My Escape from Germany 3

My Escape from Germany 3

CHAPTER II

 

RUHLEBEN: THE SHEEP AND THE GOATS

 

 

Ruhleben! A ride in a trolley car of fifty minutes to the east, and

one would have been in the center of Berlin. Toward the west the town

of Spandau was plainly visible. Shall we ever forget its sky-line--the

forest of chimneys, the tall, ugly outlines of the tower of the town

hall, the squat “Julius” tower, the supposed “war treasury” of the

Germans where untold millions of marks of gold were alleged to be lying!

 

Before the war the camp had been a trotting race-course, a model of

its kind in the way of appointments. Altogether, six grand stands, a

restaurant for the public, a club-house for the members of the Turf

Club, administrative buildings, and eleven large stables, all solidly

built of brick and concrete, illustrated German thoroughness.

 

These buildings, except the three smaller grand stands, clustered along

the west and south sides of an oval track, which was not at first

included in the camp area.

 

Since the beginning of the war the restaurant, the “Tea House” as it

was called, at the extreme western end, and the large halls underneath

the three grand stands next to it had been used to house refugees

from eastern Prussia. Then, an assorted lot of prisoners of war and

civilians interned, preponderantly Russian but with a sprinkling of

British and French subjects, had taken their place. A few Russians

were still there when we arrived but evacuated very soon after. Their

departure made the camp exclusively British.

 

We were given breakfast. It consisted of a bowl of so-called coffee

and a loaf of black bread. The bread was to last us two days. Then we

were marched to our palatial residence, Stable No. 5. We set to work to

remove the plentiful reminders of the former four-legged inhabitants

and installed ourselves as best we might.

 

The stables contained twenty-four box-stalls and two tiny rooms for

stable personnel on the ground floor, and two large hay-lofts above.

Six men to a box-stall was the rule, and as many as could be packed

into the lofts. I had experience in both quarters, for I slept in the

loft for more than a week, and then moved into “Box No. 6,” where a

space on the floor had become empty. My new quarters were, at first,

much less attractive than the loft. They offered, however greater

possibilities for improvement.

 

For six weeks we slept on a stone floor covered by an inch or so of

wet straw. We had just room enough to lie side by side. We could turn

over, if we did so together. The “loftites” slept on boards with

straw on top of them. Later we all got ticks into which we could pack

the wet and fouling straw. To start with, there was no heating. Then

steam-radiators were installed, and during this winter and the three

following, the stone barracks were heated in a fitful kind of way. The

locomobile boilers which furnished the steam, one for each three or

four barracks, delivered it into the radiators from 10 A.M. to 12 noon

and from 3 to 5 P.M.

 

At last the “boxites” received bedsteads. They consisted of a simple

iron framework with three-quarter-inch boards as mattresses. On

these we placed our ticks. The bed uprights had male and female ends

which permitted the building of as many superimposed bunks as seemed

practicable. Two sleeping-structures of three bunks each was the rule

in the boxes.

 

The food we received from the Germans was insufficient at any time. The

allowance per man for rations was sixty-five pfennigs per day--sixteen

cents at the pre-war rate of exchange. It was contracted for at this

price by a caterer.

 

While food in Germany was plentiful we could buy additions to our

rations at the canteen. This became gradually impossible. We didn’t

mind that much, as parcels containing food and other necessities, but

mainly food, began to arrive from England in ever-increasing number.

Relatives of prisoners, the firms they had been working for, and

trade-unions or other organizations to which they belonged started the

ball rolling. But when the real need of the prisoners became known in

Blighty, special organizations for the purpose of assisting them sprang

up everywhere. As they were independent of one another their work to

a great extent overlapped. The majority of the civilians interned

received too much; here and there a man received nothing at all.

Through the action of the British Government the work of the individual

societies was coördinated in November, 1916. From that date, the Order

of the Red Cross and St. John was in charge of all of the relief work

for prisoners of war, and each prisoner received six parcels of food

per lunar month, not counting two loaves of white bread per week.

