Citizens and Soldiers – Two excerpts
Almost two decades before he embarked on his massive fictional account of the failed German revolution, Döblin had published eyewitness account of the chaotic aftermath of the Armistice and the Kaiser’s flight. He was outraged at the incapacity of “revolutionaries” effectively to exploit the vacuum of authority, yet sympathetic to the “little people” shaking free of Prussian servitude. These passages provide insights into Döblin’s transformation of “facts” into narratives – his Tatsachenphantasie.
Excerpt (1): Looting Spree
Tuesday the 12th
As if a command had been given, around three in the afternoon the turmoil withdrew from the town centre to the periphery. Every lane and alleyway was stuffed full of people and vehicles, all heading to where the landscape was barest and most haunted, to the barracks district, the long wide Barracks Road. Why? Did those without weapons mean to storm the barracks and take the troops prisoner?
Even in the barracks, no one at first realised exactly what was happening. They weren’t frightened, because they were keyed up and there were plenty of weapons. The people outside, townsmen and woman, peasant men and women with their barrows and oxcarts certainly didn’t look ready to storm the Bastille. They’d been drawn here by a rumour that the barracks were about to be ransacked. The promised looting that had attracted everyone in town – everyone had known with certainty for the past hour – would take place right now.
Lines of removal vans were at this moment crowding the north end of Barracks Road. Some were stationed outside villas, where furniture was being carried into the road. Officials moving out watched appalled as a pillage-hungry mob shoved its way through and surrounded the vans. There were shouts and threats. But nothing more serious, people still respected private property. In every group were a few calm men and women holding back the hotheads. “Let the Swabs leave in peace! Else they’ll still call us a pack of thieves.” And so the removal men saw that, though the vans were besieged by a noisy crowd, not a single thing was taken.
But outside the barracks, that huge long structure with firmly closed doors, was a seething mass of townsmen and women and those in flat hats and short black waistcoats, peasant lasses with bulging calves and healthy faces, wrinkled matrons.
And towards three o’ clock a window on the second floor halfway along the block was opened as far as it would go, soldiers, bareheaded, stood there laughing and calling down, and like a swarm of bees drawn by the scent of flowers, the mob flooded across the roadway. The soldiers had vanished, but reappeared to hurl armfuls of stuff out of the window. First came boots, the hobnails landed on the pavement with just a patter, then the rustle and clatter of leather goods, field dressings, belts, slings, cartridge pouches, paramedic packs.
From other windows masses of objects were ejected that bounced about, all kinds of utensils, a rain of trousers, jackets, braces, gaiter fastenings, leather gaiters. Other windows emitted woollen underwear, socks. From another came the crash of shovels and iron cooking pots. A surging smashing drumming without pause. And howling human voices too. Now and then a consignment was preceded by a warning whistle.
How eagerly the soldiers up there grubbed and shovelled at the stores of clothing and kit. With what sense of release did they scatter the stuff down onto the road. For they knew the meaning of the underwear, the shovels, boots: materiel for a new winter campaign. There they go, shovels for trenches and their own graves. Those greatcoats were meant to clothe new regiments. In them they were to be shot to pieces. Death, blood, cannon’s roar from every piece. They dragged them as far as they could, hurled them out of the window, down to the greedy civilians. They’d be in good hands there. From there it would never come again.
They did what they could to put an end to this war. And so they’d disobeyed the Council’s orders to protect the stores of clothing and equipment. That’s why there had been arguments in the barracks all morning. A majority of the Council wanted just to provide the soldiers with fresh clothing, of the rest, everything that couldn’t be carried off was to be left where it was. No one was to “encroach on State property”. And what if the huge inventory should fall into French hands, that was still in order, and no one had any further rights over the goods. But a majority of the rank and file weren’t convinced. Finally the sentries posted by the Council itself outside the storerooms were taken by surprise, and the word went out: all stores are the property of the soldiers. And they honoured this motto and acted accordingly, hour after hour.
Soldiers young and old walk unmolested in and out of the door. They wear fresh clothes, carry stuff out. Peasants and townsfolk have gathered on the opposite side of the long road, stand in clumps waiting for them. There’s buying and selling. Sacks are stuffed full, the peasant carts load up.
