July 5, 1915. 
LAND AND .WATER. 
BERLIN FACADES. 
* By Desmond MacCarthy. 
ONCE I spent a fortnight in Berlin. A year ago I 
should not have thought it could ever seem worth 
while to make this confidence to the public; but 
since then Berlin has acquired in our eyes a 
sinister interest. From time to time articles are 
written by neutrals for our papers about life as it is going on 
there now, and on days when war new^s is scanty we read them 
with interest. The writers tell us only what has changed, 
taking for granted we know quite well what normal Berlin 
is like; and I, too, supposed that I remembered it all well 
enough till the discovery of some old postcards reminded me 
how much I had forgotten. Perhaps what follows may per- 
form the same service to others. The things that stick in the 
memory when visual impressions have grown hazy are those 
which seemed significant of national character. It is only the 
residual impressions, not the picture, that I can hope toreuder. 
If you have walked between the thirty-two marble 
Hohenzollerns towards the plump golden Victory who stands 
upon and dwarfs her fluted column of pink granite at the 
end of the Sieges Alle; if you have stood upon the steps of 
the gigantic portico of the Reichstag or beside those iron 
colossi, Bismarck and Moltke, feeling as though you had 
unaccountably lost human size, your aversion to German 
Kultur is likely to be, I do not say more intense (aft«r what 
has happened in Belgium, France, and on the seas that can 
hardly lie), but m.ore intimate. On the other hand, you can 
only marvel at the organising energy, the far-sighted con- 
fidence of that Kultur which has controlled the rapid develop- 
ment of Berlin and made it into so pompous and prosperous a 
capital. 
Berlin is a clean, ostentatious town; that is your first 
impression. It is a town in which no slums are visible, in 
epite of its busy manufactories, where not a single poverty- 
stricken person is to be seen in the streets. It is a town 
in which a policeman will pursue a piece of paper with the 
agonised concentration of a man trying to catch his own hat; 
and a beggar dares not speak to you. There is no eld Berlin; 
there i.s only a little shabby piece which is older than the rest, 
where the .streets are narrower and not straight; but the only 
parts of it which record a past age are the Royal residences. 
The style of architecture is very various, but on the whole 
the one which predominates is what may be called the Uni- 
versal Exhibition style (iron, plaster, and cement). On every 
hand is shown a passion for the fa9ade. These fa9ades are 
an orgie of bas-reliefs, columns and capitals, medallions, 
mosaics, and all the tricks of pastrycook decoration — when 
they do not aim at a portentous massiveness. The impressive- 
ncss of the city lies in the wideness of its streets, its large, gay 
open spaces, and its extreme cleanliness, and in these respects 
it is probably the first town in Europe. It is a town in which 
the shops resemble each other to a marked degree, and in 
which the gayest shops are those of the sellers of comes- 
tibles, and next, perhaps, the boot shops. The stamp of 
Royalty and the Army is all over it. Its streets and squares 
and places bear the names of Emperors and Empresses, or 
of generals and battles. When they do not, they are simply 
called " Royal." At every comer you come up against 
marble generals and iron kings; and public institutions, such 
as galleries, colleges, and hospitals, are called after either 
a Frederick or a William, an Augustus or an Augusta. 
There are quantities of fine restaurants, which appear 
crammed at all hours of the day, and not only occupied by 
those who seem to be people of leisure and pleasure, but by 
hard workers of limited means. The whole town gives an 
extraordinary impression of living hard and spending freely. 
The restaurants, as full as ever, remain open well into the 
early hours of the morning, and when one music-hall closes 
another begins, some of the entertainments beginning after 
one o'ciocki A good deal has been said lately about the did- 
ripation of Berlin. Its " night side " seems much the same as 
that of any other capital, only perhaps a little more noisy. 
I should say there was a tendency to be rather proud of it. 
