1940-02-27 — Page 5

THE CHINA MAIL, FEBRUARY 27, 1940.

THE

UNCENSORED TRUTH

Expedition. In this, his second article, the distinguished neutral

into Germany

observer sent on a special Expedition into Germany aạm...nth ago describes his visit to blacked-out wartime Berlin.

'Spee Scuttling Was Right'

GOOSE BOUGHT

WITH PARAFFIN

REVELATIONS IN

A BEER CELLAR

By A NEUTRAL OBSERVER

one

I arrived in Berlin on New Year's good beer, though expensive Eve. There was only onc luggage mark twenty (about 2s.) for a large porter on the gloomy. blacked-out glass. Friedrichstrasse Station when train finally wheezed in a few hours before midnight-only five and a half hours late.

"We don't listen to his beastly broadcasts any more."

my As I sat there a field-grey soldier came in slowly down the steps into the cellar. He was alone. He looked pale and wretched as he shyly passed "I'm only half Aryan, My mother between the tables.

I say "only" because that's what my German fellow-travellers said. They seemed to think a delay of five and a half hours on a fourteen-hour trip quite good going.

The porter went along the train with a trolly and torch and helped us pas- sengers to put our bags on the trully--- price flity pfennigs (about tenpence) a bag.

There were no taxis to be had. "Never are after the black-out, and espeelally not on New Year's Eve," said the porter bitterly, as he trundled our stuff down to the Underground station.

At the hotel they knew me from previous visits.

That, I suppose, was why the re- ceptionist had sufficient confidence to offer right away to sell me some extra food coupons-a little transaction which, if it comes to the ears of an unfriendly policeman, means a strelch of penal servitude for all concerned. Nevertheless the food coupon racket is a good one, and in the big cities I found one could always buy a few .extra coupons.

The most expensive and most diffi- cult to get are those for clothes. Money is cheap in Germany to-day because there is so little to buy. And, therefore, if you want something really ambitious you must throw in something precious in return.

For instance," one of my Berlin friends gaily invited me to eat roast goose with him and his family, a most generous invitation. But when I got there the kitchen was bare.

The farmer who had promised them the goose had sold it to some one else who, as the farmer himself apologised, had given him a litre of parafin.

So instead we had

some corned beef from the store of tins which my friend had wisely piled up years be- fore the war.

#

Beer-2/-For

Large Glass

He glanced towards me. "Come and sit here,” I said, "If you like. I'm alone, ton. We can keep each other company."

"Thank you," he said,

was a Jewess."

They Cannot Be Promoted

hung up his greatcoat and sat down.

"I am afraid I don't understand," Then I saw the black-white-black I said. "Why can't you be promoted? ribbon of the Iron Cross on his You're a soldier. Surely all soldiers tunic. The waiter brought us beer. can be promoted?" "You have the Iron Cross, and yet you are sad,” I said.

"Oh, that. Yes, I have it," he said, looking down at the ribbon, and fell silent again. Then suddenly he burst out: "Both my brothers have fallen. One was killed Modlin; the other was wounded the In the fighting at

ANOTHER

exclusive article by the neutral observer, re- vealing still more of the uncensored truth about Germany, will appear in the "China Mail"

TO-MORROW

same day. He died in hospital terday. I got the news to-day. I am all alone."

He Saved His Captain

"SICK OF GOEBBELS"

know, are Hitler's special army under the command of Himmler.)

It was an

astonishing story he poured out to me. I looked round to see whether any one was watch- ing or listening, but no one was, 50 far as I could tell.

Later, when

German I met old friends of mine in Danzig and Frank- fort whom I could trust, I asked them what about it, and they confirmed the soldier said.

They had heard about these things from their officer sons in the Reichs- wehr when they came home on leave.

Soiled Name Of The Army

The trouble seems partly due to normal professional Jealousy be- tween the Reichswehr and the S.S., He shook his head. "I am only who as shock and police troops re- half Aryan. Half Aryans can be- celve better treatment even than the come soldiers. They can fight for Reichswehr motor-cycle shock troops, the Fatherland. They can wounded. They can be killed-as my ing in Poland.

be who bore the main brunt of the fight- brothers have been killed. But they

The S.S. police troops did not join cannot be promoted. I cannot even in the fighting, but were given the become a corporal."

cleaning up job to do behind the lines.

Again he fell silent. Then he said: "It was decent of them, though, to give me the Iron Cross. That will stop the others in my section from ragging me."

The Reichswehr accused them of having soiled the name of the Ger- man Army by looting and pillaging and gratuitous brutality to the po- pulation.

We drank in silence. From the next table a girl screeched to us to cheer up.

The soldier glared at her.

Said my lonely soldier: "You know, We Reichswehr soldiers wear the Then he said to me: "For the present

The S.S. wear I am in luck. They've ordered me eagle on our breast. to join

The Polish peasants the army of occupation in it on the arm. Poland.

have learned the difference. They say: That's a soft job and no

'Eagle fighting. I am going to Bielitz with a

on breast-soldier all right.

draft tomorrow."

Eagle on arm-soldier bad, very bad"." As the evening went on he lost Among at least some of the units his restraint more and more. He of the Reichswehr there is a revolt told me of Poland. He talked of the against the Goebbels propaganda me- S.S., whom he loathed, and the thods. But it was not my friend in bitter feeling' between them and the the beer cellar who told me this. -- Reichswe? r, to which he belonged.-------- 1 -- got it from a young officer on...... yes-

It was so bad now, he said, that leave, whom I met when I called on Now

in many places officers of crack his parents. I had known him and Reichswehr units refused to return his father and mother for a long time, the salute of S.S. men (the S.S., you

(Continued on Page 14)

He himself, he gradually told me, had been in the fighting at Tomaszow. The Poles defended the place street by street, he said. They had machine- guns in good ambush positions. Sometimes they let the Germans pass, to take them in the rear.

His Iron Cross he had got for bringing his wounded captain out of the battle. He carried him to a motor van In the street. Somehow

There is a cellar attached to the hotel, and that's where I saw the

he managed to drive through the New Year in. It wasn't very gay. Polish machine-gun fire. The management had festooned a

"How we got through, I don't few paper streamers across the room. know. I got two shots through my A moulting, shrivelled bit of left leg, the steering wheel was shot Christmas tree sat in a corner clean out of my hand, and yet

well quite an effort this, as officially we got through. The van capsized

there were to be no Christmas into a ditch just by the side of some trees on account of, the shortage of wood.

of our men.”

"What happened to the captain?" I asked.

"He died later in the field hospital." "And you?"

At the tables squatted the familiar Berlin groups of middle-aged, bald- headed men and buxom young women, engaged in half-hearted

"Oh, I was all right. They flew me frivolity. Most of them were drink to Vienna in a hospital plane, and I ing a mixture of beer and champagne, am 'perfectly K.V. again now." (K.V. or beer and German gin.

stands for Kriegsverwendungsfachig,

The girls did their best to liven which means Fit for War.), "They things up with gusts of squeaky said they would have promoted me laughter. Upstairs a:band3was play» if they could. I have education : and ing the favourite patriotic, song, "Wir all that. But, of course, they can't Marschieren Gen Engelland." ("We promote me." March Against England"},

I sat down at a large table all by myself and ordered a beer. It's still

"But why not?” I asked.

"Well, you see," he said, - and he smiled as though it was hurting him,

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