Anti-German sentiment
Encyclopedia
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Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, its inhabitants, and the German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. Its opposite is Germanophilia.
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 right wing newspaper. It began in 1864 with the publication of an article by a writer using the pseudonym "Shedoferotti" who proposed that PolandPoland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
be given autonomy and that the privileges of the German barons in the Baltic republics and Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
be preserved. Mikhail Katkov
Mikhail Katkov
Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov was a conservative Russian journalist influential during the reign of Alexander III.Katkov was born of a Russian government official and a Georgian noblewoman...
published a harsh criticism of the article in the Moscow News
Moscow News
The Moscow News, which began publication in 1930, is Russia’s oldest English-language publication newspaper. Many of its feature articles used to be translated from the now defunct Russian Moskovskiye Novosti.-History:...
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
Mikhail Lomonosov
Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov was a Russian polymath, scientist and writer, who made important contributions to literature, education, and science. Among his discoveries was the atmosphere of Venus. His spheres of science were natural science, chemistry, physics, mineralogy, history, art,...
was marked throughout the Russian empire. Articles were published which mentioned the difficulties Lomonosov had encountered from the foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
, most of which 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
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Orthodox Church, officially called the Orthodox Catholic Church and commonly referred to as the Eastern Orthodox Church, is the second largest Christian denomination in the world, with an estimated 300 million adherents mainly in the countries of Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece,...
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.
United Kingdom
Although negative comments about Germany had begun to appear in Britain in the 1880s, following the Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian WarFranco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
in 1870/71 criticisms were expressed in the press and in the birth of the invasion novel (e. g. The Battle of Dorking
The Battle of Dorking
The Battle of Dorking: Reminiscences of a Volunteer is a 1871 novel by George Tomkyns Chesney, starting the genre of invasion literature and an important precursor of science fiction...
), many of which focused on the idea that Britain might be Germany's next victim.
In 1887, the label Made in Germany
Made in Germany
Made in Germany is a merchandise mark indicating that a product has been manufactured in Germany.- History :The label was originally introduced in Britain by the Merchandise Marks Act 1887....
was introduced, to get British buyers to adhere to the concept of 'buying British'. After suffering slight losses, German manufacturers soon found the label to be of good use.
In the 1890s there was widespread hostility towards foreigners in Britain, mainly directed against eastern European Jews but also including Germans. 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. Many people viewed Germans working in Britain as threatening the livelihood of Britons by being willing to work for longer hours.
Anti-German hostility deepened since early 1896 after the Kruger telegram
Kruger telegram
The Kruger telegram was a message sent by Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II to Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, president of the Transvaal Republic, on 3 January 1896. The Kaiser congratulated the president on repelling the Jameson Raid, a sortie by 600 British irregulars from Cape Colony into the...
of Kaiser Wilhelm II, in which he congratulated President Kruger
Paul Kruger
Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger , better known as Paul Kruger and affectionately known as Uncle Paul was State President of the South African Republic...
of the Transvaal
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...
on resisting the British Jameson Raid
Jameson Raid
The Jameson Raid was a botched raid on Paul Kruger's Transvaal Republic carried out by a British colonial statesman Leander Starr Jameson and his Rhodesian and Bechuanaland policemen over the New Year weekend of 1895–96...
. 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 (London)
Saturday Review (London)
The Saturday Review of politics, literature, science, and art was a London weekly newspaper established by A. J. B. Beresford Hope in 1855....
suggested "be ready to fight Germany, as Germania est delenda" (Germany needs to be destroyed).
In 1900 during the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
, a German barber in Tottenham was accused of pro-Boer sympathies and attacked, and in 1901 there were attacks on Germans travelling by train in east London.
Early 20th century
Following the signing of the Entente CordialeEntente Cordiale
The Entente Cordiale was a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Republic. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial expansion addressed by the agreement, the signing of the Entente Cordiale marked the end of almost a millennium of intermittent...
in 1904 between Britain and France, attitudes towards Germany and German residents in Britain became very negative. 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 1894 Alfred Harmsworth
Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe
Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe rose from childhood poverty to become a powerful British newspaper and publishing magnate, famed for buying stolid, unprofitable newspapers and transforming them to make them lively and entertaining for the mass market.His company...
had commissioned author William Le Queux
William Le Queux
William Tufnell Le Queux was an Anglo-French journalist and writer. He was also a diplomat , a traveller , a flying buff who officiated at the first British air meeting at Doncaster in 1909, and a wireless pioneer who broadcast music from his own station long...
to write the serial novel The Great War in England in 1897
The Great War in England in 1897
The Great War in England in 1897 was written by William Le Queux and published in 1894.- Overview :Le Queux's work is an early example of Invasion literature genre, which began with The Battle of Dorking in 1871, where the British are soundly defeated by an invading German army...
