Germany, The Next Republic? Part 10

CHAPTER VII

THE BUBBLING ECONOMIC VOLCANO

When I entered Germany in 1915 there was plenty of food everywhere and prices were normal. But a year later the situation had changed so that the number of food cards--Germany's economic barometer--had increased eight times. March and April of 1916 were the worst months in the year and a great many people had difficulty in getting enough food to eat.

There was growing dissatisfaction with the way the Government was handling the food problem but the people's hope was centred upon the next harvest. In April and May the submarine issue and the American crisis turned public attention from food to politics. From July to October the Somme battles kept the people's minds centred upon military operations. While the scarcity of food became greater the Government, through inspired articles in the press, informed the people that the harvest was so big that there would be no more food difficulties.

Germany began to pay serious attention to the food situation, when early in the year, Adolph von Batocki, the president of East Prussia and a big land owner, was made food dictator. At the same time there were organised various government food departments. There was an Imperial Bureau for collecting fats; another to take charge of the meat supply; another to control the milk and another in charge of the vegetables and fruit. Germany became practically a socialistic state and in this way the Government kept abreast of the growth of Socialism among the people. The most important step the Government took was to organise the Zentral Einkaufgesellschaft, popularly known as the "Z. E.

G." The first object of this organisation was to purchase food in neutral countries. Previously German merchants had been going to Holland, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries to buy supplies.

These merchants had been bidding against each other in order to get products for their concerns. In this way food was made much more expensive than it would have been had one purchaser gone outside of Germany. So the Government prohibited all firms from buying food abroad. Travelling agents of the "Z. E. G." went to these countries and bought all of the supplies available at a fixed price. Then these resold to German dealers at cost.

Such drastic measures were necessitated by the public demand that every one share alike. The Government found it extremely difficult to control the food. Farmers and rich landowners insisted upon slaughtering their own pigs for their own use. They insisted upon eating the eggs their chickens laid, or, upon sending them through the mail to friends at high prices, thereby evading the egg card regulations. But the Government stepped in and farmers were prohibited from killing their own cattle and from sending foods to friends and special customers. Farmers had to sell everything to the "Z. E. G."

That was another result of State Socialism.

The optimistic statements of Herr von Batocki about the food outlook led the people to believe that by fall conditions would be greatly improved but instead of becoming more plentiful food supplies became more and more organised until all food was upon an absolute ration basis.

"Although the crops were good this year, there will be so much organisation that food will spoil," said practically every German.

Batocki's method of confiscating food did cause a great deal to spoil and the public blamed him any time anything disappeared from the market. One day a carload of plums was shipped from Werder, the big fruit district near Berlin, to the capital. The "Z. E. G." confiscated it but did not sell the goods immediately to the merchants and the plums spoiled. Before this was found out, a crowd of women surrounded the train one day, which was standing on a side track, broke into a car and found most of the plums in such rotten condition they could not be used. So they painted on the sides of the car: "This is the kind of plum jam the 'Z. E. G.' makes."

There was a growing scarcity of all other supplies, too. The armies demanded every possible labouring man and woman so even the canning factories had to close and food which formerly was canned had to be eaten while fresh or it spoiled. Even the private German family, which was accustomed to canning food, had to forego this practice because of a lack of tin cans, jars and rubber bands.

The food depots are by far the most successful undertaking of the Government. In Cologne and Berlin alone close to 500,000 poor are being fed daily by munic.i.p.al kitchens. Last October I went through the Cologne food department with the director. The city has rented a number of large vacant factory buildings and made them into kitchens.

Munic.i.p.al buyers go through the country to buy meat and vegetables.

This is shipped to Cologne, and in these kitchens it is prepared by women workers, under the direction of volunteers.

A stew is cooked each day and sold for 42 pfennigs (about eight cents) a quart. The people must give up their potato, fat and meat cards to obtain it. In Berlin and all other large cities, the same system is used. In one kitchen in Berlin, at the main market hall, 80,000 quarts a day are prepared.

In Cologne this food is distributed through the city streets by munic.i.p.al wagons, and the people get it almost boiling hot, ready to eat. Were it not for these food depots there would be many thousands of people who would starve because they could not buy and cook such nourishing food for the price the city asks. These food kitchens have been in use now almost a year, and, while the poor are obtaining food here, they are becoming very tired of the supply, because they must eat stews every day. They can have nothing fried or roasted.

