Tuchman's work is available in a 'Library of America' edition which is always preferable to any alternative.
Posted on 07/12/2013 7:27:07 AM PDT by ProgressingAmerica
Little known is it that FDR is not the first president to have relocation camps, and Japanese Americans were not the original target. Nearly 30 years prior to World War two, German Americans were the targets and the most interesting thing is that very little is written about this. History has been virtually expunged of this topic. Historians do not write about it, so history books don't contain it, and even from various news journals at the time it was largely unreported. When it was reported, some of the blurbs on it were small and not noteworthy.
The first American President to have internment camps got away with it.
I could only find a handful such articles about the incident, one of which details the treatment of war captives. "How the United States Takes Care of German Prisoners (June, 1918)" The other stories I found are often times reported in passing, they detail the harassment of citizens, business owners, and others who clearly don't exist in a war or battle context.
One such citizen was Agathe Wilhelmine Richrath who:
MISS AGATHE WlLHELMINE RICHRATH, instructor in German at Vassar College, who has been taken into custody at Poughkeepsie on a charge of being pro-German and of circulating German propaganda, has tendered her resignation and it has been accepted. Miss Richrath will be interned as an alien enemy.
The paragraph above the one I quoted lists Dr.s Richard Goldschmidt and Rhoda Erdmann were both detained and interned as well.
Richrath's internment did actually get reported in the NY Times, along with the names of several other people in passing.
Finally, quite a scene was created when the government went after Heinrich Bockisch:
STATUS OF M. WELTE & SONS DEFINEDOfficial Statement Issued by Bureau of Investigation of the Alien Property Custodian
E. M. Atkin of the Bureau of Investigation, Alien Property Custodian, New York, issued the following statement on Tuesday last relative to M. Welte & Sons:
"Heinrich Bockisch, the factory manager and a large stockholder in M. Welte & Sons, Inc., was taken into custody by the United States Government on April 22, 1918, on charges of German propaganda. He was ordered interned and was removed July 2 to Fort Oglethorpe, with 17 other alien enemies.
The story talks about a fight on the street and more.
These are all names which are lost to history at this point, but what I'm getting at is that Woodrow Wilson's concentration camps were real. The government did not just intern foreigners(which is bad enough) but they also went after those who emigrated to our country, set up businesses, were attempting to be productive members of society, may have planned on staying, and some who were even full time citizens. One of the most "well known"(His name is specifically listed on Wikipedia) internees was Dr. Karl Muck, who once he was released from his year of detainment, left the country.
The German saboteur Lothar Witzke — responsible for the March 1917 munitions explosion at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in the Bay Area,[16] and possibly responsible for the July 1916 Black Tom explosion in New Jersey operated from Mexico city.
But Breckinridge was from Kentucky. Don’t we have the word of several Neo=Confederates that people only thought about their citizenship as being connected with theit state?
Why didn’t the confederates send Breckinridge back?
Tuchman is highly sympathetic to Germans, so you will enjoy her work.
Of course she tells no lies, but she didn’t know and so leaves blank the critical data from July 1914.
That is precisely the period Fromkin focuses on, using newly discovered data — all of it from German scholars, by the way.
You may know, Germans at their best have a passion for honesty and are not afraid of self criticism.
I meant to get back to this post to think you for the interesting link Colonel. Fascinating read!
Imagine living a simple straightforward life as a patriotic citizen and suddenly find yourself trapped behind enemy lines. Story after story of folks who only wished to mind their own affairs and survive the war.
Notorious among the scummy scoundrels was a guy named Captain Wm. L. Brown. He seemed to take particular delight in robbing and abusing the elderly, women and children. Nasty.
Tuchman's work is available in a 'Library of America' edition which is always preferable to any alternative.
appreciate it...
There was such a deep hatred between Generals Breckinridge and Bragg that Breckinridge seriously considered resigning his commission so that he could challenge Bragg to a duel (Bragg blamed his own incompetence on Breckinridge).
After Bragg forced him out of the Army of Tennessee, Jefferson Davis assigned him to head the Department of Eastern Tennessee and West Virginia, a subordinate unit of the Army of Northern Virginia. He led his troops (including the VMI Corps of Cadets) to victory at New Market, was severely wounded at Cold Harbor, and then supported Jubal Early's Shenandoah Campaign before resigning to accept the position of Secretary of War.
After spending three years in exile, he returned to Kentucky, where he refused to return to politics but did take a firm stance against the KKK. He died in May 1875 as a result of his war wounds.
Bragg was known as a very quarrelsome officer in the old Army.
One would almost say if one hadn’t had a quarrel with Bragg, that you just hadn’t come to his notice yet.
Not paying much attention to these threads.
We had one that asserted that the US operated a species of concentration camp for blacks. They were fed, paid, and were free to come and go, which distinguishes them from all the other concentration camps in the world.
He sent a request to the company quartermaster--himself--for something he wanted.
As quartermaster he denied the request and gave an official reason for doing so in writing.
As company commander he argued back that he was justly entitled to what he requested.
As quartermaster he stubbornly continued to persist in denying himself what he needed.
Bragg requested the assistance of the post commander in finding a solution to this problem. His commander incredulously declared, "My God, Mr. Bragg, you have quarreled with every officer in the army, and now you are quarreling with yourself."
That was a wonderful story about Mr. Bragg from Grant’s Memoirs.
Thanks for the refresh!
He might be Irish?
Yellow Tavern.
SLA Marshall suggested that when the rush to war was about to break down, Moltke was given orders to stop the advance on France. He refused, as the orders to attack had already been given.
Many examples. British officers fought with the Jordanians against Israel in the 1948 war for one example.
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