THE NON-MILITARY SIDE OF A GERMAN OFFICER'S LIFE
One of the first things you do on arriving at a new residence in Germany
is to acquaint the police of your presence. This is called _Anmeldung_.
It is a fearsome experience and admits of no trifling. You go to the
appointed stuffy office, and tell your nationality, birthplace with date
of birth, your parents' names, their profession if any, and your own,
their birthplaces and ages, if they are dead and what they died of,
whether you are married or single, number, names and ages of your
children, and any little extra detail that may occur to the official in
Prussian blue who holds the inquisition. If you have an unusual name, he
won't believe you when you claim it. A girl I knew was christened Jean,
but she is down in the police records of Berlin as Johanna, because her
policeman said that Jean was a man's name, and French at that!
Every servant maid has a book, which must be signed by the police when
you engage her, and when she leaves you, before she may take another
place. When you engage her she must be _angemeldet_ too, in order that
she may be charged with her proper insurance tax. This amounts to about
five dollars a year; the employer pays one-half, the servant the other.
Many employers pay it all. This entitles the servant to treatment at the
dispensary or in the hospital if she is ill. The police are very careful
of her comfort, and pay a visit to the house in which she is employed to
see that her room is big enough, airy enough, warmed in winter, and that
her bed is comfortable! She has a long list of "rights" including so
many loaves of black bread and so many bottles of beer per week; and she
dare not be offended if you keep everything under lock and key.
You have not yet finished your _Anmeldung_ if you keep a dog, for he
must be registered, too, and you pay highly for the luxury. The
_Polizei_ decides when you may and may not play on your piano or sing.
Before nine in the morning, after nine at night, all musical instruments
are taboo. The sacred sleeping hour after dinner, from two to four, must
also be observed in silence in Berlin. Nothing dare interfere with the
after-dinner nap; even the banks are closed from one to two, or even
three. You write to the _Polizei_ in Germany where the Englishman writes
to the _Times_. I remember a perfect avalanche of anonymous cards in
Darmstadt because a child in our house would practise with her windows
open and neighbours thought it was the _Hofopernsaengerin_ Howard.
The intricacies of paying your taxes take some study. Foreigners must
pay taxes on money earned in the country; town and county taxes are
payable every three months, on alternate months, in two different parts
of the town. You arrive at the _Staedtische Halle_ to pay your town
taxes, and you are very lucky if, after picking out the right month, you
succeed in hitting the day when the place is open. A small sign on the
locked door may greet you: "Closed on the ninth and fifteenth of every
month." If day and month are right, you may easily strike the wrong
hour, for town taxes are payable, say, from eight to ten A. M., and two
to five P. M., while county ones are from nine to twelve, and four to
seven. There are church taxes besides, very small if you are Catholic
and larger if you are Evangelical. I succeeded in getting out of these
by declaring myself neither. Unfortunately I did not know the word for
undenominational and so had to say that we were "heathen." My sister was
asked in a rasping official voice, filled with the large contempt for
women which a certain type of German official always reeks with, "_Sind
Sie ledig?_" She, poor dear, had never heard "_ledig_" before, and
stammered "_Was?_" The question was rapped out again, and she said,
"_Ich--weiss nicht._" When she got home and looked up _ledig_, she found
the man had been asking if she were married or single. What he made of
her answer we never knew.
All these little things are very amusing in Germany. The way everything
seems _verboten_, at first is annoying, but later amusing. The paths in
the Tiergarten in Berlin always used to tempt me to be bad. I always
wanted to walk on the path reserved for bicyclists, or horses, or sit on
the benches reserved for children only. The letter boxes say to you,
"_Aufschrift und Marke nicht vergessen!_" ("Address and stamp not to be
forgotten!") The door mat shrieks at you, "_Bitte, Fuesse Reinigen!_"
("Please wipe your feet.") Towels, brushes, etc., all say "_Bitte_" at
you. I believe one could travel all through Germany with just "_Bitte_,"
and get an insight into the different phases of German character through
the intonations of this word.
