SUBDUED SPIRIT IN GERMANY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1565, 17 June 1916, Page 4

SUBDUED SPIRIT IN GERMANY.

DOUBTS AS TO RESULT OF WAR. BY A RUSSIAN JOURNALIST WHO VISITED BERLIN RECENTLY. I must admit that Berlin was very disappointing. When I started on my journey I expected to find the well-known aspect of the city very little changed. Berlin under war conditions I thought would contain .a larger number of lieutenants with monocles and high collars, and I expected large placards with “Gott strafe England” and a general singing in chorus of the “Wacht am Rhein” and “Deutschland ueber Alies,” etc. Instead of this,-however, I find dirty, deserted streets and sombre towns feeling the serious and undoubted pinch of the shortage of prime necessities, and a total absence of placards with “Gott strafe England” or its new variant, “Hidekk” —Hauptsache ist das England keile krigt—(the main thing is that England is thrashed !). Search as I might, I could not find in Berlin or Dresden any traces of the “Hymn of Hate.” ALIEN WORDS RESTORED.

As I discovered afterwards, all the post cards, emblems, bills, and vulgar pictures with the invocation to the Almighty to “strafe” England and her Allies were recently confiscated by the authorities, and all “Hates" were stopped by police orders. I have found afterwards all this “Hate” literature, emblems, and post cards in Vienna. As if by a magic wand, English goods, French wines and scent, Russian caviare, Russian “Karavan” tea appeared in the restaurants and hotels, and the signs with English and French inscriptions which were pasted or painted over were restored again. The “Friedrichstrasse Bahnhof Gasthaus” has again become the old “Russisches Hof.” Foreign words banished by the Berlin police have returned; “Wirthhaus” is “restaurant” once more, “Spielhaus” is again “theatre,” and the Berliner who has suddenly become very polite is not afraid to pronounce the French “pardon." Another sign of the new reign of tolerance which is coming over Germany is the presence in all cafes, restaurants, libraries, and in most newspaper kiosks and bookshops, of French, English and Russian papers, and any educated German is not now afraid to sit in a cafe with The Times, Journal, and Matin in his hand, whereas a year ago he would have been mobbed. NEW ERA OF TOLERATION.

At the same time, in the bookshops, English, French and Russian books have appeared on the shelves and the well-known publishing firm of “Tauchnitz,” who .publish the so-called Continental editions of English authors, has recommenced its publications. On the stage enemy plays are produced, although of authors who died before the war.

Among (he “young” authors,, in contradistinction to the escapades of the “veterans” like Hauptmann, Demel, and others, who have written all sorts of “hymns” and “prayers,” there is a strong tendency to place and maintain art in its purity without any admixture of “politics.” A whole series of organs of “young” authors, especially the brave Munich monthly, “Das Forum,” edited by Wilhelm Herzog, have carried on a strong attack against the placing on the stage of the patriotic nibbish by old and contemporary authors, and against the capture of literature by rhymsters like Ernest Lissauer, the author of the notorious “Hymn of Hate.” As a sign of protest all these journals are publishing translations of French, English, Russian and Belgian authors, and give articles and reviews of modern foreign literature, just as they did before the war. FEWER JINGOES.

Together with the extinction of Chauvinism, the noisy, showy “beer” patriotism which finds expression in “Hochs” and the singing of “AVacht am Rhein” and “Deutschland ueber Alles,” has also (juietened down. I was told by intelligent Germans that this “beer” patriotism was absolutely unbearable at the beginning of the war. One could not sit in peace for half an hour in a cafe, and one had to rise ten or twelve times in the course of an evening and listen to the singing and shouting of drunken companies. New there are fewer drunkards and fewer “Hochs.” This is one of the blessings of (he higher price of beer and of the restriction on the quantity sold.

One must not assume from the above that the Germans have ex-

changed their “hates” for love of their enemies—far from it! From my conversation with people of various social positions I have come to the conclusion that up till now the hatred of England, mingled, perhaps, with a* feeling of fear, is still strong in every German. The attitude towards the French it not only calm hut even somewhat sympathetic.

The feeling against Russia and the Russians is less acute than that towards England ; there is also some lingering fear of Russia. The general opinion is that the fate of the war will be decided on the Russian front, and not on any of the others.

When I remarked that most of the neutral countries do not believe in the final victory of Germany, and cannot even conceive that such giants as England and Russia, with their inexhaustable resources of men and material, cun be conquered, there was no murmer of protest, but rather a, silent acknowledgment. In general, it looks as if Germany has entered a phase of some great doubt. —Daily Chronicle.