Citizens so far uninvolved are attracted by the noise and bustle. Lurking among them are officers and officials, still in town to make sure their belongings get away safely. In civilian clothes they push through the throngs of peasants and townsfolk and gaze at the outrageous spectacle. Some are pressed for a while against the iron railings of the house where the blind captain used to live; the shutters are closed. They brave the dreadful shattering sight for a long while, it’s as mesmerising as a volcanic eruption. For they too know: what is being thrown from the windows is the last chance for a final resistance. It would still have been possible to salvage some honour. In anger and disgust they see being discarded the toil day and night of thousands, incessant wartime activity in factories to protect the front and the homeland. What is being despoiled here and snapped up by these beasts of peasants and townsfolk is the German Fatherland, the Empire, the officer corps, the entire state. They try to endure the sight. There’s bartering all around them. They push on. How the soldiers laugh and wave from every window in the barracks, how they howl. Calamity.
After five o’ clock soldiers exit the main door, armed. Others sweep the corridors and prevent the last emptying of the storerooms. The word is: there are still many comrades who must be considered. With that the upstairs windows are closed at last.
Barracks Road slowly empties.
Darkness. A few lanterns.
Again the rattle of moving vans. They go creaking along the streets. They’re hurrying towards the main roads, and away.
The peasants are back in their villages with the loot. Many are drunk. Fellow villagers, the old, children, gather round and listen to their stories. It’s a joy.
*
Wednesday the 13th
In this same darkness the old woman got up without needing to be wakened. She wanted to use the day that had not yet broken to finish what had been left undone yesterday, with the looting.
The sounds of ransacking had washed from the barracks over the female occupants of the military hospital, the opportunity was there, the first attempt made. A mixture of camaraderie and rivalry had developed among nurses, kitchen staff and auxiliaries. It involved an onslaught on linen stores, and minds turned to big porcelain bowls, cups and plates. Others dreamed of conserves.
The old woman woke her husband. He was to drink his coffee. He didn’t understand: why so early. He climbed obediently out of bed, she said nothing of what she planned. Now he was sitting before a lit paraffin lamp in his place, half asleep, little cap on the bald head, he held the big hot cup in both hands and warmed himself. She handed him his glasses and the newspaper, mumbled a farewell, clattered off.
He began to slurp the coffee, lay back in the chair, his hands dropped to his thighs, he slept, head on his chest.
It was daylight when he awoke. There was hammering in the yard, the major on the second floor was leaving. He noticed with a shock that the lamp was still burning, and blew it out. Then he hobbled with the crutch to the bed, and when he’d washed and was back in his chair with the pipe, he began his day, said aloud: “So. It’s the 13th of November.” He took a big pull on the pipe, and put on his glasses.
Today the old man did not reach for the newspaper. He poked one of the crutches at his toolbox and hooked it closer. He bent down and rummaged among the tools. He pulled out a crumpled blue envelope. He smoothed the envelope, it was open, he pulled a folded paper from it. an official communication concerning the confiscation, surrender and induction of items seized in accordance with War Materials Department Decree M325/7.15 KRA and/or M325e/7.15 KRA of 10 November 1915. The old man kept it hidden in the box under the table, and now and then took a furtive look in order to give himself a treat.
After glancing around to convince himself all was quiet, he puffed away and read out in a quiet voice: “The following decree is hereby made public on instructions from His Majesty’s Minister of War with the notice that any contravention …”
With his index finger he carefully followed the text and turned the paper over: when had His Majesty’s Minister of War requested that any contravention …
“Here it is, 3 December 1915. Governor Vietinghoff-Scheel p.p. Why p.p.? Why not the actual governor, since the War Minister addressed it to him?” The old man stumbled every time on this point. The governor was away on a trip, but then they could telephone, maybe the governor’s position was a bit wobbly, or the War Minister and he had some conflicts, the governor refused to accept this War Minister’s decrees, had his deputy sign . Good Lord, he said with a big outtake of breath, having let all these thoughts pass by, the things these high-ups get up to, especially in the military.
He turned the paper back over and took a puff.
