Compared with our big American newspapers a German paper is a very little affair. Its pages are about half as big as the pages of our papers, and in the morning they usually have only eight pages, and in the evening six. There are no glaring headlines to a German paper, and no red ink is used. Even when Kitchener was drowned or America declared war, it appeared in the papers as a headline with letters no more than three-quarters of an inch high.
There is absolutely nothing sensational about a German newspaper, even in war time. They all look alike, and one has to look at the date of the paper to make sure that it is not the paper of the day before. They have no cartoons, and they rarely have any pictures. The Sunday supplement has few "funnies" and never any colored pictures. There are no spicy scandals, no sensational divorce trials and no tales of thrilling murders with the picture of the house where the dark deed was committed marked with an X. Then there is no woman's page and no society column. You ask, well, what have they in their papers?
A Reading-Room for Soldiers on the West Front.
On the first page is the war news, very brief. It gives the General Staff's report from all the war fronts, and this report is signed by the general on each of these fronts. The second page is devoted to news of a more local character. They often print interviews on this page. They make more of a feature of interviews in Germany than we do in America. On the other pages they have sports, the drama, music, stories, and always one article of literary character. One of the big features on the front page is the printing of the under-sea boat booty. Whatever is printed in the German newspapers is the truth as far as it goes, but not everything that is known is printed. What the people really get is the truth without details. The people would like to read these details, but they do not get them. One of the most surprising things that was printed was Zimmermann's letter to Mexico. It came out in all the papers, for Zimmermann thought that the best thing to do was to publish it. It was not very popular with the German people.
One of the things that was not printed in the German papers was the great spy scandal in Norway. I never heard one word about it until I came to Norway. The papers are controlled by a censor. Once last summer the Berliner Tageblatt was shut off for three days. They printed something which the censor did not like, but the general public never found out what the offending article was.
There are three great publishing houses in Berlin. First, the August Scherl Company, which publishes the daily newspaper Lokal-Anzeiger, a morning and an evening paper which has a very large circulation among the poorer class of people and is used for small advertisers. Scherl also publishes Die Woche, a weekly well known in America; Die Gartenlaube, a magazine for women; Der Tag; and Der Montag, a newspaper which comes out every Monday.
A Field Book-Store in France.
A second great company is the Rudolf Mosse Company which publishes the well-known Berliner Tageblatt, a morning and an evening paper. The third and perhaps greatest company is the Ullstein Company which publishes the Vossische Zeitung, a morning and evening paper; the Berliner Morgenpost, a paper read by the working class; B. Z. am Mittag, a little sheet which comes out at noon and is easily the most popular paper in Berlin; the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, a splendid weekly which sells for ten pfennigs. Everybody in Berlin reads this weekly, for it has good war articles, fine stories and many interesting pictures. There are many other papers published in Berlin, such as the 8 Uhr Abendblatt, a sheet which comes out at seven in the evening, and the Tägliche Rundschau, a splendid paper of literary character.