Note 55 — Chapter XIII

A long chapter could be written upon this subject alone. The trail of German revolutionary governments (but not the national cabinet) is slimy with graft, robbery and nepotism. Eichhorn, in the two months that he held the office of Berlin's Police President, made not a single one of the daily reports required of him and never accounted for moneys passing through his hands. Himself drawing salary from Rosta and also as police-president, he appointed his wife to a highly paid clerkship and his young daughter drew a salary for receiving visitors. An Independent Socialist minister's wife drew a large salary for no services. The Vollzugsrat employed a hundred stenographers and messengers who had nothing to do except draw their salaries. The 53er Ausschuss, a committee of marines and soldiers which took entire charge of the admiralty and conducted its affairs without any regard to the national government, voted itself sums larger than had been required to pay all the salaries of the whole department in other days. The police captain of a Berlin suburb, a youthful mechanic, received ninety marks a day, his wife was made a clerk at fifty marks, and he demanded and received an automobile for his private use. The first revolutionary military commandant of Munich tried to defraud a bank of 44,000 marks on worthless paper. The Vollzugsrat never made an honest accounting for the tremendous sums used by it. Hundreds of soldiers' and workmen's committees constituted themselves into soviets in tiny villages and paid themselves daily salaries equaling the highest weekly pay that any of them had ever earned. Robbery through official requisition became so common that the people had to be warned against honoring any requisitions.