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.

[Lee Enfield]

Not respecting Belgian neutrality was a major faux-pas (French for f**k up), but it was done out of desperation. The Germans felt that they needed to knock out France firs and quickly or they would lose the war. They re-instituted unrestricted submarine warfare also out of desperation. They were unable to feed their population adequately due to the English blockade. The blockade rules at the time precluded counting food as war supplies, but England did it anyway.

[crazy scenario]

" Had the Allies not brought that Islamic empire to an end, then it’s possible that the State of Israel might not have come into existence, with the region remaining under the name “Southern Syria”. "

Oh, that's right bring up the Germans & Islamic empire red herring......well you Brits used Islamists (Saudis & any other muslims willing to be paid) to defeat the Turk dominated Islamic empire!!! Now you have those waskily Pakistanis flooding into London.

So as a result one Islamic empire was traded for the new Caliphate the world currently has......and some of them have nukes!!!

And for your information, the modern state of Israel got short changed (big time) when Jordan was created by the great and magnanimous allies. These allied victors cut what was originally to be Israel in half, to creat Jordan......then, to add insult to injury, gave the Jordanian king control of the Temple Mount.

These wonderful allies also created that peaceful country, known as Iraq.......with it's peaceful Kurds & Iraqis living side by side.......who was the idividual who created the boundries of Iraq you ask? Well it was none other than Winny the Poo (Whinston Churchill).

Yeah, those kooky allies.....ya gotta luv em!

[Olog-hai]

If you're going to accuse it of being a “red herring”, then argumentum verbosium (a logical fallacy) is not proof.

Transjordan was never part of the Israeli Jewish homeland; that was always the home of the descendants of Lot (Ammonites and Moabites). And it is a simple fact that the Ottoman Empire’s existence was a major obstacle for a homeland for Jews in their native land. There were Zionists there before the empire fell, but they were not the cause of its fall.

The Labour Party had a big part in the UK’s moral slide after WWII, and just a big of a hand in the Pakistani hijrah, absolutely. However, the USSR is who helped the Muslim states in the Middle East radicalize after 1948; even Nasser (a self-admitted national socialist) boasted of that.

The Kingdom of Iraq was created by the League of Nations. The national-socialist Ba’ath-ruled Iraq that we have been too familiar with came about in 1958, when the king was overthrown.

[kearnyirish2]

Without American interference in 1917 the Central Powers had the war basically won when Russia surrendered. There was no way for Britain, France, and Italy to deal with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey at that point. France faced the trench mutinies in 1917, and Italy was on the brink of collapse. A negotiated peace at that point would probably have spared us the movements that brought about WWII - and possibly the Bolshevik Revolution later in 1917 as well.

[dfwgator]

To break their promises would have been to lose face

Compared with the outcome, it would have been a small price to pay for Britain. WWI basically was the end for the British Empire.

[Lee Enfield]

Essentially true but the central powers were on their last legs as well. And neither side wanted a negotiated settlement. (well, OK, Austria did)

[dfwgator]

3.3 million out of 5.7 million Russian prisoners of war died in German captivity

And those who did manage to get back to Russia, were either killed by Stalin or sent to the Gulags.

[Olog-hai]

They would have been next either way. France is the road to the island of Britain.

It was also a case of honoring a treaty with Belgium.

There was no excuse for Germany to disrespect Belgium’s neutrality any more than thinking they could rewrite the Cruiser Rules to suit themselves.

[dfwgator]

I didn’t see anything to suggest that Germany had designs on Britain.

[Lee Enfield]

While I believe that Germany got the shaft in WWI I do agree they should not have invaded Belgium. In retrospect a Russia first policy may have been the way to go. The forces that beat back the Russian invasion of East Prussia were not the elite of the German army, nor were they comparatively numerous. A strong, fortified defensive line on the German French border would have crushed the French army. A mobile reserve could be held back in case the Allies decided to go through Belgium, but that would still leave the bulk of the German Army on the Eastern front where a quick and decisive defeat of Russia could have destabilized the Russian Govt. enough as to put it out of the war.

[Lee Enfield]

England would still have entered the war due to her commitments to the Entente Cordial.

[Olog-hai]

Invading a British ally was one. Declaring war on France, which is the gateway to Britain, was another. Rejecting Britain’s ultimatum with respect to Belgium was a de facto declaration of war on Britain, to boot.

[Olog-hai]

There was that too.

[Lurker]

“Shall we talk about King Leopold and the Belgians in Africa?”

BOOM.

L

[Lee Enfield]

Germany had no designs on the UK. She had to accept war with France as France was allied with Russia and had made no bones about her desire to get revenge for 1871. The Entente Cordial was not a formal alliance but more of a “fomal understanding”. The attack on Belgium was a major mistake, but England would have entered the war anyway to prevent the continued growth of the German fleet.

[Lurker]

More anti-American crap from the BBC.

L

[itsahoot]

there were over 100 million first and second-generation German-Americans living in the United States

No point at reading pass this sentence. The author is an idiot.

The Fourteenth United States Census, conducted by the Census Bureau one month from January 5, 1920, determined the resident population of the United States to be 106,021,537

[Zionist Conspirator]

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.

Thanks. That's great to hear (though it was Wisconsin, not Minnesota).

[kearnyirish2]

The surrender of Russia freed over 1 million German troops up for operations in the west - and was probably the real reason for the US entry in the war. Austria-Hungarian troops could be re-directed to put even more pressure on Italy, and Turkey’s troops in the Caucasus would be freed up to deal with British interests in the Near East. A bunch of “what-ifs”, but there really was no path to victory at all for the Triple Entente at that point.

[Lee Enfield]

In 1918 the German offensive was starting to wind down before the bulk of the US forces hit the line. While the reason for the increased defensive strength on the part of the Allies is probably because the knew the Americans would be there soon, there is still the fact that all of the participants were just worn out. I think that without the US in the war there was probably about a 75% of a Central Powers victory.