THE STADTVOGTEI AND “SOLITARY”
In its original meaning _Stadtvogtei_ denotes the official residence
of the _Stadtvogt_. This was an official appointed in feudal times by
the overlord of the territory, as keeper of one of his castles, around
which an early settlement of farmers and a few artisans had grown into
a medieval town or _Stadt_.
Later on, as a fit successor of the old Stadtvogtei, a prison arose in
its place, which was modernized from time to time, until in 1916 a new
modern building stood where once victims had vanished into dungeons,
and, later, political prisoners (among them Bebel, in 1870) had
languished in dark, musty, insanitary cells.
Bricks, iron, concrete, and glass had been used in the construction of
this building, the scanty furniture and the cell doors being the only
wood to be found in it.
I never came to know the whole of the Stadtvogtei, but learned
gradually that it enclosed a number of courtyards. These were
triangular in shape and just sixty paces in circumference. Around them
the walls rose five stories high, and made deep wells of them rather
than yards. The regularly spaced windows, tier upon tier, with their
iron bars increased the dreariness of their aspect.
With a yard as a center, each part of the prison surrounding it formed
a structural entity, a “block,” separated from the next one by a space
about eight feet wide, and extending from the ground floor right up to
the glass roof above. The aggregation of blocks was enclosed by the
outer walls as the segments of an orange are enclosed by the peel. With
the cell windows toward the yards, the doors were in the circumference
of the blocks. In front of them, frail-looking balconies, or gangways,
extending around the blocks, took the place of corridors, and overhung
by half its width the space separating the component parts of the
prison. Their floors consisted in most places of thick plates of glass,
fitting into the angle-irons of the cantilevers. Iron staircases and
short bridges permitted communication between the different floors and
blocks.
Imagine yourself standing at the end of one of these corridors and
looking down its vista. In the wall nearest to you the perspectively
diminishing quadrilaterals of eighteen evenly spaced doors, each with
its ponderous lock, bolt, and a spy-hole in the center, with a row of
ventilating holes above them, and, underfoot and above, the glass of
two balcony floors. On the opposite side a breast-high iron railing,
beyond it four feet of nothingness, and then the blank stretch of a
whitewashed wall, reflecting the light from the skylights on top of the
building.
Try to think of yourself as so situated that a chance of “enjoying”
this view mornings and evenings, when the cell doors are unlocked for
a few minutes, is eagerly anticipated as a change from the monotony of
the cell, and you will in one respect approach the sensations of a man
in solitary confinement.
Then imagine that the sight of this same gaunt vista every day causes
you a feeling of almost physical nausea, that you keep in your cell, or
somebody else’s, as much as possible to escape it, and you may perhaps
realize a fractional part of the circle of the disagreeable sensations
of a man who has had the “liberty of the prison” for, say, six months.
As a rule such emotions are subconscious, but they come to the surface
when the periodical attack of prison sickness of the soul lays hold of
you, a temporary affection of the mind which is very disagreeable to
the individual who suffers from it, and may have unpleasant effects on
his companions and friends. We used to hide these attacks as carefully
as we could from one another.
Originally the prison had been used for criminals undergoing light
sentences of two or three years and less, and for remand prisoners.
One entire block had been used for the latter. There the cells were
superior to those in the remainder of the building, where there were
stone floors, very small windows, and no artificial light, while the
beds consisted of boards on an iron frame and a paillasse. In the
remand cells the floor was covered with red linoleum, and in this part
landings and corridors were covered with the same material, there were
larger windows, spring mattresses hinged to the wall, and--luxury
beyond belief to a man from Ruhleben camp--electric lamps.
Except when special punishment was being inflicted, the political
prisoners, among whom I count the civil prisoners of war, inhabited
this better part of the prison, comprising perhaps three hundred cells
around one yard.
Over a year before my arrival the German military authorities had taken
over the greater part of the Stadtvogtei for their own prisoners. Only
a small portion was still occupied by the civil prison authorities and
their charges. One or two of the latter occasionally appeared in our
wing, in the charge of a civil warder, to do an odd job. They were
permanently used in the kitchen, the bath and disinfecting place, and
before the furnace.
