My Escape from Germany 15

My Escape from Germany 15

Later on, as a fit successor of the old Stadtvogtei, a prison arose in

its place, which was modernized from time to time, until in 1916 a new

modern building stood where once victims had vanished into dungeons,

and, later, political prisoners (among them Bebel, in 1870) had

languished in dark, musty, insanitary cells.

 

Bricks, iron, concrete, and glass had been used in the construction of

this building, the scanty furniture and the cell doors being the only

wood to be found in it.

 

I never came to know the whole of the Stadtvogtei, but learned

gradually that it enclosed a number of courtyards. These were

triangular in shape and just sixty paces in circumference. Around them

the walls rose five stories high, and made deep wells of them rather

than yards. The regularly spaced windows, tier upon tier, with their

iron bars increased the dreariness of their aspect.

 

With a yard as a center, each part of the prison surrounding it formed

a structural entity, a “block,” separated from the next one by a space

about eight feet wide, and extending from the ground floor right up to

the glass roof above. The aggregation of blocks was enclosed by the

outer walls as the segments of an orange are enclosed by the peel. With

the cell windows toward the yards, the doors were in the circumference

of the blocks. In front of them, frail-looking balconies, or gangways,

extending around the blocks, took the place of corridors, and overhung

by half its width the space separating the component parts of the

prison. Their floors consisted in most places of thick plates of glass,

fitting into the angle-irons of the cantilevers. Iron staircases and

short bridges permitted communication between the different floors and

blocks.

 

Imagine yourself standing at the end of one of these corridors and

looking down its vista. In the wall nearest to you the perspectively

diminishing quadrilaterals of eighteen evenly spaced doors, each with

its ponderous lock, bolt, and a spy-hole in the center, with a row of

ventilating holes above them, and, underfoot and above, the glass of

two balcony floors. On the opposite side a breast-high iron railing,

beyond it four feet of nothingness, and then the blank stretch of a

whitewashed wall, reflecting the light from the skylights on top of the

building.

 

Try to think of yourself as so situated that a chance of “enjoying”

this view mornings and evenings, when the cell doors are unlocked for

a few minutes, is eagerly anticipated as a change from the monotony of

the cell, and you will in one respect approach the sensations of a man

in solitary confinement.

 

Then imagine that the sight of this same gaunt vista every day causes

you a feeling of almost physical nausea, that you keep in your cell, or

somebody else’s, as much as possible to escape it, and you may perhaps

realize a fractional part of the circle of the disagreeable sensations

of a man who has had the “liberty of the prison” for, say, six months.

 

As a rule such emotions are subconscious, but they come to the surface

when the periodical attack of prison sickness of the soul lays hold of

you, a temporary affection of the mind which is very disagreeable to

the individual who suffers from it, and may have unpleasant effects on

his companions and friends. We used to hide these attacks as carefully

as we could from one another.

 

Originally the prison had been used for criminals undergoing light

sentences of two or three years and less, and for remand prisoners.

One entire block had been used for the latter. There the cells were

superior to those in the remainder of the building, where there were

stone floors, very small windows, and no artificial light, while the

beds consisted of boards on an iron frame and a paillasse. In the

remand cells the floor was covered with red linoleum, and in this part

landings and corridors were covered with the same material, there were

larger windows, spring mattresses hinged to the wall, and--luxury

beyond belief to a man from Ruhleben camp--electric lamps.

 

Except when special punishment was being inflicted, the political

prisoners, among whom I count the civil prisoners of war, inhabited

this better part of the prison, comprising perhaps three hundred cells

around one yard.

 

Over a year before my arrival the German military authorities had taken

over the greater part of the Stadtvogtei for their own prisoners. Only

a small portion was still occupied by the civil prison authorities and

their charges. One or two of the latter occasionally appeared in our

wing, in the charge of a civil warder, to do an odd job. They were

permanently used in the kitchen, the bath and disinfecting place, and

before the furnace.

 

In the military part of the prison N.C.O.’s of the army acted as

warders for the military and political prisoners.

 

Of the former there were always a great many. They were undergoing

punishment for slight breaches of discipline, or were remanded there

awaiting trial before a court martial. Occasionally a number of French

soldiers, and now and again an English Tommy or tar, were incarcerated

among them. When this happened, and we heard of it, we tried to help

them with food, tobacco, and cigarettes. It was very seldom that we

succeeded, as we were not allowed on corridors the cells of which were

used for military prisoners.

 

Since, however, the remand block did not quite suffice for the

political and civilian prisoners of war, we occasionally found

ourselves in the military block, though quartered above the soldiers on

separate corridors. In this fashion, and on occasional trips through

the prison to see the doctor or to get something from the kitchen, we

saw and heard enough of the treatment meted out to the German soldiers

to form an opinion of their sufferings.

