The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War by D. Thomas Curtin
page 10 of 320 (03%)
page 10 of 320 (03%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
I mastered my temper by reminding myself that whereas such
treatment at home would have been sufficiently insulting to break off further relations, it was not intended as such in Germany. It was a long walk for a tired man to the _Polizeiamt_. When I got there I was fortunate in encountering a lank, easy-going old fellow who had been commandeered for the job owing to the departure of all the local police for the war. He was clearly more interested in trying to find out something of _his_ relations in some remote village in America, which he said was named after them, than in my business. I returned to pay the 100 pounds and deliver the photographs, and now that I had been officially "policed" was received with great cordiality and pressed to spend the evening. Father, mother, grown-up daughters and brother-in-law all assured me that it was not owing to my personal appearance that I had been so coldly received, but that war is war and law is law and that everything must be done as the authorities decree. Cigars and cigarettes were showered upon me and my glass was never allowed to be empty of Rhine wine. Good food was set before me and the stock generously replenished whenever necessary. It will be remembered that I had come unexpectedly and that I was not being entertained in a wealthy home, and this at a time when the only counter-attack on Germany's success in the Balkans was an increased amount of stories that she was starving. Evidently the Schultzs and the Schmidts were not taking all the |
|