Germany, The Next Republic? Part 16

When I sailed from New York two years ago it seemed to me that sentiment in the United States was about equally divided; that most people favoured neutrality, even a majority of those who supported the Entente. The feeling of sympathy which so many thousands of Americans had for Germany I could, at that time, readily understand, because I myself was sympathetic. I felt that Germany had not had a fighting chance with public opinion in the United States.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT IN THE BERLIN "DEUTSCHE TAGES-ZEITUNG"

FOR THE BOOK--"PRESIDENT BLUFF" MEANING PRESIDENT WILSON]

I could not believe that all the charges against Germany applied to the German people. Although it was difficult to understand what Germany had done in Belgium, although it was evident and admitted by the Chancellor that Germany violated the neutrality of that country, I could not believe that a nation, which before the war had such a high standing in science and commerce, could have plotted or desired such a tremendous war as swept Europe in 1914.

When I arrived in Berlin on March 17, 1915, and met German officials and people for the first time, I was impressed by their sincerity, their honesty and their belief that the Government did not cause the war and was fighting to defend the nation. At the theatre I saw performances of Shakespeare, which were among the best I had ever seen. I marvelled at the wonderful modern hospitals and at the efficiency and organisation of the Government. I marvelled at the expert ways in which prison camps were administered. I was surprised to find railroad trains clean and punctual. It seemed to me as if Germany was a nation which had reached the height of perfection and that it was honestly and conscientiously defending itself against the group of powers which desired its destruction.

For over a year I entered enthusiastically into the work of interpreting and presenting this Germany to the American people. At this time there was practically no food problem. German banks and business men were preparing for and expecting peace. The Government was already making plans for after the war when soldiers would return from the front. A Reichstag Committee had been appointed to study Germany's possible peace time labour needs and to make arrangements for solving them.

But in the fall of 1915 the changes began. The _Lusitania_ had been destroyed in May and almost immediately the hate campaign against America was started. I saw the tendency to attack and belittle the United States grow not only in the army, in the navy and in the press, but among the people. I saw that Germany was growing to deeply resent anything the United States Government said against what the German Government did.

When this anti-American campaign was launched I observed a tendency on the part of the Foreign Office to censor more strictly the telegrams which the correspondents desired to send to the American newspapers.

Previously, the Foreign Office had been extremely frank and cordial and permitted correspondents to send what they observed and heard, as long as the despatches did not contain information which would aid the Allies in their military or economic attacks on Germany. As the hate articles appeared in the newspapers the correspondents were not only prohibited from sending them, but they were criticised by the Foreign Office for writing anything which might cause the American people to be angered at Germany. One day I made a translation of a bitter article in the _B. Z.

am Mittag_ and submitted it to the Foreign Office censor. He asked why I paid so much attention to articles in this newspaper which he termed a "Kaese-blatt"--literally "a cheese paper." He said it had no influence in Germany; that no one cared what it said. This newspaper, however, was the only noon-day edition in Berlin and was published by the largest newspaper publishing house in Germany, Ullstein & Co. At his request I withdrew the telegram and forgot the incident. Within a few days, however, Count zu Reventlow, in the _Deutsche Tageszeitung_, and Georg Bernhard, in the _Vossische Zeitung_, wrote sharp attacks on President Wilson. But I could not telegraph these.

Previous to the fall of 1915 not only the German Government but the German people were charitable to the opinions of neutrals, especially those who happened to be in Germany for business or professional reasons, but, as the anti-American campaign and the cry that America was not neutral by permitting supplies to be shipped to the Allies became more extensive, the public became less charitable. Previously a neutral in Germany could be either pro-German, pro-Ally or neutral. Now, however, it was impossible to be neutral, especially if one were an American, because the very statement that one was an American carried with it the implication that one was anti-German. The American colony itself became divided. There was the pro-American group and the pro-German government group. The former was centred at the American Emba.s.sy. The latter was inspired by the German-Americans who had lived in Germany most of their lives and by other sympathetic Americans who came from the United States.

Meanwhile there were printed in German newspapers many leading articles and interviews from the American press attacking President Wilson, and any one sympathising with the President, even Amba.s.sador Gerard, became automatically "Deutschfeidlich."

