In Germany, when a crowd of Americans got together, we had but two
topics of conversation--the food and the mail.
The mail between Germany and America came pretty regularly until
February, 1916. Since that time it is only a few straggling letters
that have gotten there at all. Even before America went into the war,
letters addressed to Germany direct were held, but most people had a
Holland or Scandinavian address, and they had their letters relayed to
them. But even many of these letters did not get through.
This relaying can still be done through Switzerland but not through
Scandinavia, as the Scandinavian boats do not carry mail; and there
is no mail service between America and Scandinavia. The relaying
of letters is very expensive, and where before the war it cost ten
pfennigs to send a letter to America on a German boat, by the relaying
it costs fifty pfennigs. The relaying is done in this way. The letter
is placed in an open envelope addressed to the person in America. On
the outside of this envelope one fastens an International Coupon which
can be bought in any country. In Germany it costs thirty pfennigs, and
it can be exchanged in any country for a five-cent stamp. A second open
envelope is placed over the first envelope with the coupon attached.
A twenty-pfennig stamp is placed on this second envelope to take the
letter out of the country. The relayer takes the coupon and buys a
stamp with it in the neutral country where he is and mails the letter.
Sometimes these letters reach their destination.
[Illustration: _The Growth of the Field Post Mail._]
The German censor seldom opens a letter that has already been opened by
the English censor, but they open all letters marked Holland or Denmark
or Switzerland. Letters sent out of Germany must be mailed open, and
it is better to write on one side of the paper so that if the censor
takes it into his head to clip, only one side of the paper is spoiled.
If the German censor thinks that a letter is too long he sends it back
and tells you to make it shorter.
Until America entered the war, newspapers sent out by newspaper offices
to firms in Germany generally got there, but papers sent to private
people were usually held up. The American papers were about two months
old. I received several letters nine months old. An American I know
received two letters in the same mail. One was dated June, 1914, and
announced the marriage of a friend of his in Chicago. The second letter
was dated July, 1915, and it was a card telling of the birth of a boy
to the couple.
On the 1st of February, 1917, it was advertised in all the German
newspapers that any one wishing to send mail by the U-Deutschland could
do so by paying two marks extra postage, and that all the letters
should be in the post office by the 15th of February. Many people
sent letters. On the 5th of February, America broke off relations with
Germany, so the boat did not sail. Along in March all the people who
had sent letters received their two marks back with their letter and
the information that the boat had not sailed and that there was now no
mail service between America and Germany.
[Illustration: _The Central Depot for Soldiers' Mail in Hanover._]
Before the war Germany had the finest mail system in the world, letters
came more quickly, they had more deliveries and not so many letters
were lost. Now since so many of the clerks are new and many of them
are women, the service is not as efficient as it was. One often loses
letters.
The first mail delivery in Germany comes at 7.30 in the morning and
the last delivery is at 8 o'clock at night, and there are many more
in between. Then they have what they call their _Rohrpost_ letters
and these are the special delivery letters, and they are shot through
a tube from one post office to another and are delivered by a boy at
the other end. Now a good many of the special delivery messengers are
women.
[Illustration: _Berlin Mail Carriers._]
The most extensive mail in Germany is the _Feldpost_ or the soldiers'
mail. It does not cost anything to send a letter to a soldier or for
a soldier to send a letter to you. All you have to do is to put the
word _Feldpost_ at the top of the letter and it goes free. Even if you
know where a soldier is, you do not put the name of the place on the
envelope, only his field address which consists of the army corps, the
regiment and the company of the soldier.
[Illustration: _Mail Wagons on the West Front._]
A one-pound package can be sent to the soldiers for twenty pfennigs.
Thousands and thousands of packages are sent each day. Just before I
left Berlin it was forbidden to send a soldier packages of food, as
the soldiers in the field had better rations than the German civilian
population. Many soldiers sent their families packages of food. I
visited a German family in Dresden in May, 1917, just the month before
I left Germany, and every day while I was there they received a package
of food from the son who was an officer in Hungary.
In the summer of 1916, the prices of postage stamps were raised in
Germany. Letters that had before cost five pfennigs now cost seven
and one-half pfennigs, and letters that cost ten pfennigs, now cost
fifteen pfennigs. The price was not changed on the letters going out
of Germany. Some of the people rather grumbled and said: "It now costs
fifteen pfennigs to send a letter from Potsdam to Berlin and only
twenty pfennigs to send a letter from Germany to America."
[Illustration: _The Package Post in Berlin. Both Men and Women
Workers._]
It does not take nearly as long for a letter to go to a soldier in
France as it takes to go to a soldier in Russia. A letter sometimes
comes in one day from the Somme to Berlin, but from Russia a letter
takes four or five days at the least.
All the mail that goes to the soldiers on the west front is first sent
to Hanover to a central station. Here the mail is sorted and sent
to different stations along the front. From these main stations the
mail is sent to different sub-stations. Every day each regiment sends
a soldier to its sub-branch for the regiment's mail. Nobody but the
soldier and the head of the sub-branch knows where the mail is to go,
for each regiment's whereabouts are kept a secret.