Conditions in 1923 Germany - Part 1
'I WAS in Germany two entire months, and liked the people.' So wrote Landor in the year following Waterloo: and extending the period by a month, I can say the same. But let me hasten to add that I was never in my life in a country where I did not like the people. This is not Internationalism; it is simply love of mankind.
Returning travelers have not greatly enlightened us upon the state of affairs in Germany. The ordinary tourist is singularly gifted with lack of observation, and financiers sum up what they see and hear, in some broad generalization.
But we are hungry for particulars. How does a sick nation look? Are the Germans rude to Americans? What do you see in the streets? In the churches and theatres? Are they fat? How's the beer? Do they still love the Kaiser?
I can best answer these natural questions by quotations from a journal, written on the spot, in German, the major portion of which consists in transcription of conversations held in that tongue.
Fresh from the ruins of Montdidier, Noyon, and the bleakness and horror of Verdun, I found myself in Karlsruhe. Immediately my journal became a hodgepodge of nothings: the flood of novel impressions was overwhelming; there was too much to record. The traveler should, we know, be an artist; he should divert himself only with the significant. But was it significant that the elevator boy in the hotel wore a ring with a coat of arms engraved on it? That the beer was thin? The police polite? And that there was no 'night-life'? What did it signify that the people one saw in the street were extraordinarily grave and extraordinarily quiet? The continental peoples are all grave, compared with our jocose fellow citizens, and especially in their hours of business. What I seemed to observe, however, was not so much seriousness of demeanor, as a certain lethargy and listlessness; complexions inclined to be yellow; men moved slowly, spoke in low tones. The pride of life was not in evidence. What did it mean?
If Karlsruhe resisted definition, Munich was ten times worse. At first sight the exterior of the town was not strikingly altered: the Ludwigstrasse was as bare, broad, and empty as ever; the Theatinerstrasse as crowded; and the crowd looked well-dressed and well-nourished. The town was full of people spending money. Were they Germans, or foreigners? In the theatres it was impossible to get a seat, except for a performance three days later. The expensive hotels, the Vierjahreszeiten and Regina Palast, were jammed. The shop-windows displayed furs, lace, and jewelry, and the restaurants were inconveniently popular. London was drab and dismal in comparison. In Paris nearly every woman wore black. Were these Bavarians then as well-off, as unconcerned as they seemed to be?
Walking in the Hofgarten, I met Baron X. whom I had known in 1912. He had lost an arm, and a son, in the war — the latter killed by a shell from our American troops. After the agree-ably formal salutation which all continental peoples accord you, he replied to a question of mine in regard to the condition of things, that it was very bad, and though I might not see it at first, I would, later. 'And, by the way, your American troops, though they exposed themselves too recklessly, were better soldiers than we had any idea they would be.'
In the Theatinerstrasse I met one whom I shall call Smith, to avoid giving him notoriety. He was a young fellow, with a sterling record in the war, of a kindly disposition, and now on his way to Oberammergau.
'Well,' he said, 'can you beat it?'
'Beat what?'
'Why the Germans! This burg is a riot. It's just one big spend. Where do they acquire the shekels? They say they can't pay the reparations: why, they're rotten with riches!'
Was he right? My other American acquaintances made much the same comment. But then, they spoke no German.
The fact was — and you had only to open your eyes and ears to discover it — that the town was filled with foreigners : Italians, Swedes, Slavs, Czechoslovaks, and, above all, a legion of Americans. Our fellow countrymen are easy to distinguish: they and the English only among the races of the earth wear their hands in their pockets; and our fellow countrymen, only they, bump you as they pass on the sidewalk. Having to report to the 'police,' I questioned the Chief of Police, and he told me that on a day in July there were sixty-seven thousand foreigners in Munich, a town of five hundred thousand.
These were the well-dressed, easy-looking people one encountered, these and the German war-profiteers, who had taken possession of the two famous hotels.
