"Gobble! Ah a gobble!" That is what it sounds like when you hear the
newspaper sellers crying out their wares on Potsdamer Platz in the
evening. But this is really not what they are saying. They are saying,
_Abendausgabe_ or "Evening Edition."
It is a pretty sight, the Potsdamer Platz--cabs rattling along,
jingling street-car bells, the square black with civilians and gray
with soldiers, wagons drawn up to the sidewalks loaded down with
bright-colored fruit and vegetables, women selling flowers--violets,
roses, lilies-of-the-valley--_Zehn Pfennige ein Sträusschen_, and above
all the other sounds the cries of "Gobble! Gobble Ah-a-gobble!"
Compared with our big American newspapers a German paper is a very
little affair. Its pages are about half as big as the pages of our
papers, and in the morning they usually have only eight pages, and in
the evening six. There are no glaring headlines to a German paper, and
no red ink is used. Even when Kitchener was drowned or America declared
war, it appeared in the papers as a headline with letters no more than
three-quarters of an inch high.
There is absolutely nothing sensational about a German newspaper, even
in war time. They all look alike, and one has to look at the date of
the paper to make sure that it is not the paper of the day before.
They have no cartoons, and they rarely have any pictures. The Sunday
supplement has few "funnies" and never any colored pictures. There
are no spicy scandals, no sensational divorce trials and no tales of
thrilling murders with the picture of the house where the dark deed
was committed marked with an X. Then there is no woman's page and no
society column. You ask, well, what have they in their papers?
[Illustration: _A Reading-Room for Soldiers on the West Front._]
On the first page is the war news, very brief. It gives the General
Staff's report from all the war fronts, and this report is signed by
the general on each of these fronts. The second page is devoted to
news of a more local character. They often print interviews on this
page. They make more of a feature of interviews in Germany than we
do in America. On the other pages they have sports, the drama, music,
stories, and always one article of literary character. One of the big
features on the front page is the printing of the under-sea boat booty.
Whatever is printed in the German newspapers is the truth as far as
it goes, but not everything that is known is printed. What the people
really get is the truth without details. The people would like to read
these details, but they do not get them. One of the most surprising
things that was printed was Zimmermann's letter to Mexico. It came out
in all the papers, for Zimmermann thought that the best thing to do was
to publish it. It was not very popular with the German people.
One of the things that was not printed in the German papers was the
great spy scandal in Norway. I never heard one word about it until I
came to Norway. The papers are controlled by a censor. Once last summer
the _Berliner Tageblatt_ was shut off for three days. They printed
something which the censor did not like, but the general public never
found out what the offending article was.
There are three great publishing houses in Berlin. First, the August
Scherl Company, which publishes the daily newspaper _Lokal-Anzeiger_,
a morning and an evening paper which has a very large circulation
among the poorer class of people and is used for small advertisers.
Scherl also publishes _Die Woche_, a weekly well known in America;
_Die Gartenlaube_, a magazine for women; _Der Tag_; and _Der Montag_,
a newspaper which comes out every Monday.
[Illustration: _A Field Book-Store in France._]
A second great company is the Rudolf Mosse Company which publishes
the well-known _Berliner Tageblatt_, a morning and an evening paper.
The third and perhaps greatest company is the Ullstein Company which
publishes the _Vossische Zeitung_, a morning and evening paper; the
_Berliner Morgenpost_, a paper read by the working class; _B. Z. am
Mittag_, a little sheet which comes out at noon and is easily the
most popular paper in Berlin; the _Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung_,
a splendid weekly which sells for ten pfennigs. Everybody in Berlin
reads this weekly, for it has good war articles, fine stories and many
interesting pictures. There are many other papers published in Berlin,
such as the 8 _Uhr Abendblatt_, a sheet which comes out at seven in
the evening, and the _Tägliche Rundschau_, a splendid paper of literary
character.
The morning papers cost ten pfennigs and the evening papers cost five
pfennigs. Last summer the _B. Z. am Mittag_ raised its price to ten
pfennigs, but the public refused to pay the price and in four days it
was back to 5 pfennigs again.
