"Your first duty will be to visit the boys' school for which passport is here enclosed. The purpose of this is to awaken the paternal instincts that you may better appreciate and feel the holy obligation and privilege conferred upon you. You will also find enclosed cards of introduction to three women whom the Eugenic Office finds to be fitted as mothers of your children. That natural selection may have a limited play you are permitted to select only one woman from each three assigned. Such selection must be made and reported within thirty days, after which a second trio will be assigned you. Until such final selection has been recorded you are expressly forbidden to conduct yourself toward these women in an amorous manner." Next followed a set of exacting rules for the proper deportment, in the carrying out of these duties to which the State had assigned me. A crushing sense of revulsion, a feeling of loathing and uncleanliness overwhelmed me as I pushed aside the papers. Coming from a world where the right of the individual to freedom and privacy in the matrimonial and paternal relations was recognized as a fundamental right of man, I found this officious communication, with its detailed instruction, appalling and revolting. A man cravenly clings to life and yet there are instincts in his soul which will cause him to sell life defiantly for a mere conception of a moral principle. To become by official mandate a father of a numerous German progeny was a thing to which I could not and would not submit. Many times that day as I automatically pursued my work, I resolved to go to some one in authority and give myself up to be sent to the mines as a prisoner of war, or more likely to be executed as a spy. Cold reason showed me the futility of neglecting or attempting to avoid an assigned duty. It was a military civilization and I had already seen enough of this ordered life of Berlin to know that there was no middle ground of choice between explicit obedience and open rebellion. Nor need I concern myself with what punishment might be provided for this particular disobedience for I saw that rebellion for me would mean an investigation that would result in complete tearing away of the protecting mask of my German identity. But after my first tumultuous feeling subsided I realized that something more than my own life was at stake. Already possessed of much intimate knowledge of the life within Berlin I believed that I was in a way to come into possession of secrets of vast and vital importance to the world. To gain these secrets, to escape from the walls of Berlin, was a more than personal ambition; it was an ambition for mankind. After a day or two of deliberation I therefore decided against any rash rebellion. Moreover, as nothing compromising was immediately required of me, I detached and mailed the four coupons provided, having duly filled in the time at which I should make the preliminary calls. ~2~