German Propaganda and U.S. Neutrality in World War I

Chad R. Fulwider

• Publisher: University of Missouri
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780826220585
• eBook ISBN: 9780826273437
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: 20th Century History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In the fading evening light of August 4, 1914, Great Britain's H.M.S. Telconia set off on a mission to sever the five transatlantic cables linking Germany and the United States. Thus Britain launched its first attack of World War I and simultaneously commenced what became the war's most decisive battle: the battle for American public opinion.

In this revealing study, Chad Fulwider analyzes the efforts undertaken by German organizations, including the German Foreign Ministry, to keep the United States out of the war. Utilizing archival records, newspapers, and "official" propaganda, the book also assesses the cultural impact of Germany's political mission within the United States and comments upon the perception of American life in Europe during the early twentieth century.

Chapter I

The August Experience in the United States

“The United States must be neutral in fact as well as in name during these days that are to try men’s souls. We must be impartial in thought as well as in action, must put a curb upon our sentiments as well as upon every transaction that might be construed as a preference of one party to the struggle before another. [We must be] . . . a nation that neither sits in judgment upon others nor is disturbed in her own counsels and which keeps herself fit and free to do what is honest and disinterested and truly serviceable for the peace of the world.” Woodrow Wilson, Appeal to the Nation, 18 August 1914.

WITH the outbreak of war in 1914, all of the belligerent countries called for their countrymen in the United States to return to their homelands to fight. On 2 August, the New York Times reported a call from Austria-Hungary for the estimated 200,000 “Austrians” in the United States to return home following the German declaration of war against Russia. Thousands of men turned up at the Austrian consulates and waited for passage to Europe. In New York, 2,500 reservists in the metropolitan area registered and attempted to return immediately to Austria-Hungary to fight, but no ships were available.¹ By 5 August, as many as 3,000 recent immigrant reservists and volunteers besieged the consulates of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and France, which were “swamped by those for whom there is no transportation.” The German reservists were so numerous that the consulates instructed them to secure transportation by their own means.² One consulate reported, “800 young Germans and Austrians, many of whom were men of wealth, had chartered a steamer on which to sail for a German port.”³ Mirroring popular demonstrations in various German cities,⁴ Germans and Austrians paraded American streets “singing the songs of their fatherlands and shouting hochs [hail] to Emperors William and Franz Josef.”⁵

The German parades did not end with marching and singing in the streets. One group gathered at Battery Park and marched to the German consulate with a petition signed by 700 ready volunteers. Carrying German and American flags, they then walked “by the Austro-Hungarian, Norwegian, and English consulates singing, “Die Wacht am Rhein” [The Watch on the Rhine] and other German airs,” and through other major streets in New York, until there were “nearly two thousand persons in line.”⁶

Germans in the United States responded immediately to the crises of war. Support of the Fatherland was not confined only to “Germans” or reservists, but extended to American citizens of German descent. The National German-American Alliance (NGAA), the largest organization of German-Americans, called a mass meeting on 5 August 1914 to protest against any American participation in the war.⁷ The NGAA boasted a membership of over 2,000,000 enthusiasts of German culture and traditions, all of whom were legal American citizens. The NGAA was the largest ethnic organization in American history. Local chapters of the NGAA held rallies in support of the German war effort. The Cincinnati chapter of the NGAA staged a mass rally against Prohibition, casting it as an attack on German culture by Anglo-Saxon nativists that paralleled the British threat to Germany. Crowds sang Die Wacht am Rhein and Deutschland über Alles [Germany Above All]. Other German-American organizations, such as the Catholic Central Verein (union), also voiced their support of the German cause, citing the aggressive nature of Russian expansion against the peaceful German nation.

This chapter focuses on the independent American response to the outbreak of war in Europe during August and September 1914, before the German officials could organize an effective propaganda effort in the United States. It concentrates on the expressions of pro-German sympathizers, the German-language press, American academics, and the NGAA. While German exchange professors were also an important component in the effort to defend Germany against Allied propaganda, these individuals will be addressed in the following chapter. This division keeps the sympathizers from Germany together as distinct from the independent German-Americans at the beginning of the war. The following sections examine the attempts of the German organizations, the German-language press, and the actions of German-American activists to counter the increasingly pro-Allied stance of the media and of many Americans in a desperate struggle to keep the United States out of the war. Although these efforts ultimately failed, supporters of Germany continued to fight from the first days of the war until the German announcement of unrestricted submarine warfare in February 1917.