In the military part of the prison N.C.O.’s of the army acted as
warders for the military and political prisoners.
Of the former there were always a great many. They were undergoing
punishment for slight breaches of discipline, or were remanded there
awaiting trial before a court martial. Occasionally a number of French
soldiers, and now and again an English Tommy or tar, were incarcerated
among them. When this happened, and we heard of it, we tried to help
them with food, tobacco, and cigarettes. It was very seldom that we
succeeded, as we were not allowed on corridors the cells of which were
used for military prisoners.
Since, however, the remand block did not quite suffice for the
political and civilian prisoners of war, we occasionally found
ourselves in the military block, though quartered above the soldiers on
separate corridors. In this fashion, and on occasional trips through
the prison to see the doctor or to get something from the kitchen, we
saw and heard enough of the treatment meted out to the German soldiers
to form an opinion of their sufferings.
In this the most cherished traditions of the German Army, and of the
German N.C.O.’s, were rigidly adhered to. We never heard one of the
poor prisoners being spoken to in an ordinary voice by their jailers.
They were shouted at, jeered at, abused, beaten, and bullied in every
conceivable way. Their part of the prison was in a continual uproar
from the voices of the N.C.O.’s, who evidently enjoyed the privilege of
torturing in perfect safety their fellow-beings.
Sometime during 1917 an N.C.O. who had spent most of his life in
England came to the prison. I heard him talk with one of my friends
one evening. A few days after, on my way to the kitchen, I had the
unpleasant experience of seeing him break up one of his charges. The
man had obviously had a dose before I arrived on the scene, for he was
sobbing in his pitch-dark cell, while the N.C.O. was talking at him in
a way that made my blood boil.
A few weeks before this happened, a friend of ours, a former A. S. C.
man, had shot into the cell where I was sitting with a chum. He was
laughing queerly, highly excited and pale.
“Look into the yard, look into the yard!” he cried, jumping on a table
underneath the window. We followed as fast as we could, but were just
too late. This is what had happened:
A Black Maria had been driven into the yard. Two or three N.C.O.’s had
surrounded it and opened the door, and one of them had climbed inside.
The next moment a German cavalryman, manacles on wrists and ankles, was
pitched literally head over heels on to the stone pavement of the yard,
where he lay, seemingly stunned. Two of the N.C.O.’s grabbed him by the
collar and, kicking the motionless form, dragged him through the gates,
which closed after them.
Most of the military prisoners were kept in dark cells. I do not know
for how long this kind of punishment may be inflicted, but I believe
six weeks is the maximum term. Imagine what it means to spend only
two weeks in a perfectly dark, comfortless room on bread and water,
sleeping on bare boards without blankets. Yet that, as it appeared,
would be a very ordinary sentence.
This kind of punishment could be inflicted on anybody who was directly
under military law, as we prisoners of war were. During my seventeen
months in prison, it occurred only once that an Englishman, an ex-navy
man, got a week of it. My particular friends and I were able to get a
well-cooked, hot meal to him on most days. When he came out, he vowed
he could have stuck a month of it, thanks to our ministrations, but his
drawn face seemed to belie his words.
While the military prisoners had their food sent in from a barracks
outside--judging from what we saw of it, it was rather good--we were
supplied from the prison kitchen. The food varied somewhat in quality
and quantity at different times. In 1914 and again in the following
year it was nauseous, and so insufficient that after four weeks in
prison young men found it impossible to mount the four flights of
stairs to the top corridor in less than half an hour. When I arrived it
happened to be comparatively good for a few weeks. The amount one got
would have kept a man alive, though in constant hunger tortures, for
perhaps six months, if he was in good condition to start with.
