BERLIN'S EAST-END
The poor of Berlin live in the north and east of the city. I have
seen Berlin's East-end change from the hilarious joy of the first
year of the war to an ever-deepening gloom. I have studied
conditions there long and carefully, but I feel that I can do no
better than describe my last Saturday in that interesting quarter
of the German capital.
Late in the morning I left the Stettiner Bahnhof in the north and
walked eastward through the Invalidenstrasse. There was
practically no meat in the butchers' shops, just the customary
lines of empty hooks. A long queue farther on attracted my
attention and I crossed the street to see what the people were
waiting for. A glance at the dark red carcases in the shop told me
that this was horse-meat day for that district.
The number of vacant shops of all descriptions was increasing. The
small shoemaker and tailor were closing up. The centralisation of
food distribution is greater here than in the better-class
districts, with the result that many small shopkeepers have been
driven out of business. In parts of Lothringerstrasse a quarter of
the shops were vacant, in other parts one-half. The bakers' shops
are nearly empty except at morning and evening. In fact, after my
long sojourn in blockaded Germany I still find myself after two
months in England staring in amazement at the well-stocked shop
windows of every description.
Shortly before noon I reached the _Zentral Viehund-Schlachthof (the
slaughter-houses). Through a great gateway poured women and
children, each carrying some sort of a tin or dish full of stew.
Some of the children were scarcely beyond the age of babyhood, and
their faces showed unmistakable traces of toil. The poor little
things drudged hard enough in peace time, and in war they are
merely part of the big machine.
The diminishing supply of cattle and pigs for killing has afforded
an opportunity to convert a section of the slaughter-houses into
one of the great People's Kitchens. Few eat there, however. Just
before noon and at noon the people come in thousands for the stew,
which costs forty pfennigs (about 5 pence) a quart, and a quart is
supposed to be enough for a meal and a half.
I have been in the great Schlachthof kitchen, where I have eaten
the stew, and I have nothing but praise for the work being done.
This kitchen, like the others I have visited, is the last word in
neatness. The labour-saving devices, such as electric
potato-parers, are of the most modern type. In fact, the war is
increasing the demand for labour-saving machinery in Germany to at
least as great an extent as high wages have caused such a demand in
America. Among the women who prepare the food and wait upon the
people there is a noticeable spirit of co-operation and a pride in
the part they are playing to help the Fatherland _durchhalten_
(hold out). Should any of the stew remain unsold it is taken by a
well-known restaurant in the Potsdamer Platz, which has a contract
with the municipal authorities. Little was wasted in Germany
before the war; nothing, absolutely nothing, is wasted to-day.
As at the central slaughter-house, so in other districts the poor
are served in thousands with standard stew. The immense Alexander
Market has been cleared of its booths and tables and serves more
than 30,000 people. One director of this work told me that the
Berlin authorities would supply nearly 400,000 people before the
end of the winter.
The occasional soldier met in the streets looked shabbier in the
shabby surroundings of the East. The German uniform, which once
evoked unstinted praise, is suffering sadly to-day owing to lack of
raw materials. I was in a Social Democratic district, but the men
in uniform who were home on leave were probably "good" Social
Democrats, since it is notorious that the regular variety are
denied this privilege.
The faces of the soldiers were like the rest of the faces I saw
that day. There was not the least trace of the cheerful, confident
expression of the days when all believed that the Kaiser's armies
would hammer their way to an early peace--"in three months," as
people used to say during the first year and a quarter of the war.
Verdun had been promised them as a certain key to early peace, and
Admiral Scheer was deified as the immortal who tore loose the
British clutch from the German throat. But Verdun and Jutland
faded in succeeding months before the terrible first-hand evidence
that the constant diminution of food made life a struggle day after
day and week after week. The news from Rumania, though good, would
bring them no cheer until it was followed by plenty of food.
In the vicinity of the Schlesischer Bahnhof occurred a trifling
incident which gave me an opportunity to see the inside of a poor
German home that day. A soldier in faded field-grey, home on
leave, asked me for a match. During the conversation which
followed I said that I was an American, but to my surprise he did
not make the usual German reply that the war would have been ended
long ago if it had not been for American ammunition. On the
contrary, he showed an interest in my country, as he had a brother
there, and finally asked me if I would step into his home and
explain a few things to him with the aid of a map.
Though I was in a district of poverty the room I entered was
commendably clean. An old picture of William I. hung on one wall;
opposite was Bismarck. Over the low door was an unframed portrait
of "unser Kaiser," while Hindenburg completed the collection.
Wooden hearts, on which were printed the names Liege, Maubeuge, and
Antwerp, recalled the days when German hearts were light and German
tongues were full of brag.
