RUHLEBEN: THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS
Ruhleben! A ride in a trolley car of fifty minutes to the east, and
one would have been in the center of Berlin. Toward the west the town
of Spandau was plainly visible. Shall we ever forget its sky-line--the
forest of chimneys, the tall, ugly outlines of the tower of the town
hall, the squat “Julius” tower, the supposed “war treasury” of the
Germans where untold millions of marks of gold were alleged to be lying!
Before the war the camp had been a trotting race-course, a model of
its kind in the way of appointments. Altogether, six grand stands, a
restaurant for the public, a club-house for the members of the Turf
Club, administrative buildings, and eleven large stables, all solidly
built of brick and concrete, illustrated German thoroughness.
These buildings, except the three smaller grand stands, clustered along
the west and south sides of an oval track, which was not at first
included in the camp area.
Since the beginning of the war the restaurant, the “Tea House” as it
was called, at the extreme western end, and the large halls underneath
the three grand stands next to it had been used to house refugees
from eastern Prussia. Then, an assorted lot of prisoners of war and
civilians interned, preponderantly Russian but with a sprinkling of
British and French subjects, had taken their place. A few Russians
were still there when we arrived but evacuated very soon after. Their
departure made the camp exclusively British.
We were given breakfast. It consisted of a bowl of so-called coffee
and a loaf of black bread. The bread was to last us two days. Then we
were marched to our palatial residence, Stable No. 5. We set to work to
remove the plentiful reminders of the former four-legged inhabitants
and installed ourselves as best we might.
The stables contained twenty-four box-stalls and two tiny rooms for
stable personnel on the ground floor, and two large hay-lofts above.
Six men to a box-stall was the rule, and as many as could be packed
into the lofts. I had experience in both quarters, for I slept in the
loft for more than a week, and then moved into “Box No. 6,” where a
space on the floor had become empty. My new quarters were, at first,
much less attractive than the loft. They offered, however greater
possibilities for improvement.
For six weeks we slept on a stone floor covered by an inch or so of
wet straw. We had just room enough to lie side by side. We could turn
over, if we did so together. The “loftites” slept on boards with
straw on top of them. Later we all got ticks into which we could pack
the wet and fouling straw. To start with, there was no heating. Then
steam-radiators were installed, and during this winter and the three
following, the stone barracks were heated in a fitful kind of way. The
locomobile boilers which furnished the steam, one for each three or
four barracks, delivered it into the radiators from 10 A.M. to 12 noon
and from 3 to 5 P.M.
At last the “boxites” received bedsteads. They consisted of a simple
iron framework with three-quarter-inch boards as mattresses. On
these we placed our ticks. The bed uprights had male and female ends
which permitted the building of as many superimposed bunks as seemed
practicable. Two sleeping-structures of three bunks each was the rule
in the boxes.
The food we received from the Germans was insufficient at any time. The
allowance per man for rations was sixty-five pfennigs per day--sixteen
cents at the pre-war rate of exchange. It was contracted for at this
price by a caterer.
While food in Germany was plentiful we could buy additions to our
rations at the canteen. This became gradually impossible. We didn’t
mind that much, as parcels containing food and other necessities, but
mainly food, began to arrive from England in ever-increasing number.
Relatives of prisoners, the firms they had been working for, and
trade-unions or other organizations to which they belonged started the
ball rolling. But when the real need of the prisoners became known in
Blighty, special organizations for the purpose of assisting them sprang
up everywhere. As they were independent of one another their work to
a great extent overlapped. The majority of the civilians interned
received too much; here and there a man received nothing at all.
Through the action of the British Government the work of the individual
societies was coördinated in November, 1916. From that date, the Order
of the Red Cross and St. John was in charge of all of the relief work
for prisoners of war, and each prisoner received six parcels of food
per lunar month, not counting two loaves of white bread per week.
As far as my experience goes, the German authorities made an effort to
have these parcels reach their destination. During the latter part of
my imprisonment deliveries became somewhat irregular. Food was scarce
at that time in some parts of Germany and commanded very high prices,
and the theft of parcels naturally increased.
Ruhleben camp was administered, at first, by the German officers in
charge, with the help of the interned. In the spring of 1916, all
of the internal affairs of the camp were placed in the hands of the
interned themselves, the Germans confining themselves to guard duties
and general supervision.
* * * * *
Much has been published about prisoners’ camps in Germany. Horrible
stories have been told about them, and these are in the main quite
true. But camps differed from one another; nor were the conditions in
a given camp always the same. I’m not suggesting gradual or steady
improvement. But, just as camp commanders and regional military
commanders differed, so did the treatment of their charges differ. As
prisoners of war the men in Ruhleben camp were a pretty lucky lot. The
choice flowers of _Kultur_ bloomed elsewhere.
In the beginning of our internment hopes of a speedy exchange to
England ran high, and so did rumors concerning it. They helped us
to endure the hardships of the first few months, hardships which
might have proved even less tolerable than they did without some such
sheet-anchor of faith.
In spite of the misery of the first winter, however, the majority of
the pro-English portion of the camp would at any time have refused a
chance of living “free” in Germany under the conditions we experienced
previous to our internment. This certainly was the prevailing opinion
among my friends, as it was mine. In camp, at any rate, we could
wag our tongues, and speak as we listed, if we took only ordinary
precautions. We had congenial companions, and shared our joys and
discomforts. As long as our health remained tolerable, who would not
have preferred this to liberty among German surroundings? But when
illness came upon us--and few escaped it altogether--it was rather a
tough proposition.