, which featured Germany, France and Russia combining forces to crush Britain. Twelve years later Harmsworth asked him to repeat this, promising the full support of his formidable advertising capabilities. The result was the bestselling The Invasion of 1910
The Invasion of 1910
The Invasion of 1910 is a 1906 novel written mainly by William Le Queux . It is one of the more famous examples of Invasion literature and is an example of pre-World War I Germanophobia, as it preached the need to prepare for war with Germany.-Background:The novel was originally commissioned by...
which originally appeared in serial form in the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
in 1906 and has been referred to by historians as inducing an atmosphere of paranoia, mass hysteria and Germanophobia that would climax in the Naval Scare of 1908-09. Articles of the Daily Mail regularly advocated anti-German sentiments throughout the 1900s, telling British 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.
At the same time conspiracy theories were concocted which combined Germanophobia with anti-semitism, concerning the supposed foreign control of Britain, some of which blamed Britain's entry in to the 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
Arnold White
-Early life:In 1879, he married Helen Constance , only daughter of Lowell Price of Farnham Royal, Buckinghamshire. She predeceased him and they had one son.-Politics:...
, Hilaire Belloc
Hilaire Belloc
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was an Anglo-French writer and historian who became a naturalised British subject in 1902. He was one of the most prolific writers in England during the early twentieth century. He was known as a writer, orator, poet, satirist, man of letters and political activist...
, and Leo Maxse, the latter using his publication the National Review
National Review (London)
The National Review was founded in 1883 by the English writers Alfred Austin and William Courthope.It was launched as a platform for the views of the British Conservative Party, its masthead incorporating a quotation of the former Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli:Under editor Leopold...
to spread them.
First World War
In 1914 when the German army invaded neutral Belgium and northern France many thousands of Belgian and French civilians were accused of being francs-tireurs
Francs-tireurs
Francs-tireurs – literally "free shooters" – was used to describe irregular military formations deployed by France during the early stages of the Franco-Prussian War...
and executed. These acts were used to encourage anti-German feelings and the Allied Powers
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
produced propaganda which depicted Germans as Huns capable of infinite cruelty and violence.
United Kingdom
In the United Kingdom, 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 anti-Semitic tone.Increasing anti-German hysteria even threw suspicion upon the British monarchy and King George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
was persuaded to change his German name of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha served as the collective name of two duchies, Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha, in Germany. They were located in what today are the states of Bavaria and Thuringia, respectively, and the two were in personal union between 1826 and 1918...
to Windsor
House of Windsor
The House of Windsor is the royal house of the Commonwealth realms. It was founded by King George V by royal proclamation on the 17 July 1917, when he changed the name of his family from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the English Windsor, due to the anti-German sentiment in the United Kingdom...
and relinquish all German titles and styles on behalf of his relatives who were British subjects.
In the UK, the German Shepherd breed of dog was renamed to the euphemistic "Alsatian"; the English Kennel Club
The Kennel Club
The Kennel Club is a kennel club based in London and Aylesbury, United Kingdom.The Kennel Club registration system divides dogs into seven breed groups. The Kennel Club Groups are: Hound, Working, Terrier, Gundog, Pastoral, Utility and Toy...
only re-authorised the use of 'German Shepherd' as an official name in 1977.
Attitudes to Germany were not entirely negative among British troops fighting on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
; the British writer and author Nicholas Shakespeare
Nicholas Shakespeare
Nicholas William Richmond Shakespeare is a British journalist and writer. Born to a diplomat, Shakespeare grew up in the Far East and in South America. He was educated at the Dragon School preparatory school then Winchester College and Cambridge and worked as a journalist for BBC television and...
quotes this statement from a letter written by his grandfather during the First World War:
The soldier praised the Germans for their discipline and bravery:
Canada
In Canada, the Ontario city of Berlin changed its nameBerlin to Kitchener name change
Through the latter half of the 19th century and into the first decade of the 20th, the City of Berlin, Ontario, Canada, was a bustling industrial centre celebrating its German heritage...
to Kitchener
Kitchener, Ontario
The City of Kitchener is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada. It was the Town of Berlin from 1854 until 1912 and the City of Berlin from 1912 until 1916. The city had a population of 204,668 in the Canada 2006 Census...
