sixty cents or a dollar at the armistice rate of exchange. I remember with especial pleasure excellent performances of “Eurydice” and of “Martha.” The audience was a plain, bourgeois gathering, with evening dress as lacking as “roughnecks.” In the foyer buffet, in contrast to Paris, prices were exceedingly reasonable, but the most popular offerings, next to the watery beer, were plates of potatoes, bologna, pickled fish, and hard-boiled eggs, for, though I should not mention it here, the German theater-goer of these days is as constantly munching as an Arab. In the gorgeous Kaiser’s box sat one lone lieutenant and his wife, while a cold-eyed old retainer in livery kept guard outside the locked door as if he were still holding the place for his beloved emperor.

Though ostensibly the same, German prices were vastly lower for visitors than for the native residents. For the first time I had something of the sensation of being a millionaire—cost was of slight importance. The marks I spent in Germany I bought at an average of two for fifteen cents; had I delayed longer in exchanging I might have had them still cheaper. In some lines, notably in that we are for the moment avoiding, prices, of course, had increased accordingly, sometimes outdistancing the advantages of the low rate of exchange. But the rank and file still clung to the old standards; it was a hopeless task to try to make the man in the street understand that the mark was no longer a mark. He went so far as to accuse the American government of profiteering, because the bacon it was indirectly furnishing him cost 7.50 marks a pound, which to him represented, not fifty-seven cents, but nearly two dollars. The net result of this drop in mark value was that the populace was several degrees nearer indigence. Those who could spend money freely were of three classes—foreigners, war profiteers, and those who derived their nourishment, directly or indirectly, at the public teat. Not, of course, that even those spent real money. There was not a penny of real money in circulation in all Germany. Gold, silver, and copper had all long since gone the way of other genuine articles in war-time Germany, and in their place had come _Ersatz_ money. Pewter coins did service in the smallest denominations; from a half-mark upward there were only “shin-plasters” of varying degrees of raggedness, the smaller bills a constant annoyance because, like most of the pewter coins, they were of value only in the vicinity of the municipality or chamber of commerce that issued them. Even the larger notes of the Reichsbank were precarious holdings that required the constant vigilance of the owner, lest he wake up some morning to find that they had been decreed into worthless paper.

But I am getting far ahead of my story. Long before I began to peer beneath the surface of Berlin I had to face the problem of legalizing even my superficial existence there. On the very morning after my arrival I hastened to grim-sounding Wilhelmstrasse, uncertain whether my next move would be toward some dank underground dungeon or merely a swift return to the Dutch border. The awe-inspiring Foreign Office consisted of several adult school-boys and the bureaucrat-minded underlings of the old régime. A Rhodes scholar, who spoke English somewhat better than I, greeted my entrance with a formal heartiness, thanked me for adding my services to the growing band that was attempting to tell a long-deceived world the truth about Germany, and dictated an _Ausweis_ which, in the name of the Foreign Office backed by all the authority of the new national government, gave me permission to go when and where I chose within the Empire, and forbade any one, large or small, to put any difficulties whatever in my way. Like a sea monster killed at the body, but with its tentacles still full of their poisoning black fluid, Wilhelmstrasse seemed to have become innocuous at home long before its antennæ, such as the dreadful Herr Maltzen at The Hague, had lost their sting.

If it had been a great relief to see the eyes of passers-by fade inattentively away at sight of me in my civilian garb, after two years of being stared at in uniform, it was doubly pleasant to know that not even the minions of the law could now question my most erratic wandering to and fro within the Fatherland. With my blanket _Ausweis_ I was not even required to report to the police upon my arrival in a new community, the _Polizeiliche Anmeldung_ that is one of the banes of German existence. I was, of course, still expected to fill out the regulation blank at each hotel or lodging-house I occupied, but this was a far less troublesome formality than the almost daily quest for, and standing in line at, police stations would have been. These hotel forms were virtually uniform throughout the Empire. They demanded the following information of each prospective guest: Day of arrival; given and family name; single, married, or widowed; profession; day, month, year, town, county, and land of birth; legal residence, with street and number; citizenship (in German the word is _Staatsangehörigkeit_, which sounds much more like “Property of what government?”); place of last stay, with full address; proposed length of present stay; whether or not the registering guest had ever been in that particular city or locality before; if so, when, why, and how long, and residence while there. But under the new democracy hotelkeepers had grown somewhat more easy-going than in years gone by, and their exactions in this respect never became burdensome.

