Military training is always in view and the use of the knapsack on walking tours is universal, even school children carry their books to school in knapsacks and so become accustomed, at an early age, to carry this part of the soldier's burden.
Occasionally, in summer, bands of girls or boys are to be seen on walking tours. In addition to the usual knapsack, they carry guitars or mandolins. These young people are known as "Wander vogel" (wandering birds), and sing as they walk. But they don't sing very loud. They might break some regulation.
Outside of the large cities and even in the cities vacant lots are occupied by "arbour colonies" (lauben colonie)—tiny little houses of wood erected by city workingmen and surrounded by little gardens of vegetables and flowers. Here the city workman spends Sunday and often the twilight hours and the night in summer time. Of course, these are possible only in a country where the workingman is in a distinct social class and where he is compelled to be content with the amusements and occupations of that class alone.
There is no baseball or substitute for it—the clerks get their diversion in a country excursion or at the free bath on the Wann or Muggel Lake.
These "free baths," so-called, are stretches of sandy lake shore where the populace resort in hot weather, undressing with the indifference of animals on the beach, men and women all mixed together, the men wearing only little bathing trunks and the women scanty one-piece bathing suits. There is a bathing tent where two cents is charged for the privilege of undressing, but most prefer the open beach. Few swim or go in the water, but the majority lie about the beach, often sleeping in affectionate embrace, all without exciting any comment or ridicule.
The boy scout movement was taken up enthusiastically in Germany with the cheerful support of the military caste, who look on the activity as a welcome adjunct to military training. The boys certainly are given a dose of real drill. On one occasion I saw a boy company at drill march straight into the Havel river, no command to halt having been given at the river bank!
The workingmen of Germany are more brutal than those of England, France and America, but this is because of the low wages they receive, and because they feel the weight of the caste system.
In a speech in December, 1917, I said that a revolution in Germany would come after the war and that a fellow Ambassador in Berlin had said to me that because of the great brutality of the workingmen in Germany this uprising would make the French Revolution look like a Methodist Sunday School picnic. A newspaper reported me as saying this on my own authority and added that I had said the Germans were the most "bestial" people on earth.
I only want to be responsible for what I actually say. I did not call the Germans "bestial," although unfortunately it is a fact that many officers of the army and others have been guilty of a brutality which has helped turn the face of the world from the whole German people.
Not all the Germans are brutal. I received many letters revealing evidence to the contrary.