THE NON-MILITARY SIDE OF A GERMAN OFFICER'S LIFE
ONE of the first things you do on arriving at a new residence in Germany is to acquaint the police of your presence. This is called Anmeldung. It is a fearsome experience and admits of no trifling. You go to the appointed stuffy office, and tell your nationality, birthplace with date of birth, your parents' names, their profession if any, and your own, their birthplaces and ages, if they are dead and what they died of, whether you are married or single, number, names and ages of your children, and any little extra detail that may occur to the official in Prussian blue who holds the inquisition. If you have an unusual name, he won't believe you when you claim it. A girl I knew was christened Jean, but she is down in the police records of Berlin as Johanna, because her policeman said that Jean was a man's name, and French at that!
Every servant maid has a book, which must be signed by the police when you engage her, and when she leaves you, before she may take another place. When you engage her she must be angemeldet too, in order that she may be charged with her proper insurance tax. This amounts to about five dollars a year; the employer pays one-half, the servant the other. Many employers pay it all. This entitles the servant to treatment at the dispensary or in the hospital if she is ill. The police are very careful of her comfort, and pay a visit to the house in which she is employed to see that her room is big enough, airy enough, warmed in winter, and that her bed is comfortable! She has a long list of "rights" including so many loaves of black bread and so many bottles of beer per week; and she dare not be offended if you keep everything under lock and key.
You have not yet finished your Anmeldung if you keep a dog, for he must be registered, too, and you pay highly for the luxury. The Polizei decides when you may and may not play on your piano or sing. Before nine in the morning, after nine at night, all musical instruments are taboo. The sacred sleeping hour after dinner, from two to four, must also be observed in silence in Berlin. Nothing dare interfere with the after-dinner nap; even the banks are closed from one to two, or even three. You write to the Polizei in Germany where the Englishman writes to the Times. I remember a perfect avalanche of anonymous cards in Darmstadt because a child in our house would practise with her windows open and neighbours thought it was the Hofopernsaengerin Howard.
The intricacies of paying your taxes take some study. Foreigners must pay taxes on money earned in the country; town and county taxes are payable every three months, on alternate months, in two different parts of the town. You arrive at the Staedtische Halle to pay your town taxes, and you are very lucky if, after picking out the right month, you succeed in hitting the day when the place is open. A small sign on the locked door may greet you: "Closed on the ninth and fifteenth of every month." If day and month are right, you may easily strike the wrong hour, for town taxes are payable, say, from eight to ten A. M., and two to five P. M., while county ones are from nine to twelve, and four to seven. There are church taxes besides, very small if you are Catholic and larger if you are Evangelical. I succeeded in getting out of these by declaring myself neither. Unfortunately I did not know the word for undenominational and so had to say that we were "heathen." My sister was asked in a rasping official voice, filled with the large contempt for women which a certain type of German official always reeks with, "Sind Sie ledig?" She, poor dear, had never heard "ledig" before, and stammered "Was?" The question was rapped out again, and she said, "Ich—weiss nicht." When she got home and looked up ledig, she found the man had been asking if she were married or single. What he made of her answer we never knew.
All these little things are very amusing in Germany. The way everything seems verboten, at first is annoying, but later amusing. The paths in the Tiergarten in Berlin always used to tempt me to be bad. I always wanted to walk on the path reserved for bicyclists, or horses, or sit on the benches reserved for children only. The letter boxes say to you, "Aufschrift und Marke nicht vergessen!" ("Address and stamp not to be forgotten!") The door mat shrieks at you, "Bitte, Fuesse Reinigen!" ("Please wipe your feet.") Towels, brushes, etc., all say "Bitte" at you. I believe one could travel all through Germany with just "Bitte," and get an insight into the different phases of German character through the intonations of this word.