 

In this the most cherished traditions of the German Army, and of the

German N.C.O.’s, were rigidly adhered to. We never heard one of the

poor prisoners being spoken to in an ordinary voice by their jailers.

They were shouted at, jeered at, abused, beaten, and bullied in every

conceivable way. Their part of the prison was in a continual uproar

from the voices of the N.C.O.’s, who evidently enjoyed the privilege of

torturing in perfect safety their fellow-beings.

 

Sometime during 1917 an N.C.O. who had spent most of his life in

England came to the prison. I heard him talk with one of my friends

one evening. A few days after, on my way to the kitchen, I had the

unpleasant experience of seeing him break up one of his charges. The

man had obviously had a dose before I arrived on the scene, for he was

sobbing in his pitch-dark cell, while the N.C.O. was talking at him in

a way that made my blood boil.

 

A few weeks before this happened, a friend of ours, a former A. S. C.

man, had shot into the cell where I was sitting with a chum. He was

laughing queerly, highly excited and pale.

 

“Look into the yard, look into the yard!” he cried, jumping on a table

underneath the window. We followed as fast as we could, but were just

too late. This is what had happened:

 

A Black Maria had been driven into the yard. Two or three N.C.O.’s had

surrounded it and opened the door, and one of them had climbed inside.

The next moment a German cavalryman, manacles on wrists and ankles, was

pitched literally head over heels on to the stone pavement of the yard,

where he lay, seemingly stunned. Two of the N.C.O.’s grabbed him by the

collar and, kicking the motionless form, dragged him through the gates,

which closed after them.

 

Most of the military prisoners were kept in dark cells. I do not know

for how long this kind of punishment may be inflicted, but I believe

six weeks is the maximum term. Imagine what it means to spend only

two weeks in a perfectly dark, comfortless room on bread and water,

sleeping on bare boards without blankets. Yet that, as it appeared,

would be a very ordinary sentence.

 

This kind of punishment could be inflicted on anybody who was directly

under military law, as we prisoners of war were. During my seventeen

months in prison, it occurred only once that an Englishman, an ex-navy

man, got a week of it. My particular friends and I were able to get a

well-cooked, hot meal to him on most days. When he came out, he vowed

he could have stuck a month of it, thanks to our ministrations, but his

drawn face seemed to belie his words.

 

While the military prisoners had their food sent in from a barracks

outside--judging from what we saw of it, it was rather good--we were

supplied from the prison kitchen. The food varied somewhat in quality

and quantity at different times. In 1914 and again in the following

year it was nauseous, and so insufficient that after four weeks in

prison young men found it impossible to mount the four flights of

stairs to the top corridor in less than half an hour. When I arrived it

happened to be comparatively good for a few weeks. The amount one got

would have kept a man alive, though in constant hunger tortures, for

perhaps six months, if he was in good condition to start with.

 

Breakfast was at 7:30 and consisted of a pint of hot black fluid,

distantly resembling very thin coffee in taste, and a piece of bread

weighing eight ounces, black, but much better than the bread we were

accustomed to in camp. A pint of soup was served for dinner, but there

was never any meat in it. Rumor had it that meat was occasionally

added but disappeared afterward. The staple substance in the beginning

was potatoes, with mangel-wurzels during the following winter. By far

the best soup, which disappeared from the bill of fare altogether for a

long time, contained plenty of haricot-beans. It was usually given out

on Saturdays or Sundays, and tasted rather good. Another one, tolerable

for a hungry man, consisted of a sort of black bean, with hard shells

but mealy kernels, and potatoes. A fish soup appeared on the menu three

times a week; fortunately one could smell it as soon as the big pails

left the kitchen at the other end of the building. This gave one a

chance of accumulating the necessary courage to face it in one’s bowl.

It really was horrible beyond words.

 

At about five o’clock a pint of hot water with barley was intended to

furnish the last meal of the day. Often there was less than a pint of

fluid, and most often the barley was entirely absent. But the water had

always a dirty blue color; consequently it did not even appeal to one’s

æsthetic sense. On Sundays these rations were sometimes supplemented

by a pickled herring or a small piece of sausage. I could never bring

myself to touch these.

 

Subsistence on the prison food exclusively would have been almost

impossible. I am not speaking from the point of view of the average

man, who has had plenty all his life, but as a one-time prisoner of war

in Germany, who has seen what incredibly little will keep the flame of

life burning, at least feebly.

 

Fortunately, almost all the politicals or prisoners of war obtained

extra sustenance in some way or another, although the majority of the

Poles and Russians did so only occasionally and in small quantities.

 

As far as the British were concerned, we got enough food from England

in our parcels to do entirely without the prison diet. Those amongst

us who found themselves temporarily short of eatables simply drew from others who were better supplied.