WHAT THE GERMANS READ IN WAR TIME.
"Gobble! Ah a gobble!" That is what it sounds like when you hear the newspaper sellers crying out their wares on Potsdamer Platz in the evening. But this is really not what they are saying. They are saying, Abendausgabe or "Evening Edition."
It is a pretty sight, the Potsdamer Platz—cabs rattling along, jingling street-car bells, the square black with civilians and gray with soldiers, wagons drawn up to the sidewalks loaded down with bright-colored fruit and vegetables, women selling flowers—violets, roses, lilies-of-the-valley—Zehn Pfennige ein Sträusschen, and above all the other sounds the cries of "Gobble! Gobble Ah-a-gobble!"
Compared with our big American newspapers a German paper is a very little affair. Its pages are about half as big as the pages of our papers, and in the morning they usually have only eight pages, and in the evening six. There are no glaring headlines to a German paper, and no red ink is used. Even when Kitchener was drowned or America declared war, it appeared in the papers as a headline with letters no more than three-quarters of an inch high.
There is absolutely nothing sensational about a German newspaper, even in war time. They all look alike, and one has to look at the date of the paper to make sure that it is not the paper of the day before. They have no cartoons, and they rarely have any pictures. The Sunday supplement has few "funnies" and never any colored pictures. There are no spicy scandals, no sensational divorce trials and no tales of thrilling murders with the picture of the house where the dark deed was committed marked with an X. Then there is no woman's page and no society column. You ask, well, what have they in their papers?
A Reading-Room for Soldiers on the West Front.
On the first page is the war news, very brief. It gives the General Staff's report from all the war fronts, and this report is signed by the general on each of these fronts. The second page is devoted to news of a more local character. They often print interviews on this page. They make more of a feature of interviews in Germany than we do in America. On the other pages they have sports, the drama, music, stories, and always one article of literary character. One of the big features on the front page is the printing of the under-sea boat booty. Whatever is printed in the German newspapers is the truth as far as it goes, but not everything that is known is printed. What the people really get is the truth without details. The people would like to read these details, but they do not get them. One of the most surprising things that was printed was Zimmermann's letter to Mexico. It came out in all the papers, for Zimmermann thought that the best thing to do was to publish it. It was not very popular with the German people.
One of the things that was not printed in the German papers was the great spy scandal in Norway. I never heard one word about it until I came to Norway. The papers are controlled by a censor. Once last summer the Berliner Tageblatt was shut off for three days. They printed something which the censor did not like, but the general public never found out what the offending article was.
There are three great publishing houses in Berlin. First, the August Scherl Company, which publishes the daily newspaper Lokal-Anzeiger, a morning and an evening paper which has a very large circulation among the poorer class of people and is used for small advertisers. Scherl also publishes Die Woche, a weekly well known in America; Die Gartenlaube, a magazine for women; Der Tag; and Der Montag, a newspaper which comes out every Monday.
A Field Book-Store in France.
A second great company is the Rudolf Mosse Company which publishes the well-known Berliner Tageblatt, a morning and an evening paper. The third and perhaps greatest company is the Ullstein Company which publishes the Vossische Zeitung, a morning and evening paper; the Berliner Morgenpost, a paper read by the working class; B. Z. am Mittag, a little sheet which comes out at noon and is easily the most popular paper in Berlin; the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, a splendid weekly which sells for ten pfennigs. Everybody in Berlin reads this weekly, for it has good war articles, fine stories and many interesting pictures. There are many other papers published in Berlin, such as the 8 Uhr Abendblatt, a sheet which comes out at seven in the evening, and the Tägliche Rundschau, a splendid paper of literary character.
The morning papers cost ten pfennigs and the evening papers cost five pfennigs. Last summer the B. Z. am Mittag raised its price to ten pfennigs, but the public refused to pay the price and in four days it was back to 5 pfennigs again.
All the larger papers have what they call a Briefkasten or a letter box, which is an information and clipping bureau combined. Here forty or fifty people are employed all day long clipping and filing things. Any one can go to this bureau or write to them and is given information free of charge. They even give medical advice free.
The large publishing houses publish books. The Ullstein Company makes a specialty of books for one mark each. They published the "Voyage of the U Deutschland" by Captain Paul König, and every one in Germany read this book.
There is one newspaper in Berlin published in English. It is supposed to be an American paper, but its Americanism was of a very peculiar brand. This paper is called the Continental Times. The most prominent socialistic paper is called the Vorwärts. It is allowed a good deal of freedom but once in a while it is suppressed. On the 19th of April of this year 3000 working men and women gathered on Unter den Linden. It was the only approach to a strike or a riot that I saw as long as I stayed in Germany. The Vorwärts was against this movement, and mostly through its influence the people went back home. The paper has a tremendous influence. Maximilian Harden's pamphlet Zukunft is universally read with much interest and curiosity. Harden is allowed about the same privileges in Germany as Bernard Shaw is allowed in England.
German Soldiers on the West Front Reading War Bulletins.
In the main cities in the territory captured by the Germans, in Lille, Brussels, Warsaw, Lodz and Vilna, they have established very good papers printed in German. Then they have papers issued for the soldiers at the front, like the Champagner Kamerad, and the Landsturm. These papers contain war news, stories, jokes and poems.
A Traveling Library for Soldiers.
German newspapers never call their enemies ugly names, and they have remained very dignified sheets. English newspapers are very much read in Germany. These papers are only four days old, and as most of the Germans of the better class read English, they are in great demand. In any of the leading cafés or at the newsdealers one can have the London Times, the Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, the Illustrated London News, the Graphic, Sphere and Punch. French and Italian papers are also to be had. American papers came very irregularly, but even yet a few leak through, and when I left in July I saw American papers up to April 30. If news in an English paper does not coincide with that in the German paper, the German reader does not believe it—that is the only impression it makes on him.
In Berlin they do not have great war bulletins in front of the newspaper offices as we do at home. The nearest approach to our bulletins is in Copenhagen, where they hang bulletins, printed in very large letters, in the second-story window of the newspaper office. A German war bulletin is about as big as an ordinary sheet of typewriting paper, and it is hung low in the newspaper office window where every one takes his turn reading the fine print. Sometimes the bulletins are written by hand with a lead pencil. Other bulletins are printed on single sheets of paper and are distributed on the streets free.
The number of pamphlets written about the war is endless. Every doctor and every professor in Germany seems to have written a book, and every phase of the war has been touched upon. Most of the books are gotten up in a very attractive way with soft backs. They have very few stiff-backed books in Germany. Since the war many books on art, music, science, medicine and literature have been published.
Newspapers have to keep down to a certain size on account of the scarcity and cost of paper, but books are no more expensive than they were before the war, and they have book sales the same as we have in America. A few weeks before I left, Wertheim's large department store had a sale of English-German dictionaries, very large books at four marks each. They had a window decorated with these books, and they were soon all snapped up, for the Germans said that they could see no reason why they should not go on with their study of English because the English were enemies.
Newspapers Published for the Soldiers since the War.
Newspapers in Captured Cities.
The war has not spoiled the German's love of reading romances, and so many novels of the cheaper type have been written that a society has been formed to keep the boys and girls from reading them. They have automatic book stands in all railway stations where you put twenty pfennigs in the slot and get a novel. There are many cheap editions of patriotic songs printed in small pocket volumes convenient for soldiers in the trenches.