as much that was harsh and bad in the earlier days of internment
in Germany, but the official U.S. reports certainly make us aware of
cordial German co-operation in improving matters. The unofficial
account, moreover, of Dr. Cimino ("Behind the Prison Bars in Germany")
astonishes me chiefly by the amount of politeness which it reveals in
the German official.

There will always be stupid officials, and complete military authority
is a very dangerous thing. This obvious conclusion should be recognised
as applying (to some extent at least) to both sides. It is a rather
dreadful thing to be under more or less hostile restraint, whether one
be German or British. "Even if ideal conditions prevailed, one could not
remove the unavoidable feeling of restraint and the sorrow of separation
of men from their wives and families. There is in all the camps a
feeling of gloom which one visitor said 'haunted him for days.' It is
scarcely surprising that feelings of resentment should arise. Many of
the men have lived in this country for twenty or thirty years; some have
come over here as young children, some are even unable to speak German;
very many have married British wives and have come to regard themselves
as citizens of this country. The visit of someone who is not in
authority over them, but who will listen to their troubles and give them
a kind word of encouragement, has done very much to lighten the
bitterness of confinement." So write the Emergency Committee in their
second report on their work for the assistance of Germans, Austrians and
Hungarians in distress. Dr. Siegmund Schulze, who has worked for a
similar organisation in Berlin, writes: "It appears that those who have
recently expressed their opinion in the British Parliament have taken
the complaints of a few dissatisfied prisoners as a basis for their
general opinion. We can quite understand these complaints, because we
notice among all prisoners that the longer the imprisonment lasts, the
greater is the feeling of dissatisfaction.... It is noteworthy that in
the English utterance even the trustworthiness of neutral reports is
doubted; for example, the statements of the American Ambassador are
regarded as pro-German, therefore distorted. Frl. Dr. Rotten and I have
heard a great number of neutral opinions on the prisoners camps; I have
myself discussed the conditions of the detention camp with neutrals who
have visited them, and ascertained the truth as to their reports.