Anti-German Hysteria

Anti-German sentiment (also known as Anti-Germanism, Germanophobia or Teutophobia) is opposition to or fear of Germany, its inhabitants, its culture, or its language. Its opposite is Germanophilia.

Anti-German sentiment largely began with the mid-19th-century unification of Germany, which made the new nation a rival to the great powers of Europe on economic, cultural, geopolitical, and military grounds. However, the German atrocities during World War I and World War II greatly strengthened anti-German sentiment.

Before 1914

United States

In the 19th century, the mass influx of German immigrants made them the largest group of Americans by ancestry today. This migration resulted in nativist reactionary movements not unlike those of the contemporary Western world. These would eventually culminate in 1844 with the establishment of the American Party, which had an openly xenophobic stance. One of many incidents described in a 19th century account included the blocking of a funeral procession in New York by a group who proceeded to hurl insults at the pallbearers. Incidents such as these led to more meetings of Germans who would eventually establish fraternal groups such as the Sons of Hermann in 1840, having been founded as a means to "improve and foster German customs and the spread of benevolence among Germans in the United States".

Russia

In the 1860s, Russia experienced an outbreak of Germanophobia, mainly restricted to a small group of writers in St. Petersburg who had united around a left-wing newspaper. It began in 1864 with the publication of an article by a writer (using the pseudonym "Shedoferotti") who proposed that Poland be given autonomy and that the privileges of the Baltic German nobility in the Baltic governorates and Finland be preserved. Mikhail Katkov published a harsh criticism of the article in the ''Moscow News'', which in turn caused a flood of angry articles in which Russian writers expressed their irritation with Europeans, some of which featured direct attacks on Germans.

The following year, 1865, the 100th anniversary of the death of Mikhail Lomonosov was marked throughout the Russian Empire. Articles were published mentioning the difficulties Lomonosov had encountered from the foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences, most of whom had been of German descent. The authors then criticized contemporary German scholars for their neglect of the Russian language and for printing articles in foreign languages while receiving funds from the Russian people. It was further suggested by some writers that Russian citizens of German origin who did not speak Russian and follow the Orthodox faith should be considered foreigners. It was also proposed that people of German descent be forbidden from holding diplomatic posts as they might not have "solidarity with respect to Russia".

Despite the press campaign against Germans, Germanophobic feelings did not develop in Russia to any widespread extent, and died out, due to the Imperial family's German roots and the presence of many German names in the Russian political elite.

Great Britain

Negative comments about Germany had begun to appear in Britain in the 1870s, following the Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–71. The British war planners considered how to stop a possible invasion.

Fiction

Britain the island nation feared invasion, leading to the popularity of the invasion novel.

According to Alfred Vagts "The Battle of Dorking":

appeared first in ''Blackwood's Magazine'' in the summer of 1871, at a time when the German Crown Prince and his English wife he daughter of Queen Victoriawere visiting England. Impressed by the late German victories, the author, a Colonel Chesney, who remained anonymous for some time, told the story of how England, in 1875, would be induced by an insurrection of the natives in India, disturbances in Ireland, and a conflict with the United States threatening Canadian security, to employ her navy and standing army far from her own shores; in spite of this dangerous position England, on account of a quarrel with Germany over Denmark, would declare war on Germany. The latter would land an army in England which would conquer the remaining parts of the British army and the Volunteers, who would join it at Dorking, and would force upon England a disastrous peace.

Newspaper publisher Lord Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe in 1894 commissioned author William Le Queux to write the serial novel ''The Great War in England in 1897'', which featured France and Russia combining forces to crush Britain. Happily German intervention on Britain's side turned back France and Russia. Twelve years later, however, Harmsworth asked him to reverse enemies, making Germany the villain. The result was the bestselling ''The Invasion of 1910'', which originally appeared in serial form in the ''Daily Mail'' in 1906. Harmsworth now used his newspapers like "Daily Mail" or "The Times" to attack Berlin, inducing an atmosphere of paranoia, mass hysteria and Germanophobia that would climax in the Naval Scare of 1908–09.