Of this latter class it is difficult to speak without some acerbity. They were loud, coarse, pushing, insolent, and overbearing. To the white-faced, haggard-looking servants of the hotel, their manner — but no, it cannot be described. Had the Revolution taught them nothing? On the very corner where a certain countess had been raped, robbed, and slain, I saw a vulgar-looking woman, sitting in her high-powered car. She was covered with diamonds, and, red with either passion or paint, she was scolding her chauffeur, who stood at attention, coldly indifferent, looking rather like a demi-god; and there she sat, flaunting her riches, and losing her temper — there, at the very corner! — So soon so bold!
What with this rise of prices, and the blunting of a novel pleasure which follows upon its repetition, one presently acquired a degree of callousness to this new wealth and I observed in myself even a certain sort of meanness setting in. I began to be able to look about me more narrowly, and to ask myself what was the true state of affairs among the actual German population.
In one of the delightful narrow streets which give on the Frauenkirche, I saw a child of seven or eight years, dressed in blue, with russet leather shoes, who seemed to waver in her walk. Presently, she stopped and sank slowly down on the sidewalk. There was no sound, but a decent-looking woman picked the girl up and gave her to a policeman, who carried her in his arms to a drug store. When I asked the woman what ailed the child, she said, with no special feeling: 'It's not had anything to cat.' Odd, that a well-shod and well-dressed little girl should want food!
Later, as I sat in the great Hofbrauhaus, drinking a glass of fairly thin beer, a student of the University and his mother, took their places at the same table. They were people of refinement, and bore the look of quietness I had noted in Karlsruhe. The lad took from his pocket a package and unfolded it, and the two shared the contents — rye-bread and a sliver of cheese; hardly enough for one person. As the lad looked a trifle pale, I asked him when he had last eaten, and he replied at six that morning. ' We don't have much to eat,' was his after comment.
A week later, I shared as an onlooker in a singular ovation given to a university professor. His friends had gathered to celebrate his departure from the University. As we stood on the sidewalk there came out a young man dressed in workman's clothes, carrying his tools and a nondescript bundle; and my acquaintances at once began to laugh and to congratulate him; for this was the professor. The salary attaching to his professional post not being sufficient for the support of his family, he was joining the industrial class.
On the same day, a certain Lutheran minister, in a small town near Munich, locked the church-door, bade his assembled flock farewell, and walked off into the country to become a farm-laborer.
Now, it is true, all bodily labor is a satisfaction, and to some of us, habituated to its use, a delight: but these two men were leaving the works of the. intellect behind them for good and all. They could have no hope of returning to their previous occupations.
These, and a multitude of less unusual events, indicated the true state of things: the middle class, the so-called brain-workers, were being starved out and down into the Industrials — not for a day or a year, but permanently. The clerk, the lawyer, the man of science, the woman with a small income, were betaking themselves to the factory, the forge, or the field. Among these was a poet whose verses I had long known, and a biologist known the world over. At this rate, what was to become of the nation?
The pallor, slowness, quietude, and almost apathy I had observed in Karlsruhe I now saw on the side streets of Munich. Every third or fourth child had boils or blotches on its face; all the children born since the outbreak of the war were either spindle-shanked, or seemed to suffer from rickets. This could mean only that one class of the townspeople was severely underfed. You could buy diamonds, expensive dinners, and other luxuries at a price too high for any but the profiteer, or the tourist. The motor-cars of exiled kings were for sale and in use, the Royal Arms still visible on them; but, plain, necessary rye-bread was, for most Germans, terribly expensive, and you could not come by a glass of milk save through a doctor's prescription; milk was reserved by law for children in the hospitals.
In this class of brain-workers must be included the families of former army officers. The wives and children of these men were as insufficiently clad and as undernourished as those of the professional class. After eating at their tables, you stole off to a restaurant and ordered a second meal.
Returning travelers have not greatly enlightened us upon the state of affairs in Germany. The ordinary tourist is singularly gifted with lack of observation, and financiers sum up what they see and hear, in some broad generalization.
But we are hungry for particulars. How does a sick nation look? Are the Germans rude to Americans? What do you see in the streets? In the churches and theatres? Are they fat? How's the beer? Do they still love the Kaiser?
