BERLIN TO-DAY

Evening Star, Issue 21137, 24 June 1932, Page 1

BERLIN TO-DAY

CITY OF CONTRASTS

Berlin at the moment is a city of contrasts. On-the one hand one secs much that is ultra-modern: even in the city streets new buildings, straight in outline and devoid almost to bareness of any form of ornament, stand side by side with ponderous edifices of the early ’nineties (writes Dr Otto Herborn, in the Capo ‘ Times ’). Everything is spick and span, neat and clean as a new pin—but take a walk through the former fashionable quarters of the town, where there are seven, eight, and nine-roomed flats, many of which have stood empty for months, even years—and you will see a picture of desolation such as would have been impossible in pre-war Berlin. Here you find plaster peeling off the walls, cracked stonework, defective shutters, drab paint. Where the flats are still inhabited they only too often have a lifeless look, asL though their owners hardly ventured Torth into the light of day but preferred to live their passionless existence among those relics of former wealth which still remain to them.

Again, take a tram or a bus and go out into the modern settlements. You will carry away with you the impression that the younger generation demands light, space, and air, green grass and open vistas to help it escape from the stuffiness of a bygone age and from the insistent worries and anxieties of the present.

Perhaps it is this desire to escape from a present which is full of uncertainty, that gives the town its atmosphere of feverish activity. In spite of the enormous numbers of unemployed the proportion of people who lounge about doing nothing is relatively small. Those who have no fixed occupation make one for themselves.

So, lor instance, at Christmas time one big street was converted into a line of booths which almost rivalled the Parisian street markets at New Year. Handkerchiefs, soap, household linen, books, toys, chocolate, socks, ties were to be had here in endless variety. Even to-day you can hardly walk down a street without meeting some handcart laden with oranges, bananas, or vegetables, pushed along by a group of two or three unemployed who have picked the goods up cheaply on the market and hope to do a casual trade in the side streets. Unemployment has not yet killed the German’s love of work.

In the middle classes,, too, this aptitude for creating work is creating a number of new professions. This is particularly noticeable among young girls who have just left school, and who in more normal times would have lived a society life or would have gone to a finishing school. For instance, a group of well-edu-cated Berlin girls has recently offered their services to the travelling' agencies as guides and interpreters to strangers. One nineteen-year-old girl with an adventurous bent has adopted the profession of tracer of stolen motor cars. Every day she appears at the police station, jots down the numbers of the cars which,have been notified ns stolen, and then goes on the hunt with only her eyes and her wits to help her. From all accounts she has been unusually successful. Her methods are nothing if not original. On ono occasion she succeeded in persuading the thief to drive*the car back to the garage of its owner—though what the culprit said when he discovered his mistake is not recorded. The young detective is said to he finding hpr job very remunerative and shortly hopes to acquire a small car of her own in which she will bo able to cover more ground in gn attempt to trace her thieves.

Berlin’s extraordinary hospitality is frequently commented upon by foreign visitors. More perhaps than in any other city of the world is it possible for strangers to come into contact with the actual inhabitant of the town—the typical “ Berliner.” Another characteristic of the city which tern's to make the stranger feel at home is that the Berliner has very little of the exclusive snob about him. He likes taking his pleasures with his fellowmen, and generally seeks his amusement outside of his owji four walls.

Restaurants are so cheap, music so good, that, even iu these hard times, Saturday night will generally seem most of the large cafes or monster variety palaces, such as the Vaterland, tolerably well filled by people of every class.

These over-filled restaurants on a Saturday night often deceive the foreign visitor and make him think that the German is not so poor as he makes himself out to be. But if ho watches carefully bj will see with what a minimum of expenditure these pleasures arc bought. A cup of coffee, a bottle of soda water, a glass of wine or beer per head cost less than a cinema ticket and produce much more amusement—and the company you meet is thrown in gratis. Years of experience of a tight purse have certainly taught the German to get the most out of his money. At the same time, and this must not be forgotten, ho has a natural ability to conceal his poverty from the eyes of strangers. In spite of extreme distress in thousands of homes, ragged or dirty people are hardly to ho seen on the streets. A man may have neither shirt nor socks, but bis suit and Ids boots will look tolerably tidy and clean. If be possesses neither he will not venture abroad.

Many a woman owns only two dresses —her working overall and one frock—but she would no morn dream of walking through the, streets in her overall than she would do so with nothing on her feet. If yon look more closely into .hundreds of homes where formerly there was enough and to spare, you will realise from the little furniture that has escaped the pawnshop, from the frugal meal of lentil soup and potatoes, from the dry bread and watery milkless coffee which is set before the hungry, growing children, that the poverty is very real.