"Wilson Breaks with Germany!" So announced the _B. Z. am Mittag_ at
noon on Sunday February 5, 1917. It was a very cold day, almost the
coldest of that long cold winter. The chills were running up and down
my spine in our cold apartment, but this headliner froze me stiff.
"Wilson Breaks with Germany." That is a typical German headliner. They
never say "America" in the German papers, but always "Wilson," and it
is Wilson that gets the blame for everything and never the American
people.
The Monday after the break occurred the Americans flocked around
the Embassy. We were all tremendously excited. Some were talking
about "getting out" and others about "staying over." All were saying
something, but most of us were saying "We will wait and see." When war
was really declared, we took it much more calmly, we had grown used to
emotion.
Our breaking off relations was taken very quietly by the German people.
It was not flattering, and I felt that they should show a little horror
and emotion that the greatest country in the world was against them.
But the German people are sort of stunned in their emotions, and the
only real emotion they have is the wish for peace. Peace is all they
think about and long for.
When our Embassy went away all the Americans that remained behind went
to the station to see them off. It was a slushy, snowy night. German
policemen were everywhere and we had to show our passes to get out to
the train. The platform was full of people, and the people who were
going away were leaning from the train windows. Mr. and Mrs. Gerard
had a little crowd around their window. I saw two men from the German
Foreign Office in the crowd, Dr. Roediger and Herr Horstmann. Dr.
Roediger was the clever young German who censored most of the articles
of the American newspaper correspondents. His English was perfect.
When the train pulled out, there was a faint "Hurrah," and the people
turned down the steps, embassyless and ambassadorless.
Right after the break Herr Zimmermann gave out that the Americans in
Germany should be shown every courtesy, and that they should be treated
as neutrals, and that any discourtesy should be reported to him at
once.
Nothing happened to us until about the first of April all the Americans
were summoned to the Military Commandery, and here we were lined up and
registered. The _Militär_ advised us to go home. The Foreign Office too
gave us this advice. Even the American men were advised to leave, and
none of them were held.
The last of April the Americans got notices that they would have to
report to their local police every day to get official papers stamped.
Also that they could not go from one city to another without a special
permit which took three weeks to get, also that they could not go to
the suburbs of Berlin without a permit--this last included Grunewald.
The only bright spot was that we could stay out at night as late as we
liked.
But for most Americans this did not last long, and they got off with
reporting only once a week, and some of them had permanent permits for
going to certain places in the suburbs of Berlin. As I was expecting
to leave Germany, I never asked for one of these permits, for it was
an awful task to go to the Military Commandery for anything, because
there were always so many people there waiting, it took half a day
to get anything. But I got off from going to the police every day.
No Americans were allowed to go to either Potsdam or Spandau, Potsdam
because of the royal residences, and Spandau because of the military
stores. If you went any place without a permit, you were fined twenty
marks and were liable to imprisonment.
I lived at a boarding-house where there were a lot of German officers,
and on all the excursions that were made to the country by the
boarders, I was asked to go along. The officers were very nice men, and
they said that they would protect me if anything was said about my not
having a permit, but I never went with them, for I don't look like a
German and I was afraid I would be caught. I always stayed within the
law.
I lived at that boarding-house seven weeks just before I left Germany,
and I can honestly say that I never heard a word against my country.
When I first went there I felt worried, for I was afraid that they
would say things to me about America, and that I would answer back and
maybe I would get into trouble and be arrested and held in Germany.
But nothing like that happened. We hardly ever talked war--no one in
Germany talks war as we do here in America--we talked about things to
eat.
At this boarding-house I made friends with a very nice little German
girl. One day we were talking and she said to me, "You and I have
become very good friends. I never would have made up with you if you
had been an English girl, but we Germans have no hate for America." And
I have found this true of most of the German people--I am not speaking
of the high officials and the big _Militär_, for I don't know anything
about their sentiments--but the German folks, they have no hatred for
us.
Amelia, the boarding-house maid, astonished me one day by asking if
America was in the war. When I told her "yes" she wanted to know on
which side, and when I told her she said, "_Donnerwetter_, we have so
many enemies, I can't keep track of them. But I want to go to America,
and I am going there after the war."
Every place I went I met Germans who want to come to America after the
war; every man on the police force where I reported wants to come.
All the time all sorts of reports were being spread in America. My
family heard that I was being held as a hostage, and another report was
that an American lady in Dresden had been shot as a spy. The lady was
called up by Mr. Oswald Schuette, an American correspondent, and the
lady herself answered the phone. It was the first she had heard of it.
Personally I never heard of an American that was mistreated. I heard
of one American that did a lot of blowing and talking, and he was
forced to report to the police twice a day, and he had to be in at
eight o'clock at night, but when he got a passage for America he was
allowed to leave the country. All the American business houses were
open as usual, and no American property was destroyed and no money was
confiscated. Of course one has the feeling that one is in an enemy's
land when one has to go to the police every week, and it did get on my
nerves. And yet, every one was nice to me, and I was there five months
after the break.
The German people have the greatest faith in their undersea-boats and
the majority believe that the war will be over before America really
gets into it. To them America seems far away. They don't know our power
and our might, and they are hoping, hoping that the war will be over
soon. Ask any German when the war will be over and the answer is, "In
two months from now." "It can't last," they say.