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

by Mary Ethel McAuley

This sign is hanging in every street car, train coupé, restaurant, store and window with a war map in Germany, and it warns the soldiers to be careful in their speaking, that dangerous spies travel about.

Germany is trying to prevent things that she does not wish known from becoming known by locking them up even in the mouths of her soldiers, and if she were as clever at concealing her tactics abroad as she is at home, Zimmermann's famous letter to Mexico would never have been found.

Not only the soldiers on the streets must keep quiet, but the soldiers in the field as well, and each soldier has written directions that in case he is taken prisoner he shall give no information to the enemy. He must not tell the number of his regiment, his age or what district he is from, for all these things give the enemy important information. It is especially important that the enemy shall not know what regiment is opposing them.

All the foreigners in Germany are under police control, but none of the enemy civilians are interned except the English. The Americans, Russians, French, Belgians and Italians are free except that they must report once a day to the police, and they cannot go from one city to another without a permit. Most of the Americans get off with going to the police only once a week. The Poles have to go twice a week. All neutral foreigners must go to the police and register when they change their address. The Germans must do this too in order to get a bread card. The food cards have been great things for weeding out criminals and spies, for no one can get a card unless he is registered at the police, and many famous criminals who have been evading the police for years have been caught since the war.

There are very few slums in Germany, but in Berlin they have a few dens where crooks hold out, and bread cards can be bought for fifty pfennigs to one mark. An American boy I knew in Berlin who spoke German like a native, used to dress in old clothes and visit these places. Sometimes he was taken for a foreigner but nearly always for a German. He said that the men made signs from one table to the other when they had anything to sell. He often bought cards for fifty pfennigs. One crook that he got acquainted with was a German who went around begging, saying that he was a Belgian refugee. He had some kind of a medal to show people and his begging business netted him a nice little income.

The boy said that the slums were rather "slow," very little drinking and a great deal of planning of things that they were afraid to carry out, for a German crook hasn't much courage. One café that the boy often visited was the "Café Dalles," which means "Café Down and Out." It was situated right near the Kaiser's Berlin palace. One night in the summer of 1916 it was raided just a few minutes before the boy got to the place. Through this raid the police discovered that some one was manufacturing bread cards by the thousands each week. They were an almost perfect imitation of the real cards. Of course even the clever Berlin police could not control all the crooked work that was going on with the food cards, but they kept things pretty well under hand. One scheme that was worked was, when a family changed their residence, to register an extra one in the family. I used to wonder often that the Germans had the nerve to do this, for they were terribly afraid of being caught.

In Germany a foreigner uses his passport on every occasion, and one must always carry it. You can't send a telegram out of Germany without showing your pass, and then if you send it in any other language than German, you must make a German translation of the message at the bottom of the sheet.

No foreigner, not even a neutral, is allowed to go to the seaside unless he has a doctor's certificate, and even then it is hard to get a permit. No kodaks are allowed at the seaside, and one is not allowed to sketch. Now they are very strict about any one taking pictures in or around Berlin.

When you come into Germany, you are not allowed to bring either a kodak or a Bible with you. One can easily see the reason for the kodak being prohibited, but people are always surprised when their Bibles are taken away from them. In all wars the Bible has been used as a place for concealing secret messages and the garb of a priest, nun, or minister has been a favorite disguise for spies.

A man I knew in Berlin came over by way of Holland. He had a Bible, a prayer-book and a Chicago telephone book with him. He was astonished when they took the Bible and the prayer-book away from him and allowed him to keep the telephone book. It was winter when he came over, and he had on a coat with turn-back cuffs. He lives in Chicago, and he had acquired the habit of sticking street-car transfers in his cuffs. When he was searched the searcher found a transfer in the cuff, and the American was marched off to an officer. The German officer looked at the transfer long and interestedly and then laughed, "Why, I know that line, I have been in Chicago myself."