Germany, The Next Republic?

by Carl W. Ackerman

This feeling, this desire to know why Germany was regarded as an outlawed nation, was not present in Germany early in 1915 when I arrived. In February, 1915, people were confident. They were satisfied with the progress of the war. They knew the Allies hated them and they returned the hate and did not care. But between February, 1915, and November, 1916, a great change took place. On my first trip to the front in April, 1915, I heard of no officers or men shedding tears because the Allies hated them.

When I sailed from New York two years ago it seemed to me that sentiment in the United States was about equally divided; that most people favoured neutrality, even a majority of those who supported the Entente. The feeling of sympathy which so many thousands of Americans had for Germany I could, at that time, readily understand, because I myself was sympathetic. I felt that Germany had not had a fighting chance with public opinion in the United States.

[Illustration: AN ADVERTISEMENT IN THE BERLIN "DEUTSCHE TAGES-ZEITUNG" FOR THE BOOK--"PRESIDENT BLUFF" MEANING PRESIDENT WILSON]

I could not believe that all the charges against Germany applied to the German people. Although it was difficult to understand what Germany had done in Belgium, although it was evident and admitted by the Chancellor that Germany violated the neutrality of that country, I could not believe that a nation, which before the war had such a high standing in science and commerce, could have plotted or desired such a tremendous war as swept Europe in 1914.

When I arrived in Berlin on March 17, 1915, and met German officials and people for the first time, I was impressed by their sincerity, their honesty and their belief that the Government did not cause the war and was fighting to defend the nation. At the theatre I saw performances of Shakespeare, which were among the best I had ever seen. I marvelled at the wonderful modern hospitals and at the efficiency and organisation of the Government. I marvelled at the expert ways in which prison camps were administered. I was surprised to find railroad trains clean and punctual. It seemed to me as if Germany was a nation which had reached the height of perfection and that it was honestly and conscientiously defending itself against the group of powers which desired its destruction.

For over a year I entered enthusiastically into the work of interpreting and presenting this Germany to the American people. At this time there was practically no food problem. German banks and business men were preparing for and expecting peace. The Government was already making plans for after the war when soldiers would return from the front. A Reichstag Committee had been appointed to study Germany's possible peace time labour needs and to make arrangements for solving them.

But in the fall of 1915 the changes began. The Lusitania had been destroyed in May and almost immediately the hate campaign against America was started. I saw the tendency to attack and belittle the United States grow not only in the army, in the navy and in the press, but among the people. I saw that Germany was growing to deeply resent anything the United States Government said against what the German Government did. When this anti-American campaign was launched I observed a tendency on the part of the Foreign Office to censor more strictly the telegrams which the correspondents desired to send to the American newspapers. Previously, the Foreign Office had been extremely frank and cordial and permitted correspondents to send what they observed and heard, as long as the despatches did not contain information which would aid the Allies in their military or economic attacks on Germany. As the hate articles appeared in the newspapers the correspondents were not only prohibited from sending them, but they were criticised by the Foreign Office for writing anything which might cause the American people to be angered at Germany. One day I made a translation of a bitter article in the B. Z. am Mittag and submitted it to the Foreign Office censor. He asked why I paid so much attention to articles in this newspaper which he termed a "Kaese-blatt"--literally "a cheese paper." He said it had no influence in Germany; that no one cared what it said. This newspaper, however, was the only noon-day edition in Berlin and was published by the largest newspaper publishing house in Germany, Ullstein & Co. At his request I withdrew the telegram and forgot the incident. Within a few days, however, Count zu Reventlow, in the Deutsche Tageszeitung, and Georg Bernhard, in the _Vossische Zeitung_, wrote sharp attacks on President Wilson. But I could not telegraph these.

Previous to the fall of 1915 not only the German Government but the German people were charitable to the opinions of neutrals, especially those who happened to be in Germany for business or professional reasons, but, as the anti-American campaign and the cry that America was not neutral by permitting supplies to be shipped to the Allies became more extensive, the public became less charitable. Previously a neutral in Germany could be either pro-German, pro-Ally or neutral. Now, however, it was impossible to be neutral, especially if one were an American, because the very statement that one was an American carried with it the implication that one was anti-German. The American colony itself became divided. There was the pro-American group and the pro-German government group. The former was centred at the American Embassy. The latter was inspired by the German-Americans who had lived in Germany most of their lives and by other sympathetic Americans who came from the United States. Meanwhile there were printed in German newspapers many leading articles and interviews from the American press attacking President Wilson, and any one sympathising with the President, even Ambassador Gerard, became automatically "Deutschfeidlich."