In addition to these kitchens the Government has opened throughout Germany "mittlestand kueche," a restaurant for the middle cla.s.ses.

Here government employees, with small wages, the poor who do not keep house and others with little means can obtain a meal for 10 cents, consisting of a stew and a dessert. But it is very difficult for people to live on this food. Most every one who is compelled by circ.u.mstances to eat here is losing weight and feels under-nourished all the time.

A few months ago, after one of my secretaries had been called to the army; I employed another. He had been earning only $7 a week and had to support his wife. On this money they ate at the middle cla.s.s cafes.

In six months he had lost twenty pounds.

Because the food is so scarce and because it lacks real nourishment people eat all the time. It used to be said before the war that the Germans were the biggest eaters in Europe--that they ate seven meals a day. The blockade has not made them less eaters, for they eat every few hours all day long now, but because the food lacks fats and sugars, they need more food.

Restaurants are doing big business because after one has eaten a "meal"

at any leading Berlin hotel at 1 o'clock in the afternoon one is hungry by 3 o'clock and ready for another "meal."

Last winter the Socialists of Munich, who saw that the rich were having plenty of food and that the poor were existing as best they could in food kitchens, wrote Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg and demanded the immediate confiscation of all food in Germany, even that in private residences.

The Socialists' demand was, as are most others, thrown into the waste basket because men like the Chancellor, President Batocki, of the Food Department, wealthy bankers, statesmen and army generals have country estates where they have stored food for an indefinite period. They know that no matter how hard the blockade pinches the people it won't starve them.

When the Chancellor invites people to his palace he has real coffee, white bread, plenty of potatoes, cake and meat. Being a government official he can get what he wants from the food department. So can other officials. Therefore, they were willing to disregard the demand of the Bavarian Socialists.

But the Socialists, although they don't get publicity when they start something, don't give up until they accomplish what they set out to do.

First, they enlisted the Berlin Socialists, and the report went around to people that the rich were going to Copenhagen and bringing back food while the poor starved. So the Government had to prohibit all food from coming into Germany by way of Denmark unless it was imported by the Government.

That was the first success of the Bavarian Socialists. Now they have had another. Batocki is reported as having announced that all food supplies will be confiscated. The Socialists are responsible.

Excepting the very wealthy and those who have stored quant.i.ties of food for the "siege," every German is undernourished. A great many people are starving. The head physician of the Kaiserin Augusta Victoria Hospital, in Berlin, stated that 80,000 children died in Berlin in 1916 from lack of food. The _Lokal-Anzeiger_ printed the item and the Foreign Office censor prohibited me from sending it to New York.

But starvation under the blockade is a slow process, and it has not yet reached the army. When I was on the Somme battlefields last November and in Rumania in December the soldiers were not only well fed, but they had luxuries which their families at home did not have. Two years ago there was so much food at home the women sent food boxes to the front. To-day the soldiers not only send but carry quant.i.ties of food from the front to their homes. The army has more than the people.

It is almost impossible to say whether Germany, as a nation, can be starved into submission. Everything depends upon the next harvest, the length of the war and future military operations. The German Government, I think, can make the people hold out until the coming harvest, unless there is a big military defeat. In their present undernourished condition the public could not face a defeat. If the war ends this year Germany will not be so starved that she will accept any peace terms. But if the war continues another year or two Germany will have to give up.

I entered Germany at the beginning of the Allied blockade when one could purchase any kind and any quant.i.ty of food in Germany. Two years later, when I left, there were at least eighteen foodstuffs which could not be purchased anywhere, and there were twelve kinds of food which could be obtained only by government cards. That is what the Allied blockade did to the food supplies. It made Germany look like a grocery store after a closing out sale.

Suppose in the United States you wanted the simplest breakfast--coffee and bread and b.u.t.ter. Suppose you wanted a light luncheon of eggs or a sandwich, tea and fruit. Suppose for dinner you wanted a plain menu of soup, meat, vegetables and dessert. At any grocery or lunch counter you could get not only these plain foods, but anything else you wanted.