A rather annoying custom in Darmstadt was the way the bakers
over-celebrated every holiday. They had usually the "_Erster, Zweiter,
und Dritter Feiertag_"--first, second and third holiday, and they toiled
not on those three days. All the bread you could get, if you had
neglected to provide enough, was square pretzels, baked exceptionally
large and hard. This may have been a Darmstadt custom only, as they
vary so all over Germany, that what holds good in the north may be quite
unknown in the south. For instance, cream is _Sahne_ in Berlin, _Rahm_
in Darmstadt, and has even a third name in other parts of Germany, which
I have forgotten. You can get a wonderful _Sandtorte_--a firm, delicious
cake, in Berlin, but I never succeeded in getting it just right in
Southern or Middle Germany.
A quaint old custom in Darmstadt was always observed on the first Sunday
in Advent. The Grand Duke always did his shopping for Christmas on that
day, and the country people thronged into the town. A band used to play
before the shop in which the Grand Duke was, and move as he moved. We
gave an extra long performance at the opera, "Goetterdaemmerung," or
some such serious business, but the Grand Duke never could honour us
with his presence, as every one in town would have felt cheated if he
had.
The shopping in Darmstadt was really quite remarkable. We always thought
it an excellent thing that after eleven o'clock in the morning not a
scrap of meat was visible in the white-tiled butcher shops, everything
being put away on ice.
Food is taken very seriously, of course, and asparagus is honoured above
any other vegetable by having its own subscription season. That is, you
subscribe at the beginning of the season, so much a day, and asparagus
is delivered to you daily while it lasts at that price, the sum not
varying with the fluctuations of the market.
The old market place was a delight on full market days. The grumpy old
women would sit in the middle of their piles of fruit and vegetables,
while you threaded your way along the uneven cobblestone lanes they had
left in between their stalls. Brilliant awning umbrellas have been
adopted and glow in the sun, against the darkly moist, old walls of the
frowning castle just behind. The old Dames call out to you, "Well,
Madamsche', nothing from me today? Aren't my things good enough for
you?" "Madamsche'" is a left-over from ancient French times, and the
final "n" is left off, as are all "n's" in Hessen dialect.
This dialect also lacks "r's." They tell a tale of the Railroad
conductors calling out "Station Daaaaamstadt!" so loudly and
persistently as to annoy Grand Ducal ears, and they were ordered to pay
more attention to their "r's." Now they call out in a superior tone
"Starrrr-rtion--Damstadt!" and feel sure every one is satisfied.
We had exceptional opportunities of knowing Germans of all classes, from
the cleaning women in the theatre to royalty. The military types are
most varied, ranging from the Prussian Junker to the _gemuetlicher
Bayer_, with his easy South German ways. We met many officers and their
families, both in Metz and Darmstadt. In Metz, during the last year, we
grew to know and be fond of a young Bavarian lieutenant. With him we
drove and picnicked in the lovely Metz country. It was early spring, and
we would take the train to some little village near by, and have our tea
in the woods or at one of the thousands of _Gasthaeuse_ that dot Germany.
I remember one Sunday afternoon in a still, steep-sided ravine, the
walls of it rising sharply on either side, thickly wooded with giant
beeches; the sun-flecked grass aquiver with myriads of white ethereal
wind-flowers. A shrine, with a blue-robed Virgin looked down on us, and
the wood-hush was only broken by the songs of birds, twittering and
gurgling high above us in the branches. Suddenly far off the sound of
singing; and slowly a procession of children came into view, singing in
well-harmonized parts as they walked. They all genuflected before the
Virgin and wound off into the woods, their voices dying away in the
distance.
We often studied the old battlefields, so fiercely contested in 1870,
and F---- would point out to us just where the different regiments
advanced and fell. A long way off seemed the horrors of war, and we
never dreamed what much greater horrors were soon to descend on us.
We loved the Bavarians with their kind artistic souls in those days, and
yet they tell me they were among the worst in the early days in Belgium.
