Demoralization and Crime in Germany
Evidence that the war has brought a great increase of crime in Germany is forthcoming in many forms. At a conference held in Berlin early in 1918 to discuss "public insecurity" in all parts of Germany, it was stated that most of the burglaries and other crimes were committed during the nights between Friday and Monday. Statistics were given of the payments made by companies which issue insurance policies against burglary and theft. Payments on account of burglaries increased from $400,000 in 1914 to $1,100,000 in 1916, and to about $5,000,000 in 1917. Compensation for stolen goods to the amount of nearly $15,000,000 was paid by the Prussian railways in 1917, as compared with a total of only $1,050,000 in 1914.
Owing to the constant thefts of food in Berlin an official order has been issued that no wheat or flour is to be moved through the streets after dark. The theft of letters is becoming more and more common. One night nineteen letter-boxes in Charlottenburg were broken open, and the letters were destroyed after the postage stamps had been torn off. Owing to frequent thefts of letters at a small town named Mittenwalde, the Postmaster laid a trap for the thief, with the result that his own wife has been sent to prison for six months.
The U-Boat Raid in American Waters
Twenty Vessels, Mostly in the Coastwise Trade, Sunk Off the New Jersey and Virginia Coasts
One or more German submarines—the number was not definitely established—appeared off the coast of the United States on May 25, 1918, and began sinking merchant ships on a large scale. Up to June 20 more than twenty steamers and sailing vessels, mostly of American register, had been sent to the bottom.
This was the second visit of an armed German submarine to the American side of the Atlantic for hostile action. In October, 1916, before the United States entered the war, the U-53 held up coastwise traffic off Nantucket and sank four British, one Dutch, and one Norwegian ship. The U-53 had been preceded by the merchant submarine Deutschland, which arrived at Baltimore on July 9, 1916, from Bremen and returned with a cargo of nickel and rubber. The Deutschland made a second trip, arriving at New London, Conn., in October.
The appearance off the American coast of the unidentified submarine, or submarines, which made the raid on American and neutral shipping in May and June, 1918, was not altogether unexpected. For several weeks the American naval authorities had been searching for U-boats in home waters in consequence of a dispatch from the British Admiralty stating that two German submarines of the latest type, with a cruising capacity of 10,000 miles, had left the North Sea and were observed proceeding westward, probably in an attempt to cross the Atlantic.