The colonial Britishers were not at first considered to come under
the heading “_Englander_.” Probably the Germans were waiting for the
disruption of the British Empire and intended to further it by partial
treatment of men from our colonies, for they let them remain at liberty
until the end of January, 1915. It was then that the colonials arrived
in Ruhleben.
Later came the separation of the sheep from the goats! There was
trouble in camp. It had started in a ridiculous manner. A young lad
had been overheard saying something about “bloody Germans,” and this
had been reported to the authorities by one of their spies. German
self-esteem was horribly hurt, the more so as they misunderstood the
epithet and interpreted it as “bloodthirsty.” Whispers of impending
trouble had reached us, and we were not astonished when, one morning--I
believe in February or March, 1915--the alarm bell sounded the “line
up.” Each barracks separately formed up in a hollow square in front of
its dwelling-place. And each barracks was addressed separately by the
camp commander, Baron von Taube. He was in a perfect frenzy of rage
when our turn came. Our barracks was one of the last spoken to, and how
he managed to keep up the performance after so many repetitions is a
thing I cannot easily understand.
“We shall be the victors in this war thrust upon us by your country!”
he shouted at us. “And here and now I fling your own expression back
into your faces. Bloody Englishmen I call you! Bloody Englishmen!”
He thumped his chest like a gorilla about to charge. He came near to
foaming at the mouth. So far it was merely amusing. Then came the
order: “All those who entertain friendly feelings toward Germany fall
out and hand in your names.”
Our barracks was rather a mixed one, many of its inhabitants being
pro-German in sentiment. In addition, good and loyal men all over
the camp, whose financial interests were entirely in Germany, became
panicky and went over to the other side in the futile hope of saving
their property. When they had gone to the office, we others were
dismissed. Excitedly we discussed what had happened. Many of us were
deeply disturbed. They were those who thought they had flung their all
into a well, as it were, by standing still when the pro-Germans fell
out. But we all hoped that the others would be quartered apart from us.
Unfortunately that was not the case. They came back and lived among us
for some time, their presence giving rise to many a quarrel.
Some months afterward another separation of the sheep from the goats
took place, much less dramatically, and this time the pro-Germans were
quartered all by their sweet selves at one end of the camp.
In April, 1915, two men escaped from the hospital barracks, situated
outside the barbed-wire enclosure, and but carelessly guarded. One of
them became a great friend of mine later on.
When these two men escaped, I was playing with the idea myself. It was
a very fine spring. In the afternoons I used to sit on the uppermost
tier of the big grand stand. High up as I was, the factory buildings
and chimneys toward the west, where Spandau lay, appeared dwarfed; and
gazing across with my book on my knees, I had a sense of freedom. I
used to dream extravagant dreams of flights in aëroplanes with Germany
gliding backward beneath my feet, with the fat pastures of Holland
unrolling from the horizon, with the gray glint of the sea appearing,
and the shores of England lying rosy under a westering sun. And then,
coming down to realities, I began seriously to speculate upon the
chances of “getting through.”
I soon came to the conclusion that a companion was desirable, a good
man who spoke German well, as I did; a man with plenty of common sense
about him. I found one in April, T----, a native of the state of
Kansas. Lack of money made an early attempt impossible. I had enough
for myself, but my friend was dependent upon the five shillings per
week relief money paid by the British Government to those who had no
resources of their own. I could not get hold of sufficient money for
the two of us at once, so I set myself to accumulate gradually the
necessary amount.
But the summer passed, the leaves began to turn yellow, and my
pocket-book still contained less than I thought necessary.
In June of that year a successful escape from camp and from Germany by
Messrs. Pyke and Falk set us all talking and wondering. Then, in quick
succession, two serious attempts by a couple of men each failed. News
was allowed to reach us that they would be kept in solitary confinement
until the end of the war. This inhuman punishment was not actually put
into effect, but the unfortunates got five months’ and four and a half
months’ solitary confinement respectively, and after that indefinite
detention in prison.
My companion and I heard only about the first sentence. It somewhat
staggered us; but we decided that, as we did not intend to be caught,
the punishment ought not to deter us, and that if we were caught we
could stick it out as well as the next man.
The days were growing shorter, the nights colder, the boughs of
the trees barer, and conditions generally more unfavorable, and
still we hung on. Then the military authorities began doubling the
number of wire fences around the camp and erecting plenty of extra
light-standards in the space between them. Also, the number of sentries
was increased. All this decided us to have “a shot at it” there and
then, before the additional fences were completed.
We had hoped for an overcast sky. Instead, the full moon was bathing
the camp in light. Feeling anything but comfortable, we walked up to
that part of the wire fence where we intended to scramble over. We
were just getting ready, when a sentry came around the corner of the
barracks outside the wire. We had never observed the man on that beat
before. He stopped short, and his rifle came to the ready. “We’re camp
policemen, if he asks,” I whispered to my companion. Lingering a moment
as if in conversation, we then walked slowly away. We decided not to
try again that night.
The next morning I was disgusted with myself and all the world. I
talked it over with my companion, and he agreed with me that it was “no
go” that year. Another week of light nights would see the wire fences
completed and the season so far advanced that the odds would be too
heavy against us.
For some days I chewed the bitter cud of disappointment. Then I told my
friend that I should be glad to go with him, if he had an opportunity,
but that in the meantime I should take any chance, if one came to me,
alone. He expressed approval.