A rather annoying custom in Darmstadt was the way the bakers over-celebrated every holiday. They had usually the "Erster, Zweiter, und Dritter Feiertag"—first, second and third holiday, and they toiled not on those three days. All the bread you could get, if you had neglected to provide enough, was square pretzels, baked exceptionally large and hard. This may have been a Darmstadt custom only, as they vary so all over Germany, that what holds good in the north may be quite unknown in the south. For instance, cream is Sahne in Berlin, Rahm in Darmstadt, and has even a third name in other parts of Germany, which I have forgotten. You can get a wonderful Sandtorte—a firm, delicious cake, in Berlin, but I never succeeded in getting it just right in Southern or Middle Germany.
A quaint old custom in Darmstadt was always observed on the first Sunday in Advent. The Grand Duke always did his shopping for Christmas on that day, and the country people thronged into the town. A band used to play before the shop in which the Grand Duke was, and move as he moved. We gave an extra long performance at the opera, "Goetterdaemmerung," or some such serious business, but the Grand Duke never could honour us with his presence, as every one in town would have felt cheated if he had.
The shopping in Darmstadt was really quite remarkable. We always thought it an excellent thing that after eleven o'clock in the morning not a scrap of meat was visible in the white-tiled butcher shops, everything being put away on ice.
Food is taken very seriously, of course, and asparagus is honoured above any other vegetable by having its own subscription season. That is, you subscribe at the beginning of the season, so much a day, and asparagus is delivered to you daily while it lasts at that price, the sum not varying with the fluctuations of the market.
The old market place was a delight on full market days. The grumpy old women would sit in the middle of their piles of fruit and vegetables, while you threaded your way along the uneven cobblestone lanes they had left in between their stalls. Brilliant awning umbrellas have been adopted and glow in the sun, against the darkly moist, old walls of the frowning castle just behind. The old Dames call out to you, "Well, Madamsche', nothing from me today? Aren't my things good enough for you?" "Madamsche'" is a left-over from ancient French times, and the final "n" is left off, as are all "n's" in Hessen dialect.
This dialect also lacks "r's." They tell a tale of the Railroad conductors calling out "Station Daaaaamstadt!" so loudly and persistently as to annoy Grand Ducal ears, and they were ordered to pay more attention to their "r's." Now they call out in a superior tone "Starrrr-rtion—Damstadt!" and feel sure every one is satisfied.
We had exceptional opportunities of knowing Germans of all classes, from the cleaning women in the theatre to royalty. The military types are most varied, ranging from the Prussian Junker to the gemuetlicher Bayer, with his easy South German ways. We met many officers and their families, both in Metz and Darmstadt. In Metz, during the last year, we grew to know and be fond of a young Bavarian lieutenant. With him we drove and picnicked in the lovely Metz country. It was early spring, and we would take the train to some little village near by, and have our tea in the woods or at one of the thousands of Gasthäuse that dot Germany. I remember one Sunday afternoon in a still, steep-sided ravine, the walls of it rising sharply on either side, thickly wooded with giant beeches; the sun-flecked grass aquiver with myriads of white ethereal wind-flowers. A shrine, with a blue-robed Virgin looked down on us, and the wood-hush was only broken by the songs of birds, twittering and gurgling high above us in the branches. Suddenly far off the sound of singing; and slowly a procession of children came into view, singing in well-harmonized parts as they walked. They all genuflected before the Virgin and wound off into the woods, their voices dying away in the distance.
We often studied the old battlefields, so fiercely contested in 1870, and F—— would point out to us just where the different regiments advanced and fell. A long way off seemed the horrors of war, and we never dreamed what much greater horrors were soon to descend on us.
We loved the Bavarians with their kind artistic souls in those days, and yet they tell me they were among the worst in the early days in Belgium.
