The tragic plight of Germans in AMERICA during the First World War I

Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 10/18/2017 | Harvey Day

[Jewbacca]

A fascinating collection of photos have resurfaced showing the hardships faced by German-Americans at the brutal height of the First World War. As Europe was ravaged by fighting, German immigrants in the US suffered harassment, internment, lynchings - and even the humiliation of being tarred and feathered.

Although a little-remembered part of history today, America was wracked by the fear and paranoia that swept from coast to coast during the Great War.

The United States declared war on Germany in April 1917 and helped lead the Allies to victory. But before that, many Americans were terrified of the German threat growing on the other side of the world.

This collection of pictures reveals the full extent of war hysteria and open hostility towards all things German that erupted across the nation.

Before the war broke out, America had welcomed German immigrants and regarded them highly. German was the second most widely spoken language in the country and there were over 100 million first and second-generation German-Americans living in the United States, with many of them involved in the thousands of German organizations across the country.

The United States embraced them and the German language became an established part of the high school curriculum.

But when the war broke out and Germany became the enemy of the Allies abroad, the American government began calling on its people to reject their German-American neighbors.

President Woodrow Wilson declared that German-Americans were to be treated as 'alien-enemies' and that they should reject their German identity if they were to be accepted in US society.

[familyop]

History of antisemitism
Nineteenth century
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism#Nineteenth_century

Germany
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism#Germany

[dsc]

“it was US policy to look the other way during the Armenian genocide in Turkey, taking place openly in the streets in plain view. The American press there at the time refused to cover it — in cooperation with the US government.”

Wasn’t there, haven’t studied it, but my mother always talked about how her mother told her and her brother to eat all their food because there were “starving Armenians” who would love to have it.

I rather got the impression that “starving Armenian” was often heard.

[jjotto]

Germans were technical advisors to the Turks on murdering Armenians, although to be fair there were some German whistle-blowers too.

I discovered a trove of adult Sunday school newsletters from the time that covered the massacres in great detail. So American Christian missionaries there and churches here were well aware.

[Mears]

I’m 85 and I knew more Armenians growing up in the Boston area than I did Italians.

Many settled in Watertown,MA.

.

[kearnyirish2]

I’ve read that of the 200K Axis troops captured in Stalingrad, only 5K were ever seen again (ten years later).

[Lee Enfield]

Germany was the only one of the initially involved great powers to enter WWI with no war aims.

[x]

Not to mention it was US policy to look the other way during the Armenian genocide in Turkey, taking place openly in the streets in plain view. The American press there at the time refused to cover it -- in cooperation with the US government.

US Ambassador to Constantinople Henry Morgenthau Sr. was deeply troubled by the atrocities committed against the Armenians and was among those who sought to rouse the world's conscience in response. The plight of the Armenians triggered an unprecedented public philanthropic response in the United States, involving President Woodrow Wilson, Hollywood celebrities, and many thousands of Americans at the grassroots level who volunteered both domestically and abroad and raised over $110 million (over $1 billion adjusted for inflation) to assist Armenian refugees and orphans. Source

The Turks were on the German side. The US press did cover the massacres when they were going on and when US reporters were still allowed in the country. But most Americans knew little about Armenia and tended to view what was going on there as a sideshow to the main event in France. After the war, it was common to dismiss the wild stories of atrocity as propaganda, so some real atrocities were forgotten.

[x]

The Lusitania was a British ship. And it was carrying a large cargo of war munitions.

That is still hotly debated. Robert Ballard, the Titanic discovery thinks the ship went down so fast because coal dust ignited.

[Olog-hai]

According to whom? Why do stuff like invade Belgium?

It’s always been about dominating the continent. This time, with the EU, they got it.

[Lee Enfield]

I think you are dead wrong in most of your arguments on this thread, but on the 2nd Reich you are correct. It was considered to have begun in 1871 with the establishment of the Prussian King Wilhelm as Kaiser Wilhelm I.

[Zionist Conspirator]

I don’t think Sen. Joseph McCarthy was German, but I believe ethnic German-Americans were his strongest Wisconsin supporters.

McCarthy's paternal grandmother was German. The other three grandparents were all Irish.

I don't doubt that many anti-Semites at the time supported McCarthy (though a famous survey at the time contradicted this), but no way was he an anti-Semite, despite what the liberals claim. To the liberals being anti-Communist is a crime in and of itself.

[crazy scenario]

" Well, now you know. "

Get over yourself!! You Brits don't get to run the world.

[Olog-hai]

That’s what I remembered about the Second Reich. There seem to be different twists of history trying to write it out of existence.

I refer to this article a lot when looking at WWI, though. It is highly critical of what it calls the “Blackadder” revisionism.

[Lee Enfield]

Even Fritz Fischer’s book on German war aims in WWI (which is in no way complimentary to Germany) admits that they entered the war with no war aims. The reason for the attempted “knockout blow” in the west was because the German High Command felt that they could not win a protracted 2 front war and that the best bet was to defeat France before Russia could mobilize. Russia mobilized faster than expected, though.

[Olog-hai]

I’m not a Brit, I told you. Unless you in particular want to call Ireland “Little Britain” as others have in the past?

There is only one that gets to rule the world; He earned it, never mind having made it in the first place. And He has not come yet, but He is coming. Do you believe in Him?

[jjotto]

I helped edit a book on Minnesota politics years ago, and ran across some info on Joe McCarthy. He was no anti-Semite, and neither were the bulk of the Midwest’s German-Americans.

[Hardastarboard]

You left out Lyndon Johnson. Terrible, and a GD crook, too.

[Lee Enfield]

The article is behind current research. WWI happened for a lot of reasons, but German hegemony was not one of them. After the fall of the Soviet Union a lot of Russian archives were opened. It turns out that the Russians were hoping for an excuse (and actively working to create one) to destroy the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Austrians wanted an excuse to knock out Serbia as a Rival in the Balkans (the same reason the Russians wanted to knock out Austria). The French had only had one continental foreign policy since 1871, “Revenche” (revenge). Germany was undone by it's leader. Kaiser Wilhelm II was accepted as very intelligent’ but not wise. He alienated England because of his desire for a fleet to rival the UK and the fact that he was an egotistical blowhard who felt that England would never go to war against a Monarch who was “family”. The Serbs set the whole thing off by plotting and carrying out the assassination to the Austrian crown, which was an act of war under international law.

[dsc]

“I’m 85 and I knew more Armenians growing up in the Boston area than I did Italians.”

Turkey was allied with Kaiser Bill during the Great War. Why would the U.S. government be interested in covering up their misdeeds?

[Olog-hai]

A lot of stuff came out of the USSR. They were big on disinformation.

Not respecting Belgium’s neutrality was pure bellicosity, no matter how one slices it.