SPIES AND SEMI-SPIES

A comprehensive account of the German system of espionage would need something resembling the dimensions of a general encyclopaedia, but for the present I must endeavour to summarise the subject in the course of a chapter.

Spying is just as essential an ingredient of Prussian character as conceit, indifference to the feelings of others, jealousy, envy, self-satisfaction, conceit, industry, inquisitiveness, veneration for officialdom, imitativeness, materialism, and the other national attributes that will occur to those who know Prussia, as distinct from the other German States.

Prussian men and women hardly know the meaning of the word “private,” and, as they have Prussianised to a great or less degree all the other States of the Empire, they have inured the German to publicity from childhood upwards.

In the enforcement of food regulations the hands of the Government in Germany are strengthened by certain elements in the German character, one of which is the tendency of people to spy upon each other.  Here is a case.  Last Easter the customary baking of cakes—­a time-honoured ceremony in Germany—–­was forbidden all over Prussia from April 1 to 26.  A certain good woman of Stettin, whose husband was coming home from the trenches, thought that she would welcome her soldier with one of the cakes of which German men and women are so fond.  She foolishly displayed her treasure to a neighbour, who had dropped in for gossip.  The neighbour cut short the interview, went home to her telephone, called up the police and, as she put it, did her duty.  I suppose from the German point of view it is the duty of people to spy in each other’s houses.  From an Anglo-Saxon point of view it is something rather like sneaking at school.

With these elements in their character, it is natural that the Germans should be past masters in the art of espionage.  It does not follow that they are equally successful in the deductions formed from their investigations in foreign matters, but they are so egoistical and so literal, so fond of making reports, so fond of seeing things only from their own point of view, that, while they may be successful in obtaining possession by spying, purchase, or theft, of the plans, say, of a new battleship, they are not able to form an accurate estimate of the character and intentions of the people among whom they may be spying.

Their military spying is believed to be as perfect as such work can be, marred occasionally by the contempt they feel for other nations in military matters.  I presume that there is not much difference in the systems of various nations except that the German military spying is probably more thorough.

It is also true that Germans of social distinction will often take positions far beneath their rank in order to gather valuable information for their Government.  The case of the hall porter in the Hotel des Indes, the most fashionable hotel in The Hague, is a notorious example.  He is of gentle birth, a brother of Baron von Wangenheim, late German Ambassador to Constantinople.