Not so in Germany! For breakfast you cannot have pure coffee, and you can have only a very small quant.i.ty of b.u.t.ter with your b.u.t.ter card.

Hotels serve a coffee subst.i.tute, but most people prefer nothing. For luncheon you may have an egg, but only one day during two weeks.

Hotels still serve a weak, highly colored tea and apples or oranges.

For dinner you may have soup without any meat or fat in it. Soups are just a mixture of water and vegetables. Two days a week you can get a small piece of meat with a meat card. Other days you can eat boiled fish.

People who keep house, of course, have more food, because as a rule they have been storing supplies. Take the Christian Scientists as an instance. Members of this Church have organised a semi-official club.

Members buy all the extra food possible. Then they divide and store away what they want for the "siege"--the time when food will be scarcer than it is to-day.

Two women pract.i.tioners in Berlin, who live together, bought thirty pounds of b.u.t.ter from an American who had brought it in from Copenhagen. They canned it and planned to make this b.u.t.ter last one year. Until a few weeks ago people with money could go to Switzerland, Holland and Denmark and bring back food with them, either with or without permission. Some wealthy citizens who import machinery and other things from outside neutral countries have their agents smuggle food at the same time.

While the Dutch, Danish and Swiss governments try to stop smuggling; there is always some going through. The rich have the money to bribe border officers and inspectors. When I was in Dusseldorf, last October, I met the owner of a number of ca.n.a.l boats, who shipped coal and iron products from the Rhine Valley to Denmark. He told me his ca.n.a.l barges brought back food from Copenhagen every trip and that the border authorities were not very careful in making an investigation of his boats.

In Dusseldorf, too, as well as in Cologne, business men spoke about the food they got from Belgium. They did not get great quant.i.ties, of course, but the leakage was enough to enable them to live better than those who had to depend upon the food in Germany.

When the food supplies began to decrease the Government inst.i.tuted the card system of distribution. Bread cards had been very successful, so the authorities figured that meat, b.u.t.ter, potato and other cards would be equally so. But their calculations were wrong.

When potato cards were issued each person was given nine pounds a week.

But the potato harvest was a big failure. The supply was so much less than the estimates that seed potatoes had to be used to keep the people satisfied. Even then the supply was short; and the quant.i.ty to be sold on potato cards was cut to three pounds a week. Then transportation difficulties arose, and potatoes spoiled before they reached Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Dresden, Leipsic and other large cities.

The same thing happened when the Government confiscated the fruit crop last year.

One day I was asked on the telephone whether I wanted to buy an 11-pound ham. I asked to have it sent to my office immediately. When it came the price was $2.50 a pound. I sent the meat back and told the man I would not pay such a price.

"That's all right," he replied. "Dr. Stein and a dozen other people will pay me that price. I sent it to you because I wanted to help you out."

Dr. Ludwig Stein, one of the editors of the _Vossiche Zeitung_, paid the price and ordered all he could get for the same money.

When I left Berlin the Government had issued an order prohibiting the sale of all canned vegetables and fruit. It was explained that this food would be sold when the present supplies of other foods were exhausted. There were in Berlin many thousand cans, but no one can say how long such food will last.

When Americans ask, "How long can Germany hold out?" I reply, "As long as the German Government can satisfy the vanity and stimulate the nerves of the people, and as long as the people permit the Government to do the nation's thinking."

How long a time that will be no one can say. It was formerly believed that whenever a nation reached the limit which Germany has reached it would crumple up. But Germany fails to crumple. Instead of breaking up, she fights harder and more desperately. Why can she do this? The answer is simple: Because the German people believe in their Government and the Government knows that as long as it can convince the people that it is winning the war the people will fight.

Germany is to-day in the position of a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown; in the position of a man who is under-nourished, who is depressed, who is weighed down by colossal burdens, who is brooding over the loss of friends and relatives, but of a man who feels that his future health and happiness depend upon his ability to hold out until the crisis pa.s.ses.

If a physician were called in to prescribe for such a patient his first act would in all probability be to stimulate this man's hope, to make him believe that if he would only "hold out" he would pa.s.s the crisis successfully. But no physician could say that his patient could stand it for one week, a month or a year more. The doctor would have to gamble upon that man's nerves. He would have to stimulate him daily, perhaps hourly.