The military spirit was rampant in Metz, of course, and we got to know that side of it well, as some of the officers had English wives, who were very good to us. The delightful manners of the officers always charmed us; we were told they are trained to social manners by their superior officers. The cavalry regiments were the smartest ones, both in Metz and Darmstadt, the Infantry being solidly aristocratic, but less dashing. The Pioniere (Engineers) were rather despised socially, while the poor Train or Commissariat, was utterly looked down upon and hardly bowed to. The Bavarian infantry has its special social standing, because the old nobility is largely represented in it. What they lack in riches they make up in pride. All the other German infantry regiments wear dark blue trousers, no matter what colour their tunics; the Bavarians, however, have stuck to their light blue trousers, in spite of all attempts to change them. The Prince Regent was famous for wearing his much too long, and very wrinkled over badly fitting boots. The smartest officers wore the Ballon Muetze (balloon cap) introduced by the Crown Prince and ineffectually forbidden by his father. It is called "balloon" because it is much higher than the ones worn by less smart officers. The height of the collar is the other important thing. In a sterling officer of the old school, it is low and comfy; the smarter you are the higher your collar. If they are fat, the two or three creases at the back of the neck above the collar, always look to me unmistakably—German.
The life they lead is in general very simple, according to our ideas. Their Casino is their meeting place in the evening, like an officers' club. Some of them are tremendously hard workers, most ambitious, and showing real interest in their men. F—— used to teach his more illiterate ones to read and write, and many were the stories he told of the thick-headed Bavarian peasants. The difference in these men, when we saw them arriving in the fall, as rookies, and after a year's training, was absolutely amazing; slumped shoulders had straightened, lower jaws had decided to connect with upper ones, and eyes focused intelligently. Each officer has his Bursch or private servant, who usually chooses to be one. These are treated as friends by their masters, if the latter happen to be non-Prussian in character. I said once to F——, "Is Karl your servant?" "No, he is mein Freund" he said.
An officer in Diedenhofen where we occasionally sang while I was with the Metz opera, used to send me gorgeous flowers. He had a way of sitting near the stage and applauding by flapping his handkerchief against the palm of his white kid glove, which so enraged me that I never acknowledged the flowers. One night, an ugly old contralto took my part, as I was laid up, and that was the night the officer had selected to present me with a huge basket of white azaleas and blue satin ribbon. The old dame rewarded the house in general with a false-teeth smile on receiving them over the footlights, which must have discouraged my admirer as the flowers stopped abruptly.
We quite often saw young officers very drunk on the streets in Metz, at about five in the afternoon. Asking F—— about this, we were told that it was only the young ones, if we would notice, and that they were obliged to empty their glasses, when toasted by superior officers at regimental dinners. If these gentlemen caught their eyes, as they raised their glasses, many times during the two o'clock dinner, the silly young fellows' heads naturally grew befuddled, but it was not etiquette to refuse to empty their glass. This custom was very hard on a Faehnrich or Ensign, and was later done away with.
The smartest officers had English dogcarts, and were certainly most dashing. Many clever ones in the cavalry made money out of horses, buying and selling them amongst themselves. In Darmstadt they introduced the English hunt, and wore the pink. We used to go up to Frankfort for the "gentlemen races," and often saw our own Northern cousins, whose names we knew, but whom we never had the opportunity of meeting, riding with great skill and daring. These races were much encouraged by the Kaiser, and sometimes giant Eitel-Fritz would come and look on, or the dandy Prince Schaumberg-Lippe would make his horse mince round the ring. He was a great beau and ladies' favourite and the horrible accident that has deprived him of his beauty in the battlefield, seems an impossible thing to have happened to just him.
Our friend F—— was known in his regiment as "Revolver mouth." This title he earned through his witty tongue and his habit of hitting the bull's-eye in his table conversation. His great friend, a smart young nouveau riche, in the most exclusive cavalry regiment, who had much more money than brains, was the butt of much goodnatured chaff from F——. One evening F—— recounted to a group of brother officers how S——, who was notorious for his absent-mindedness and poor memory, was seen miles away from home, galloping down a dusty road. F—— hailed him and said, "But where's your horse?" "That's true," said S—— looking down in utter astonishment, "I must have forgotten to get on him."