German Reservists

Communicating from New York, General-Consul Horst von Falcke informed the Foreign Office that every day hundreds of German reservists were inquiring about passage across the Atlantic by the end of July.⁸ From Atlanta, on 2 August, the consul-general ordered all German reservists in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North and South Carolina, and Florida to report to Atlanta where they would be transported to Germany.⁹ Similar calls were issued for other major cities, such as New York, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburg, Toledo, Omaha, and Cincinnati, and for British and French troops as well.¹⁰ While many Austrian and German reservists attempted to return, there is some evidence that there was a weaker response on the part of French troops. In New Orleans, the French consul called upon “the Frenchmen and their sons of Louisiana” from the classes 1893 to 1915, or roughly those 18 to 40 years of age. Many did heed the call to the colors, but there were a number in New Orleans who refused to go fight for France. Reacting harshly, French Consul-General Ferrand chastised those who failed to report, arguing that “not only are [they] traitors and cowards, but are so void of honor that they should be denied the right of citizenship in the United States or other foreign countries” and that the French societies of New Orleans should expel such men.¹¹

For the German reservists, however, their patriotic call to duty was rather short-lived. By 7 August, the New York Times reported that Dr. Horst Falcke, the German Consul-General in New York, “admitted that it did not look as if it would be possible to get any of the reservists back to Germany soon” because of British naval domination, and that those from out of town were preparing to return to their homes. The Washington Post noted that 50,000 German immigrants trying to return home for service were stranded in New York by 9 August, but that at least limited mail service was able to resume with Germany, beginning 10 August, by way of Italy.¹² British vessels had little trouble leaving port, but no other vessels at New York had clearance papers. Outside the U.S., German supporters also tried to serve the Fatherland. By late August, large numbers of German reservists were biding their time in hotels in the Mexican cities of Veracruz and Tampico, waiting for transportation to Europe.¹³

There were some successful, enterprising Germans who did succeed in slipping through the British nets. On 20 September, the Washington Post reported that Franz Bippus, a German reservist so enthusiastic to return to Germany that he had pawned his watch and a ring to purchase passage on the Ancona, had outwitted the British whose ship had intercepted that liner at Gibraltar. While forty other Germans were detained by the British, Bippus, who also spoke excellent Russian, had fooled the British officers, remained on the ship, and made his way from Naples through Switzerland to join his unit in Bavaria.¹⁴ Another German, the cycling champion Walter Ruett, was also able to reach Berlin by way of a Danish steamer under the name Oskar Walter. Again, linguistic skill came to the rescue; Ruett, whose wife was from Denmark, spoke perfect Danish.¹⁵

The German-Americans

Despite the pro-Allied bias of the major newspapers during the month of August, many Americans were unsure where their sympathies lay. German-Americans made up a large and vocal minority in major cities such as New York, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Milwaukee. Smaller groups of German-Americans were scattered throughout the country, especially in the Midwest.¹⁶ The census of 1910 found 8,282,618 persons of German origin residing in the United States. Over two and a half million were born in Germany, and another four million were the children of German-born parents.¹⁷ Just over twenty-five percent of the total American population on the eve of war was of German ancestry, more than any other ethnic group in the United States.¹⁸ When war erupted in Europe in August 1914, many in this substantial minority rose up to defend their cultural heritage against the pro-Allied bias of most Americans of non-German ancestry. According to one early study, the blatantly anti-German attacks of the major American papers in the Northeast compelled the German-Americans and the German-language press to work actively to defend the German view of the war.¹⁹

Following the cultural and ethnographic perception of the German officials at the time, in this study the term “German-Americans” refers to persons of German descent who maintained some degree of cultural lineage with or affinity for the Fatherland. At the core of this group were the eight million people who identified themselves as German-Americans on the 1910 census. German-Americans also included those of less recent origin, who nonetheless identified with Germany culturally through their membership in various clubs, associations, and religious organizations. Despite these divisions and the lack of a universal identity, the German-Americans were viewed by the German government as a cohesive group that could be mobilized to support the goals of the Fatherland in the United States, and who were represented nationally by the NGAA. In truth, this organization was the top tier of a series of local, regional, and state German-American social organizations, and had an explicitly nonpolitical mandate. But that was merely one of the many oversights and assumptions made on the part of German officials back in Europe.

Across the country, German organizations, clubs, worker’s groups, and literary organizations worked quickly to promote a German version of the events leading to war to counter the pro-English stance of much of the northeastern press during the first six weeks of the war. The German government naturally looked to its emigrants in the United States to further its case before the judges of the court of public opinion; it was never clear, however, to what degree those who had left Germany for the shores of the New World would embrace their heritage and rally to the defense of the old Fatherland.

This study examines the German perception of Americans and the attempts by the Imperial German government to influence a group it labeled as “German” based on heritage—or what we today might call ethnicity. Specific sectors of German-American society were in fact highly active in portraying the German cause in a positive light, but they did so with a variety of motivations and in diverse ways.²⁰ For the German officials, “German-Americans” meant German immigrants who were male, predominately middle class, and who possessed at least a basic education. They were likely to be property owners, and were assumed to be members of any of the various Sängervereine (singing societies), German clubs, literary societies, or religious organizations that flourished throughout America. German-American workers were also included within the general designation, but were expected to rally to the German cause with their attendance of parades and speeches, not to organize and publish on behalf of Germany.