Breakfast was at 7:30 and consisted of a pint of hot black fluid,
distantly resembling very thin coffee in taste, and a piece of bread
weighing eight ounces, black, but much better than the bread we were
accustomed to in camp. A pint of soup was served for dinner, but there
was never any meat in it. Rumor had it that meat was occasionally
added but disappeared afterward. The staple substance in the beginning
was potatoes, with mangel-wurzels during the following winter. By far
the best soup, which disappeared from the bill of fare altogether for a
long time, contained plenty of haricot-beans. It was usually given out
on Saturdays or Sundays, and tasted rather good. Another one, tolerable
for a hungry man, consisted of a sort of black bean, with hard shells
but mealy kernels, and potatoes. A fish soup appeared on the menu three
times a week; fortunately one could smell it as soon as the big pails
left the kitchen at the other end of the building. This gave one a
chance of accumulating the necessary courage to face it in one’s bowl.
It really was horrible beyond words.
At about five o’clock a pint of hot water with barley was intended to
furnish the last meal of the day. Often there was less than a pint of
fluid, and most often the barley was entirely absent. But the water had
always a dirty blue color; consequently it did not even appeal to one’s
æsthetic sense. On Sundays these rations were sometimes supplemented
by a pickled herring or a small piece of sausage. I could never bring
myself to touch these.
Subsistence on the prison food exclusively would have been almost
impossible. I am not speaking from the point of view of the average
man, who has had plenty all his life, but as a one-time prisoner of war
in Germany, who has seen what incredibly little will keep the flame of
life burning, at least feebly.
Fortunately, almost all the politicals or prisoners of war obtained
extra sustenance in some way or another, although the majority of the
Poles and Russians did so only occasionally and in small quantities.
As far as the British were concerned, we got enough food from England
in our parcels to do entirely without the prison diet. Those amongst
us who found themselves temporarily short of eatables simply drew from
others who were better supplied.
* * * * *
I had had a foretaste of prison in Cologne in November, 1914, which had
not been encouraging. Consequently I felt apprehensive enough, while
mounting the stairs behind the N.C.O. on the morning of my arrival.
The prison being very full, only a convict cell ten feet long and five
wide was available for me, into which I was thrust without ceremony.
A small window, barred, and high up in the narrow wall, faced the
door. The bed on the left was hinged to the brick work and folded flat
against it. A stool in the corner by the door was balanced on the
other side by the hot-water pipes for heating. Farther along, toward
the window, a small double shelf, with three pegs underneath, took the
place of wardrobe, cupboard, and bookcase. It held a Prayer Book, a New
Testament, an earthenware plate, bowl and mug, a wooden salt-cellar, a
tumbler, and a knife, fork, and spoon. Against one side of it hung a
small printed volume of prison rules and a piece of cardboard, showing
a dissected drawing of the shelves, with the contents in regulation
order, and an inventory underneath. In the center of the wall a
small table was hinged and fastened like the bed. A Bible text above
decorated the cell.
When in the course of the morning bed-linen and a towel were issued
to me, I was vastly pleased. I had not expected such luxuries. The
former consisted of a coarse gray bedcloth, an enormous bag of the same
material, but checkered in blue, and another small one of the same
kind. The big bag was to serve as a cover for the two blankets, which
were to be folded inside; the small one was a pillow-slip.
Dinner meant another welcome interruption in the difficult task of
settling down, and, since it was Saturday, turned out to be bean soup.
Although the quantity was far short of what I required, particularly
in my famished state, it appeared so tasty, so far beyond anything I
had been accustomed to in camp as far as German rations were concerned,
that I was beginning to think myself in clover.
Still, I was in solitary confinement. How long was this state of
affairs to last? I had asked the man in charge of the canteen, a
British prisoner who paid me a visit in his official capacity. He did
not know. He had had four and a half months after his escape of the
previous summer. The N.C.O.’s refused to commit themselves, if they
answered my questions at all. So I tried to face the prospect of being
shut up in a small cell, with no company but my own, for five months.
On this basis I worked out the final date, made a very rough calendar,
and thereafter at 11 A.M., the hour of my arrival in the Stadtvogtei,
marked with great ceremony the termination of every twenty-four hours
in “solitary.”