The modern Berliner is not willing to believe he belongs to 
and ai'cient and corrupt civilisation; but the thing most 
likely to surprise the casual visitor is the frequent pre- 
sence of stolid bourgeoise families with their children or a 
placid couple in places where they would never go en famille 
in other countries, and at liours when they certainly would 
have elrewhore been in bed. There they sii eating and drink- 
ing, quietly enjoying tlie di.'^sipatlon, and glaring round about 
^em. When do the people of Berlin get tiieir .sleep? one 
wonders. For if the cafes and dancing rooms and halls do 
such brisk business all night, office work, business of all 
kinds, and trade begins about an hour and a half earlier than 
in London. The trams are full very early. They must sleep 
less — that is the only explanation; and that would account 
for their so constantly eating. Everyone knows short nights 
mean long meals or collapse. 
There is too much facade about Berlin, and this is a char- 
acteristic of several sides of modern German life. Strangely 
enough, it is the German instinct for tlioroughn.ess which 
has produced this result. It has made them go in for making 
a show with an awful completeness .... Thus the appar- 
ent absence of poverty is a fayade constructed by the police. 
No doubt it represents also some solid benefits, but ju.?t as 
behind those monumental street fronts the interors are in- 
differently furnished, so there are cramped, miserable lives 
beneath the surface of apparently contented modest suffi- 
ciency. The wealthy elegance of Berlin is also a facade. 
But what is not mere appearance is the power of work which 
has created Berlin, all that is solid as well as all that is pre- 
tentious in it. We know that Germany's military power was 
far from being a fayade, whatever else we think of it. Not 
can we think that the way her people are cohering together 
and working together behind the battle line now is not 
all that it seems. It is the extraordinary docility 
of the German people which makes these things pos- 
sible, and also produces that aspect of contentment in 
Berlin and elsewhere; that surface which is so satisfying to 
the bureaucratic and autocratic mind. Just as no tourist 
hugs so fondly his Baedeker as the German tourist, so at lionie 
he delights in being told what to do and what not to do. 
The wovd rerhoicn, which he so often hears and sees, lias no 
disagreeable flavour about it. One can find hundreds ql 
examples of this psculiarity. Hare is one. A Frenchman 
told me that he spent a few days at the popular seaside resort 
Norderney, and he described to me the scene at the bathing 
hour — of course the hours for bathing were fixed. At the 
appointed time the bathers in striped costumes came 
cautiously stepping down to the waves, where bathing mcii 
awaited them, and sprayed them with cold water. Provided 
the bathers did not venture in far above the knee, nctliing 
extraordinary happened, but the m.oment anyone had the 
imprudence to wade out till the water reached his chest, the 
bathing officials began to blow trumpets, wave flags, ar.d to 
make energetic gestures commanding the foolhardy venturer 
to come back to shallower water. There was, it must be 
added, no danger whatever; the coast was without currents 
and the shore without abrupt holes; but the air was per- 
petually filled with imperious cries and tocts from the horns. 
They herded these docile holiday-makers like sheep. Nobody 
insisted on swimming; they were content to get wet by bob- 
bing to the waves. Only one was disobedient, and he waa 
threatened with being forbidden to bathe in future. Perhaps 
forty or fifty thousand visitors put up with this every yc.ir ! 
Now, what is interesting is that this submission is not due 
to an absurd timidity. We know the Germans, on the con- 
trary, are a brave race. But they positively like being locked 
after and ordered about. 
Critics in their own country have jeered at them for tliejr 
Deinernatur, their lackey spirit. It is not an unamiable 
characteristic in itself. It is pleasant to deal with people 
who are not perpetually on the defensive because tHey serve. 
It contributes not a little to that pleasant air of general con- 
tentment which strikes the traveller in Germany. It has, too, 
a kind of dignity. But if not objectionable in itself, it pro- 
duces odious qualities in those who do the ordering about, 
and it makes such as, in addition, take advantage of their 
position positively intolerable to all other human beings who 
are not submissive. Official, political, and military Germany 
is the result of German docility. Fear is always an ingredient 
in hatred, and Europe has been afraid of Germany; but she 
has been afraid of her because she was not only powerful, but 
a bully. It would he an answer to a German who wanted to 
know why his country had been disliked so long simply to 
point to the statues with which Berlin is peppered. The 
spirit of overbearing brag and swagger (com.bined with an 
absence of taste) which produced them accounts for it. The 
world will not stand being bullied, especially by a graceless 
bully; and the Germans themselves do not understand liow 
deep this resentment goes, because as a race they can stand 
mere bullying than any other. 
15^ 