The military spirit was rampant in Metz, of course, and we got to know
that side of it well, as some of the officers had English wives, who
were very good to us. The delightful manners of the officers always
charmed us; we were told they are trained to social manners by their
superior officers. The cavalry regiments were the smartest ones, both in
Metz and Darmstadt, the Infantry being solidly aristocratic, but less
dashing. The _Pioniere_ (Engineers) were rather despised socially, while
the poor _Train_ or Commissariat, was utterly looked down upon and
hardly bowed to. The Bavarian infantry has its special social standing,
because the old nobility is largely represented in it. What they lack in
riches they make up in pride. All the other German infantry regiments
wear dark blue trousers, no matter what colour their tunics; the
Bavarians, however, have stuck to their light blue trousers, in spite of
all attempts to change them. The Prince Regent was famous for wearing
his much too long, and very wrinkled over badly fitting boots. The
smartest officers wore the _Ballon Muetze_ (balloon cap) introduced by
the Crown Prince and ineffectually forbidden by his father. It is called
"balloon" because it is much higher than the ones worn by less smart
officers. The height of the collar is the other important thing. In a
sterling officer of the old school, it is low and comfy; the smarter you
are the higher your collar. If they are fat, the two or three creases at
the back of the neck above the collar, always look to me
unmistakably--German.
The life they lead is in general very simple, according to our ideas.
Their Casino is their meeting place in the evening, like an officers'
club. Some of them are tremendously hard workers, most ambitious, and
showing real interest in their men. F---- used to teach his more
illiterate ones to read and write, and many were the stories he told of
the thick-headed Bavarian peasants. The difference in these men, when we
saw them arriving in the fall, as rookies, and after a year's training,
was absolutely amazing; slumped shoulders had straightened, lower jaws
had decided to connect with upper ones, and eyes focused intelligently.
Each officer has his _Bursch_ or private servant, who usually chooses to
be one. These are treated as friends by their masters, if the latter
happen to be non-Prussian in character. I said once to F----, "Is Karl
your servant?" "No, he is _mein Freund_" he said.
An officer in Diedenhofen where we occasionally sang while I was with
the Metz opera, used to send me gorgeous flowers. He had a way of
sitting near the stage and applauding by flapping his handkerchief
against the palm of his white kid glove, which so enraged me that I
never acknowledged the flowers. One night, an ugly old contralto took my
part, as I was laid up, and that was the night the officer had selected
to present me with a huge basket of white azaleas and blue satin ribbon.
The old dame rewarded the house in general with a false-teeth smile on
receiving them over the footlights, which must have discouraged my
admirer as the flowers stopped abruptly.
We quite often saw young officers very drunk on the streets in Metz, at
about five in the afternoon. Asking F---- about this, we were told that
it was only the young ones, if we would notice, and that they were
obliged to empty their glasses, when toasted by superior officers at
regimental dinners. If these gentlemen caught their eyes, as they raised
their glasses, many times during the two o'clock dinner, the silly young
fellows' heads naturally grew befuddled, but it was not etiquette to
refuse to empty their glass. This custom was very hard on a _Faehnrich_
or Ensign, and was later done away with.
The smartest officers had English dogcarts, and were certainly most
dashing. Many clever ones in the cavalry made money out of horses,
buying and selling them amongst themselves. In Darmstadt they introduced
the English hunt, and wore the pink. We used to go up to Frankfort for
the "gentlemen races," and often saw our own Northern cousins, whose
names we knew, but whom we never had the opportunity of meeting, riding
with great skill and daring. These races were much encouraged by the
Kaiser, and sometimes giant Eitel-Fritz would come and look on, or the
dandy Prince Schaumberg-Lippe would make his horse mince round the ring.
He was a great beau and ladies' favourite and the horrible accident that
has deprived him of his beauty in the battlefield, seems an impossible
thing to have happened to just him.
Our friend F---- was known in his regiment as "Revolver mouth." This
title he earned through his witty tongue and his habit of hitting the
bull's-eye in his table conversation. His great friend, a smart young
_nouveau riche_, in the most exclusive cavalry regiment, who had much
more money than brains, was the butt of much goodnatured chaff from
F----. One evening F---- recounted to a group of brother officers how
S----, who was notorious for his absent-mindedness and poor memory, was
seen miles away from home, galloping down a dusty road. F---- hailed him
and said, "But where's your horse?" "That's true," said S---- looking
down in utter astonishment, "I must have forgotten to get on him."
S---- was famous for his sharpness in choosing and trading horseflesh,
and F---- used to call him on the 'phone, saying "Is this Herr S----?
