THE IDEA FACTORY
A group of diplomats and newspaper correspondents were gathered at
lunch in a German city early in the war, when one of the latter, an
American, asked how a certain proposition which was being discussed
would suit public opinion. "Will public opinion favour such a
move?" he questioned.
"Public opinion! Public opinion!" a member of the German Foreign
Office repeated in a tone which showed that he was honestly
perplexed. "Why, we create it!"
He spoke the truth. They certainly do.
The State-controlled professor, parson and moving-picture producer
appeal to limited audiences in halls and churches, but the
newspaper is ubiquitous, particularly in a country where illiteracy
is practically unknown, and where regulations bidding and
forbidding are constantly appearing in the newspapers--the reading
of which is thus absolutely necessary if one would avoid friction
with the authorities.
In a free Press, like that of the United States or Great Britain,
the truth on any question of public interest is reasonably certain
to come to light sooner or later. Competition is keen, and if one
paper does not dig up and publish the facts, a rival is likely to
do so. The German Press was gaining a limited degree of freedom
before the war, but that has been wiped away. As in other
belligerent countries news of a military nature must quite properly
pass the censor. But in Germany, unlike Great Britain, for
example, all other topics must be written in a manner to please the
Government, or trouble ensues for the writer and his paper. To a
certain extent the Press is a little unmuzzled during the sittings
of the Reichstag--not much, but somewhat, for the reports of the
Reichstag proceedings are strictly censored. The famous speech of
Deputy Bauer in May, 1916, was a striking example, for not a word
of his speech, the truth of which was not questioned, was allowed
to appear in a single German newspaper. The suppression of most of
Herr Hoffmann's speech in the Prussian Diet in January, 1917, is
another important case in point. This is in striking contrast to
the British Parliament, which is supreme, and over whose reports
the Press Bureau has no control. The German Press Bureau, on the
other hand, revises and even suppresses the publication of
speeches. When necessary, it specially transmits speeches by
telegram and wireless to foreign countries if it thinks those
speeches will help German propaganda.
The Berlin and provincial editors are summoned from time to time to
meetings, when they are addressed by members of the Government as
to what it is wise for them to say and not to say. These meetings
constitute a hint that if the editors are indiscreet, if they, for
example, publish matter "calculated to promote disunity," they may
be subject to the increasingly severe penalties now administered.
If a newspaper shows a tendency to kick over the traces, a
Government emissary waits upon the editor, calls his attention to
any offending article or paragraph, and suggests a correction. If
a newspaper still offends, it is liable to a suspension for a day
or even a week, or it may be suppressed altogether.
But in peace, as well as in war, editors all over Germany were
instructed as to the topic on which to lay accent for a limited
period, and just how to treat that topic. For example, during the
three months preceding the war, Russia was bitterly attacked in the
German Press. From August 1 to August 4, 1914, the German people
had it crammed down their throats that she was the sole cause of
the war. On August 4 the Government marshalled the editors and
professors and ordered them to throw all the responsibility on
Britain, and the hate was switched from one to the other with the
speed and ease of a stage electrician throwing the lever from red
to blue.
How do the editors like being mere clerks for the Government? The
limited numbers of editors of independent thought, such as the
"relentless" Count Reventlow, Maximilian Harden, and Theodor Wolff,
detest such a role, and struggle against it. After sincere and
thorough investigation, however, I am convinced the average German
editor or reporter, like the average professor, prefers to have his
news handed to him to digging it up for himself.
In this connection the remark made to me by the editor of a little
paper in East Prussia is interesting. After the Russians had
fallen back he told me of two boys in a neighbouring village whose
hands had been cut off. He said that he was going to run the
story, and suggested that I also use it. I proposed that we make a
little trip of investigation, as we could do so in a couple of
hours.
He looked surprised. "Why, we have the story already," he declared.
"But I am not going to write it unless I can prove it," I replied.
A moment later I heard him sigh with despair as he half whispered
to a cavalry captain: "Yes, yes, alas, over there the Press is in
the hands of the people!"
Many newspaper readers run more or less carelessly through
articles, and many more simply read the headlines and headings.
The Official Press Bureau, for which no detail is too minute,
realises this perfectly, with the result that German newspaper
headings are constructed, less with a view to sensationalism, as in
some British and American papers, or with a view to condense
accurately the chief news feature of the day, as to impress the
reader--or the hearer, since the headlines are cried shrilly in
Berlin and other cities--with the idea that Germany is always
making progress towards ultimate victory. The daily reports of the
General Staff have been excellent, with a few notable exceptions
such as the Battle of the Marne and the Battle of the Somme.
During reverses, however, they have shown a tendency to pack
unpalatable truths in plenty of "shock absorber," with the result
that the public mind, as I know from my personal investigations, is
completely befogged as to the significance of military operations
which did not go in a manner satisfactory to the German leaders.
In all this the headline never failed to cheer. When the Russians
were smashing the Austrians in the East, while the British and
French were making important gains and inflicting much more
important losses on the Somme, the old reliable headline--TERRIBLE
RUSSIAN LOSSES--was used until it was worn threadbare.
