It's also interesting to show this as contrast when people claim the internment of Japanese was uniquely racist.
Nearly EVERYONE in America had a terrible time during WW I.
It’s pretty well documented by now that Woodrow Wilson used the Constitution as toilet paper. He harassed, locked-up, deported and drove into exile MANY people who opposed him.
We had no business being in WWI.
Anti-German sentiment was very strong. The city of Berlin, Ontario changed its name to Kitchener in 1916.
My great-grandfather and his family immigrated to Minnesota from Prussia in the late 1800’s. During WWI, it became illegal to speak German in public, which put him and his family in great fear when traveling to Minneapolis, since his English was quite limited.
I recall being told, that there was a brewery in Maryland called the Old German brewing company at that time. They changed their name to the Liberty brewing company during World War One.
An excuse to exact revenge.
So it would have been better for the Kaiser’s Second Reich to dominate Europe and even the Americas in the early part of the last century?
My family name was changed during WW1 because of the anti-German hysteria. We were from the area near the Hot Springs internment camp, so now I think I know why.
Am I supposed to kneel for the anthem now that I’ve found oppressed ancestors?
The wounds from the Civil War run deep with some people.
President Wilson was from the South and had Confederate sympathies.
Americans of German Descent served in great numbers in the Union forces.
He was getting even.
Thanks for posting. My great grandparents moved from Cologne to Danzig in the 1890s. My grandfather fought for the Germans in WW I, was captured by the Russians, escaped and walked back to Germany. Nine years after WW I ended, with the civil breakdown and hyperinflation in Germany, he packed up and took his young family to the US. My Dad was three when they arrived. He told me a lot of tales of living in tenements in NY CIty, how he had to fight all the time for some years because he was German. The hatred started in WW I took a long time to subside.
We were in WW I for the money. It wasn’t our war, it was the war of the Royals. Millions of lives lost for Kings and Princes and their greed. One comment about their prisoners here were treated better than ours were in Germany reminded me of a coworker I had. He was captured during the Bulge, they weren’t cruel to him, his only complaint was the food as a PW. He knew that food was scarce while he was a POW, even the Germans complained, however they got what ever the Germans were getting. In 1945 Germany they were lucky if there was anything left that was edible. The PWs here had southern fried chicken and an abundance of other items, because we had them, there was no real food shortage. Heck we even fed the Soviet army. During WW II my parents were refused food at the corner store because the name sounded German and my mom was an Italian. Pop was Scandinavian, the store owner was a complete jerk with a German sounding name but of English or Irish background. In WW II if they locked up all the American Italians and Germans, who would be left fight the war?
Bookmark
University of Montana J-school Burns conservative books because they offend students
Although a little-remembered part of history today, America was wracked by the liberal snowflake fear and paranoia that swept from coast to coast during the 2010s. Pictured, a crowd gathers for a conservative book burning at the University of Montana in 2017
No point at reading pass this sentence. The author is an idiot.
My late grandfather was about 10 when WWI broke out.
This was in a very German area, but the pressure was intense. For instance, they still had church services (Catholic, Lutheran, whatever) in German. He remembered the day “they” came and burned the German hymnals and Bibles and forced placing an American flag up by the altar (there were no flags before that).
Made the service be a variant of the Episcopal service, and tried to make loyalty oaths part of it.
Grandpa did not like Wilson.
“even the humiliation of being tarred and feathered”
I call BS. Better have pics of that.
German Americans in WW1; Japanese, German and Italian Americans in WW2; blacks, Jews and Catholics under the KKK.
The COMMON THREAD???
DEMOCRATS!!!!
Before WW I, the German-American community and its civic organizations were opposed to US entry into WW I, with many in active collaboration with German government officials. With the assistance of German Americans, German spies and agents committed many acts of industrial sabotage that were a violation of international law in that the US was a neutral power US at the time.
The German ambassador to the US even warned the US Secretary of State Robert Lansing that if the US entered the war on the side of the Allies, "a million Germans would rise up in revolt." Lansing replied that US would have a million and one lamp posts at the ready.
In such a context, it is easy to understand suspicious and hostile attitudes toward German-Americans. Of course, most German Americans were soon seen to be not only loyal but eager to prove themselves to be patriots and supporters of the American war effort.
I’m probably late to the party with this, but the entire population of the US was 103 million in 1917, so I doubt the German-American population was 100 million...
My great grandfather came from germany in the 1880s to Kingston NY. He worked as a maritime engineer on tugboats on the Hudson. He was in that town until he died in the 30s.
Many germans in that town at that time. Church there had german bibles.
No one sent to camps or deported as far as I know so I don’t think the bad news was as ubiquitous as the article indicates.
He did, however, ensure my grandfather enlisted because he was concerned folks would question their loyalty.
He went over in naval reserves as an officer since he was a maritime engineer as well. Only in it for a a month or two since they didn’t call him up until near the end.