The Land of Deepening Shadow: Germany-at-War

by D. Thomas Curtin

During the following days, when the leaders of Germany were in conference at the Headquarters of the General Staff, I travelled as much as possible to find out German sentiment. The people were intoxicated with the successes against Verdun, and were angrily in favour of a break. One German editor said to me "The Government has educated them to believe that the U-boat can win the war. Their belief is so firm that it will be difficult for the authorities to explain a backdown to Wilson."

It was not. The Government can explain anything to the German people. The back-down came, causing sentiments which can be divided into three groups. One, "We were very good to give in to America. England would not be so good." Two, "Americans put us in a bad position. To curtail our submarine weapon means a lengthening of the war. On the other hand, to add America to the list of our enemies would lengthen the war still more." Three, "We shall wait our opportunity and pay back America for what she has done to us." I heard the latter expression everywhere, particularly among the upper classes. It was the expression of Doctor Drechsler, head of the Amerika-Institut in Berlin, and one of the powerful propaganda triumvirate composed of himself, Doctor Bertling, and the late Professor Munsterberg.

With the increasing deterioration inside the German Empire the resolve of the Chancellor to avoid a clash with the United States strengthened daily. His opponents, however, most of the great Agrarians and National Liberals, the men behind Tirpitz, continue to work for a new submarine campaign in which all neutrals will be warned that their vessels will be sunk without notice if bound to or from the ports of Germany's enemies. They are practical men, who believe that only through the unrestricted use of the submarine can Britain, whom they call the keystone of the opposition, be beaten. The Chancellor is also a practical man, who believes that the entrance of America on the side of the Entente would seal the fate of Germany. He is supported by Herr Helfferich, the Vice-Chancellor, and Herr Zimmermann, the foreign Secretary, men with a deep insight into the questions of trade and treaties. They believe that peace will be made across the table and not at the point of the sword, and they realise that it is much better for Germany not to have the United States at the table as an enemy.

In September, 1916, the Chancellor began to lay the wires for a new campaign, a campaign to enlist the services of Uncle Sam in a move for peace. It is significant, however, that he and his Government continue to play the game both ways. While Germany presses her official friendship on the United States, and conducts propaganda there to bring the two nations closer together, she at the same time keeps up the propaganda of hate at home against America, in order to have the support of the people in case of emergency.

The attacks against Washington in the Continental Times show which way the wind blows, for this paper is subsidised by the German Foreign Office through the simple device of buying 30,000 copies of each issue—it appears three times weekly—at 2 1/2d. per copy. The editors are Aubrey Stanhope, an Englishman who even before the war could not return to his native country for reasons of his own, and R. L. Orchelle, whose real name is Hermann Scheffauer, who claims to be an American, but is not known as such at the American Embassy in Berlin. He has specialised in attacks against Great Britain in the United States. Some of the vicious onslaughts against Washington in Germany were made by him.

American flags are scarce in Berlin to-day, but one always waves from the window of 48, Potsdamerstrasse. It is a snare for the unwary, but the League uses it here as in countless other instances as a cloak for its warfare against the U.S.A.

The League started early in the war by issuing booklets by the ton for distribution in Germany and America. Subscription blanks were scattered broadcast for contributions for the cause of light and truth. Donations soon poured in, some of them very large, from Germans and German-Americans who wished, many of them sincerely, to have what they considered the truth told about Germany.

The ways of the League, however, being crooked, some of the charter members began to fall away from one another and many of the doings of the ringleaders are now coming to light.

The League must be doing well financially, as William Martin, the chief of the Potsdamerstrasse office, jubilantly declared that no matter how the war ended he would come out of it with a million.

Any real American, whether at home or abroad, deeply resents the degradation of his flag. Yet the League of Truth in Berlin has consistently dragged the Stars and Stripes in the mire, and that in a country which boasts that the police are not only omniscient but omnipotent.