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In 1928, my father, Dr. Joseph Werlin, studied in Berlin and Moscow.  He was obtaining data for his doctoral thesis, Russian Social Democracy, 1898-1905. He investigated the foundations of the Russian socialist experiment, and was the first American to receive a Ph.D. for research in this area.

I have always been impressed that someone who had such a poor formal education could make such literate observations of an alien world. He attended classes in a one-room schoolhouse and never graduated from high school. 

Berlin, February 13, 1928

A great curiosity, which possessed me, as it must also many other Americans, was with regard to the post-war picture, which Europe presents. What physical traces of war’s devastating hand does it exhibit? What mental, moral, economic effects has the same cruel hand wrought? And now that I am in Germany—Berlin—what do I see? Twelve days in the land is clearly not enough for this purpose. The action of the war is too widespread and at the same time, to subtle, too crafty, to be able to point the finger and say accusingly, “ This war has done! This much is clear; all palpable, visible traces of the war have disappeared in Germany. Physically, she, of course, did not feel the foot of the enemy, as did France or Belgium. Economically, in the dress, living, and enjoyment of the people, great harm must have been done. Yet, this is not as apparent as might be imagined by the average American. The Germans are a clean, thrifty people, a proud one also. Be repairing, replacement, and conservation, houses and clothing are made to look respectable. No one lacks for a few marks—a government stipend goes out to every German without a job. It is usually a miserable pittance, yet it keeps open begging off the street and saves the self-respect of a million or more men. Psychologically and morally and spiritually, the War has undoubtedly left its scars; but these, from their nature, are not readily observable. The feelings of the people are largely hidden; some, as the nationalists, from patriotic motives; others, probably the great majority, to prevent the tears from flowing afresh. Public reference to the War seems to be in bad taste. The living victim of the war—the cripple—is not seen; somewhere they are probably hidden away, to emerge only on grand occasions.

Whatever effects the War m ay have on the German people is therefore so well concealed from superficial view that one might well wonder if this land has really known the most cruel strife in all history, which took away two million or so of her finest men and women, made her inhabitants go through six to eight years of soul-agony and physical hardship, and which brought her beaten and helpless, before the bar of her enemies and proclaimed the moral perpetrator of this great crime against civilization. But, of course, it has known, it remembers. You cannot readily discern the signs of the terrible tragedy on the streets, but contact with the people in their homes, sympathetic questioning, delicate allusions, may bring forth the tragic story which each family has to tell, and which in its heart it keeps fresh, vivid and searing. No, the German people have not forgotten; they have simply disciplined themselves to say nothing.

October 12, 2020

Excerpts from Letters Written by Dr. Joseph S. Werlin
Experiences in Russia and Germany as Ph.D. Candidate

University of Chicago, 1928

In 1928, my father, Dr. Joseph Werlin, studied in Berlin and Moscow.  He was obtaining data for his doctoral thesis, Russian Social Democracy, 1898-1905. He investigated the foundations of the Russian socialist experiment, and was the first American to receive a Ph.D. for research in this area.

I have always been impressed that someone who had such a poor formal education could make such literate observations of an alien world. He attended classes in a one-room schoolhouse and never graduated from high school. 

Berlin, February 11, 1928.

The “Order of the Scarred Cheek.”

I have just come from a restaurant. Near me had sat three young men, probably students, nothing particularly striking about them except the following phenomena. One had two parallel gashes or deep cuts, each about two inches long, on his right cheek, and another gash, semi-circular in form, on his right temple, so close to his eyes as to give it a slightly distorted appearance. All the wounds were red and raw-looking, as though recently made. Another of the youths has also two cuts on his right cheek. How did the sight of such ugly wounds so strikingly similar on the faces of two young men sitting together arouse my unusually healthy curiosity? No, it did not, for the reason that I am in Berlin already 15 days and hence the sight of mutilated faces, far from being uncommon or new to me, greets me at every few feet. For this is the badge or symbol of what I am pleased to call the “ Order of the Scarred Cheek.” Thousands of men, usually of the better families are members of this honorable ‘society,’ and carry its markings on the face, usually this shape, and number, and general appearance. 

Now this honorable ‘order’ is not a new one in Germany. It has been in existence for decades and generations, but a no time does it appear to have been more flourishing. If we, the outsiders, are to judge by the number of its ‘standard-bearers’, no young man in parts of Germany—by which I mean largely the sons of the well-to-do, upper classes, usually the ultra- patriotic sons and aristocratic families—can really be said to have proven his worth or mettle, until he possesses at least one such scar or marking. The more hacked the face is, the greater is the glory. The young man has shown his caliber and his warrior-heritage; he has disdained suffering and danger; in him, the family and the German name has a worthy standard-bearer. His family usually accords him honor—for the ‘badge’ of the order is usually a genealogical affair. 

The young women of this set seem overjoyed to have such surgical specimens as their lovers and husbands. Is it any wonder than that in the face of such temptation such wounds are welcomed and deliberately sought?

And All this is the 20th Century and in Germany, the land supposedly representative of the highest degree of nationalism and civilization that mankind has yet reached. The theory that human nature has changed very little from the past may yet be there. As someone has wisely said, “ History may not repeat itself, but it has some extraordinary and curious parallels”.