, after Lord Kitchener
Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener
Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, 1st Earl Kitchener KG, KP, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, ADC, PC , was an Irish-born British Field Marshal and proconsul who won fame for his imperial campaigns and later played a central role in the early part of the First World War, although he died halfway...
, famously pictured on the "Lord Kitchener Wants You
Lord Kitchener Wants You
A 1914 recruitment poster depicting Lord Kitchener, the British Secretary of State for War, above the words "WANTS YOU" was the most famous image used in the British Army recruitment campaign of World War I. It has inspired many imitations.-Origins:...
" recruiting posters. Several streets in Toronto that had previously been named for Liszt, Humboldt, Schiller, Bismark, etc., were changed to names with strong British associations, such as Balmoral.
Australia
The original German names of settlements and streets were officially changed. In South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
, Grunthal became Verdun
Verdun, South Australia
Verdun is a small town in the Adelaide Hills, Australia, on the road from Hahndorf to Balhannah.Verdun is approximately 4 km from Hahndorf and 5 km from Bridgewater. There is one school, one pub and a general store....
and Krichauff became Beatty. In New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...
Germantown became Holbrook
Holbrook, New South Wales
Holbrook is a small town in Southern New South Wales, Australia. It is on the Hume Highway, 356 km North-East of Melbourne and 491 km south-west of Sydney between Tarcutta and Albury. The town is in the Greater Hume Shire Council area which was established in May 2004 from the merger of...
after the submarine commander Norman Douglas Holbrook
Norman Douglas Holbrook
Commander Norman Douglas Holbrook VC was an English recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces...
. This pressure was strongest in South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
where 69 towns changed their names, including Pertersburg, South Australia which became Peterborough
Peterborough, South Australia
Peterborough is a town in the mid north of South Australia, in wheat country, just off the Barrier Highway. At the 2006 census, Peterborough had a population of 1,689....
(see Australian place names changed from German names
Australian place names changed from German names
During World War I, many German-sounding place names in Australia were changed because of Anti-German sentiment. The new names were often Anglicized , given Aboriginal names , names of famous people , or battlefields . This was done through an Act of Parliament, as well as by petition...
).
Most of the anti-German feeling was created by the press who tried to create the idea that all those of German birth or descent supported Germany uncritically. 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 local and British 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
Anti-German sentiment may have been stoked by the 1916 bombing of Black Tom islandBlack Tom explosion
The Black Tom explosion on July 30, 1916 in Jersey City, New Jersey was an act of sabotage on American ammunition supplies by German agents to prevent the materiel from being used by the Allies in World War I.- Black Tom Island :...
prior to the US's entry into the war, which had been directed and financed by German intelligence officers under diplomatic cover.
When the United States entered the war in 1917, some German immigrants, and sometimes even non-German immigrants who were perceived as German (Dutch, Scandinavian, Swiss or Polish among them ), were looked upon with suspicion and attacked regarding their loyalty. Some German immigrants in the United States were even tried, convicted and imprisoned, on charges of sedition, merely for refusing to swear allegiance to the United States war effort. The Hindu German Conspiracy Trial
Hindu German Conspiracy Trial
The Hindu–German Conspiracy Trial commenced in the District Court in San Francisco, California on November 12, 1917 following the uncovering of the Indo German plot for initiating a revolt in India...
received widespread press coverage in 1917-18.
City streets in Chicago with German names were changed, with several noted exceptions being Goethe & Schiller in the Gold Coast neighborhood (which remain the same today).
The city of Berlin, Michigan was renamed Marne, though the Berlin Raceway located there retains the original city name.
In New Orleans, Berlin St. was renamed for General Pershing
John J. Pershing
John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing, GCB , was a general officer in the United States Army who led the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I...
