My Four Years in Germany

by James W. Gerard

I spent two days at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in February, 1916. Some of the German girls looked very well in their "knickers," but I agree with the Generalkommando that the appearance of some of the older women was "cruelty" not only to the "earnest mountain population" but to any observer.

These corps commanders are apparently responsible direct to the Emperor; and therefore much of the difficulty that I had concerning the treatment of prisoners was due to this system, as each corps commander considered himself supreme in his own district not only over the civil and military population but over the prison camps within his jurisdiction.

On the fourth of August, 1914, a number of laws were passed, which had been evidently prepared long in advance, making various changes made necessary by war, such as alteration of the Coinage Law, the Bank Law, and the Law of Maximum Prices. Laws as to the high prices were made from time to time. For instance, the law of the twenty-eighth of October, 1914, provided in detail the maximum prices for rye in different parts of Germany. The maximum price at wholesale per German ton of native rye must not exceed 220 marks in Berlin, 236 marks in Cologne, 209 marks in Koenigsberg, 228 marks in Hamburg, 235 marks in Frankfort a/M.

The maximum price for the German ton of native wheat was set at forty marks per ton higher than the above rates for rye. This maximum price was made with reference to deliveries without sacks and for cash payments.

The law as to the maximum prices applied to all objects of daily necessity, not only to food and fodder but to oil, coal and wood. Of course, these maximum prices were changed from time to time, but I think I can safely state that at no time in the war, while I was in Berlin, were the simple foods more expensive than in New York.

The so-called "war bread," the staple food of the population, which was made soon after the commencement of the war, was composed partially of rye and potato flour. It was not at all unpalatable, especially when toasted; and when it was seen that the war would not be as short as the Germans had expected, the bread cards were issued. That is, every Monday morning each person was given a card which had annexed to it a number of little perforated sections about the size of a quarter of a postage stamp, each marked with twenty-five, fifty or one hundred. The total of these figures constituted the allowance of each person in grammes per week. The person desiring to buy bread either at a baker's or in a restaurant must turn in these little stamped sections for an amount equivalent to the weight of bread purchased. Each baker was given a certain amount of meal at the commencement of each week, and he had to account for this meal at the end of the week by turning in its equivalent in bread cards.

As food became scarce, the card system was applied to meat, potatoes, milk, sugar, butter and soap. Green vegetables and fruits were exempt from the card system, as were for a long time chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys and game. Because of these exemptions the rich usually managed to live well, although the price of a goose rose to ridiculous heights. There was, of course, much underground traffic in cards and sales of illicit or smuggled butter, etc. The police were very stern in their enforcement of the law and the manager of one of the largest hotels in Berlin was taken to prison because he had made the servants give him their allowance of butter, which he in turn sold to the rich guests of the hotel.

No one over six years of age at the time I left could get milk without a doctor's certificate. One result of this was that the children of the poor were surer of obtaining milk than before the war, as the women of the Frauendienst and social workers saw to it that each child had its share.

The third winter of the war, owing to a breakdown of means of transportation and want of laborers, coal became very scarce. All public places, such as theatres, picture galleries, museums, and cinematograph shows, were closed in Munich for want of coal. In Berlin the suffering was not as great but even the elephants from Hagenbeck's Show were pressed into service to draw the coal carts from the railway stations.

Light was economized. All the apartment houses (and all Berlin lives in apartment houses) were closed at nine o'clock. Stores were forbidden to illuminate their show windows and all theatres were closed at ten. Only every other street electric light was lit; of the three lights in each lamp, only one.