I can best answer these natural questions by quotations from a journal, written on the spot, in German, the major portion of which consists in transcription of conversations held in that tongue.
Fresh from the ruins of Montdidier, Noyon, and the bleakness and horror of Verdun, I found myself in Karlsruhe. Immediately my journal became a hodgepodge of nothings: the flood of novel impressions was overwhelming; there was too much to record. The traveler should, we know, be an artist; he should divert himself only with the significant. But was it significant that the elevator boy in the hotel wore a ring with a coat of arms engraved on it? That the beer was thin? The police polite? And that there was no 'night-life'? What did it signify that the people one saw in the street were extraordinarily grave and extraordinarily quiet? The continental peoples are all grave, compared with our jocose fellow citizens, and especially in their hours of business. What I seemed to observe, however, was not so much seriousness of demeanor, as a certain lethargy and listlessness; complexions inclined to be yellow; men moved slowly, spoke in low tones. The pride of life was not in evidence. What did it mean?
If Karlsruhe resisted definition, Munich was ten times worse. At first sight the exterior of the town was not strikingly altered: the Ludwigstrasse was as bare, broad, and empty as ever; the Theatinerstrasse as crowded; and the crowd looked well-dressed and well-nourished. The town was full of people spending money. Were they Germans, or foreigners? In the theatres it was impossible to get a seat, except for a performance three days later. The expensive hotels, the Vierjahreszeiten and Regina Palast, were jammed. The shop-windows displayed furs, lace, and jewelry, and the restaurants were inconveniently popular. London was drab and dismal in comparison. In Paris nearly every woman wore black. Were these Bavarians then as well-off, as unconcerned as they seemed to be?
Walking in the Hofgarten, I met Baron X. whom I had known in 1912. He had lost an arm, and a son, in the war — the latter killed by a shell from our American troops. After the agree-ably formal salutation which all continental peoples accord you, he replied to a question of mine in regard to the condition of things, that it was very bad, and though I might not see it at first, I would, later. 'And, by the way, your American troops, though they exposed themselves too recklessly, were better soldiers than we had any idea they would be.'
In the Theatinerstrasse I met one whom I shall call Smith, to avoid giving him notoriety. He was a young fellow, with a sterling record in the war, of a kindly disposition, and now on his way to Oberammergau.
'Well,' he said, 'can you beat it?'
'Beat what?'
'Why the Germans! This burg is a riot. It's just one big spend. Where do they acquire the shekels? They say they can't pay the reparations: why, they're rotten with riches!'
Was he right? My other American acquaintances made much the same comment. But then, they spoke no German.
The fact was — and you had only to open your eyes and ears to discover it — that the town was filled with foreigners : Italians, Swedes, Slavs, Czechoslovaks, and, above all, a legion of Americans. Our fellow countrymen are easy to distinguish: they and the English only among the races of the earth wear their hands in their pockets; and our fellow countrymen, only they, bump you as they pass on the sidewalk. Having to report to the 'police,' I questioned the Chief of Police, and he told me that on a day in July there were sixty-seven thousand foreigners in Munich, a town of five hundred thousand.
These were the well-dressed, easy-looking people one encountered, these and the German war-profiteers, who had taken possession of the two famous hotels.
Of this latter class it is difficult to speak without some acerbity. They were loud, coarse, pushing, insolent, and overbearing. To the white-faced, haggard-looking servants of the hotel, their manner — but no, it cannot be described. Had the Revolution taught them nothing? On the very corner where a certain countess had been raped, robbed, and slain, I saw a vulgar-looking woman, sitting in her high-powered car. She was covered with diamonds, and, red with either passion or paint, she was scolding her chauffeur, who stood at attention, coldly indifferent, looking rather like a demi-god; and there she sat, flaunting her riches, and losing her temper — there, at the very corner! — So soon so bold!