"Made in Germany" as a warning label

German food such as the sausage was deprecated by Germanophobes. In the late 19th century, the label ''Made in Germany'' was introduced. The label was originally introduced in Britain by the ''Merchandise Marks Act 1887'', to mark foreign produce more obviously, as foreign manufactures had been falsely marking inferior goods with the marks of renowned British manufacturing companies and importing them into the United Kingdom. Most of these were found to be originating from Germany, whose government had introduced a protectionist policy to legally prohibit the import of goods in order to build up domestic industry (Merchandise Marks Act - Oxford University Press).

German immigrants

In the 1890s, German immigrants in Britain were the target of "some hostility". Joseph Bannister believed that German residents in Britain were mostly "gambling-house keepers, hotel-porters, barbers, 'bullies', runaway conscripts, bath-attendants, street musicians, criminals, bakers, socialists, cheap clerks, etc". Interviewees for the Royal Commission on Alien Immigration believed that Germans were involved in prostitution and burglary, and many people also viewed Germans working in Britain as threatening the livelihood of Britons by being willing to work for longer hours.

=South Africa

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Anti-German hostility deepened since early 1896 after the Kruger telegram of Kaiser Wilhelm II, in which he congratulated President Kruger of the Transvaal on repelling the British Jameson Raid. Attacks on Germans in London were reported in the German press at the time but do not appear to have actually occurred. The '' Saturday Review'' suggested "be ready to fight Germany, as ''Germania delenda est''" ("Germany is to be destroyed"), a reference to the coda against the Carthaginians used by Cato the Elder during the Roman Republic. The Kaiser's reputation was further degraded by his angry tirade and the Daily Telegraph Affair.

1900-1914

Following the signing of the Entente Cordiale alliance in 1904 between Britain and France, official relationships cooled as did popular attitudes towards Germany and German residents in Britain. A fear of German militarism replaced a previous admiration for German culture and literature. At the same time, journalists produced a stream of articles on the threat posed by Germany. In the Daily Telegraph Affair of 1908–1909, the Kaiser--although he was a grandson of Queen Victoria-- humiliated himself and further soured relations by his intemperate attacks on Britain.

Articles in Harmsworth's ''Daily Mail'' regularly advocated anti-German sentiments throughout the 20th century, telling their readers to refuse service at restaurants by Austrian or German waiters on the claim that they were spies and told them that if a German-sounding waiter claimed to be Swiss that they should demand to see the waiter's passport. In 1903, Erskine Childers published ''The Riddle of the Sands: A Record of Secret Service'' a novel in which two Englishmen uncover a plot by Germany to Invade England; it was later made into a 1979 film The Riddle of the Sands.

At the same time, conspiracy theories were concocted combining Germanophobia with antisemitism, concerning the supposed foreign control of Britain, some of which blamed Britain's entry into the Second Boer War on international financiers "chiefly German in origin and Jewish in race". Most of these ideas about German-Jewish conspiracies originated from right-wing figures such as Arnold White, Hilaire Belloc, and Leo Maxse, the latter using his publication the '' National Review'' to spread them.

First World War

In 1914, when Germany invaded neutral Belgium and northern France, its army officers accused many thousands of Belgian and French civilians of being francs-tireurs and executed 6,500 of them. These acts were used to encourage anti-German sentiments and the Allied Powers produced propaganda depicting Germans as ''Huns'' capable of infinite cruelty and violence.

Great Britain

In Great Britain, anti-German feeling led to infrequent rioting, assaults on suspected Germans and the looting of stores owned by people with German-sounding names, occasionally even taking on an antisemitic tone.
Increasing anti-German hysteria even threw suspicion upon the British royal family. King George V was persuaded to change his German name of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor and relinquish all German titles and styles on behalf of his relatives who were British subjects. Prince Louis of Battenberg was not only forced to change his name to Mountbatten, he was forced to resign as First Sea Lord, the most senior position in the Royal Navy.

The German Shepherd breed of dog was renamed to the euphemistic "Alsatian"; the English Kennel Club only re-authorised the use of 'German Shepherd' as an official name in 1977. The German biscuit was re-named the Empire biscuit.

Several streets in London which had been named after places in Germany or notable Germans had their names changed. For instance, ''Berlin Road'' in Catford was renamed ''Canadian Avenue'', and ''Bismarck Road'' in Islington was renamed ''Waterlow Road''.