(head of the American Expeditionary Force), sauerkraut
Sauerkraut
Sauerkraut , directly translated from German: "sour cabbage", is finely shredded cabbage that has been fermented by various lactic acid bacteria, including Leuconostoc, Lactobacillus, and Pediococcus. It has a long shelf-life and a distinctive sour flavor, both of which result from the lactic acid...
came to be called (by some) "liberty cabbage", German measles became "liberty measles", hamburger
Hamburger
A hamburger is a sandwich consisting of a cooked patty of ground meat usually placed inside a sliced bread roll...
s became "liberty sandwiches" and Dachshund
Dachshund
The dachshund is a short-legged, long-bodied dog breed belonging to the hound family. The standard size dachshund was bred to scent, chase, and flush out badgers and other burrow-dwelling animals, while the miniature dachshund was developed to hunt smaller prey such as rabbits...
s became "liberty pups".
In the United States between 1917–18, German-American schools and newspapers by the thousands were forced to permanently close. In cities and towns across the nation, libraries burned their German-language books in public burnings. The officials of German-named towns that had been founded by German-Americans were intimidated by county, state, and federal government officials into anglicizing their names, and into destroying all traces of their German heritage. In cities across the United States, German-sounding street names were banned. Many families with a German-sounding last name changed their surname. The vast majority of German-Americans, however, were loyal to their adopted country and thousands of them served in the United States military.
Newspapers in New York and other places published lists of inhabitants names and addresses, labeled as Enemy Aliens, thereby inviting neighbors to hostile actions.
As the public atmosphere became increasingly hysterical, vigilantes burned "pro-German" books, spied on neighbors, and attacked and murdered immigrants and radicals. Anti-German tension culminated on April 4, 1918, in the brutal lynching
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
of German immigrant Robert Prager
Robert Prager
Robert Prager was a German coal miner living in Collinsville, Illinois, who was lynched by a mob on 5 April 1918. Twelve men were tried for his murder but were subsequently acquitted. Prager was killed because of anti-German sentiment during the first World War and because he was accused of...
, a coal miner living in Collinsville, Illinois
Collinsville, Illinois
Collinsville is a city located mainly in Madison County, and partially in St. Clair County, both in Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 26,016. Collinsville is approximately 12 miles from St. Louis, Missouri and is considered part of that city's Metro-East area...
, who was accused of making "disloyal remarks".
In June 1918 a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
by Representative John M. C. Smith
John M. C. Smith
John M. C. Smith was a politician from the U.S. state of Michigan. He served as U.S. Representative from Michigan's 3rd congressional district.- Biography :...
with the aim to wipe out German names from the map of the United States.
United Kingdom
In 1940 the Ministry of InformationMinister of Information
The Ministry of Information , headed by the Minister of Information, was a United Kingdom government department created briefly at the end of World War I and again during World War II...
launched an "Anger Campaign" to instill "personal anger... against the German people and Germany", because the British were "harbouring little sense of real personal animus against the average German". This was done to strengthen British resolve against the Germans. It was particularly important in a national war effort against a nation that had spent the last 10 years building up hatred for all other nationalities. Sir Robert Vansittart
Robert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart
Robert Gilbert Vansittart, 1st Baron Vansittart GCB, GCMG, PC, MVO was a senior British diplomat in the period before and during the Second World War...
, the Foreign Office's chief diplomatic advisor until 1941, gave a series of radio broadcasts in which he said that Germany was a nation raised on "envy, self-pity and cruelty" whose historical development had "prepared the ground for Nazism"
Sonderweg
Sonderweg is a controversial theory in German historiography that considers the German-speaking lands, or the country Germany, to have followed a unique course from aristocracy into democracy, distinct from other European countries...
and that it was Nazism that had "finally given expression to the blackness of the German soul".
The British Institute of Public Opinion (BIPO) tracked the evolution of anti-German/anti-Nazi feeling in Britain, asking the public, via a series of opinion polls conducted from 1939 to 1943, whether "the chief enemy of Britain was the German people or the Nazi government". In 1939 only 6% of respondents held the German people responsible; however, following the Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
and the "Anger Campaign" in 1940, this increased to 50%. This subsequently declined to 41% by 1943. It also was reported by Home Intelligence in 1942 that there was some criticism of the official attitude of hatred towards Germany on the grounds that "England ought to be a civilising influence" and that such hatred might hinder the possibility of a reasonable settlement following the war.