What would you think, you who live in London or Hew York, if you
woke up some morning to find every newspaper in the city with the
same headlines? And would you not be surprised to learn that
nearly every newspaper throughout your country had the same
headlines that day? You would conclude that there was wonderful
central control somewhere, would you not?
Yet that is what happens in Germany repeatedly. It is of special
significance on "total days." Those are the days when the
Government, in the absence of fresh victories, adds the totals of
prisoners taken for a given period, and as only the totals appear
in the headlines the casual reader feels nearer a victorious peace.
On the morning of March 13, 1916, most of the papers had "total"
headlines for Verdun.
Not so the _Tageblatt_. Theodor Wolff, its editor, has had so much
journalistic experience, outside of Germany, and is, moreover, a
man of such marked ability, that he is striving to be something
more than a sycophantic clerk of the Government. He is not a
grumbler, not a dissatisfied extremist, not unpatriotic, but
possesses a breadth of outlook patriotic in the highest sense. On
the morning after the Liebknecht riots in the Potsdamer Platz, his
paper did not appear. The reason given by the Commandant of the
Mark of Brandenburg was that he had threatened the _Burgfriede_ by
charging certain interests in Germany with attempting to make the
war a profitable institution. But there are those who say that the
police were very watchful in the newspaper offices that night, and
that the _Tageblatt_ did not appear because of its attempt to print
some of the happenings in the Potsdamer Platz.
It has been the custom of Herr Wolff to write a front-page article
every Monday morning signed T. W. On the last Monday morning in
July, 1916, in a brilliantly written article, the first part of
which patted the Government on the back for some things, he
delicately expressed a desire for reform in diplomatic methods
which would render war-making less easy. Then he added that if
some statesman, such as Prince Bulow, had been called as adviser in
July, 1914, a way to avert the war might have been found.
This so angered the Government, which has successfully convinced
its great human sheep-fold that Germany is the innocent victim of
attack, that the _Tageblatt_ was suppressed for nearly a week, and,
like the ex-Socialist paper _Vorwaerts_, was permitted to reappear
only after it promised "to be good." Theodor Wolff was personally
silenced for several months. This was his greatest but not his
only offence. All over Germany the people have been officially
taught to regard this great war time as _die grosse Zeit_. Wolff,
however, sarcastically set the expression in inverted
commas--thereby committing a sacrilege against the State.
Throughout Germany monuments have been reared and nails driven into
emblems marked DIE GROSSE ZEIT. I have often wondered just what
thoughts these monuments will arouse in the German's mind if his
country is finally beaten and all his bloodshed and food
deprivation will have been in vain.
The Press has, of course, been the chief instrument, reinforced by
the schoolmaster, professor and parson, in spreading the doctrine
of scientific hatred. It is not generally known that Deputy Cohn,
speaking in the Reichstag on April 8, 1916, sharply criticised the
method of interning British civilians at Ruhleben. He went on to
say that, "reports of the persecutions of Germans in England were
magnified and to some extent invented by the German Press in order
to stir up war feeling against England."
I saw a brilliant example of the German Press Bureau's attention to
details in the late autumn of 1914. I was on a point of vantage
half way up the Schlossberg behind Freiburg during the first aerial
attack by the French in that region. In broad daylight a solitary
airman flew directly over the town and went on until he was
directly over the extensive barracks just outside. Freiburg is a
compact city of 85,000 inhabitants, and it would have been easy to
have caused damage, and probably loss of life to the civilian
population. It was clear to me in my front-row position and to the
natives, with many of whom I afterwards discussed the matter, that
the Frenchman was careful to avoid damaging the town, and circled
directly over the barracks on which he dropped all his bombs. The
Freiburg papers said little about the raid, but to my surprise when
I reached Frankfurt and Cologne a week later, newspaper notices
were still stuck about the cities calling upon Germans to witness
again the dastardly methods of the enemy who attack the inhabitants
of peaceful towns outside of the zone of operations.
The French very properly and effectively practised reprisals later,
but the Germans believe that the shoe is on the other foot. And so
it is in, everything connected with the war. The Germans tell you
that they use poisonous gas because the French used it; in fact,
only their good luck in capturing some of the French gas generators
enabled them to learn the method. Britain, not Germany, violates
the laws of the sea. It was the Belgians who were cruel to German
troops, especially the Belgian women and the Belgian children.
When the Verdun offensive came to a standstill a spirit of
restlessness developed which was reflected in the Reichstag, where
a few Social Democrats attacked the Government because they
believed that Germany could now make peace if she wished, and that
further bloodshed would be for a war of conquest, advocated by the
annexationists.
During the succession of German military victories, especially in
the first part of the war, there was plenty of "front copy" both as
news and filler. Some of the accounts were excellent. The reader
seldom got the idea, however, that German soldiers were being
killed and wounded, and after a time most of the battle
descriptions contained much of soft nocturnal breezes whispering in
the moonlight, but precious few real live details of fighting.
