Germans in America

If you've read some of my other blogs you've noticed the emphasis upon the German population of the United States during the Great Depression years. How many Germans were there? Here are a few facts.

• Before World War I more than 6% of American schoolchildren received their primary education only in German. By the way, my father was one of them. 

• 49 million Americans claim German ancestors. In 1996 this group was 25% of the population.

• The first German American, Dr. Johannes Fleischer arrived in Jamestown, Virginia in 1607.

• The first permanent German settlement was Germantown, PA., near Philadelphia, 1683. 

• Waves of Germans settled in Pennsylvania, New York, Virginia, Louisiana and Massachusetts during the 18th century.

• Thousands of German soldiers came to support King George III, Elector of Hanover and King of Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War. 

• Between 1840-48 Germans were the largest group of immigrants to America.

• The cities of Milwaukee, Cleveland, St. Louis, Chicago, New York and Baltimore were the favored destinations of Germans. 

• By 1900 the populations of Cleveland, Milwaukee, Hoboken and Cincinnati were all more than 40% German.

• In Texas, where I live, many Germans came through the port of Galveston to farm and later to take industrial jobs in Houston. The Germans built the brewing industry in Houston. By the 1920s college-educated German Americans were moving into the chemical and oil industries.

I've already noted how President Roosevelt and the FBI feared what Germans favoring Nazism might do leading up to and during WW II.

Many other fascinating facts can be found on Absolute Astronomy under the topic German American.

German Americans In American Internment/Concentration Camps

Understanding the Nazi takeover of Austria in 1938, known as the Anschluss (link-up), is critical to the understanding of the thinking of Hitler and the National Socialists. If an Austrian opposed these moves, were an active member of an opposition party or were a Jew, he or she was thrown into jail or a concentration camp.


"During the few weeks between the Anschluss and the plebiscite, Social Democrats, Communists and other potential political dissenters, as well as Jews, were rounded up and either imprisoned or sent to concentration camps. Within only a few days of 12 March, 70,000 people had been arrested. The plebiscite itself was subject to large-scale propaganda and to the abrogation of the voting rights of around 400,000 people (nearly 10% of the eligible voting population), mainly former members of left-wing parties and Jews."


We Americans have heard much about Nazi concentration camps and have been appropriately outraged, but how much do we know about American concentration camps? Some very interesting and disturbing information is now available.


Many of us have heard about United States' treatment of American Indians in the nineteenth century, the breaking of treaties and the forced relocation of thousands of native Americans, known as the Trail of Tears.


The internment of Japanese Americans has received prominent dramatization by way of the 1995 novel and then the movie "Snow Falling on Cedars".


But very few know that about 5,000 Germans living in several Latin American republics were removed and transported to the USA and placed in internment camps. In addition, at least 11,000 German Americans were held in more than fifty internment sites throughout the USA and Hawaii.


"Pursuant to the Alien Enemy Act of 1798 (50 USC 21-24), which remains in effect today, the US may apprehend, intern and otherwise restrict the freedom of "alien enemies" upon declaration of war or actual, attempted or threatened invasion by a foreign nation. . . By law, only enemy aliens could be interned. However, with government approval, thousands of German American family members joined them in the camps as voluntarily interned spouses and children. 

The German American Bund Began in Yaphank, NY

After WW I German settlers living in the New York City area started the German American Settlement League, Inc. in the city of Yaphank, Long Island. The current address, according to Google is 11 Private Road, with the phone # 631-924-8507. There's even a Yaphank forum where one might discuss this background issue.

Mrs. M. Kapproth, a special ed. teacher, tells us that the League's Siegfried Park started out as a summer place for children and a campground for adults. It was to be a country-like enclave to the German speaking people from NYC. At one point you had to be of German descent and be sponsored by a member of the League to live in Siegfried Park.

Here's a posting of the Yaphank Historical Society Newsletter from July-August, 2009. Helen Kalbach, President, writes that the society was 35 years old that year.

David Behrens, staff writer for the Wild Bill Guarnere Community, describes  Camp Siegfried, located on a wooded lakefront near the mid-Suffolk village. He says that in 1936 the "Camp Siegfried Special" train would leave Penn Station every Sunday to bring thousands of bundists to the Yaphank depot. That was the summer in which the German American Bund was formally organized. It had evolved from a series of nationwide German-American groups following WW I. These included the Free Society of Teutonia, organized in 1924, the Friends of the Hitler Movement and the Friends of New Germany, founded in 1933.
  
Gustave Neuss shares some history to the G-A-S League. He writes that their property at Camp Siegried was taken over by the Alien Property Custodian during WW II as an enemy asset. Residences and other real property of detainees were also confiscated. Commenting on the German-American Bund, he writes,

"The German-American Bund activity was not limited to Yaphank and the New York City area.  Groups of the pro-Nazis were located throughout the United States.  Hitler’s claim was that after he had conquered Europe he would then take over the USA.  The Bund and other pro-German groups located throughout the country provided a cadre of subversives to assist in such a takeover. Detaining the most dangerous of these, defused a potential problem.  Fortunately the battlegrounds never reached the United States mainland."