Liberty Cabbage and Pinochle

Much worse in the long term is that foreign language teaching collapsed.

By 1940 almost the only children who learned modern foreign languages were the Mormons who needed them for overseas missions.

Time to ban friggin algebra.

Until WWI there were still sizable enclaves in the America where second and third generation German-Americans still spoke primarily German. The wave of nativism that came on the war’s heels killed any linguistic diversity left in the US.

Even more: the anti-German hostility was repeated, in a much more informal and ad hoc way, during World War II, in which numerous legal and long-time German residents–and some citizens as well–were rounded up as potential “enemy aliens” and interned in camps along with other suspect types. The relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII gets most of the press, because it was so massive and the paper trail (presidential orders, courts cases, etc.) is so clear. But many German-Americans suffered once more during those years as well.

“Roman attempts to subdue the Germans”

I was wrong to be suspicious — however it looks like sauerkraut was called “Victory Cabbage.” Hamburgers were called “Freedom Sandwiches.”

Unbelievable.

And on the other side of the Atlantic we had Windsor (Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) and Mountbatten (Battenberg).

Time to ban friggin algebra.

And alcohol. And admirals! (The “more rubble less trouble” crowd really won’t like that last one…)

Never mind algebra, just ban Arabic numerals altogether.

Some areas of Minnesota and Wisconsin are close to 100% German. I doubt that those Germans had problems. I believe that those communities polarized — there was significant draft-dodging, but other German-American felt obligated to serve in the military to prove their loyalty.

I believe that my Dutch ancestors started calling themselves “Hollanders” in WWI, because in American English “Dutch” equally meant German.

I’m originally from Syracuse and never knew that. Next time I’m home, I’ll stop at the last two surviving German restaurants, eat myself into insensibility, and leave a big tip.

Russell- I’m not 100% sure, but I do believe that the interned Germans (and Italians) were given individual hearings about loyalty and almost all were released in a fairly short period of time unlike the Japanese. At least this is what I recall reading on Eric Muller’s site. Quite likely many were treated unfairly and unjustly, but less so than the Japanese (I don’t read you as saying otherwise.)

A quick Google seems to show that English is the only language in which Hollanders/ Netherlanders are called “Dutch” (~ “Deutsch”).

Uhh, except for Dutch, where Diets is not quite extinct, though the actions of those who promote its use are sending it in that direction.

John,

“Some areas of Minnesota and Wisconsin are close to 100% German. I doubt that those Germans had problems.”

The patterns of relocation of Japanese-Americans throws some interesting light on where demographic realities and racial/economic hostilities crossed. Japanese-Americans were shipped to internment centers out of designated military areas, including practically all the West coast…but not Hawaii, the place you’d assume a demand for internment and depopulation would be strongest. Why not? In part because Japanese-Americans made up such a large portion of the islands’ population that to relocate them all might have crashed the local economy entirely. I suspect similar reasoning was at play in not harassing too much German-Americans who lived in communities as compact and homogenous as those in some parts of the upper Midwest.

Matt,

“I do believe that the interned Germans (and Italians) were given individual hearings about loyalty and almost all were released in a fairly short period of time unlike the Japanese. At least this is what I recall reading on Eric Muller’s site.”

Many were, but perhaps just as many weren’t. Complete data is extremely hard to come by and unreliable, because so many different agencies were involved in targeting, interviewing, detaining and interning suspected German and Italian-Americans on an ad hoc basis; there was no standard set of procedures. For example, in the case of Mathias Borniger–the Wichita, KS, resident whose story I told on my blog–you had a Boeing employee who someone thought might be sneaking photos of planes off to Hitler, who was picked up immediately after Pearl Harbor, interrogated, shipped off to a military camp for four months, then to an itnernment camp where he was held for nearly two years, being released in the fall of 1943. His case does not appear to have been atypical.

“Would now be about 80”

(1) WW1 was followed by the 1920s, perhaps the most racist decade in US history. That’s encouraging.

(2) It’s one thing to maintain a constant level of stupidity while other things remain constant. It’s something else to do so while other things (nuclear weapons, growing population and cological devastation, global warming etc) get worse.

It might have something to do with eating too much German food.

And on the other side of the Atlantic we had Windsor (Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) and Mountbatten (Battenberg).

That’s why I refer to the Prince of Wales as Charles Battenberg-Saxe-Coburg und Gotha. When I’m not calling his entire family usurpers. Franz Herzog von Bayern is the rightful King of England and Scotland. Join me in raising a glass to the King across the water. All right, I’m in North America, so they’re both across the water. My point, whatever it is, remains.

“Over the water”, mds, “over the water”. It’s much more ambiguous that way, and ambiguous is important.