Face to Face with Kaiserism

by James W. Gerard

During our first winter in Berlin we spent many afternoons at the Ice Palace in the Lutherstrasse, an indoor ice rink much larger than the one in the Freidrichstrasse, the Admirals Palast, where the ice ballets are given and the graceful Charlotte used to appear. The skating club of the Lutherstrasse was under the patronage of the Crown Prince and was one of the very few meeting places of Berlin society. The women were taught to waltz by male instructors and the men by several young women—blonde skaters from East Prussia. I tried to improve my skating and spent many hours making painful "Bogens" or circles under the efficient eyes of a little East Prussia instructress. Afternoon tea was served during the interval of skating and one afternoon a week was specially reserved for the Club members.

One of my young secretaries used to go occasionally to Wannsee, near Berlin, to play hockey with a German friend; as the young men were nearly all in the war, girls made up the majority of each team. My secretary reported that those German girls were as strong, as enduring and as skilful as the average young man.

Girls of the working classes, instead of flirting or turkey trotting at night, make a practice of going to the Turnvereins, to exercise in the gymnasiums there. If the members of the German lower classes only had the opportunity to rise in life what would they not accomplish! So many of them are very ambitious, persistent, earnest and thrifty.

Of course, female suffrage in Germany or anything approaching it is very distant. First of all, the men must win a real ballot for themselves in Prussia, a real representation in the Reichstag. In the Germany of to-day, a woman with feminist aspirations is looked on as the men of the official class look on a Social Democrat, something hardly to be endured. And this is in spite of the fact that the nations to the North, in Scandinavia, freed women even before America did.

The most beautiful woman in Berlin society is Countess Oppersdorff—the mother of thirteen children. She is not German, but was born a Polish Princess Radziwill.

The chief lady of the Imperial Court is Countess Brockdorff. She is rather stern in appearance and manner, and rumour has it that she was appointed to keep the good-natured, easy-going Empress to the strict line of German court etiquette, to see that the Empress, rather democratic in inclination, did not stray away from the traditional rigidity of the Prussian royal house.

Countess Brockdorff is a most able woman. I grew to have not only a great respect, but almost an affection for her. At court functions she usually wears a mantilla as a distinguished mark and several orders and decorations. We had three women friends from America with us in Berlin whom we presented at Court. All were married, but only the husband of one of them could leave his work and visit Germany. The two other husbands, in accordance with the good American custom, were at work in America. Countess Brockdorff spoke to the lady whose husband was with her, saying to her, "I am glad to see that your husband is with you," an implied rebuke to the other ladies and an exhibition of that failure to understand other nations so characteristic of highly placed Germans. With us, of course, a good-natured American husband, wedded as much to his business as to his wife, permits his wife to travel abroad without him and neither he nor she is reproved in America because of this.

Among the other ladies attendant on the Empress are Fräulein von Gersdorff, whose cousin is a lawyer practising in New York, and Countess Keller. There are other ladies and a number of maids of honour and all of them are overworked, acting as secretaries, answering letters and attending various charitable and other functions, either with the Empress or representing her. One of the charming maids of honour, Countess Bassewitz, was married during the war to Prince Oscar, the Kaiser's fifth son. This marriage was morganatic, that is, the lady does not take the name, rank and title of her husband. In this case another title was given her, that of Countess Ruppin, and her sons will be known as Counts Ruppin, but will not be Princes of Prussia.

There is much misunderstanding in America as to these morganatic marriages. By the rules of many royal and princely houses, a member of the house cannot marry a woman not of equal rank and give her his name, titles and rank. But the marriage is in all other respects perfectly legal. The ceremony is performed in accordance with Prussian law, before a civil magistrate and also in a church, and should the husband attempt to marry again he would be guilty of bigamy.

I gave away the bride at one of these morganatic marriages, when Prince Christian of Hesse married Miss Elizabeth Reid-Rogers, a daughter of Richard Reid Rogers, a lawyer of New York. Prince Christian has an extremely remote chance of ever coming to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, but nevertheless and because of the rules of the House of Hesse-Barchfeld, he cannot give his rank and title to a wife, not of equal birth. The head of the House, therefore, the Grand Duke of Hesse, conferred the title of Baroness Barchfeld in her own right on the bride, and her children will be known as Barons and Baronesses Barchfeld.