Lots goes on in the world, much of this was no longer valid, including the business with Vietinghoff-Scheel, the deputy, maybe even the War Minister; what’s happened to him? He weighed the document doubtfully in his hand. Outside there was hammering. He squinted towards the sound, shook his head, turned back to his document. And as his eyes read slowly syllable by syllable, the man who’d been hammering came in and they had a chat about glue, because a pretty Chinese smoking set had got broken in the packing. Surely the Chinese must have the best glue! The old man had no idea, they carefully inspected the broken lid of the black box and felt over the break without result until the man left.
“Items affected by the decree, Class A, objects of copper and brass.
(1) Vessels and trade equipment of all kinds for cooking and baking, for example pots for cooking and pickling, jam kettles and ice cream tubs, saucepans and fruit boilers, pans, baking moulds, casseroles, dishes, mortars.”
The old man read each word out in a low voice, and there before his eyes were the objects and the uses to which they were put: jam kettles, ice cream tubs, the fruit that goes into them after you’ve picked or bought it, add lots of sugar, boil a long time. He recalled his mother in nearby Drusenheim, how she made preserves, he was just a boy, she poured it into metal buckets and it went down to the cellar, and now and then a procession went down, every child held a bowl for the ration doled out by the mother.
After “mortars” there was a little cross, which pointed to an annex with an alphabetical list of copper and brass moulds used in cooking and trade, and for the old man this was a delight. There the wonderful things appeared one after the other, it was for them he kept this document. For although he’d been only a cobbler and the wife had been able to find only cleaning jobs, and they’d had to be modest in their eating and drinking, still he had secretly remained a gourmet. As long as he was working he never had the chance, he sat behind his cobbler’s globe smelling old leather and hammering and stitching. But after his stroke he took himself in hand, he became a doorman and was able to take better care of himself. Then he noticed what a taste he still had for good things, his wife and the pastor’s wife brought him cigars, cakes, pastries, and he had discovered for himself this bit of reading matter.
He read with relish: stirring pot, aspic mould, aspic ruffs, pudding moulds, baking tins, baking moulds of every kind, mixing spoons (here he sighed with deep emotion, sweet white cake dough dripped from the spoon, as children they’d been allowed to lick the spoon), oven spatulas, biscuit moulds, egg boilers, egg poaching pans. For a quarter of an hour he was silently transported in his clouds of smoke.
Now he’d had enough, he smoothed the document and placed it gently in the envelope as a well known clipclop of clogs sounded in the yard. Right, it’s the wife, the envelopes slid quickly into the box, the wife clipclopped past the door, didn’t come in. And since she didn’t come in – she had disappeared towards the vegetable plot at the back – he stood up and made his way with the crutches into the corridor. Just then she came up behind him pushing an old pram. “Back in the room,” she cried, he hobbled obediently back, she followed, closed the door, and as she searched around on her bed, he still standing on his crutches by the table, she said: “I need a blanket.” She rummaged silently in the cupboard. “Here it is.” It was an ancient counterpane, she folded it: “I have to go back to the hospital. We’re fetching stuff away.”
“What stuff?”
She was outside, jolting her little wagon across the yard.
The man sat down shocked. They’re stealing. The pastor said something about it. The woman’s mad, she’ll be shot. What should I do? The hospital, that’s too far for me.”
An uneasy hour later she was back. She pushed the pram into the room, closed the door behind her. Kitchen cloths, hand towels, whole packages emerged, she stacked it all on her bed. He loomed over her on his crutches. “Woman, they’ll shoot you.”
She held a hand to his mouth, tapped him on the forehead. “I’m off again. Crockery.”
He watched as she spread the loot out on the bed, smoothed it with her hands, bedding, hand towels, serviettes. What does she need all this for. How she strokes it. Now she turns around, opens the cupboard, puts the stuff away. The wrinkles in her cheeks fade, the crow’s feet at the eyes blur. When she picks up a bundle of linens she does it like lifting a baby. Like there’s a light gleaming from the bundle. The old man’s rheumatism twinges; that’s how she was when the boy was alive.
She gathered up the counterpane again, clipclopped with the pram down the corridor, past men hammering at crates.
Involuntarily, after a while his foot felt under the table for the box with the emergency decree, but he didn’t take it out again.