I was not examined again, contrary to my expectations, and my clever
plans, framed in Vreden prison, of “diddling the Boche” into a
forgiving frame of mind could not be tested. My hopes of a glimpse
of Ruhleben camp and my friends were not realized. The term of my
solitary confinement evidently was regarded as a state secret, not
to be communicated even to the person whom it most concerned. This
was a policy always pursued by the _Kommandantur_ in Berlin--whether
out of sheer malice or callous indifference I don’t know. Since I was
the first escaper to be punished under a new regulation, there was
no precedent to form an opinion from; but I did not know that, and
consequently expected the same term of “solitary” as other men before
me. Those who came after me were not permitted to have much doubt about
the subject. We saw to that.
On the morning of the second day I was told that, in addition to
solitary confinement, punishment diet had been ordered by the powers
that were. One day out of every three (for four weeks) I was to
receive bread and water only. It sounded unpleasant. The canteen man,
who came to see me every day for a few minutes, assured me that this
was something new, quite outside his experience, and, being pressed,
cheered me vastly by consenting to my expressed opinion that it might,
perhaps, indicate a correspondingly short term of “solitary.”
As it turned out, the punishment diet proved the reverse of what it
was intended to be, an aggravation. In filling power, twenty-four
ounces of bread were far superior to the ordinary prison food, and much
more palatable than fish soup. Very soon I began to look forward to my
“hard” days.
On the morning of the third day a different N.C.O. took charge of my
corridor and me. I cannot speak too highly of him. Good-natured and
disinterestedly kind, he made my lot as easy as possible. Knowing a
little about prison routine by now, I had got up before the clanging of
the prison bell had sounded, apprehensive of being late. Then I set to
work cleaning my cell, scrubbing the floor and dusting the “furniture,”
and was quite ready when the doors were opened to permit us to empty
the cell utensils and get fresh water. This was soon accomplished, and
I lingered outside in the corridor to enjoy the “view.” Not far from me
a Polish prisoner was cleaning the balcony floor, and the N.C.O.--let
us call him Kindman--was trying hard to make the Pole understand that
the water he was using was too dirty for the purpose. The poor Pole,
not comprehending a word, was working away doggedly, while Kindman was
gradually raising his voice to a shriek in his efforts to make his
charge understand, without producing the slightest effect. He was not
at all nasty about it, as one would have expected from a German N.C.O.;
he merely substituted vocal effort for his lack of knowledge of Polish.
“I tell you, you are to use clean water, not dirty water, clean water,
not dirty water, dirty water no good, no good,” shaking his head.
Pause, to get a fresh breath. Roaring: “Clean water, clean, clean,
clean!” Despairingly he glanced in my direction. I fetched my own pail,
full of clean water, put it beside the Pole’s, and, stirring it with my
hand, nodded vigorously. Then, pointing to the thick fluid in the other
pail, I made the sign of negation. The Pole understood.
“You cleaned your cell before opening time this morning?” Kindman asked
a little later. “You needn’t do that. I’ll get you a _Kalfacter_--a man
to do the dirty work for you. You’re a prisoner of war. You are allowed
these privileges. There are plenty of Poles here who’ll be only too
glad to do it for a mark a week.”
After some hesitation I assented. In camp I had perhaps taken a foolish
pride in doing everything myself, with the exception of washing my
underclothes. Now, in prison, I had a Kalfacter to scrub and clean.
Instead, I began to do my own washing, not liking to entrust it to the
doubtfully clean hands of a Pole.
“I’ll get you a better cell,” was Kindman’s next announcement. A few
days after I moved into one of the remand cells with its comfortable
bed, its nice red “lino” floor, and a bright electric light burning up
to nine o’clock, while hitherto I had sat in darkness of an evening.
So far so good. There were no terrible physical hardships to endure.
It was unpleasant not to have enough food. I did get some help from my
fellow-countrymen, but parcels were arriving irregularly just then, and
it was little they could spare me. My own had stopped altogether, and I
had only very little money to buy things with, and that borrowed, and
consequently it had to be hoarded like a miser’s until I could get some
of my own. I was always hungry, and often could not sleep for griping
pains, while pictures of meals I had once eaten, and menus I would
order as soon as I got to England, kept appearing before me.
It was a red-letter day when my hand-bag arrived from the sanatorium.