As the submarine warfare became more and more a critical issue German feeling towards the United States changed. I found that men who were openly professing their friendship for the United States were secretly doing everything within their power to intimidate America. The Government began to feel as if the American factories which were supplying the Allies were as much subject to attack as similar factories in Allied countries. I recall one time learning at the American Emba.s.sy that a man named Wulf von Igel had asked Amba.s.sador Gerard for a safe conduct, on the ground that he was going to the United States to try and have condensed milk shipped to Germany for the children. Mr. Gerard refused to ask Washington to grant this man a safe conduct. I did not learn until several months afterwards that Herr von Igel had been asked to go to the United States by Under Secretary of State Zimmermann for one of two purposes, either he was to purchase a controlling interest in the Du Pont Powder Mills no matter what that cost, or he was to stir up dissatisfaction in Mexico. Zimmermann gave him a card of introduction to Count von Bernstorff, the German Amba.s.sador in Washington, and told him that the German Emba.s.sy would supply him with all necessary funds.

Carrying out the German idea that it was right to harm or destroy American property which was directly or indirectly aiding the Allies, both Germany and Austria-Hungary published notices that their citizens in the United States were not permitted to work in such factories. And plots which Captains Boy-Ed and von Papen instigated here were done with the approval and encouragement of the German Government. If any proof is needed for this statement, in addition to that already published, it is that both of these men upon their return to Germany were regarded as heroes and given the most trusted positions. Captain Boy-Ed was placed at the head of the Intelligence Department of the Navy and Captain von Papen was a.s.signed to the Headquarters of the General Commanding the operations on the Somme.

As the food situation in Germany became worse the disposition of the people changed still more. The Government had already pointed out in numerous public statements that the United States was not neutral because it overlooked the English blockade and thought only about the German submarine war. So as food difficulties developed the people blamed the United States and held President Wilson personally responsible for the growing shortages within Germany. The people believed Mr. Wilson was their greatest enemy and that he was the man most to be feared. How strong this feeling was not only among the people but in Government circles was to be shown later when Germany announced her submarine campaign.

As was pointed out in a previous chapter while Germany was arguing against shipments of war munitions from the United States she was herself responsible for the preparations which Russia and Roumania had made against her, but this proof of deception on the part of the Government was never explained to the German people. Furthermore the people were never told why the United States asked for the recall of Germany's two attaches who were implicated in spy plots. Nothing was ever published in the German newspapers about Herr von Igel. The newspapers always published despatches which told of the destruction of ammunition factories by plotters, but never about the charges against and arrests of German reservists. Just as the German Government has never permitted the people to know that it prepared for a war against nine nations, as the doc.u.ment I saw in the Chief Telegraph Office shows, so has it not explained to the people the real motives and the real arguments which President Wilson presented in his many submarine notes. Whenever these notes were published in the German newspapers the Government always published an official explanation, or correspondents were inspired to write the Government views, so the people could not think for themselves or come to honest personal conclusions.

The effectiveness of Mr. Wilson's diplomacy against Germany was decreased by some German-Americans, and the fact that the United States is to-day at war with Germany is due to this blundering on the behalf of some of those over-zealous citizens who, being so anxious to aid Germany, became anti-Wilson and in the long run defeated what they set out to accomplish.

Had the German Government not been a.s.sured by some German-Americans that they would never permit President Wilson to break diplomatic relations or go to war, had these self-appointed envoys stayed away from Berlin, the relations between the United States and Germany might to-day be different than they are. Because if Germany at the outset of the submarine negotiations had been given the impression by a united America that the President spoke for the country, Germany would undoubtedly have given up all hope of a ruthless submarine warfare.

I think President Wilson and Mr. Gerard realised that the activities of the German-Americans here were not only interfering with the diplomatic negotiations but that the German-Americans were acting against their own best interests if they really desired peace with Germany.

When some of the President's friends saw that the German people were receiving such biased news from the United States and that Germany had no opportunity of learning the real sentiment here, nor of sounding the depth of American indignation over the _Lusitania_ they endeavoured to get despatches from the United States to Germany to enlighten the people.

Mr. Roy W. Howard, President of the United Press, endeavoured several times while I was in Berlin to get unadulterated American news in the German newspapers, but the German Government was not overly anxious to have such information published. It was too busy encouraging the anti-American sentiment for the purpose of frightening the United States.

It was difficult, too, for the United Press to get the necessary co-operation in the United States for this news service. After the settlement of the _Suss.e.x_ dispute the Democratic newspapers of Germany, those which were supporting the Chancellor, were anxious to receive reports from here, but the German Foreign Office would not encourage the matter to the extent of using the wireless towers at Sayville and Tuckerton as means of transmitting the news.

