Germans Know Americans By Their Shoes

Northern Advocate, 26 April 1940, Page 8

Germans Know Americans By Their Shoes

Americans walking German streets with “real” overcoats or “real” shoes or frequenting German restaurants, are the objects of .much curiosity by people who have to accustom themselves to “ersatz” or substitute goods, says the Christian Science Monitor. One New England manufacturer, for instance, who is spending the winter j months in Berlin, describes how he took a stroll one cold winter day through a city park. “I had put on the warmest shoes I had,” he said. “They had four layer soles —first leather, then an inlay of rubber, then another strip of leather, J and finally a nonskid, corrugated strip of rubber. ! ■‘J felt slightly uncomfortable, I confess, when I noticed how a man doggedly followed my steps and circled round and round the flower bed a few steps behind me. “Finally he caught up with me. ‘Excuse me, sir, he said, politely tipping his hat, ‘but would you mind telling me where you bought such a wonderful pair of shoes’?”