Excerpt 2: The Wilhelmshaven Sailors
Wednesday the 13th/Thursday the 14th
Smokestack flaring, over rattling rails, never once stopping, a special train came on its way from Wilhelmshaven through Osnabrück, Münster, Düsseldorf, Cologne. On board were two hundred and twenty sailors of the High Seas Fleet belonging to the avant garde of the revolution, Alsatians, now all asleep on benches, in the aisles. They meant to save Elsass from the French.
They were some of the twenty thousand or so naval recruits from Elsass and Lothringen in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. Why so many? Every year a representative in the Elsass provincial assembly asked this question. From the government desk he received the curious mocking reply: they withstand a tropical climate so well, so very well. Being now in the navy at Kiel, they had joined the revolt of the 1st and 3rd Squadrons of Admiral von Hippe, and were present when the red flag was hoisted on the battleships König, Kronprinz Wilhelm, Kurfürst, Thüringen, Helgoland, Markgraf.
How it came over the sailors at the beginning of November is easily explained. All through the war they had languished in their home base. And they would still have held out comfortably enough for the last one or two weeks of the war. But then their officers brewed up something not to their liking. They were supposed, all eighty thousand men, to leave harbour and head into a certain death which they, like every human being, abhorred. That’s not why the officers betrayed the plan to them, rather the sailors intercepted farewell letters from the officers to their loved ones, from which they could read between the lines. The naval officers wanted to engage the English, lurking outside in much greater strength than they, in battle. For now that it was at last certain in this November that no victory was possible on land or on water, they wanted at least to go down with flying colours. Who did? The officers. But the sailors took the view that there were two parties. For the vessels on which the officers proposed to die also contained them, the sailors. And they were not available for such a matter. And so as the hour of the mandated sailing approached, no fires burned in the ships’ boiler rooms. Even the stokers did not want to die. Frederick the Great had once had to deal, at the battle of Kunersdorf, with the curious reluctance of people, soldiers even, to head into certain death. He roared: “Do you want to live forever?” But even that animated only a few. Field commanders often notice: people are reluctant to die when it’s as plain as the nose on their face. Of course, once they’re over the tricky business of dying they lie there quite calmly, but these are not very rewarding for the field commander.
In Kiel, the officers screaming at the sailors and their agitators received the blunt response: “We won’t obey. You’ve lost the war. It wasn’t our war.” This response was sealed with blood on both sides, and confirmed as final.
The events at Kiel were repeated at Wilhelmshaven, Altona, Bremen. These were the most appalling, final, absolutely final days for the German army, when the American General Pershing broke through in the Argonne and pushed on towards Metz.
When the Alsatian sailors read in the newspapers over the next few days what kind of armistice conditions were being imposed, and that Elsass-Lothringen, their own land, was mentioned, they pricked up their ears. Oho, we might have a little something to say about that. So swiftly had these bawled-out underlings turned into free, even proud people, who would not have their rights taken from them.
Seaman Thomas came from Weissenburg. He was a temperate man who had served eighteen years in the imperial fleet. People listened when he spoke. Sailors quizzed him. They swore: “The Entente’s planning a mean trick on our Elsass, they’re going to swallow it up.” They cursed the deceitful imperialism of Mr Wilson from America. Where was this right of self-determination he loves to peddle? Mischievous Reich Germans wormed their way in, stoking up steam behind them even though they had other goals in mind. But the sailors swore an oath: “We demand our Elsass. We shall never let anyone take our Elsass.” They felt the might of the revolution in their bones. “We shall bring the revolution to Elsass. Kleber was our general.”
A special train was put together for them at Wilhelmshaven. The fires from the North Sea coast raging across the whole of Germany would now be hurled at Elsass.
Through the night the train sped, smokestack flaring, never stopping, past Osnabrück, Münster, Düsseldorf, Cologne. It was Wednesday the 13th. Now they had arrived in Strassburg, on Thursday, a hundred and eighty men. For forty of them had been given up to Metz and Saarbrücken. All hundred and eighty assembled in Strassburg on wide Station Square, slung the rifle on the back and set off, red flag to the fore, in close formation not losing a minute, down narrow Küssstrasse, left onto St John’s Quay, then along Kleber Quay, and there already was the Palace of Justice. They were in a great hurry, for they had already worked out that in war and revolution everything depends on speed. If you’re not quick the other will be quick, and if you’re quicker than the other then you’re already halfway to winning the encounter.