While the pro-German message emphasized the enormous contributions of Germans to classical music and literary development, the German innovations in and contributions to science and technology—and by extension German craftsmen and industrialists—were also touted in connection with the modernization of America. Thus, German immigrants who worked in factories or trades could presumably identify more closely with their German heritage. Clearly absent was any attempt to reach German women, or to identify points of pride that German women could look to as proof of their German background. The sole exception was the support the German Information Service (GIS) provided to the Organization of American Women for Strict Neutrality. Devoted to ending munitions shipments, that group was open to all women, not just those of German descent. The German officials did not make any distinction between time of or reason for immigration, despite the wide-ranging social, political, class, and cultural views that varied within these groups, or immigrants’ opposition to German politics in the nineteenth century. After the failed revolutions of 1848, many Germans chose to emigrate in search of better opportunities or out of frustration with the seemingly lost cause of liberal and democratic reform.

A key point of this study argues that this attempt to portray German-Americans as a coherent, organized, and well-financed group actively sympathetic to the German cause was a major mistake on the part of German propagandists. Subsequent examinations during the 1920s and 1930s, which largely accepted the existence of such a group, further perpetuated this error, influencing research on German-American communities during the 1960s. While the evidence above proves that there was certainly widespread support for Germany’s right to defend its culture and status, it was a mistake to assume that all German-Americans pledged their loyalty to the Kaiser. As the war continued, their moral and political ambivalence vis-à-vis Imperial Germany increased. Combined with the desire to defend their heritage and ancestry against increasingly hostile attacks, these experiences left permanent scars on the Germans of America during and after World War I.

Even before the outpouring of patriotic pride in the fall of 1914, some German-Americans were outspoken in their support of Germany and of their close identification with German interests in America. Otto Engel, a Lutheran Pastor from Wisconsin, clearly made this connection, while recognizing its inherent difficulties, preaching: “Our German community is striving for assimilation, to serve German interests in America and to remain true at heart to the old Fatherland. We hold the opinion that to care for the future of German-America: If we want to REMAIN German, we must BE German!”²¹

How would this be accomplished? Engel was writing to the German Ambassador to announce a new lecture series on German culture organized by Professor Leo Stern from Milwaukee. In his letter, he asked for materials and guidance from Bernstorff to help strengthen the bond between German-Americans and their German Heimat (homeland). Engel’s efforts reflected a common desire on the part of many German-Americans to celebrate their connections to German Kultur as a matter of pride. Events and lecture series such as these justifiably recognized the German contributions to the American War of Independence, the actions of the Turner veterans during the American Civil War,²² and the contributions and achievements of German businessmen. However, it is important to note that there were also strong connections between German-Americans and their own celebrations of events that were not necessarily “German” in character. For example, in St. Louis, prominent German-Americans made plans in 1912 to celebrate the one-hundredth anniversary of the “German War of Liberation” in October 1913, in recognition of the German victories over Napoleon. Groups in other cities had planned similar ceremonies, including the United German Societies of Washington, D.C. and the Bostoner Deutsche Gesellschaft (Boston German Society).

For the St. Louis event, the festival was to be drawn out over nine days and invitations were extended to the German Ambassador, the German Kaiser, and “to the German people.” The letterhead for the Festival Committee was printed in color with the flags of the United States, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Switzerland surrounding a picture of Columbia and Germania shaking hands.²³

The St. Louis festival was intended to parallel a similar “Jahrhundert-Feier” in Leipzig, to be held on 18 October 1913. By all accounts, the event was a huge success, reporters came from as far away as Chicago, and local pro-German articles appeared in the St. Louis papers with headlines such as “America’s Debt to Germany” and “The Unappreciated German.”²⁴ Ironically, the initial German-American reaction to the anti-German propaganda in the first weeks of World War I utilized similar themes to attempt to refute charges of militarism and barbarism and to remind citizens of the positive contributions of Germans. The fact that non-German-Americans might be put off by this sort of ethnic pride was overlooked. Indeed, it is highly unfortunate, as Peter Conolly-Smith has noted, that it was precisely the security that the German-Americans had in being considered full members of American society that inspired their chauvinistic pro-German rhetoric. No longer having to fight to become accepted in American life, they embraced their German heritage with pride, and enjoyed a higher position within the American social hierarchy with regard to cultural achievement before the war than any other ethnic community had ever achieved.²⁵ Like most Americans, Germans in this country were stunned as events in Europe unfolded, and anxiously awaited word from friends and family members. What was unexpected and shocking for the members of self-proclaimed German-America was the speed at which all things German became suspect in the wake of reports of atrocities in Belgium, the German submarine campaign, and virulent anti-German propaganda inundating American shores from England. In reaction to the ho...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction - The Kaiser’s Most Loyal Subjects?
• Chapter I - The August Experience in the United States
• Chapter II - Reshaping the German Image
• Chapter III - German-Americans and the Fatherland
• Chapter IV - Reaching German-American Communities and Beyond
• Chapter V - The “European War” and American Society
• Appendix: Further Reading on German-Americans
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index