Germany, The Next Republic?

by Carl W. Ackerman

Mr. Gerard called upon the Chancellor and told him that the United States Government could not permit such a bill to be passed without a vigorous protest. The Chancellor asked Mr. Gerard whether President Wilson and Secretary of State Bryan would ever protect such a corporation as the Standard Oil Company was supposed to be. Mr. Gerard replied that the very fact that these two officials were known in the public mind as having no connection with this corporation would give them an opportunity of defending its interests the same as the Government would defend the interests of any other American. The Chancellor seemed surprised at this statement and Mr. Gerard continued about as follows:

"You know that Germany has already been discriminating against the Standard Oil Company. You know that the Prussian State Railways charge this American corporation twice as much to ship oil from Hamburg to Bremen as they charge the German oil interests to ship Roumanian oil from the Austrian border to Berlin. Now don't you think that's enough?"

The interview ended here. And the bill was never brought up in the Reichstag.

But this policy of the Government of intimidating and intriguing against American interests was continued until diplomatic relations were broken. In December, 1916, Adolph Barthmann, an American citizen, who owned the largest shoe store in Berlin, desired to close his place of business and go to the United States. It was impossible for him to get American shoes because of the Allied blockade and he had decided to discontinue business until peace was made.

Throughout the war it has been necessary for all Americans, as well as all other neutrals, to obtain permission from the police before they could leave. Barthmann went to Police Headquarters, and asked for authority to go to the United States. He was informed that his passport would have to be examined by the General Staff and that he could call for it within eight days. At the appointed day Barthmann appeared at Police Headquarters where he was informed by the Police Captain that upon orders of the General Staff he would have to sign a paper and swear to the statement that neither he nor the American firms he represented had sold, or would sell, shoes to the Allies. Barthmann was told that this statement would have to be sworn to by another American resident of Berlin and that unless this was done he would not be permitted to return to Germany after the war. Mr. Barthmann had to sign the document under protest before his American passport was returned.

The facts in this as in the other instances which I have narrated, are in the possession of the State Department at Washington.

When the German Government began to fear that the United States might some day join the Allies if the submarine campaign was renewed, it campaigned by threatening the United States with a Russian-Japanese-German alliance after the war against England and the United States. These threats were not disguised. Ambassador Gerard was informed, indirectly and unofficially of course, by German financiers and members of the Reichstag that Germany "would be forced" to make such an alliance if the United States ever joined the Allies. As was shown later by the instructions of Secretary of State Zimmermann to the German Minister in Mexico City, Germany has not only not given up that idea, but Germany now looks forward to Mexico as the fourth member of the league.

As Germany became more and more suspicious of Americans in Germany, who were not openly pro-German, she made them suffer when they crossed the German frontier to go to neutral countries. The German military authorities, at border towns such as Warnemuende and Bentheim, took a dislike to American women who were going to Holland or Denmark, and especially to the wives of U. S. consular officials. One time when I was going from Berlin to Copenhagen I learned from the husband of one of the women examined at the border what the authorities had done to her. I saw her before and after the ordeal and when I heard of what an atrocious examination they had made I understood why she was in bed ten days afterward and under the constant care of physicians. Knowing what German military officers and German women detectives had done in some of the invaded countries, one does not need to know the details of these insults. It is sufficient to state that after the wives of several American officials and other prominent American residents of Berlin had been treated in this manner that the State Department wrote a vigorous and defiant note to Germany stating that unless the practice was immediately discontinued the United States would give up the oversight of all German interests in Allied countries. The ultimatum had the desired effect. The German Government replied that while the order of the General Staff could not be changed it would be waived in practice.

No matter who the American is, who admired Germany, or, who respected Germany, or, who sympathised with Germany as she was before, or, at the beginning of the war, no American can support this Germany which I have just described, against his own country. The Germany of 1913, which was admired and respected by the scientific, educational and business world; the Germany of 1913 which had no poor, which took better care of its workmen than any nation in the world; the nation, which was considered in the advance of all countries in dealing with economic and industrial problems, no longer exists. The Germany which produced Bach, Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe and other great musicians and poets has disappeared. The musicians of to-day write hate songs. The poets of to-day pen hate verses. The scientists of to-day plan diabolical instruments of death. The educators teach suspicion of and disregard for everything which is not German. Business men have sided with the Government in a ruthless submarine warfare in order to destroy property throughout the world so that every nation will have to begin at the bottom with Germany when the war is over.

The Germany of 1914 and 1915 which arose like one man to defend the nation is not the Germany which to-day is down on the whole world and which believes that its organised might can defend it against every and all nations. The Germany I saw in 1915, composed of sympathetic, calm, charitable, patient people is to-day a Germany made up of nervous, impatient, deceptive and suspicious people.