The Regional Court building stood on Finkmatt Quay. Excited people followed them from the station. A big crowd had already gathered outside the Palace of Justice opposite. But you mustn’t think that those who at that time, ever since the revolution, had gathered day in day out before the Palace of Justice and came thronging in little columns were all passionate politicians. Among the many remarkable changes that had been wrought on the sinister court building during those days was its conversion to a feeding station. For soldiers passing through or searching, the demobilised who wandered about with no roof over their heads naturally turned first to their Soldiers’ Council. And the councillors, well aware of what was most important in the life of a human being, simply had several field kitchens brought into the ground floor of the Regional Court building, and there people ate, warmed themselves no questions asked, and various questions were thereby in many cases rendered moot. They made a din, sang, and now and then, from the upper corridor where the governing was going on, thunder rumbled down – but it was milder than many a judge’s pronouncement. For the people making a din up there in the courtroom, Room 45, were the same kind of people as the ones downstairs eating and warming themselves.
It’s almost noon, and Staff Sergeant Hueber is presiding – they’ve debated and thundered about yesterday’s looting, the security details had tried to hold people back, they’d threatened, in the end they’d been forced to fire, and some had been wounded, some scoundrels even set fires among the provisions to facilitate looting – when a tremendous din rises up from below, not the ordinary din silenced by thunder from above – cheering, shouts of joy, boots marching up the stairs, the doors to the courtroom burst open, and preceded by a red flag, tree-tall Thomas at the head, sailors come marching in! The courtroom erupts.
When the general jubilation subsides and the bluejackets have scatteredaround the room to find seats and greet acquaintances, Thomas the giant steps solemnly onto the podium and from there declares to those below how happy they all are to be back in dear old Strassburg. They have come from Wilhelmshaven in the name of sixteen thousand Alsatian sailors at the naval base to convey cordial greetings to their homeland! And now they are here and wish to act in the spirit of the Internationale to help their compatriots too to share in this new age of golden freedom and reconciliation among nations. Endless applause, handshakes, clapping of shoulders, fraternal embraces.
That was Thursday morning.
Already running battles were taking place in the Regional Court building among the “Inner Council”, and yes, sailors and soldiers and the new mayor of Strassburg Herr Peirotes were also present.
The sailors declared without preamble that it was their intention immediately to declare the Republic of Elsass-Lothringen. It proved very difficult to talk them out of it.
Peirotes was a clever man, Jacques Laurent his forenames, he’d been born in Strassburg. As a typesetter and journeyman he had travelled all through Central Europe, and had even visited the distant Balkans. But then he grew mindful of the pleasures of his homeland, and from a typesetter Strassburg made of him a writer, and a member of the Second Chamber. The much-travelled man was short and stocky, almost fifty years old now, he had a grave honest face, a high forehead, a thick moustache. He spoke in a firm rasping voice. He took the sailors on.
Peirotes said: “There is nothing to prevent you going to Kleber Square, which you know well, and having one of you, say Comrade Thomas himself, declare the new republic. But what will it achieve? Recently so much has been happening in Kleber Square, people have almost grown habituated to such goings on. In the evenings youths come running and make a spectacle, they set off firecrackers to make people think there’s shooting, and yesterday some of them stuck a cigarette in the mouth of Kleber up there on his plinth, and placed a garish cap on his head. Then they sang songs to provoke the people. Who would go along with that sort of thing. If someone wishes to declare a republic, there must also be some who are receptive.”
“It is necessary,” Thomas declared calmly, “we will not hand our Elsass over to French capitalism. What we achieved in Kiel and Wilhelmshaven we shall achieve here for the long term.”
Peirotes was astonished: “Think about it, Comrade Thomas! Why? In Kiel and Wilhelmshaven you chased away admirals and naval officers. Here we have no admirals on our little River Ill, we have no ship’s captains. There are Prussians. But they are withdrawing all by themselves. On the twenty-first, at noon on the dot, the last of them will march across the Kehl Bridge. The French have achieved this. And so we have no need to make revolution.”
“So. What will we have then? The French.”