Regarding this point, a German of exceptional information of the
world outside his own country expressed to me his utter amazement
at the accounts appearing in the British Press of the hard life in
the trenches. "I don't see how they hope to get men to enlist when
they write such discouraging stuff," he said. After the Battle of
the Somme opened, the German newspapers used to print extracts from
the London papers in which British correspondents vividly described
how their own men were mown down by German machine-guns after they
had passed them, so well was the enemy entrenched. On that
occasion one of the manipulators of public opinion said to me, "The
British Government is mad to permit such descriptions to appear in
the Press. They will have only themselves to blame if their
soldiers soon refuse to fight!"
This is one of the many instances which I shall cite throughout
this book to show that because the German authorities know other
countries they do not necessarily know other subjects.
As weeks of war became months and months became years, the
censorship screws were twisted tighter than ever, with the result
that docile editors were often at their wits' end to provide even
filler.
On July 14, for example, with battles of colossal magnitude raging
east and west, the _Berliner Morgenpost_ found news so scarce that
it had to devote most of the front page to the review of a book
called "Paris and the French Front," by Nils Christiernssen, a
Swedish writer. I had read the book months before, as the
Propaganda Department of the Foreign Office had sent it to all
foreign correspondents.
It became noticeable, however, that as food portions diminished,
soothing-syrup doses for the public increased. Whenever a wave of
complaints over food shortage began to rise the Press would build a
dyke of accounts of the trials of meatless days in Russia, of
England's scarcity of things to eat, and of the dread in France of
another winter. The professors writing in the Press grew
particularly comforting. Thus on June 30 one of them comforted the
public in a lengthy and serious article in the evening edition, of
the _Vossische Zeitung_ with "the revelation that over-eating is a
cause of baldness."
The cheering news of enemy privations continued to such an extent
that many Americans were asked by the more credulous if there were
bread-tickets in Kew York and other American cities. In short,
Germany is being run on the principle that when you are down with
small-pox it is comforting to know that your neighbour has cholera.
The key-note of the German Press, however, has been to show that
the war was forced on peace-loving Germany. Of the Government's
success in its propaganda among its own people I saw evidence every
day. The people go even one step farther than the Government, for
the Government sought merely to show that it was forced to declare
war upon Russia and France. Most of the German people are
labouring under the delusion that Russia and France actually
declared war on Germany. This misconception, no doubt, is partly
due to the accounts in the German papers during the first days of
August, 1914, describing how the Russians and French crossed the
frontier to attack Germany before any declaration of war.
A German girl who was in England at the outbreak of war, and who
subsequently returned to her own country, asked her obstinate,
hard-headed Saxon uncle, a wealthy manufacturer, if Germany did not
declare war on Russia and France. She insisted that Germany did,
for she had become convinced not only in England but in Holland.
Her uncle, in a rage, dismissed the matter with: _Du bist falsch
unterrichtet_. (You are falsely informed.)
An American in Berlin had a clause in his apartment lease that his
obligations were abruptly and automatically terminated should
Germany be in a state of war. Yet when he wished to pack up and go
his German landlord took the case to court on, the ground that
Germany had not declared war.
The hypnotic effect of the German newspapers on the German is not
apprehended either in Great Britain or in the United States. Those
papers, all directed from the Foreign Office in the Wilhelmstrasse,
can manipulate the thoughts of these docile people, and turn their
attention to any particular part of the war with the same celerity
as the operator of a searchlight can direct his beam at any part of
the sky he chooses. For the moment the whole German nation looks
at that beam and at nothing else.
* * * * *
In the late afternoon of an autumnal day I stopped at a little
wayside inn near Hildesheim. The place had an empty look, and the
woman who came in at the sound of my footsteps bore unmistakable
lines of trouble and anxiety.
No meat that day, no cheese either, except for the household. She
could, not even give me bread without a bread-ticket--nothing but
diluted beer.
Before the war business had been good. Then came one misfortune
after another. Her husband was a prisoner in Russia, and her
eldest son had died with von Kluck's Army almost in sight of the
Eiffel Tower.
"You must find it hard to get along," I said.
"I do," she sighed. "But, then, when fodder got scarce we killed
all the pigs, so bother with them is over now."
"You are not downhearted about the war?" I asked.
"I know that Germany cannot be defeated," she replied. "But we do
so long for peace."
"You do not think your Government responsible at all for the war?"
I ventured.
"I don't, and the rest of us do not," was her unhesitating reply.
"We all know that our Kaiser wanted only peace. Everybody knows
that England caused all this misery." Then she looked squarely and
honestly into my eyes and said in a tone I shall never forget: "Do
you think that if our Government were responsible for the war that
we should be willing to bear all these terrible sacrifices?"
I thought of that banquet table more than two years before, and the
remark about creating public opinion. I realised that the road is
long which winds from it to the little wayside inn near Hildesheim,
but that it is a road on which live both the diplomat and the
lonely, war-weary woman. They live on different ends, that is all.