Besides the clothes, it contained several tins of food, which I
determined to consume as sparingly as possible. That, however, was
easier planned than done. Knowing the food to be within reach, I
simply could not keep my hands from it. It all went in two days. I
remember getting up in the middle of the night to open a tin containing
a Christmas pudding, and eating it cold to the last crumb. Marvelous to
relate, I went peacefully to sleep after that.
The actual treatment in “solitary” was much better than I had hoped for
in my most optimistic moments. Mentally, however, I suffered somewhat
during the first fortnight or three weeks. I had to battle against
the worst attack of melancholia I had ever experienced. I never lost
my grip of myself entirely, but came very near succumbing to absolute
despair. The uncertainty about the duration of my punishment, the
cessation of all letters and parcels from Blighty at a time when I most
wanted them, the fear that my correspondence would merely wander into
the waste-paper basket of a German censor, and last, but not least, the
lack of response from my friends in camp to my post-cards--all combined
to depress my spirits horribly.
I began to wish heartily that I had made a daylight attempt from the
guard-house, which certainly would have ended my troubles one way or
another. The drop from the balcony to the stone flags below had an
unholy fascination. For a number of days I gazed down every moment of
the few minutes I was allowed outside my cell.
In the beginning of the war I had read of the attempted escape of a
British officer from a fortress in Silesia. When he was apprehended
somewhere in Saxony, he committed suicide with his razor. “What a
fool!” had run my unsympathetic comment to my friends; “what did he
want to do that for?” Now I could not forget his tragic end, and not
only understood his action but almost admired him for it.
* * * * *
Every afternoon the other men in solitary confinement and I spent an
hour--from three to four o’clock--walking in single file round the
yard. An N.C.O., with a big gun strapped to his waist, kept guard over
us, and had been ordered to see that we did not talk together. With an
indulgent man on guard it was occasionally possible to get in a word
or two, even to carry on a conversation for ten minutes or so. In this
way I made the acquaintance of all the other Englishmen who were in the
same position as I.
As I became more cheerful, I began to relish the books which were sent
to me by the other English prisoners, and to look about for means of
snatching what enjoyment I could under the circumstances. Two visits
to the prison doctor for the treatment of “sleeplessness” gave me
opportunities of chatting for half an hour with my friend Ellison, who
faked up some complaint on the same days.
My punishment diet was to end on the 8th of May. That over, I expected
another four months under lock and key, until the 10th of September.
On the 7th of May, while tramping round the yard, the sergeant-major,
second in command, came in and beckoned me to him.
“You’ve finished your ‘solitary’!” he said.
“Do you mean to say to-day?” I asked. “Am I to have my cell door open,
and may I see the other men?”
When the hour of exercise was over, I sped up the stairs, taking four
steps at a stride, and searched for Kindman.
“I’m out of ‘solitary,’” I bawled. “I’m going to see the other chaps!”
“Hey, wait a moment,” he cried. “I must lock your cell door first.”
“But I tell you I’m out of ‘solitary’!”
“I believe you, though I don’t know officially. I’m not going to lock
you in, but lock the door I will. If we leave it open, you’ll find all
your things gone when you come back. These Poles would take anything
they can lay their hands on, and small blame to them. Most of them
haven’t a shirt to their back.”
I did not return to my cell until lock-up time, feeling comfortably
replete from various teas I had had, and my throat raw from incessant
talking.
The part of our block reserved for men in solitary confinement, one
side of the triangle, was separated from the rest by iron gates on each
landing. These gates barred access to the military part as well. They
were always kept locked. To clamber over them was easy enough; to be
seen doing so spelled seven days’ cells. My first care, consequently,
was to get a cell “in front of the gate.” This term was equivalent
among us for ordinary confinement as opposed to solitary, for, in
ordinary circumstances, nobody would willingly stay in a cell “behind
the gate” if not in “solitary,” and was, in fact, not supposed to do so.
An unexpected physical phenomenon, which I afterward observed in
others, made itself unpleasantly felt in my case. The first days
following my release from “behind the gate” I was extremely nervous and
restless; at times I longed to be back in “solitary” with the cell door
securely locked upon me.