How zealously the Foreign Office censor guards what appears in the German newspapers was shown about two weeks before diplomatic relations were broken. When the announcement was wirelessed to the United States that Germany had adopted the von Tirpitz blockade policy the United Press sent me a number of daily bulletins telling what the American Press, Congressmen and the Government were thinking and saying about the new order. The first day these despatches reached me I sent them to several of the leading newspapers only to be notified in less than an hour afterward by the Foreign Office that I was to send no information to the German newspapers without first sending it to the Foreign Office. Two days after the blockade order was published I received a telegram from Mr. Howard saying that diplomatic relations would be broken, and giving me a summary of the press comment. I took this despatch to the Foreign Office and asked permission to send it to the newspapers. It was refused. Throughout this crisis which lasted until the 10th of February the Foreign Office would not permit a single despatch coming direct from America to be printed in the German newspapers. The Foreign Office preferred to have the newspapers publish what came by way of England and France so that the Government could always explain that only English and French news could reach Germany because the United States was not interested in seeing that Germany obtained first hand information.

While Germany was arguing that the United States was responsible for her desperate situation, economically, and while President Wilson was being blamed for not breaking the Allied blockade, the German Foreign Office was doing everything within its power to prevent German goods from being shipped to the United States. When, through the efforts of Amba.s.sador Gerard, numerous attempts were made to get German goods, including medicines and dye-stuffs, to the United States, the German Government replied that these could not leave the country unless an equal amount of goods were sent to Germany. Then, when the State Department arranged for an equal amount of American goods to be shipped in exchange the German Foreign Office said all these goods would have to be shipped to and from German ports. When the State Department listened to this demand and American steamers were started on their way to Hamburg and Bremen the German Navy was so busy sewing mines off these harbours to keep the English fleet away that they failed to notify the American skippers where the open channels were. As a result so many American ships were sunk trying to bring goods into German harbours that it became unprofitable for American shippers to try to accommodate Germany.

About this time, also, the German Government began its policy of discouraging American business in Germany. Amba.s.sador Gerard had had a long wrangle with the Chancellor over a bill which was introduced in the Reichstag shortly after the beginning of the war to purchase all foreign oil properties "within the German Customs Union." The bill was examined by Mr. Gerard, who, for a number of years, was a Supreme Court Judge of New York. He discovered that the object of the bill was to put the Standard Oil Company out of business by purchasing all of this company's property except that located in Hamburg. This was the joker. Hamburg was not in the German Customs Union and the bill provided for the confiscation of all property not in this Union.

Mr. Gerard called upon the Chancellor and told him that the United States Government could not permit such a bill to be pa.s.sed without a vigorous protest. The Chancellor asked Mr. Gerard whether President Wilson and Secretary of State Bryan would ever protect such a corporation as the Standard Oil Company was supposed to be. Mr. Gerard replied that the very fact that these two officials were known in the public mind as having no connection with this corporation would give them an opportunity of defending its interests the same as the Government would defend the interests of any other American. The Chancellor seemed surprised at this statement and Mr. Gerard continued about as follows:

"You know that Germany has already been discriminating against the Standard Oil Company. You know that the Prussian State Railways charge this American corporation twice as much to ship oil from Hamburg to Bremen as they charge the German oil interests to ship Roumanian oil from the Austrian border to Berlin. Now don't you think that's enough?"

The interview ended here. And the bill was never brought up in the Reichstag.

But this policy of the Government of intimidating and intriguing against American interests was continued until diplomatic relations were broken.

In December, 1916, Adolph Barthmann, an American citizen, who owned the largest shoe store in Berlin, desired to close his place of business and go to the United States. It was impossible for him to get American shoes because of the Allied blockade and he had decided to discontinue business until peace was made.

Throughout the war it has been necessary for all Americans, as well as all other neutrals, to obtain permission from the police before they could leave. Barthmann went to Police Headquarters, and asked for authority to go to the United States. He was informed that his pa.s.sport would have to be examined by the General Staff and that he could call for it within eight days. At the appointed day Barthmann appeared at Police Headquarters where he was informed by the Police Captain that upon orders of the General Staff he would have to sign a paper and swear to the statement that neither he nor the American firms he represented had sold, or would sell, shoes to the Allies. Barthmann was told that this statement would have to be sworn to by another American resident of Berlin and that unless this was done he would not be permitted to return to Germany after the war. Mr. Barthmann had to sign the doc.u.ment under protest before his American pa.s.sport was returned.

The facts in this as in the other instances which I have narrated, are in the possession of the State Department at Washington.

