Forgotten German roots still visible in Pennsylvania
Unknown to many, the largest group of immigrants in the US are not the Irish, nor the Hispanics. It is the Germans. Americans like Donald Trump, Henry Kissinger, Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Heinz and Miller families can claim German heritage, but so too can at least 42 million others. Jan van der Made reports from the US election campaign trail.
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German immigrants were the first to protest against slavery, and German newspapers even scooped the text of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 before it was publicly read in English. Yet the German heritage in the US has all but disappeared. Some, however, are trying to preserve and even revive it.
"We are trying to overcome the stereotypes that are related to the idea of German culture," says Anton Michels, the 24th president of the German Society of Pennsylvania.
"We try to showcase the fact that the German culture is more than just beer, bratwursten and lederhosen. Because it isn’t".
Michels is dressed in working clothes. He is personally leading the massive repairs of the headquarters of the Society at 611, Spring Garden Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania the roof was redone, the seventies-style Ratskeller in the basement got airconditioning, and the main entrance has been completely refurbished.
The society organizes concerts, lectures on German culture, and prides itself on having the world’s largest German language library outside Germany. It also lures people with a massive beer fest every February.
"This ties into the expectation of many Americans. I believe you have to tie into expectation of someone to get into contact with them and then show that there is more than he or she expected," he said.
German roots
William Penn, who founded Pennsylvania in 1682, allowed Germans to come in and establish a "Germantown," in what is now a part of Philadelphia.
Over the decades, influx of Germans looking for religious freedom or a more prosperous existence was so significant that the German Society of Pennsylvania was created in 1764 - 252 years ago this week, and at its current location since 1888 - initially to help newcomers to settle down and get used to their new lives in the British colonies.
Unknown to the greater public, German settlers lead by Francis Daniel Pastorius (who was, like Michels, from Krefeld) are credited with the first recorded protest against slavery, as early as 1683, insisting it was incompatible with Christianity.
Michels proudly points at a banner in the library dating back from that time, carrying the words "Vinum Linum et Textrinum (Grapes, Flux and Textile) For Emancipation of Slaves" representing the three trades Germans opposing slavery were active in.
"The English Anglican church was also Christian," says Michels, "But they may have ignored the bible, or maybe they had another interpretation of it."
Another historic fact is that editors of Pennsylvanian German language newspapers managed to get a copy of the July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence, probably the most sacred text in the United States.
"They translated it and published it two days before it was read out to the public at the Independence Hall on July 8," says Michels. "Those who could read German knew the content of the Declaration before all the others!"
The German language became so important in the region that it was subject of a vote in the Pennsylvanian state, whether to make it a second language. The vote failed, but the sentiment remained.
German culture flourished in Pennsylvania, and German migrants set out further west, towards Ohio and Wisconsin.
Schools taught German, and at the end of the 19th century there were about 500 German language newspapers in the United States.
The First World War changed everything.
In his book Burning Beethoven Erik Kirschbaum, a German- American journalist who went to look for his roots, described the growing anti-German sentiment in the US after the start of the War.
“It is likely that Woodrow Wilson [who was against US involvement in the war] was re-elected as a result of the German vote that was particularly strong in the Mid- and Mid West,” says Kirschbaum.
But the tide could not be turned. After British intelligence had decoded a telegram sent by then German minister of foreign affairs, Arthur Zimmerman, to Mexico in which he promised the Mexicans part of US territory, including Texas and New Mexico, if they were ready to fight on Germany’s side, Wilson was forced to take a stance and started sending troops to Europe.
“World War One really created this great anti-German hysteria and they changed their names and probably a good third of the American population has German or Germanic ancestry,” says Joe Schwartz, a political scientist with Temple University in Philadelphia.
“During and after World War One there was a heavy repression, a lot of German families stopped speaking German, changed their names and discouraged their kids from learning the language. It was the start of the big Americanization of the German immigrants.
German heritage
Among those who were ashamed of their German heritage was the grandfather of the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who originally came from Kallstadt in Bavaria. He claimed that he was from Sweden and that he had nothing to do with Germany.
Kirshbaum describes public lynchings of Germans in his book, and highlights the growing “hate of the Huns,” where people went as far as attacking libraries and music stores and burning works of Beethoven, Mozart and Schiller, mocking it as “grumblings from cavemen”.
The Second World War eradicated much of what was still left of German culture in America, and except stubborn pockets of traditionalism like the Amish en Memmonite communities in East Pennsylvania, there is not much left.
And now it is up to Michels, to try and re-connect America with its German past, but also familiarize Americans with more recent history.
In the garden, still wrapped in blue protective plastic stands a recently purchased segment of the Berlin Wall (“it was at Potsdammerplatz!”).
It is to be installed on a rotating platform in the garden to symbolically show the public both sides of the coin of the cold war.
“We are trying to broaden the view of German culture here in Philadelphia, and I think we are pretty successful in doing so,” says Michels.
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