It seemed as if I had only just dropped off to sleep when I was rudely awakened. It was six o'clock when prisoners had to be roused, and although I was not a prisoner, but had slept in the cell from my own choice, I had to conform with the regulations. I was turned out into the street, without a bite of food, needless to say, to kick my heels about for some two hours until the business offices opened. I seized the opportunity to have a shave and hair-cut as well as a thorough wash and brush up.
About 8.30 I presented myself at my friend's office. To my surprise he responded to my ring himself and at once introduced me to his wife, who had come into the city with him that morning. I was warmly greeted but my thin and wan appearance affected them, especially Mrs. K——. I then discovered why I had failed to rouse him in the early hours of the morning when accompanied by the officer from the police station. He did not live in Cologne but in a pretty and quiet little residential village overlooking the Rhine some three miles out.
Taking pity upon me they insisted that I should at once proceed to their home, but before this could be done certain formalities demanded attention. My "pass" was only applicable to the city of Cologne and did not embrace the outlying places. We had to return to the police headquarters, corresponding to our Scotland Yard, for this purpose. Here my papers were turned out and subjected to the usual severe scrutiny, while I myself was riddled with questions. At last, through the good offices of K——, who was well-known to the officials, I received permission to proceed to his residence. This necessitated our being accompanied to his home by two detectives who furthermore were to see that I received the necessary local "pass" for the villa in question.
Notwithstanding the depressing company of the detectives I thoroughly enjoyed that ride along the banks of the Rhine. It was a glorious morning and the countryside was at the height of its alluring autumnal beauty. Reaching the village I was taken before the Burgermeister, a pompous individual, to undergo another searching cross-questioning, but ultimately the "pass" was granted. At the same time my "pass" for Cologne was withdrawn. I had either to live, move, and have my being in one place or the other—not both—and was not to be permitted to travel between the two places.
I must digress a moment to explain one feature of German administration and the much vaunted Teuton organisation, which is nothing more nor less than a huge joke, although it is unfortunately quite devoid of humour for the luckless victim. In times of war, Germany is subdivided into districts, each of which receives the specific number of an Army Corps. Thus there is Army Corps No. 1, Army Corps No. 2, and so on. It is just as if, under similar exigencies, the names of the counties in Great Britain were abandoned for the time being in favour of a military designation, Middlesex thus becoming Army Corps No. 1, Surrey No. 2, and so on, the counties being numbered consecutively.
Each Army Corps has its commanding officer and he has absolute control over the territory assigned to him, the movement of its inhabitants, strangers and visitors. But the strange and humorous fact about the whole system is that each commanding officer is a little autocrat and extremely jealous of his colleague in the adjacent Army Corps. The commander of Army Corps No. 1 issues a "pass" which entitles you to move about freely in his district.
When Major Bach presented me with my "pass," he gravely warned me always to have it upon my person, to show it upon demand, but never to allow it out of my possession even for a minute, and if it should be taken for inspection to insist upon its return at once. He assured me that the mere production of the "pass" and the signature would permit me to go wherever I liked, and to move to and fro throughout Germany. I firmly believed his statement until I received my first rude shock to the contrary. As a final warning he stated that if I happened to be stopped by a soldier or anyone else and had not my "pass" with me, I should find myself in an extremely serious position. Naturally I hung on to that little piece of paper as tenaciously as if it had been a million pound bank-note.
The Commanding Officer of an Army Corps always iterates this little speech, I discovered. Naturally you leave the official, completely relieved, thinking yourself virtually free. But the moment you cross the boundary into another Army Corps you are held up. The official demands to know why you are walking about a free man. You flourish the "pass" signed by "A" in triumph, and with a chortle, point to the signature. The official scans the "pass," shakes his head sagely, and with a curt "Come with me!" orders you to follow him. You protest energetically, and point to the signature. He shakes his head emphatically as he growls "No! No!" and continues, referring to the owner of the signature on your "pass," "we know nothing about him! You must see my Commanding Officer." Reaching this official, who regards you as a criminal who has escaped, you suddenly learn that the "pass" is not a passport for your movement through Germany, but is valid only for the Army Corps in which it was issued!
Consignment to prison is the inevitable sequel. You may protest until you are black in the face, but it makes no difference. The papers which you signed day after day until you became sick at the sight of them, but which were necessary to secure your first "pass," commence their lengthy and tedious trip through the German Circumlocution Office, the trip occupying weeks. During this time you are kept in prison and treated as if you were a common felon, until at last, everything being declared to be in order, you receive a new "pass" for the Army Corps in which you have been arrested. The moment you venture into another Army Corps, even if you return into that from which you were first released, arrest follows and the whole exasperating rigmarole has to be repeated. The Army Corps are as arbitrarily defined as anything to be found in tape-tied Germany.
I do not think that such a wildly humorous feature of organisation to compare with this is to be found in any other part of the world. Had it not been for the deliberate misleading, or to term it more accurately, unblushing lying, upon the part of the respective commanding officers of the respective Army Corps, the British tourists who happened to be in Germany when war broke out would have got home safely. Being ignorant of German manners, customs, and military idiosyncrasies, and placing a blind faith in German assertion and scraps of paper, the unfortunate travellers fell into the trap which undoubtedly had been prepared to meet such conditions.