Germany in War Time: What an American Girl Saw and Heard

by Mary Ethel McAuley

Collecting Old Automobile Tires.

In the department stores they do not use string on small packages, and on large packages they tie the string only one way around. If the purchase is a very small object like a spool of thread or a paper of pins, it is wrapped in the bill. Many people carry their own wrapping paper with them and it is always wise to carry a piece of string. None of the department stores will deliver anything that costs less than five marks, and notices are posted everywhere asking people to carry their purchases home with them. Only one store, Borchardt's grocery store, still wraps up things as nicely as in days of peace, and when you buy anything there you are sure that the package will not come open on the street. Now they have invented a new kind of string made out of wood. It is very strong but hard to tie.

Since the very beginning of the war no one in Germany has been allowed to run his own automobile on account of the scarcity of rubber tires and gasoline. All the automobiles displayed in the store windows have tires made of cement. This is just done to make them look better. All the tires have been taken over by the military authorities. No one is allowed to ride a bicycle with rubber tires without a permit. They have invented two kinds of tires for substitutes. One kind is made of little disks of leather joined in the middle, and the other kind is made of coiled wire. Both these tires are advertised, and the advertisements read: "Don't worry, ride your bicycle in war time. Get a leather disk tire; then you don't need a permit."

For everything that is scarce in Germany they have a substitute and in this line German ingenuity seems to have no end. They have a substitute for milk called Milfix. It is a white powder, and when mixed with water it looks like milk. It can be used in coffee or for cooking. The funny part about Milfix was that when it first came out everybody scorned it, but all of a sudden there was hardly any real milk to be had, and Milfix was put on the Lebensmittel food card, and one could only buy a small quantity of it. Then everybody was just wild to get a little bit of the precious stuff.

Then they have egg substitutes. Some brands of it are in powder form and other brands are like yellow capsules. They are very good when mixed with one real egg and make very good omelet. Then there is the meat substitute. It comes in cans and is dark brown in color. It is some kind of a prepared vegetable. It looks like chopped meat and it is said to taste like meat. They have a hundred different varieties of substitutes for coffee, and without any exception all brands of Kaffee-Ersatz are very bad.

The most unique thing on the market is the "butter stretcher." That is what they call it. It is a white powder, and they guarantee that when it is mixed with a quarter of a pound of real butter it will stretch it to half a pound. We bought some of it but we never had the courage to try it on a quarter of a pound of real butter; but many boarding-houses used it.

Every day something new bobbed up on the market. One of the finest things was Butter-Brühe and Schmalz-Brühe. It came in cans the half of which was either butter or lard and the other half was broth. It was fixed this way so it did not come under the butter card or the fat card. The cans weighed a half pound and sold for five marks. It was foreign goods from either Holland or Denmark.

Last spring there appeared on the market great quantities of "Irish stew" in cans. The Germans stood around it wondering. What was Irish stew? None of them had the slightest idea. But finally they bought it, for they said, if it was Irish it must be good. They have a substitute for sausage made out of fish. It is awful stuff with a lingering taste that lasts for days.

They have substitutes for leather, rubber, and for alcohol. They have what they call a spiritus tablet, and it can be used in lamps. It is used by the soldiers in the field. As matches are very expensive they have a small apparatus of two iron pieces that when snapped make a light. As soap is very scarce in Germany hard-wood floors are cleaned with tin shavings. The shavings are rubbed over the floors with the feet, the workers wearing felt shoes.