 

As far as my experience goes, the German authorities made an effort to

have these parcels reach their destination. During the latter part of

my imprisonment deliveries became somewhat irregular. Food was scarce

at that time in some parts of Germany and commanded very high prices,

and the theft of parcels naturally increased.

 

Ruhleben camp was administered, at first, by the German officers in

charge, with the help of the interned. In the spring of 1916, all

of the internal affairs of the camp were placed in the hands of the

interned themselves, the Germans confining themselves to guard duties

and general supervision.

 

* * * * *

 

Much has been published about prisoners’ camps in Germany. Horrible

stories have been told about them, and these are in the main quite

true. But camps differed from one another; nor were the conditions in

a given camp always the same. I’m not suggesting gradual or steady

improvement. But, just as camp commanders and regional military

commanders differed, so did the treatment of their charges differ. As

prisoners of war the men in Ruhleben camp were a pretty lucky lot. The

choice flowers of _Kultur_ bloomed elsewhere.

 

In the beginning of our internment hopes of a speedy exchange to

England ran high, and so did rumors concerning it. They helped us

to endure the hardships of the first few months, hardships which

might have proved even less tolerable than they did without some such

sheet-anchor of faith.

 

In spite of the misery of the first winter, however, the majority of

the pro-English portion of the camp would at any time have refused a

chance of living “free” in Germany under the conditions we experienced

previous to our internment. This certainly was the prevailing opinion

among my friends, as it was mine. In camp, at any rate, we could

wag our tongues, and speak as we listed, if we took only ordinary

precautions. We had congenial companions, and shared our joys and

discomforts. As long as our health remained tolerable, who would not

have preferred this to liberty among German surroundings? But when

illness came upon us--and few escaped it altogether--it was rather a

tough proposition.

 

The colonial Britishers were not at first considered to come under

the heading “_Englander_.” Probably the Germans were waiting for the

disruption of the British Empire and intended to further it by partial

treatment of men from our colonies, for they let them remain at liberty

until the end of January, 1915. It was then that the colonials arrived

in Ruhleben.

 

Later came the separation of the sheep from the goats! There was

trouble in camp. It had started in a ridiculous manner. A young lad

had been overheard saying something about “bloody Germans,” and this

had been reported to the authorities by one of their spies. German

self-esteem was horribly hurt, the more so as they misunderstood the

epithet and interpreted it as “bloodthirsty.” Whispers of impending

trouble had reached us, and we were not astonished when, one morning--I

believe in February or March, 1915--the alarm bell sounded the “line

up.” Each barracks separately formed up in a hollow square in front of

its dwelling-place. And each barracks was addressed separately by the

camp commander, Baron von Taube. He was in a perfect frenzy of rage

when our turn came. Our barracks was one of the last spoken to, and how

he managed to keep up the performance after so many repetitions is a

thing I cannot easily understand.

 

“We shall be the victors in this war thrust upon us by your country!”

he shouted at us. “And here and now I fling your own __EXPRESSION__ back

into your faces. Bloody Englishmen I call you! Bloody Englishmen!”

He thumped his chest like a gorilla about to charge. He came near to

foaming at the mouth. So far it was merely amusing. Then came the

order: “All those who entertain friendly feelings toward Germany fall

out and hand in your names.”

 

Our barracks was rather a mixed one, many of its inhabitants being

pro-German in sentiment. In addition, good and loyal men all over

the camp, whose financial interests were entirely in Germany, became

panicky and went over to the other side in the futile hope of saving

their property. When they had gone to the office, we others were

dismissed. Excitedly we discussed what had happened. Many of us were

deeply disturbed. They were those who thought they had flung their all

into a well, as it were, by standing still when the pro-Germans fell

out. But we all hoped that the others would be quartered apart from us.

 

Unfortunately that was not the case. They came back and lived among us

for some time, their presence giving rise to many a quarrel.

 

Some months afterward another separation of the sheep from the goats

took place, much less dramatically, and this time the pro-Germans were

quartered all by their sweet selves at one end of the camp.

 

In April, 1915, two men escaped from the hospital barracks, situated outside the barbed-wire enclosure, and but carelessly guarded. One of them became a great friend of mine later on.