S—— was famous for his sharpness in choosing and trading horseflesh, and F—— used to call him on the 'phone, saying "Is this Herr S——? Guten tag! I am Graf Pumpernickel." Then he would elaborately arrange a rendezvous in some very public spot in Metz, at which S—— was to appear with the horse he wished to trade. Of course when poor S—— kept the appointment, only a group of jeering young rascals greeted him, and S—— never discovered who Graf Pumpernickel was, though the joke was often repeated.
The money question of the poorer officers, often proves very serious. They are forbidden to earn money in any way except by writing. They cannot marry the girl they choose unless between them they have a certain sum, a minimum; this keeps many fine young officers and charming girls from matrimony; and frequently results on the man's side in far-reaching evils of entangling affairs, and illegitimate children. An officer said to me once, he thought he had no children, but a pretty woman who kept a shop in the Kathedral Plate once sent him a baby's pillow and he never was quite sure just what that meant. The Berlin demi-mondaines are certainly fascinating creatures, dressed in the most exquisite Paris clothes, and it is easy to understand how some penniless Graf may become hopelessly involved in an affair with one of them. Officially such things are frowned on. Talking of officers' troubles one day, F—— told me that suicide was often the only possible solution, and for the honour of one's regiment one was sometimes expected to end one's life. An acquaintance of his had had a revolver sent him by his commanding officer as a gentle hint, on finding himself involved in a scandalous affair.
In one Bavarian regiment, if you had debts, you were liable to be summoned at literally a moment's notice before your Colonel, and ordered to pay your debts in so many days, or leave the regiment. The usual thing was then to obtain the hand in marriage of the most attractive girl you knew with the most attractive bank-account. Sometimes they disappeared to America. Frau Seebold told us once, while she was singing in New York one winter, with an Austrian prima donna, that a man applied at the door for work during a heavy fall of snow. She told him to clear it away, and then come in for his money. He came, and noticing her strong accent, asked if she had long left the Fatherland. On her replying "no," he burst into a flood of German, and told her his pitiful story, while she made him hot coffee and tried to comfort him. He had been a lieutenant in a smart regiment, had gotten into trouble through a brother officer betraying his trust in him, and had had to disappear to America for the honour of the regiment. The poor fellow put his head on the kitchen table and sobbed as he told her how he sank lower and lower, till finally he shovelled snow. He also told her there was a club in New York where ex-officers who were coachmen, truck drivers, or waiters by day, could be gentlemen and comrades by night. He said their crests were carved above their places on the wall, and no one could belong except those of high birth. All this was years ago, and I have no idea whether such a place still exists.
When a sudden silence falls on a party in Germany they say, "A Lieutenant pays his debts." Promotion is very slow, and to arrive at a decent income takes years. A Bavarian Colonel has only eight thousand marks a year. The equipment of an officer is very expensive; their Parade uniforms must always be spotless, and though you may wear tricot cloth every day, your parade uniform must be of finest broadcloth, and your sword knots of shining silver though a dash of rain ruins both. The scarlet collars are more extravagant even than the white cloth ones, as white may be cleaned at least once with gasoline, but scarlet is too delicate, and the slightest perspiration makes a lasting stain. This was all before the war, though, and perhaps the dazzling uniforms have given place for ever to dull khaki. If so Germany is the drabber, for the colour was a thing to make one's heart leap. In Darmstadt the first four rows in the orchestra were reserved for officers at reduced rates, and that beautiful border of colour always framed the stage in a brilliant band on opera nights.
In Metz the rule against appearing in "Civil" on the street was very strict, and F—— used to come to see us in a full set of tennis flannels brandishing a racket, though he had never played in his life! In Darmstadt the same strictness prevailed. A friend of ours, a Major holding a very high position, had to dodge round corners, when he was out of uniform, in case the terrible General Plueskow should see him, and order him twenty-four hours' room arrest! By the way, when General Plueskow, who was about six feet seven, was in France as a young man, the French made a quip about him, "Who is the tallest officer in the German army?" was the question, and the answer was "Plueskow, because he is Plus que haut."