When the German Government began to fear that the United States might some day join the Allies if the submarine campaign was renewed, it campaigned by threatening the United States with a Russian-j.a.panese-German alliance after the war against England and the United States. These threats were not disguised. Amba.s.sador Gerard was informed, indirectly and unofficially of course, by German financiers and members of the Reichstag that Germany "would be forced" to make such an alliance if the United States ever joined the Allies. As was shown later by the instructions of Secretary of State Zimmermann to the German Minister in Mexico City, Germany has not only not given up that idea, but Germany now looks forward to Mexico as the fourth member of the league.

As Germany became more and more suspicious of Americans in Germany, who were not openly pro-German, she made them suffer when they crossed the German frontier to go to neutral countries. The German military authorities, at border towns such as Warnemuende and Bentheim, took a dislike to American women who were going to Holland or Denmark, and especially to the wives of U. S. consular officials. One time when I was going from Berlin to Copenhagen I learned from the husband of one of the women examined at the border what the authorities had done to her. I saw her before and after the ordeal and when I heard of what an atrocious examination they had made I understood why she was in bed ten days afterward and under the constant care of physicians. Knowing what German military officers and German women detectives had done in some of the invaded countries, one does not need to know the details of these insults. It is sufficient to state that after the wives of several American officials and other prominent American residents of Berlin had been treated in this manner that the State Department wrote a vigorous and defiant note to Germany stating that unless the practice was immediately discontinued the United States would give up the oversight of all German interests in Allied countries. The ultimatum had the desired effect. The German Government replied that while the order of the General Staff could not be changed it would be waived in practice.

No matter who the American is, who admired Germany, or, who respected Germany, or, who sympathised with Germany as she was before, or, at the beginning of the war, no American can support this Germany which I have just described, against his own country. The Germany of 1913, which was admired and respected by the scientific, educational and business world; the Germany of 1913 which had no poor, which took better care of its workmen than any nation in the world; the nation, which was considered in the advance of all countries in dealing with economic and industrial problems, no longer exists. The Germany which produced Bach, Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe and other great musicians and poets has disappeared.

The musicians of to-day write hate songs. The poets of to-day pen hate verses. The scientists of to-day plan diabolical instruments of death.

The educators teach suspicion of and disregard for everything which is not German. Business men have sided with the Government in a ruthless submarine warfare in order to destroy property throughout the world so that every nation will have to begin at the bottom with Germany when the war is over.

The Germany of 1914 and 1915 which arose like one man to defend the nation is not the Germany which to-day is down on the whole world and which believes that its organised might can defend it against every and all nations. The Germany I saw in 1915, composed of sympathetic, calm, charitable, patient people is to-day a Germany made up of nervous, impatient, deceptive and suspicious people.

From the sinking of the _Lusitania_ to February, 1917, President Wilson maintained diplomatic relations with Germany in order to aid the democratic forces which were working in that country to throw out the poison which forty years of army preparation had diffused throughout the nation. President Wilson believed that he could rely upon the Chancellor as a leader of democracy against von Tirpitz and von Falkenhayn, as leaders of German autocracy. The Chancellor knew the President looked upon him as the man to reform Germany. But when the crisis came the Chancellor was as weak as the Kaiser and both of them sanctioned and defended what von Hindenburg and Ludendorf, the ammunition interests and the navy, proposed.

If the United States were to disregard absolutely every argument which the Allies have for fighting Germany there would still be so many American indictments against the German Government that no American could have a different opinion from that of President Wilson.

Germany sank the _Lusitania_ and killed over 100 Americans and never apologised for it.

Germany sank the _Ancona_, killed more Americans and blamed Austria.

Germany sank the _Arabic_ and torpedoed the _Suss.e.x_.

Germany promised after the sinking of the _Suss.e.x_ to warn all merchant ships before torpedoing them and then in practice threw the pledges to the winds and ended by breaking all promises.

Germany started anti-American propaganda in Germany.

The German Government made the German people suspect and hate President Wilson.

Germany supplied Russia and Roumania with arms and ammunition and criticised America for permitting American business men to aid the Allies.

Germany plotted against American factories.

Germany tried to stir up a revolt in Mexico.

Germany tried to destroy American ammunition factories.

Germany blamed the United States for her food situation without explaining to the people that one of the reasons the pork supply was exhausted and there was no sugar was because Minister of the Interior Delbrueck ordered the farmers to feed sugar to the pigs and then to slaughter them in order to save the fodder.

Germany encouraged and financed German-Americans in their campaigns in the United States.

Germany paid American writers for anti-American contributions to German newspapers and for pro-German articles in the American press.

Germany prohibited American news a.s.sociations from printing unbiased American news in Germany.

Germany discriminated against and blacklisted American firms doing business in Germany.