“Smiling at the ridiculous supposition and the maddened howls of the ever-increasing throng, the lady endeavoured to enter a tram.  Men placed themselves in front of the car, others dragged the frightened woman out again and with blows and kicks she was driven before them to the next police station.  But the saddest part of these excesses—­and I am only describing a few of which I was accidentally a witness—­is that members of the so-called educated classes participated in them."[53]

[Footnote 53:  A special correspondent in the Frankfurter Zeitung, August 7th.]

“On one of the most frequented open places in Breslau a soldier approached a lady and looked searchingly into her face.  She understood him, and remarked with a smile:  ‘I am not a spy!’ The man replied:  ’But you have short hair.  I am sorry, you must come with me.’

“She at once recognized that the wisest plan was to accompany him, and turned to do so.  The movement worked like a signal; the bystanders immediately threw themselves in blind rage upon the defenceless woman.  In vain the single soldier tried to protect her, and equally in vain was the assistance of two policemen who had come up.  Her cries to be taken into a neighbouring house for safety met with no response.

“Her garments were literally torn from her body, a spectacle which finally proved to her persecutors that she actually was a woman, but that fact no longer protects her.  Brutal instincts, once let loose, are mad and unrestrained.  Blows continue to fall on her head and kicks rain against her body.  She only tries to shield her eyes.  ’Take her to the police station’ was shouted, but that is some distance away.  And any second may mean death—­a horrible, disgraceful death.

“Having arrived in the guard-room the officials are soon convinced that they have to do with an absolutely innocent woman.  Outside the throngs yelled in triumph."[54]

[Footnote 54:  Breslauer Generalanzeiger, August 6th.]

A German officer wrote the following account to the Berliner Zeitung am Mittag (August 5th):  “May I supplement your article ’Spies and Spy-hunting’ with a few facts from my own personal knowledge.  On August 3rd no fewer than sixty-four spies (?) were brought into the police station at the Potsdamer Railway Station (Berlin).  Not one was kept in arrest, for the simple fact that they were all innocent German citizens.

“Among others who were ‘captured’ and threatened with death by the raging crowd on the Potsdamer Platz were:  A pensioned Prussian major, who was waiting for his son; a surgeon in the Landwehr; a high official from the Courts of Justice; and lastly, a pensioned Bavarian army officer who, on account of his stature, was thought to be a Russian.  A drunken shop-assistant egged on the crowd against this last suspect, so that his life was really in danger.  He was rescued by four Prussian officers, who pretended to arrest their Bavarian colleague, and were in this way able to lead him into safety.”