It was soon evident that the man in the street commonly took me for a German. In Berlin I was frequently appealed to for directions or local information, not to mention the requests for financial assistance. To my surprise, my hearers seldom showed evidence of detecting a foreign accent, particularly when I spoke with deliberate care. Even then I was usually considered a German from another province, sometimes a Dane, a Hollander, or a Scandinavian. Now and again I assumed a pose out of mere curiosity, and often “got away with it.” “You are from ——” (the next town)? was a frequent query, with a tinge of doubt in the tone. “No, I am from Mechlenburg”—or some other distant corner of Germany, I sometimes answered; to which the response was most likely to be, “Ah yes, I noticed that in your speech.” Now and again I let a self-complacent inquirer answer for me, as was the case with a know-it-all waiter in a Berlin dining-room, who proved his infallible ability to “size up” guests with the following cocksure assumptions, which he solemnly set down in his food-ticket register: “_Sie sind Holländer, nicht?_” “_Jawohl._” “_Kaufmann?_” “_Jawohl._” “_Aus Amsterdam?_” “_Jawohl._” “_Unverheiratet?_” “_Jawohl_,” and so on to the end of the list. It is never good policy to peeve a man by showing him up in public. During my first few days in unoccupied Germany I fancied it the part of wisdom to at least passively disguise my nationality, but the notion soon proved ridiculous, and from then on, with only exceptions enough to test certain impressions, I went out of my way to announce my real citizenship among all classes and under all circumstances.

You can learn much of a country by reading its “Want Ads.” Thus the discovery that the most respectable newspaper of Rio de Janeiro runs scores of notices of “Female Companion Wanted,” or “Young Lady Desires Protector,” quickly orientates the moral viewpoint in Brazil. In Berlin under the armistice the last pages of the daily journals gave a more exact cross-section of local conditions than the more intentional news columns. There were, of course, countless pleas for labor of any description, the majority by ex-soldiers. Then came offers to sell or exchange all manner of wearing apparel, “A REAL SILK HAT, still in good condition”; “A black suit of real peace-time cloth”; “A second-hand pair of boots or shoes, such a size, of REAL LEATHER!” “Four dress shirts, NO WAR WARES, will be exchanged for a working-man’s blouse and jumper,” was followed by the enticement (here, no doubt, was the trail of the war profiteer), “A pair of COWHIDE boots will be swapped for a Dachshund of established pedigree.” Farther down were extraordinary opportunities to buy _Leberwurst_, _Blutwurst_, _Jagdwurst_, _Brühwürstchen_, and a host of other appetizing garbage, without meat-tickets. But the most persistent advertisers were those bent on recouping their fortunes by marrying money. It is strange if any new war millionaire in Germany has not had his opportunity to link his family with that of some impoverished one of noble lineage. In a single page of the _Berliner Tageblatt_, which carries about one-tenth the type of the same space in our own metropolitan dailies, there were eighty-seven offers of marriage, some of them double or more, bringing the total up to at least one hundred. Many of them were efforts, often more pathetic than amusing, by small merchants or tradesmen, just returned from five years in uniform, to find mates who would be of real assistance in re-establishing their business. But a considerable number aroused amazement that the wares offered had not been snapped up long ago. I translate a few taken at random:

MERCHANT, 38 years, Christian, bachelor, idealist, lover of nature and sports, fortune of 300,000 marks, wishes to meet a like-minded, agreeable young lady with corresponding wealth which is safely invested. Purpose: MARRIAGE.

FACTORY OWNER, Ph.D., Evangelical, 31, 1 meter 75, fine appearance, reserve officer, sound, lover of sports, humorous and musical, 400,000 marks property, seeks a LIFE COMPANION of like gifts and property in _safe_ investments.

Intelligent GENTLEMAN, handsome, splendid appearance, blond, diligent and successful merchant, winning personality, Jewish, etc....

Will a BEAUTIFUL, prominent, artistic, musical, and property-loving woman in her best years make happy an old man (Mosaic) of wealth?

This modest old fellow had many prototypes. Now and then a man, and the women always, were offered by third parties, at least ostensibly, half the insertions beginning, “For my sister”; “For my daughter”; “For my beautiful niece of twenty-two”; “For my lovely sister-in-law”; and so on. Some looked like the opportunity of a lifetime:

I seek for my house physician, aged 55, a secure existence with a good, motherly woman of from 30 to 50....

A neat little BLONDE of 19 with some property seeks gentleman (Jewish) for the purpose of later marriage....

For a BARONESS of 23, orphan, ¾-MILLION property, later heiress of big real estate....

If the demands of my calling had not kept me so busy I should have looked into this splendid opportunity myself; or into the next one:

Daughter of a BIG MERCHANT, 22, ONE MILLION Property....

But, after all, come to think of it, what is a mere million marks nowadays?

