In the fall of 1917, the fight against Germans in Europe was extended to their
Kultur in the United States. This battle against all things German included a ban on the use of the German language in schools, universities, libraries, and religious services. Additionally, German societies, musical organizations, and theaters were shuttered and the German-language press in America was forced to shut down. Patriotic organizations claimed that the preservation of the German language would hinder German-Americans’ assimilation into American life and, even worse, brutalize young people: “Any language which produces a people of ruthless conquestadors [sic] such as now exist in Germany, is not a fit language to teach clean and pure American boys and girls.”
[16] In most public schools, teachers were forced to sign loyalty pledges, and many pupils no longer dared to enroll in German-language courses. By March 1918, thirty-eight out of forty-eight states had restricted or ended German-language instruction in schools. Ohio, Iowa, and Nebraska passed the strictest language laws in the country; since their laws also prohibited the use of any foreign language in public places or on the telephone, the U.S. Supreme Court declared them to be unconstitutional in 1923 and 1925, respectively.
[17] Public and university libraries ended their subscriptions to German-language newspapers, books written in German and even English books that dealt with Germany and Austria-Hungary (such as history books or tourist guides) were stowed in basements for the duration of the war. However, some libraries went so far as to destroy them or to sell them as wastepaper; several of these books were actually publicly burned along with German-language newspapers during local patriotic celebrations.
Most German-American congregations suffered from the language ban, and many of them eventually switched to English for their religious services. Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites were among the groups that were most heavily exposed to hostility, because their members were not only of German descent but also generally opposed to military participation. (Ironically, they had once left Europe to evade military service and find religious tolerance.) During wartime, however, their pacifist creed was taken as proof of their pro-German sympathies; the fact that most of them kept apart from their American neighbors made them even more suspect. In general, they chose not to comment on the public discourse; they continued to operate their own schools, cherished their old customs, spoke their German dialects, and resisted Americanization. None of them felt any loyalty toward Germany; they just wanted to be left alone to practice their faith and live according to their religious beliefs. Many so-called patriotic organizations were irritated by this behavior, and they renewed their efforts to force those groups to contribute to the war effort. Several members of these religious groups were beaten, churches were destroyed, their cattle was sold in order to buy liberty bonds in their names, and American flags were hoisted on their schools. These religious communities were left with two options: either to suffer this treatment or emigrate. The more liberal congregations chose the first option and worked out a compromise with the Wilson government in which they allowed their young men to participate in the civil service. Still, some Mennonites were drafted into the armed forces, and several of them were jailed as conscientious objectors. More than 1,500 Mennonites and Hutterites finally migrated to Canada during the war in order to escape further harassment and prosecution.
[18] In times of frantic mobilization, when the German language was as much an enemy as Imperial Germany itself and when war opponents were seen as traitors, there was no room for tolerance for ethnic peculiarities and pacifist ideals.
These self-proclaimed patriotic organizations also started campaigns to Americanize the United States nominally. Hundreds of German names for towns, streets, parks, and public buildings were changed. Extremely recognizable German names such as “Berlin” or “Hamburg” became “Pershing” or “Belgium.” Many German-Americans sought to avoid further harassment by changing their family names, often shortening them or translating them into English. The same was true for most cultural societies. Actual legislation or local pressure led to changes in club names, the halting of publications (or at least a switch to English), an end to meetings for the duration of the war or even the outright termination of clubs. Several German theaters that were dependent on the language skills of their patrons had to give up performing in the years to come. Even music fell victim to patriotic scrutiny. Most well-known orchestras had conductors and musicians who were either German or German-American, such as Frederick Stock of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Ernst Kunwald of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, or Karl Muck, the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (who ended up in Fort Oglethorpe), to name only the most prominent. Many orchestras and opera houses stopped playing works by German and Austrian composers such as Beethoven or Mozart to avoid being labeled disloyal. For some patriotic societies, German music was particularly perilous since it stirred the emotions of listeners; for others, it was a perfect tool for German propaganda: “German music, as a whole, is dangerous, in that it preaches the same philosophy, or rather sophistry, as most of the German literature. It is the music of conquest, the music of the storm, of disorder, and devastation.”
[19]
German-language newspapers also came under intense pressure from these so-called patriotic organizations. Many readers cancelled their subscriptions, companies stopped advertising in them, no one wanted to deliver them anymore, and vendors stopped selling them. Many of them switched to English, some merged with former competitors, others ceased operations for the duration of the war. Many ethnic societies and German-language papers failed to survive the war; still, not all of them were destroyed. Though strongly diminished, several continued into the decades after the war.
On the whole, the treatment of German-Americans during the war varied from region to region and depended on their numbers and on the behavior of local politicians and attorney generals. There was less harassment in places where there were few citizens of German descent, since they were not perceived as a real threat. Likewise, there were fewer arrests of German-Americans and less scrutiny in places where local politicians and lawyers resolved not to enforce laws to the fullest. However, when politicians and officials decided to use the situation to advance their careers, they were often able to incite a community to hatred against anyone who appeared to dissent – just as Joseph McCarthy did thirty years later. As a result of the war, many German-Americans preferred to conceal their ethnic background, as could be seen in the first postwar census, when about 900,000 German-born Americans seemingly vanished, only to reappear under the categories of American-born or other ethnicity.
[20] Insofar as they held onto their German language, culture, and traditions at all, many German-Americans did so in private or turned it into folklore.
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