Germany, The Next Republic?

by Carl W. Ackerman

"God punish England and America." For some weeks this rubber stamp was used very effectively.

The Navy Department realised, too, that another way to attack America and especially Americans in Berlin, was to arouse the suspicion that every one who spoke English was an enemy. The result was that most Americans had to be exceedingly careful not to talk aloud in public places. The American correspondents were even warned at the General Staff not to speak English at the front. Some of the correspondents who did not speak German were not taken to the battle areas because the Foreign Office desired to avoid insults.

The year and a half between the sinking of the Lusitania and the severance of diplomatic relations was a period of terror for most Americans in Germany. Only those who were so sympathetic with Germany that they were anti-American found it pleasant to live there. One day one of the American girls employed in the confidential file room of the American Embassy was slapped in the face until she cried, by a German in civilian clothes, because she was speaking English in the subway. At another time the wife of a prominent American business man was spit upon and chased out of a public bus because she was speaking English. Then a group of women chased her down the street. Another American woman was stabbed by a soldier when she was walking on Friedrichstrasse with a friend because she was speaking English. When the State Department instructed Ambassador Gerard to bring the matter to the attention of the Foreign Office and to demand an apology Wilhelmstrasse referred the matter to the General Staff for investigation. The soldier was arrested and secretly examined. After many weeks had elapsed the Foreign Office explained that the man who had stabbed the woman was really not a soldier but a red cross worker. It was explained that he had been wounded and was not responsible for what he did. The testimony of the woman, however, and of other witnesses, showed that the man at the time he attacked the American was dressed in a soldier's uniform, which is grey, and which could not he mistaken for the black uniform of a red cross worker.

It was often said in Berlin, "Germany hates England, fights France, fears Russia but loathes America." No one, not even American officials, questioned it.

The hate campaign was bearing fruit.

In January, 1916, there appeared in Berlin a publication called Light and Truth. It was a twelve-page circular in English and German attacking President Wilson and the United States. Copies were sent by mail to all Americans and to hundreds of thousands of Germans. It was edited and distributed by "The League of Truth." It was the most sensational document printed in Germany since the beginning of the war against a power with which Germany was supposed to be at peace. Page 6 contained two illustrations under the legend:

WILSON AND HIS PRESS IS NOT AMERICA

Underneath was this paragraph:

"An American Demonstration--On the 27th of January, the birthday of the German Emperor, an immense laurel wreath decorated with the German and American flags was placed by Americans at the foot of the monument to Frederick the Great (in Berlin). The American flag was enshrouded in black crape. Frederick the Great was the first to recognise the independence of the young Republic, after it had won its freedom from the yoke of England, at the price of its very heart's blood through years of struggle. His successor, Wilhelm II, receives the gratitude of America in the form of hypocritical phrases and war supplies to his mortal enemy."