Honest Peirotes gazed frankly at the wild Goliath in the sailor’s blouse. He thought: what mighty arms and hairy hands you have, you clamber with your thirty-five years like a monkey up masts, my hair is already falling out. But what must first be ascertained is, which of us two can do more here. Peirotes said to Thomas: “Indeed, the French. The people of Elsass have nothing against the French. After all, once upon a time we were French here. As you must know. In 1870 the Prussian boot heel came and stomped on our parents. You are an Alsatian, you’ll have heard about it at home. We never stopped protesting about it. And then, afterwards – let the townsfolk tell you what they have endured during this war. Yes, frankly and honestly, the whole world here is glad the French are coming.”
Thomas thrust his hands into his pockets, straightened himself in his seat, laughed out loud and looked around at his friend Eisenring: “What do you say to that? They want their French. So we can just steam back to where we came from.”
Peirotes: “The people want them. And we comrades from Strassburg and the whole of Elsass, we want them too. Yes, glare at me. We are all of one mind. And if you should perhaps head off to Kleber Square, friend Thomas, and there declare the Republic of Elsass-Lothringen, let me make a prediction.”
“I’m all ears.”
“When you are on the square, there will be not a single socialist, not a single Alsatian! Not one single soul! The only ones there will be – Old Germans. Old Germans, patriots of the Emperor. And the Alsatians will say out loud what they are already muttering: you lot are delegates from Germany, you’ve been sent here with German money, from Berlin, to place us once again under the whip.”
Thomas crossed his arms. “Listen to this fellow. Just listen to him. To think that of us. To say that to our faces.”
Peirotes: “Convince the people, Comrade Thomas. Go there. Have some fun, take the test in Kleber Square.”
Thomas, coarse and loud: “I have nothing to do with Wilhelm and the Prussians. I’ve proved that. I’m just as good an Alsatian as you. But I’m a socialist as well. And you’re a Frenchy stooge.”
Peirotes was unfazed: “I’m a socialist. I’ve been in the party all my life. You mustn’t think that because you come from Wilhelmshaven you know more than I do of socialism. Socialism requires preparation. Here there is nothing to be done. Not now. Socialism comes not from you or from me, but from the masses. Show me the masses.”
“Then we must enlighten them, lead them, the situation is not so bad, now the war is over. Everyone knows what capitalism and imperialism are up to.”
Peirotes shrugged: “So give it a try. You are new people. You have revolutionary experience. Tell the people what you know. If you wish (it’s not us who should have the say) you can call assemblies. Today is Thursday. When will you speak?”
Thomas glanced at his young friend Eisenring, who was a good-humoured fellow but was now smouldering with an ardent fury: “So that’s how it is. You come from a country where the revolution is victorious and knock on your neighbour’s door where the same thing’s happening, and say to him: open your window, neighbour, take a look, see what’s going on in the world. And he babbles: I’ve got a headache, my back hurts, I can’t today, maybe tomorrow. The French are coming! As if the French can be against socialism and revolution. French soldiers, Peirotes, are our comrades, workers, peasants, little people who’ve had enough. They’ll fall into our hands like the 17th German Reserve Division tomorrow, when it marches out with its officers. What do you say, Eisenring, shall we try it?”
Peirotes, uneasy: “What?”
“What do you say, Eisenring? Here they’ve bungled it all. As you can see. Here they’re all fired up with chauvinism. We came just in time. Fine socialists! A dozy lot, devil take you! We shall assemble revolutionary soldiers, arouse the population.”
Peirotes was silent at first, then nodded: “Yes, you do that. You still have a good week, until the twenty-first, at twelve noon.”
Thomas leaned back and stared at Peirotes, his face hard: “This is what an Alsatian socialist look like. Take a good look, Eisenring. He’s thinking of French generals. He’s hoping for them, he’s waiting for the same generals who brutally suppressed the Commune. He’ll crawl before them, like the social democrats did in Germany. He’ll knock us flat. And if it comes to it he’ll have us shot, like they did with the mutineers last October.”
Peirotes, completely calm: “I won’t stand in your way. You have the power. I spoke only as a native Alsatian who knows the situation.”
Thomas sat glowering and smoked his pipe. When Peirotes asked what he intended, he roared, banging his fist on the table: “Call themselves socialists! Revolutionaries! If only we could sweep you all away.”
Eisenring begged him to calm down.
Peirotes stroked his moustache, stood up, knocked back his chair. He was a man too. Off he went.
But only a few paces. He was also the mayor.