_Guten tag!_ I am Graf Pumpernickel." Then he would elaborately arrange
a rendezvous in some very public spot in Metz, at which S---- was to
appear with the horse he wished to trade. Of course when poor S---- kept
the appointment, only a group of jeering young rascals greeted him, and
S---- never discovered who Graf Pumpernickel was, though the joke was
often repeated.
The money question of the poorer officers, often proves very serious.
They are forbidden to earn money in any way except by writing. They
cannot marry the girl they choose unless between them they have a
certain sum, a minimum; this keeps many fine young officers and charming
girls from matrimony; and frequently results on the man's side in
far-reaching evils of entangling affairs, and illegitimate children. An
officer said to me once, he _thought_ he had no children, but a pretty
woman who kept a shop in the Kathedral Plate once sent him a baby's
pillow and he never was quite sure just what that meant. The Berlin
demi-mondaines are certainly fascinating creatures, dressed in the most
exquisite Paris clothes, and it is easy to understand how some penniless
Graf may become hopelessly involved in an affair with one of them.
Officially such things are frowned on. Talking of officers' troubles one
day, F---- told me that suicide was often the _only_ possible solution,
and for the honour of one's regiment one was sometimes expected to end
one's life. An acquaintance of his had had a revolver sent him by his
commanding officer as a gentle hint, on finding himself involved in a
scandalous affair.
In one Bavarian regiment, if you had debts, you were liable to be
summoned at literally a moment's notice before your Colonel, and ordered
to pay your debts in so many days, or leave the regiment. The usual
thing was then to obtain the hand in marriage of the most attractive
girl you knew with the most attractive bank-account. Sometimes they
disappeared to America. Frau Seebold told us once, while she was singing
in New York one winter, with an Austrian prima donna, that a man applied
at the door for work during a heavy fall of snow. She told him to clear
it away, and then come in for his money. He came, and noticing her
strong accent, asked if she had long left the Fatherland. On her
replying "no," he burst into a flood of German, and told her his pitiful
story, while she made him hot coffee and tried to comfort him. He had
been a lieutenant in a smart regiment, had gotten into trouble through a
brother officer betraying his trust in him, and had had to disappear to
America for the honour of the regiment. The poor fellow put his head on
the kitchen table and sobbed as he told her how he sank lower and lower,
till finally he shovelled snow. He also told her there was a club in New
York where ex-officers who were coachmen, truck drivers, or waiters by
day, could be gentlemen and comrades by night. He said their crests were
carved above their places on the wall, and no one could belong except
those of high birth. All this was years ago, and I have no idea whether
such a place still exists.
When a sudden silence falls on a party in Germany they say, "A
Lieutenant pays his debts." Promotion is very slow, and to arrive at a
decent income takes years. A Bavarian Colonel has only eight thousand
marks a year. The equipment of an officer is very expensive; their
Parade uniforms must always be spotless, and though you may wear tricot
cloth every day, your parade uniform must be of finest broadcloth, and
your sword knots of shining silver though a dash of rain ruins both. The
scarlet collars are more extravagant even than the white cloth ones, as
white may be cleaned at least once with gasoline, but scarlet is too
delicate, and the slightest perspiration makes a lasting stain. This was
all before the war, though, and perhaps the dazzling uniforms have given
place for ever to dull khaki. If so Germany is the drabber, for the
colour was a thing to make one's heart leap. In Darmstadt the first four
rows in the orchestra were reserved for officers at reduced rates, and
that beautiful border of colour always framed the stage in a brilliant
band on opera nights.
In Metz the rule against appearing in "Civil" on the street was very
strict, and F---- used to come to see us in a full set of tennis
flannels brandishing a racket, though he had never played in his life!
In Darmstadt the same strictness prevailed. A friend of ours, a Major
holding a very high position, had to dodge round corners, when he was
out of uniform, in case the terrible General Plueskow should see him,
and order him twenty-four hours' room arrest! By the way, when General
Plueskow, who was about six feet seven, was in France as a young man,
the French made a quip about him, "Who is the tallest officer in the
German army?" was the question, and the answer was "Plueskow, because he
is _Plus que haut_."