MERCHANT’S DAUGHTER, 24, tall and elegant appearance, only child of one of the first Jewish families; 150,000 dowry, later large inheritances....

A young widow (Jewish), 28 years, without property, longs for another happy home....

Some did not care how much they spent on advertising. For instance:

I SEEK FOR MY FRIEND, a free-thinking Jewess, elegant woman in the fifties, looking much younger, widow, owner of lucrative wholesale business, a suitable husband of like position. The lady is of beautiful figure, lovable temperament, highly cultured, distinguished, worldly wise, and at the same time a good manager and diligent business woman. [This last detail was plainly a tautology, having already been stated in the ninth word of the paragraph.] The gentleman should be a merchant or a government official of high rank. Chief condition is good character, distinguished sentiments, affectionate disposition. No photographs, but oral interview solicited. Offers addressed, etc....

This last vacancy should have found many suitable candidates, if there was truth in the violently pink handbills that were handed out in the streets of Berlin during one of the “demonstrations” against the peace terms. For the sake of brevity I give only its high lights:

END OF MILITARISM

BEGINNING OF JEW RULE!

Fifty months have we stood at the Front honorably and undefeated. Now we have returned home, ignominiously betrayed by deserters and mutineers! We hoped to find a free Germany, with a government of the people. What is offered us?

A GOVERNMENT OF JEWS!

The participation of the Jews in the fights at the Front was almost nil. Their participation in the new government has already reached 80 per cent.! Yet the percentage of Jewish population in Germany is only 1½ per cent.!

OPEN YOUR EYES!

COMRADES, YOU KNOW THE BLOODSUCKERS!

COMRADES, WHO WENT TO THE FRONT AS VOLUNTEERS?

WHO SAT OUT THERE MOSTLY IN THE MUD? WE!

WHO CROWDED INTO THE WAR SERVICES AT HOME? THE JEWS!

WHO SAT COMFORTABLY AND SAFELY IN CANTEENS AND OFFICES?

WHICH PHYSICIANS PROTECTED THEIR FELLOW-RACE FROM THE TRENCHES?

WHO ALWAYS REPORTED US “FIT FOR DUTY” THOUGH WE WERE ALL SHOT TO PIECES?

These are the people who rule us. [Here followed a long list of names and blanket accusations.] Even in the Soldiers’ Councils the Jews have the big word! Four long years these people hung back from the Front, yet on November 9th they had the courage, guns in hand, to tear away from us soldiers our cockades, our shoulder-straps, and our medals of honor!

Comrades, we wish as a free people to decide for ourselves and be ruled by men of OUR race! The National Assembly must bring into the government only men of OUR blood and OUR opinions! Our motto must be:

GERMANY FOR GERMANS!

German people, rend the chains of Jewry asunder! Away with them! We want neither Pogrom nor Bürgerkrieg! We want a free German people, ruled by free German men! We will _not_ be the slaves of the Jews!

ELECTORS

Out of the Parties and Societies run by Jews! Elect no Jews! Elect also no baptized Jews! Elect also none of the so-called “confessionless” Jews! Give your votes only to men of genuine German blood!

DOWN WITH JEWRY!

Though it is violating the chronological order of my tale, it may be as well to sum up at once the attitude of Berlin upon receipt of the peace terms. Four separate times during my stay in Germany I visited the capital, by combinations of choice and necessity. On the day the terms of the proposed treaty were made public apathy seemed to be the chief characteristic of the populace. If one must base conclusions on visible indications, the masses were far less interested in the news from Versailles than in their individual struggles for existence. The talk one heard was not of treaty terms, but of food. Not more than a dozen at a time gathered before the windows of the _Lokal Anzeiger_ on Unter den Linden. They read the bulletins deliberately, some shaking their heads, and strolled on about their business as if they had been Americans scanning the latest baseball scores, a trifle disappointed, perhaps, that the home team had not won. There was no resemblance whatever to the excited throngs of Teuton colonists who had surged about the war maps in Rio de Janeiro during August, 1914. One could not but wonder whether this apathy had reigned in Berlin at that date. Scenes of popular excitement and violence had been prophesied, but for two days I wandered the streets of the capital, mingling with every variety of group, questioning every class of inhabitant, without once hearing a violent word. A few individuals asserted that their opinion of America had been sadly shocked; one or two secretaries of Allied correspondents haughtily resigned their positions. But the afternoon tea at the Adlon showed the same gathering of sleek, well-dressed Germans of both sexes, by no means averse to genial chats with enemy guests in or out of uniform. There was no means of forming definite conclusions as to whether the nation had been stunned with the immensity of the tragedy that had befallen it or whether these taciturn beings had some secret cause for satisfaction hidden away in their labyrinthine minds.