All the larger papers have what they call a _Briefkasten_ or a letter
box, which is an information and clipping bureau combined. Here forty
or fifty people are employed all day long clipping and filing things.
Any one can go to this bureau or write to them and is given information
free of charge. They even give medical advice free.
The large publishing houses publish books. The Ullstein Company makes
a specialty of books for one mark each. They published the "Voyage of
the U Deutschland" by Captain Paul König, and every one in Germany read
this book.
There is one newspaper in Berlin published in English. It is supposed
to be an American paper, but its Americanism was of a very peculiar
brand. This paper is called the _Continental Times_. The most prominent
socialistic paper is called the _Vorwärts_. It is allowed a good deal
of freedom but once in a while it is suppressed. On the 19th of April
of this year 3000 working men and women gathered on Unter den Linden.
It was the only approach to a strike or a riot that I saw as long as
I stayed in Germany. The _Vorwärts_ was against this movement, and
mostly through its influence the people went back home. The paper
has a tremendous influence. Maximilian Harden's pamphlet _Zukunft_ is
universally read with much interest and curiosity. Harden is allowed
about the same privileges in Germany as Bernard Shaw is allowed in
England.
[Illustration: _German Soldiers on the West Front Reading War
Bulletins._]
In the main cities in the territory captured by the Germans, in Lille,
Brussels, Warsaw, Lodz and Vilna, they have established very good
papers printed in German. Then they have papers issued for the soldiers
at the front, like the _Champagner Kamerad_, and the _Landsturm_. These
papers contain war news, stories, jokes and poems.
[Illustration: _A Traveling Library for Soldiers._]
German newspapers never call their enemies ugly names, and they have
remained very dignified sheets. English newspapers are very much read
in Germany. These papers are only four days old, and as most of the
Germans of the better class read English, they are in great demand. In
any of the leading cafés or at the newsdealers one can have the _London
Times_, the _Daily Mail_, the _Daily Telegraph_, the _Illustrated
London News_, the _Graphic_, _Sphere_ and _Punch_. French and Italian
papers are also to be had. American papers came very irregularly, but
even yet a few leak through, and when I left in July I saw American
papers up to April 30. If news in an English paper does not coincide
with that in the German paper, the German reader does not believe
it--that is the only impression it makes on him.
In Berlin they do not have great war bulletins in front of the
newspaper offices as we do at home. The nearest approach to our
bulletins is in Copenhagen, where they hang bulletins, printed in very
large letters, in the second-story window of the newspaper office. A
German war bulletin is about as big as an ordinary sheet of typewriting
paper, and it is hung low in the newspaper office window where every
one takes his turn reading the fine print. Sometimes the bulletins
are written by hand with a lead pencil. Other bulletins are printed on
single sheets of paper and are distributed on the streets free.
The number of pamphlets written about the war is endless. Every doctor
and every professor in Germany seems to have written a book, and
every phase of the war has been touched upon. Most of the books are
gotten up in a very attractive way with soft backs. They have very few
stiff-backed books in Germany. Since the war many books on art, music,
science, medicine and literature have been published.
Newspapers have to keep down to a certain size on account of the
scarcity and cost of paper, but books are no more expensive than they
were before the war, and they have book sales the same as we have in
America. A few weeks before I left, Wertheim's large department store
had a sale of English-German dictionaries, very large books at four
marks each. They had a window decorated with these books, and they
were soon all snapped up, for the Germans said that they could see no
reason why they should not go on with their study of English because
the English were enemies.
[Illustration: _Newspapers Published for the Soldiers since the War._]
[Illustration: _Newspapers in Captured Cities._]
The war has not spoiled the German's love of reading romances, and so
many novels of the cheaper type have been written that a society has
been formed to keep the boys and girls from reading them. They have
automatic book stands in all railway stations where you put twenty
pfennigs in the slot and get a novel. There are many cheap editions of
patriotic songs printed in small pocket volumes convenient for soldiers
in the trenches.