Woman in Modern Germany

Mr. Salim Saad heads the transmission center of Radio Lebanon, and in his capacity as instructor of electrical and radio sciences at the Civil Wireless College, he recently made a journey to West Germany together with the directors of the College, in response to an invitation from the government of Germany and the owners of the Siemens, Telefunken, and Lorenz factories. His tours, over twenty days, bore the character of survey and study. It gives us pleasure to relay here some of his observations and impressions of interest to our lady readers.

I shall not tell you, dear reader, about what I saw in the television stations and wireless broadcasting stations, nor in the towers of Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, and Kiel — apparatus, masts, and machines of no concern to you. Rather, I shall relate to you some observations and stories, most of which revolve around the problems of society in Germany today, and especially the largest part, which makes up 56 percent of that society: woman in Germany.

The population of West Germany today is estimated at roughly 50 million souls, of them 28 million female and 22 million male. Hence we see that only six million women are surplus to need — if we assume that all the men are sensible fellows who have found their better halves, in order to lighten the burden of the crisis produced by the last World War and to strengthen the homeland and raise its standing.

Perhaps you will hasten to ask here, saying: I know that woman in Europe, and especially in Germany, works on an equal footing and side by side with man, and can earn her living just as he does; therefore she has no need of a man to support her. Where, then, is the problem?

Here you find me congratulating you on this knowledge of yours, and praising warmly the sources from which you drew your information. But permit me, I beg, to offer you some necessary clarifications about the fields in which the German woman works today — not only on an equal footing and side by side with man, but also alone and side by side with her sister woman. If you entered with me one of the Telefunken radio factories in "Berlin," or the television-tube factory in "Ulm," you would be astonished to see dozens of rows of blonde working girls with blue and green eyes, wearing white aprons, before them the lucky little parts that men's fingertips are forbidden to touch, reserved for soft fingertips alone!

Likewise, if you entered with me one of the Lorenz factories in Berlin or Stuttgart, you would then be convinced that the radio set which broadcasts to you news, talks, and music is, in its entirety, the work of those same soft hands as well. And if the telephone bell rings in your house now as you read, cast a glance at the instrument — it may be the make of the famous Siemens works in Munich and Berlin — and rest assured that this machine in its entirety, including the final technical tests, was completed at the hands of the working girls as well.

All this shows clearly that certain kinds of work have been reserved for women alone — the fine, delicate work, where production was far greater at their hands — while the heavy work on the huge machines has been reserved for men only. What astonished me at first glance in one of the huge factories was the presence of a single woman among a group made up entirely of men; and when I approached the machine on which she was working, I found that this woman was indeed fit for the work, for her height was no less than one meter eighty centimeters and her weight most certainly above a hundred kilos!

I see you now, dear reader, rolling your eyes to say: and where is the social problem you began to speak of? Is it the presence of a woman weighing a hundred kilos among a group of men?

No, Madam. The problem lies not in the work, but after it is done, and especially at the end of the week, the days of rest. You perhaps know that the European woman, the German among them, enjoys complete freedom and conducts herself like a man in all the affairs of life; and just as the young man likes to treat himself to life's pleasures on his days off, so does the girl — be she worker, student, or wage-earner. If you asked me about one place of amusement I came to know in Germany, and where it lies, I would answer you: in Berlin; it is called the "Razi," and it is a very large dance hall in which acquaintance among those present, of both sexes, is made by telephone and express post. In front of every table hangs a plaque bearing its own telephone number, and it is their custom not to address a girl directly, even if she is at the very next table, but by telephone; and it is rare for a young man to ask a girl to dance before an acquaintance has been made by telephone or by post — otherwise he would be considered to have strayed from the rule observed and in force in that place. And do not be surprised if I tell you that letters reach the young men by the dozens from the girls — especially if the young man is of dark complexion, or appears in a dress and bearing by which one knows him to be a foreigner — for the girls in search of a "friend" are many, and the number of girls far exceeds the number of young men at any hour of the evening. The orchestra also gives the girls one opportunity in the course of the evening to choose their own dance partners. How lovely it is to see a radiant beauty swaying coquettishly as she bows before a young man, asking him to join her in a dance — and how unlucky he feels if he is a foreigner and the girl speaks nothing but German!!

This place is frequented by the girls whose wages allow them to pay the bill at the end of the evening — or rather at dawn, if fortune has not favored them with meeting the loyal, hospitable friend.

As for the second class of girls — the young students who live on an "allowance" — these go to the students' club, or make for the public dance halls known for their popular character, and dance until two after midnight without its costing them more than one hundred and fifty piasters; and that is the minimum, for every person is obliged to pay this sum on entering the hall. This amount is not an entrance fee, but is deducted from the bill inside the hall, and it entitles him to take a bottle of beer or two of cola. The "numéro" is performed by members of the audience skilled in the art of dancing, and it is very brief, confined to the presentation of two or three of the famous international dances.

Here I beg the gracious readers not to suppose that the places of amusement are confined to these two or their like; there are also the many taverns and cabarets, each of which offers an orchestra for the music and programs resembling what is offered in the cabarets of Beirut, with one very slight difference: the shedding of clothing in its entirety during the presentation of certain scenes and dances.

And now, having learned of the places where the highly-paid girl and the student with her "allowance" go, you may well ask: how does the girl of meager wages, or the girl out of work, spend her weekend, and what are her means?

I answer you here that this class of girls, who are truly to be counted wretched, is the pivot of the social problem in Germany. Most of them are alone, with neither family nor friends, scattered by the war after everyone bound to them by any tie was killed or carried away; and a large portion of them came from the Eastern zone as refugees to the Western zone, only to find themselves without shelter or food, so they sought work at any wage whatsoever and of whatever kind — housemaid, sidewalk peddler, dancer in a tavern — provided they obtained the provisions of life and continued to survive. This class has various methods of amusing themselves on the two days of the weekend. The clever one among them, for example, makes her way with one of her companions to a first-class hotel around seven in the evening and sits in the lounge, then seizes the opportunity to enter into conversation with one of the foreign guests, offering her services to acquaint him with the important places of the city, in her capacity as a native who knows them all. And how would you expect the honored guest to refuse this service from a radiant young lady breathing perfume and beauty! The first important place he comes to know is the restaurant once frequented by the Kaiser of Prussia, and after him by his grandsons the princes — a place her own feet had never trodden before she made the acquaintance of her honored guest. After dinner and sumptuous drink she leads him to the most luxurious cabaret (though her clothes are sometimes unfit for such a place) to drink and dance until three.

As for the naive one, or the one less clever than the first, she sits in a modest bar drinking a bottle of cola, waiting for some young man to come along so she may dance with him for the span of the evening. Fortune favored me with making the acquaintance of one of these. She was pretty and attractive, with the charm of simplicity on her face. I offered her a drink far finer than cola, and she thought it a great thing. Then we danced and talked of things general and particular, until formality was lifted between us and it became possible to put questions of consequence. She said: Are you married in your country? I answered no. And here she said: Have you any children? I said to myself, perhaps she has not understood my weak English, and repeated my first answer, that I was not married! Whereupon she corrected me, saying: I understood that you are a bachelor; I too am single, unmarried; I am twenty-one years old, but I have a little girl, a year old, who lives with me among my family, and my mother looks after her while I am away at work or at an evening party. (The clock at that moment pointed to half past three after midnight.) I said to myself then, and I say it now to the honored body of readers: this, in my view, is the most important of the problems of society in Germany today.