What I Saw in Berlin and Other European Capitals During Wartime — A Closer Reading

Listening in Berlin’s Theatres and Streets

Piermarini repeatedly uses overheard conversations as primary evidence. At the Lessing Theater, he reports a German audience loudly discussing the Galicia battle, deliberately provoking two Austrian officers until they leave. One theatre-goer worries about racing troops between fronts; another predicts the war will end in four months, citing a Brunswick court’s adjournment. These vignettes show how Piermarini treats casual talk as a window into public sentiment—more revealing, he claims, than official statements, because “Chauvinism makes them speak in a more optimistic way” when they know they are talking to a foreigner.

The Shifting Nightlife and Propaganda Cinema

By his second visit, Berlin’s nightlife is “dead.” Cabarets close from lack of male customers; only three theatres remain open. The great amusement is the cinema, where “wonderful pictures” are shown—most of them faked, but so cleverly done that the public believes they are seeing real battles. Piermarini notes dramas full of “English and French spies, traitors, and rascals,” illustrating how entertainment was repurposed for propaganda. His observations ground the catalog subject of “Description and travel” in a specific, material reality: what people actually did for diversion during wartime.

Hopes Placed in Turkish Co-operation

In a passage on Turkish involvement, Piermarini reports that the general public is optimistic about Turkish help, but military circles are more reserved. An officer tells him that a Black Sea fleet action was postponed due to damage to two Turco-German units, and that transporting Turkish troops to Egypt for a Pan-Islamic war would be difficult. Curiously, this enthusiasm for Turkey does not extend to Austria, despite Austria’s sacrifices. Such details align with the catalog subject “World War, 1914-1918 – Personal narratives,” showing how Piermarini’s narrative mixes hearsay, official leaks, and his own analysis of national mood.

Readers should approach Piermarini’s text as a curated set of impressions rather than a systematic report. He is transparent about his methods—eavesdropping, reading body language, comparing public and military talk—and his limitations. The book’s value lies in its snapshot of civilian morale and propaganda in the war’s first year, before later events reshaped those attitudes. The excerpts suggest a writer more interested in atmosphere than in verifying facts, which makes the work a primary source for studying how ordinary Europeans experienced and discussed the conflict.

Piermarini’s quiet war diary—the careful reading of faces in bread lines, the patience of those who wait—always brings me back to a gentler patience found between the pages of The Flowers and Gardens of Madeira — Edition Insights. Both speak of tending to something daily, whether hope or a small terrace bloom, without grand pronouncements. That husbandry stays with you, long after the reading lamp is turned down.