Attitudes to Germany were not entirely negative among British troops fighting on the Western Front; the British writer Nicholas Shakespeare quotes this statement from a letter written by his grandfather during the First World War in which he says he would rather fight the French and describes German bravery:

Robert Graves who, like the King, also had German relatives, wrote shortly after the war during his time at Oxford University as an undergraduate that:

Canada

In Canada, there was some anti-German sentiment in Germanic communities, including Berlin, Ontario (Kitchener, Ontario) in Waterloo County, Ontario, before and the First World War and some cultural sanctions. There were anti-German riots in Victoria, British Columbia, and Calgary, Alberta, in the first years of the war.

It was this anti-German sentiment that precipitated the Berlin to Kitchener name change in 1916. The city was named after Lord Kitchener, famously pictured on the "Lord Kitchener Wants You" recruiting posters. Several streets in Toronto that had previously been named for Liszt, Humboldt, Schiller, Bismarck, etc., were changed to names with strong British associations, such as Balmoral.

The Governor General of Canada, the Duke of Connaught, while visiting Berlin, Ontario, in May 1914, had discussed the importance of Canadians of German ethnicity (regardless of their origin) in a speech: "It is of great interest to me that many of the citizens of Berlin are of German descent. I well know the admirable qualities – the thoroughness, the tenacity, and the loyalty of the great Teutonic Race, to which I am so closely related. I am sure that these inherited qualities will go far in the making of good Canadians and loyal citizens of the British Empire".

Some immigrants from Germany who considered themselves Canadians but were not yet citizens, were detained in internment camps during the War. In fact, by 1919 most of the population of Kitchener, Waterloo, and Elmira in Waterloo County, Ontario, were Canadian.

The German-speaking Mennonites were pacifist so they could not enlist and the few who had immigrated from Germany (not born in Canada) could not morally fight against a country that was a significant part of their heritage.

News reports during the war years indicate that "A Lutheran minister was pulled out of his house ... he was dragged through the streets. German clubs were ransacked through the course of the war. It was just a really nasty time period." Someone stole the bust of Kaiser Wilhelm II from Victoria Park and dumped it into a lake; soldiers vandalized German stores. History professor Mark Humphries summarized the situation:

A document in the Archives of Canada makes the following comment: "Although ludicrous to modern eyes, the whole issue of a name for Berlin highlights the effects that fear, hatred and nationalism can have upon a society in the face of war."

Internment camps across Canada opened in 1915 and 8,579 "enemy aliens" were held there until the end of the war; many were German speaking immigrants from Austria, Hungary, Germany, and Ukraine. Only 3,138 were classed as prisoners of war; the rest were civilians.

Built in 1926, the Waterloo Pioneer Memorial Tower in rural Kitchener, Ontario, commemorates the settlement by the Pennsylvania Dutch (actually ''Pennsilfaanisch Deitsch'' or ''German'') of the Grand River area in the 1800s in what later became Waterloo County, Ontario.

Australia

In Australia, an official proclamation of 10 August 1914 required all German citizens to register their domiciles at the nearest police station and to notify authorities of any change of address. Under the later Aliens Restriction Order of 27 May 1915, enemy aliens who had not been interned had to report to the police once a week and could only change address with official permission. An amendment to the Restriction Order in July 1915 prohibited enemy aliens and naturalized subjects from changing their name or the name of any business they ran. Under the War Precautions Act of 1914 (which survived the First World War), publication of German language material was prohibited and schools attached to Lutheran churches were forced to abandon German as the language of teaching or were closed by the authorities. German clubs and associations were also closed.

The original German names of settlements and streets were officially changed. In South Australia, ''Grunthal'' became ''Verdun'' and ''Krichauff'' became ''Beatty''. In New South Wales ''Germantown'' became ''Holbrook'' after the submarine commander Norman Douglas Holbrook. This pressure was strongest in South Australia where 69 towns changed their names, including Petersburg, South Australia, which became Peterborough (see Australian place names changed from German names).

Most of the anti-German feeling was created by the press that tried to create the idea that all those of German birth or descent supported Germany uncritically. This is despite many Germans and offspring such as Gen. John Monash serving Australia capably and honorably. A booklet circulated widely in 1915 claimed that "there were over 3,000 German spies scattered throughout the states". Anti-German propaganda was also inspired by several local and foreign companies who were keen to take the opportunity to eliminate Germany as a competitor in the Australian market. Germans in Australia were increasingly portrayed as evil by the very nature of their origins.