1923 Germany - Part 2
But one's own riches likewise arrested one's attention. On entering Germany, one became suddenly wealthy. In Paris a dollar was worth two; but once across the Rhine, the rate of exchange staggered belief. Breakfast cost eleven cents, luncheon twenty-three, and for half a dollar you had an excellent dinner of several courses, with a bottle of light wine. In the strictly German and reactionary hotel to which I presently betook myself, I had a large, clean, comfortable room, which cost me twenty cents per day. When it came to buying, your best hat cost a quarter, and a heavy woolen overcoat three dollars. If you tried hard, you could spend two dollars during the twelve hours of a day; but to get rid of a third dollar, cost effort. Things were, at last, as they should be; you had more money than you knew what to do with, and you were merry with reason. But you were only a millionaire of the moment, for presently prices rose. In September they shot up prodigiously, and at the same time the shop-windows began to look empty of goods. Production had ceased. In the three months of my stay flour rose four hundred per cent, and leather six hundred.What with this rise of prices, and the blunting of a novel pleasure which follows upon its repetition, one presently acquired a degree of callousness to this new wealth and I observed in myself even a certain sort of meanness setting in. I began to be able to look about me more narrowly, and to ask myself what was the true state of affairs among the actual German population.
In one of the delightful narrow streets which give on the Frauenkirche, I saw a child of seven or eight years, dressed in blue, with russet leather shoes, who seemed to waver in her walk. Presently, she stopped and sank slowly down on the sidewalk. There was no sound, but a decent-looking woman picked the girl up and gave her to a policeman, who carried her in his arms to a drug store. When I asked the woman what ailed the child, she said, with no special feeling: 'It's not had anything to cat.' Odd, that a well-shod and well-dressed little girl should want food!
Later, as I sat in the great Hofbrauhaus, drinking a glass of fairly thin beer, a student of the University and his mother, took their places at the same table. They were people of refinement, and bore the look of quietness I had noted in Karlsruhe. The lad took from his pocket a package and unfolded it, and the two shared the contents — rye-bread and a sliver of cheese; hardly enough for one person. As the lad looked a trifle pale, I asked him when he had last eaten, and he replied at six that morning. ' We don't have much to eat,' was his after comment.
A week later, I shared as an onlooker in a singular ovation given to a university professor. His friends had gathered to celebrate his departure from the University. As we stood on the sidewalk there came out a young man dressed in workman's clothes, carrying his tools and a nondescript bundle; and my acquaintances at once began to laugh and to congratulate him; for this was the professor. The salary attaching to his professional post not being sufficient for the support of his family, he was joining the industrial class.
On the same day, a certain Lutheran minister, in a small town near Munich, locked the church-door, bade his assembled flock farewell, and walked off into the country to become a farm-laborer.
Now, it is true, all bodily labor is a satisfaction, and to some of us, habituated to its use, a delight: but these two men were leaving the works of the. intellect behind them for good and all. They could have no hope of returning to their previous occupations.
These, and a multitude of less unusual events, indicated the true state of things: the middle class, the so-called brain-workers, were being starved out and down into the Industrials — not for a day or a year, but permanently. The clerk, the lawyer, the man of science, the woman with a small income, were betaking themselves to the factory, the forge, or the field. Among these was a poet whose verses I had long known, and a biologist known the world over. At this rate, what was to become of the nation?
The pallor, slowness, quietude, and almost apathy I had observed in Karlsruhe I now saw on the side streets of Munich. Every third or fourth child had boils or blotches on its face; all the children born since the outbreak of the war were either spindle-shanked, or seemed to suffer from rickets. This could mean only that one class of the townspeople was severely underfed. You could buy diamonds, expensive dinners, and other luxuries at a price too high for any but the profiteer, or the tourist. The motor-cars of exiled kings were for sale and in use, the Royal Arms still visible on them; but, plain, necessary rye-bread was, for most Germans, terribly expensive, and you could not come by a glass of milk save through a doctor's prescription; milk was reserved by law for children in the hospitals.
In this class of brain-workers must be included the families of former army officers. The wives and children of these men were as insufficiently clad and as undernourished as those of the professional class. After eating at their tables, you stole off to a restaurant and ordered a second meal.