A girl of ten entered the room. She hated the war because she had
to rush every day at noon from school to the People's Kitchen to
fetch the family stew. In the afternoon she had to look after the
younger children while her mother stood in the long lines before
the shops where food was sold. The family were growing tired of
stew day after day. They missed the good German sausage and
unlimited amount of bread and butter.
The mother looked in on her way to the street, basket under arm.
She was tired, and was dulled by the daily routine of trying to get
food. She talked bitterly about the war, but though she blamed the
Agrarians for not doing their part to relieve the food situation,
she expressed no animosity against her own Government. The father
had been through Lodz in Hindenburg's two frontal assaults on
Warsaw, where he had seen the slopes covered with forests of
crosses marking the German dead, and his words were bitter, too,
when he talked of his lost comrades. And then, the depressing
feeling of returning from an army pursuing the mirage of victory to
find his family and every other family struggling in the meshes of
that terrible and relentless blockade!
It never had occurred to him that his Government might be in the
least responsible for the misery of his country. Like the great
bulk of the German people he is firmly convinced that the
Fatherland has been fighting a war of defence from the very
beginning. "To think that one nation, England, is responsible for
all this suffering!" was the way that he put it. He is a "good"
Social Democrat.
When I once more resumed my walk I saw the lines of people waiting
for food in every street. Each time I turned a corner great black
masses dominated the scene. I paused at a line of more than three
hundred waiting for potatoes. Ten yards away not a sound could be
heard. The very silence added to the depression. With faces
anxious and drawn they stood four abreast, and moved with the
orderliness of soldiers. Not a sign of disturbance, and not a
policeman in sight. Some women were mending socks; a few, standing
on the edge of the closely packed column, pushed baby carriages as
they crawled hour after hour toward the narrow entrance of the shop.
Every line was like the rest. The absence of policemen is
particularly noteworthy, since they had to be present in the early
days--a year ago--when the butter lines came into being. Drastic
measures were taken when the impatient women rioted. Those days
are over. The Government has taught the people a lesson. They
will wait hour after hour, docile and obedient henceforth, if
necessary until they drop--make no mistake of that.
But the authorities also learned a lesson. "People think most of
revolution when they are hungry," was what one leader said to me.
On this Saturday of which I write not a potato was to be bought in
the West-end of Berlin, where the better classes live. Berlin had
been without potatoes for nearly a week. To-day they had arrived,
and the first to come were sent to the East-end. In the West-end
the people are filled with more unquestioning praise of everything
the Government does; they applaud when their Kaiser confers an
Order upon their Crown Prince for something, not quite clear, which
he is supposed to have accomplished at Verdun. Therefore they can
wait for potatoes until the more critical East-end is supplied.
I went farther eastward through the Kottbuser district to the
Kottbuser Ufer on the canal, along which, a couple of hundred
people waited in an orderly column without any guardian--another
evidence of the success of the drastic measures of July and early
August, when the demonstrations against the war were nipped in the
bud. These people were waiting for the free advertisement sheets
from the gaudily painted yellow Ullstein newspaper building across
the square. They had to stand by the side of the canal because a
_queue_ of several hundred people waiting for potatoes wound slowly
before Ullstein's to the underground potato-shop next door.
I had not heard a laugh or seen anybody smile all day, and when
darkness fell on the weary city I went to a cheap little beer-room
where several "bad," but really harmless Social Democrats used to
gather. Among them was the inevitable one who had been to America,
and I had become acquainted with them through him. They talked in
the new strain of their type, that they might as well be under the
British or French, as under their own Government.
Their voices were low--a rare event where Germans gather at table.
They did not plot, they merely grumbled incessantly. The end of
the war had definitely sunk below their horizon, and peace, not
merely steps to peace, was what they longed for. There was the
customary cursing of the Agrarians and the expressions of resolve
to have a new order of freedom after the war, expressions which I
believe will not be realised unless Germany is compelled to accept
peace by superior forces from without.
I left the dreary room for the dreary streets, and turned towards
the centre and West-end of Berlin, where the _cafe_ lights were
bright and tinkling music made restricted menu-cards easier to bear.
Suddenly the oppressive feeling of the East-end was dispelled by
the strains of military music drawing closer in a street near by.
I hurried towards it, and saw a band marching at the head of two
companies of wounded soldiers, their bandages showing white under
the bright street lights of Berlin.
The men were returning to their hospital off the Prenzlauer Allee
from a day's outing on the River Spree. Scores of followers
swelled to hundreds. The troubles of the day were forgotten. Eyes
brightened as the throng kept step with the martial music. A roll
of drum, a flare of brass, and the crowd, scattered voices at
first, and then swelling in a grand crescendo, sang _Deutschland
uber Alles_. To-morrow they would complain again of food shortage
and sigh for peace, but tonight they would dream of victory.