The Chapter of German Admissions
As far as concerns pillage carried on by way of requisitions we have the evidence of proclamations, letters, and other official communications issued by the German authorities. In no other documents could the chapter of admissions be so explicit.
As for theft and pillage committed by soldiers or by officers in their private capacity, the following is evidence supplied by Germans themselves.
A German reservist who died in France, privat-docent of a university, married, and father of a family, carefully notes in his pocket-book, which was found by the French, the parcel he sent to his wife of jewels which he found in an empty house. Another day he confesses he stole a microscope. “The Frenchman” (he wrote) “bought it in Germany, and I took it back again.”
Another German soldier, Gaston Klein (1st Landsturm company), describes the sack of Louvain in the following terms: “At first only a few troops went back to the town, but afterwards the battalion marched into the town in close ranks to break into the first houses to plunder—I beg pardon, to requisition—wine and other things as well. Like a company which had been disbanded, every one went where he pleased. The officers went on in front and set us a good example. One night in barracks, many men drunk, and there the story ends. This day filled me with a disgust which I could not describe.”
The Saxon officer of the 178th regiment, who supplied us with so much precious evidence about German crimes, writes in his pocket-book: “Herpigny-Baclan (17th August). I visited the little château, which belongs to a secretary of the King of the Belgians. Our men behaved like Vandals: first they ransacked the cellar, then they burst into the rooms and threw everything upside down: attempts were even made to burst open the safes; our men carried off heaps of useless things for the mere pleasure of marauding.”
“At Rethel,” continued the same officer, “the interior of the house is charming. The furniture was magnificent. Now everything is in pieces. Vandals could not have done more damage. The leaders of the columns were responsible—they could have prevented pillage and destruction. The damage may be reckoned in millions. Safes were burst open. In an attorney’s house a collection of old pottery and oriental objets d’art was broken into a thousand pieces.”
In spite of protests made to the German troops and their leaders, the Saxon officer at length succumbed to the contagion and followed their example. “As for myself,” he naïvely writes, “I could not help being carried away to this side and that by little souvenirs. I found a magnificent waterproof cloak and a photographer’s apparatus which I am going to give to Felix.”
“In a village near Blamont,” writes another soldier, Paul Spielmann, 1st company, 1st Infantry Brigade of Guards, “everything was given up to pillage.”…
Private Handschuhmacher (11th Battalion reserve light infantry) also writes: “8th August, 1914, Gouvy (Belgium). The Belgians having fired on the German soldiers, we at once began to pillage the goods station. Some cash-boxes, eggs, shirts, and everything which could be eaten was taken away. The safe was gutted and the gold distributed amongst the men. As for bank-bills they were torn up.”
“The enemy,” wrote another non-commissioned officer (Hermann Levith, of the 160th regiment of infantry 7th corps), “occupied the village of Bièvre and the outer-fringe of the wood in the rear. The third company advanced as a first line. We took the village, then pillaged almost all the houses.”
“The second battalion,” wrote a third (Schiller of the 133rd infantry, 19th corps) “entered into the village of Haybes (Ardennes), ransacked the houses and pillaged them.”…
One thing which must be remembered as a feature of German character is that German doctors took part in pillage. This is what we learn from a letter of Private Jean Thode (4th reserve regiment): “Brussels, 5. 10. 14. A motor came up to the hospital and brought some war booty: a piano, two sewing-machines, many albums, and all sorts of other things.”
Some admissions are couched in the form of indignation. “They do not behave like soldiers,” writes a soldier of the 65th Landwehr infantry, “but like highway robbers, bandits, and brigands, and they are a disgrace to our regiment and to our army.” “No discipline,” writes another, (a lieutenant of the 77th reserve infantry); “the pioneers are not much good; as for the artillery they are a band of robbers.”
But if this particular lieutenant blames the conduct of his men, others, on the contrary, deliberately order them to pillage. Like the soldier who writes at Louvain that the officers set a good example, four other German soldiers, named Schrick and Weber (of the 39th Prussian infantry), Waberzech (of the 35th Brandenburg), and Brugmann (of the 15th Mecklenburg hussars), on whom were found a quantity of French paper money, watches and jewels, all taken from houses in Senlis and Chantilly, confessed before the French court-martial that it was their officers who should have been blamed. “If I had not taken the jewels” (said one of them) “one of my officers would have taken them.”… “We got from our leaders” (the others declared) “the order to pillage the houses.”
CHAPTER XVI
DEGREES OF RESPONSIBILITY. CONCLUSION
At this point we shall give our conclusions. We think it necessary to establish the degrees of responsibility for the above attested facts: and the reader will think it right for us to add some precise mention of the authors of the facts. The omission of such a chapter would have the effect of helping to keep our indignation in the air, and thus leaving for objects of the blame contained in it only some multitudes of persons, amongst whom our indictment would be diluted and dispersed. Not that we desire to take away from the German people as such the responsibility which attaches to them, but we desire to add some names thereto.
The first responsible party whom we must mention is the German nation, and explicitly the German army judged by its private soldiers. It is upon the German private soldier, indisputably, that the shame of what we have just read recoils. It was the private soldiers who committed the greater part of the crimes which we have noticed: they were the principal authors of these crimes. But it must be added that the leaders consistently encouraged them. In several instances they acted on explicit instructions from officers, and even from generals.