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> IIRC the Brits also rounded up the ethnic Germans on their territory in a similar fashion. So did the US. Not to try to excuse the German internment since i
by retrac 5y ago
> IIRC the Brits also rounded up the ethnic Germans on their territory in a similar fashion.
So did the US. Not to try to excuse the German internment since it had its own problems, but it's really telling to compare what the British, Canadians and Americans did with ethnic Germans and Italians, compared to ethnic Japanese. Basically, it was mostly restricted to Germans and Italians with much closer actual ties; first generation immigrants, people with business connections, recent travel.
If the Americans, in particular, had taken the same approach to ethnic Germans and Italians that they did to ethnic Japanese - even one great-grandparent being proof of probable complicity with the enemy -- they would have had to detain roughly a quarter of all white Americans.
- cafard 5y agoOne of my great-grandfathers was a German citizen in Indiana during WW I. He had been a resident of the US for about forty years, and he had a son drafted into the US Army. But still, his citizenship papers are from 1921 or so. I assume that his wife was still a German citizen, too. There are no family stories of harassment.
- rufus_foreman 5y agoBefore World War I, there were many German language newspapers in Indiana: "German-language newspapers thrived as Germans became Indiana’s largest immigrant population by 1850. The Täglicher Telegraph und Tribüne, located near here, was among over 175 German-language newspapers published in Indiana, 1843-1920. These newspapers were important vehicles for readers in integrating and maintaining their cultural identities with American values. U.S. entry into WWI in 1917 created suspicion and antipathy toward German-American schools, churches, clubs and newspapers. Several of these Indiana newspapers, which had tried to present balanced war coverage, closed by 1918. This included the Täglicher Telegraph und Tribüne and papers in Berne, South Bend, Logansport, Evansville, and Terre Haute." https://events.in.gov/event/ihb-german-newspapers-demise https://events.in.gov/event/ihb-german-newspapers-demise Before World War I, many German-Americans sent their children to schools that taught classes in German. In 1919, Indiana banned the teaching of German in schools: https://blog.history.in.gov/when-indiana-banned-the-german-language-in-1919/ https://blog.history.in.gov/when-indiana-banned-the-german-l.... Before World War I, many streets and cities had German names. They were renamed during the war: "City and street names were changed from German-sounding designations to more Americanized ones. For example, East Germantown, Indiana, was renamed Pershing, Indiana. Ironically, Gen. John J. Pershing, supreme commander of the American Expeditionary Forces in France, came from a family that had changed its name from the German Pfoerschin." https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2014/summer/germans.pdf https://www.archives.gov/files/publications/prologue/2014/su... Before World War I, you could drink beer in an beer garden in Indiana. The Indiana legislature ratified Prohibition in 1919 and two days later Nebraska did also which gave the amendment a three-fourths majority. Beer was outlawed. So in 1917, a German-American could live in Indiana on a German named street in a German named city, get their news from a German language newspaper, send their child to a German language public school and drink beer in a beer garden on a Saturday afternoon, and by 1920, that was all over. So yeah, I guess your great grandfather wasn't harassed any, but all of that was erased.
- cafard 5y agoYes, yes. But nobody got shipped off to camps in the desert.
- rufus_foreman 5y agoGerman-Americans were shipped off to internment camps in both World War I and II.