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

by Mary Ethel McAuley

It is easier to cross the frontier going out of Germany than any other frontier in Europe. This statement includes neutral Denmark where they nearly tore my clothes off me searching for gold. You are not allowed to take any gold out of Denmark. There are two reasons why the German frontier is easy to cross. One is, that most people who come out of Germany are anxious to come out, and they are afraid to hide anything for if it was found they would be sent back and held. The second reason is that the Germans don't give suspicious persons a permit to leave the country.

The day before you arrive at the German frontier the officials there know all about you. They know the history of your life and every move you have made in Germany. They know whether you are to be well searched or to be put through a form of searching. At the frontier they ask you no questions, for everything has been sent to them by the military commandery in Berlin. An American newspaper man in Copenhagen told me, that if the man at the door of the searching-room at the frontier gives you a low number you are to be well searched, and if you are given a high number you are hardly searched at all.

It takes at least three weeks for a foreigner—neutral or enemy—to get a permit to leave Germany; that is unless you have influence, and then it can be done in a few days. But that influence has to be a powerful one, for the military authorities are very strict.

The regular way to get the permit is to make a formal application at your local police. This application must be very politely written. I wrote out my application so, "Ich ersuche um Erlaubnis, nach Amerika zu gehen." My local policeman was horrified at this. "It is not polite enough," he said, "you must take it home and write it over." So I wrote beginning like this, "Honorable Gentlemen, I beg politely to have the honor to ask your gracious permission to leave Germany, etc." This letter made a great hit with the policeman.

After waiting a while, and if the police find that you have a clean record, you get a notice to come to the military commandery on a certain day. There you find your permit or Passierschein waiting for you. The soldier in charge asks you what day you wish to leave and then he gives you a day before that date and a day after that date—three days upon which you can travel.

Then the soldier takes a stack of papers—about twenty sheets, and puts them—with your pass, four photographs and your permit ticket—in an envelope and tells you to go to the police headquarters. Then your running around commences, and it takes you at least two days to get all the necessary stamps and seals. Then the evening before you leave the country you must go to your local police and register. If you should forget to do this you would be sent back from the frontier.

You are not allowed to take with you any writing of any kind, or printed matter, books etc., out of Germany without having them first censored. They have a place where the letters are read and sealed, and if you have a lot of books they send a soldier to your house. He looks over the books and packs your trunk and then seals it, and it is not opened again at the frontier. You pay the soldier one mark an hour for the work.

You are not allowed to take anything that Germany might need, out of Germany—no tools, no instruments and no electrical apparatus; that is, if the things have been bought in Germany. If it is something of a foreign make you can take it with you.

I had a little electric stove that I was very fond of, and I knew that if I ever went to the frontier with that stove they would take it away from me in a minute, as it was new and German make. I went to an influential man I knew in the Foreign Office and I asked him if he would seal up my stove for me. He laughed but said, "The German Foreign Office can't seal up a stove." I was disappointed but not daunted, and I inveigled the military division of the Foreign Office to help me in getting a permit to take my stove over the border.

You are allowed to take one thousand marks out of Germany, so I got all my money over that amount changed into Swedish money. I took it to Dr. Roediger, the censor, and asked him to seal it for me.