United States

After the revelation of the Zimmermann Telegram partly sparked the American declaration of war against Imperial Germany in April 1917, German Americans were sometimes accused of being too sympathetic to Germany. Former president Theodore Roosevelt denounced "hyphenated Americanism", insisting that dual loyalties were impossible in wartime. A small minority of Americans, usually of German-American descent, came out for Germany. Similarly, Harvard psychology professor Hugo Münsterberg dropped his efforts to mediate between America and Germany, and threw his efforts behind the German cause.

The Justice Department attempted to prepare a list of all German aliens, counting approximately 480,000 of them, more than 4,000 of whom were imprisoned in 1917–18. The allegations included spying for Germany, or endorsing the German war effort. Thousands were forced to buy war bonds to show their loyalty. The Red Cross barred individuals with German last names from joining in fear of sabotage. One person was killed by a mob; in Collinsville, Illinois, German-born Robert Prager was dragged from jail as a suspected spy and lynched.

When the United States entered the war in 1917, some German Americans were looked upon with suspicion and attacked regarding their loyalty. Some aliens were convicted and imprisoned on charges of sedition, for refusing to swear allegiance to the United States war effort.

In Chicago, Frederick Stock was forced to step down as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra until he finalized his naturalization papers. Orchestras replaced music by German composer Wagner with French composer Berlioz.

In Nashville, Tennessee, Luke Lea, the publisher of ''The Tennessean'', together with "political associates", "conspired unsuccessfully to have the German-born Major Stahlman declared an "alien enemy" after World War I began." Stahlman was the publisher of a competing newspaper, the ''Nashville Banner''.

The town, Berlin, Michigan, was renamed Marne, Michigan (in honor of those who fought in the Battle of the Marne). The town of Berlin, Shelby County Ohio changed its name to its original name of Fort Loramie, Ohio. The city of Germantown in Shelby County Tennessee temporarily changed its name to Neshoba during the war.

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the offices of a pro-German, Socialist newspaper, the Philadelphia Tageblatt, were visited by federal agents after war broke out to investigate the citizenship status of its staff and would later be raided by federal agents under the powers of the Espionage Act of 1917, and six members of its organization would eventually be arrested for violations of the Espionage Act among other charges after publishing a number of pieces of pro-German propaganda.

German street names in many cities were changed. German and Berlin streets in Cincinnati became English and Woodward.Kathleen Doane
"Anti-German hysteria swept Cincinnati in 1917"
. ''The Cincinnati Enquirer'', 6 June 2012. Accessed 15 February 2013. In Chicago Lubeck, Frankfort, and Hamburg Streets were renamed Dickens, Charleston, and Shakespeare Streets.Jack Simpson
"German Street Name Changes in Bucktown, Part I"
Newberry Library. In New Orleans, Berlin Street was renamed in honor of General Pershing, head of the American Expeditionary Force. In Indianapolis, Bismarck Avenue and Germania Street were renamed Pershing Avenue and Belleview Street, respectively in 1917, Brooklyn’s Hamburg Avenue was renamed Wilson Avenue.

Many businesses changed their names. In Chicago, German Hospital became Grant Hospital; likewise the German Dispensary and the German Hospital in New York City were renamed Lenox Hill Hospital and Wyckoff Heights Hospital respectively. In New York, the giant Germania Life Insurance Company became Guardian. At the US Customs House in Lower Manhattan, the word "Germany" which was on a shield that one of the building’s many figures was holding was chiseled over.

Many schools stopped teaching German-language classes. The City College of New York continued to teach German courses, but reduced the number of credits that students could receive for them. Books published in German were removed from libraries or even burned. In Cincinnati, the public library was asked to withdraw all German books from its shelves. In Iowa, in the 1918 Babel Proclamation, the governor of Iowa, William L. Harding, prohibited the use of all foreign languages in schools and public places. Nebraska banned instruction in any language except English, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the ban was illegal in 1923 (''Meyer v. Nebraska'').

Some words of German origin were changed, at least temporarily. Sauerkraut came to be called "liberty cabbage", German measles became "liberty measles", hamburgers became "liberty sandwiches" and dachshunds became "liberty pups".

In parallel with these changes, many German Americans elected to anglicize their names (e.g. Schmidt to Smith, Müller to Miller) and limit the use of the German language in public places, especially in churches.

Ethnic German Medal of Honor winners were American USAAS ace pilots Edward Rickenbacker

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