This attitude was expanded upon by author J.R.R. Tolkien. In 1944, he wrote in a letter to his son Christopher
Christopher Tolkien
Christopher Reuel Tolkien is the third and youngest son of the author J. R. R. Tolkien , and is best known as the editor of much of his father's posthumously published work. He drew the original maps for his father's The Lord of the Rings, which he signed C. J. R. T. The J...
:
... it is distressing to see the press grovelling in the gutter as low as GoebbelsJoseph GoebbelsPaul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...
in his prime, shrieking that any German commander who holds out in a desperate situation (when, too, the military needs of his side clearly benefit) is a drunkard, and a besotted fanatic. ... There was a solemn article in the local paper seriously advocating systematic exterminating of the entire German nation as the only proper course after military victory: because, if you please, they are rattlesnakeRattlesnakeRattlesnakes are a group of venomous snakes of the genera Crotalus and Sistrurus of the subfamily Crotalinae . There are 32 known species of rattlesnake, with between 65-70 subspecies, all native to the Americas, ranging from southern Alberta and southern British Columbia in Canada to Central...
s, and don't know the difference between good and evil! (What of the writer?) The Germans have just as much right to declare the PolesPolesthumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
and Jews exterminable vermin, subhumanUntermenschUntermensch is a term that became infamous when the Nazi racial ideology used it to describe "inferior people", especially "the masses from the East," that is Jews, Gypsies, Poles along with other Slavic people like the Russians, Serbs, Belarussians and Ukrainians...
, as we have to select the Germans: in other words, no right, whatever they have done.
In the same year Mass Observation asked its observers to analyse British private opinion of the German people and found that 54% of opinion was "pro-German", in that it expressed sympathy and "not their fault". This tolerance of the German people as opposed to the Nazi regime increased as the war progressed. Mass Observation established in 1943 that up to 60% of people maintained a distinction between Germans and Nazis, with only 20% or so expressing any "hatred, vindictiveness, or need for retribution". British film propaganda of the period similarly maintained the division between Nazi supporters and the German people.
United States
The October 1939 seizure by the German pocket battleship Deutschland of the US freighter SS City of Flint, as it had 4000 tons of oil for Britain on board, provoked much anti-German sentiment in the US.Following its entry into the Second World War, the US Government interned at least 11,000 American citizens
German American internment
German American Internment refers to the detention of people of German citizenship in the United States during World War I and World War II.-Civilian internees:...
of German ancestry. The last to be released, a German-American, remained imprisoned until 1948 at Ellis Island, three and a half years after the cessation of hostilities against Germany.
In 1941, the book Germany Must Perish!
Germany Must Perish!
Germany Must Perish! is the title of a 104-page book written by Theodore Newman Kaufman and self-published in 1941, which advocates the genocide, through sterilization of all Germans, and the territorial dismemberment of Germany...
advocated the sterilization of all Germans and the territorial dismemberment of Germany.
In 1944, Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
Henry Morgenthau, Jr. was the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal...
, United States Secretary of the Treasury
United States Secretary of the Treasury
The Secretary of the Treasury of the United States is the head of the United States Department of the Treasury, which is concerned with financial and monetary matters, and, until 2003, also with some issues of national security and defense. This position in the Federal Government of the United...
, put forward the strongest proposal for punishing Germany to the Second Quebec Conference
Second Quebec Conference
The Second Quebec Conference was a high level military conference held during World War II between the British, Canadian and American governments. The conference was held in Quebec City, September 12, 1944 - September 16, 1944, and was the second conference to be held in Quebec, after "QUADRANT"...
. It became known as the Morgenthau Plan
Morgenthau Plan
The Morgenthau Plan, proposed by United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr., advocated that the Allied occupation of Germany following World War II include measures to eliminate Germany's ability to wage war.-Overview:...
, and was intended to reduce Germany to an agricultural nation by destroying its heavy industry.
Brazil
After Brazil's entry into the war on the Allied side in 1942, anti-German riots broke out in nearly every city in Brazil in which Germans were not the majority population. German factories, including the Suerdick cigar factory in BahiaSalvador, Bahia
Salvador is the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil and the capital of the Northeastern Brazilian state of Bahia. Salvador is also known as Brazil's capital of happiness due to its easygoing population and countless popular outdoor parties, including its street carnival. The first...
, shops, and hotels were destroyed by mobs. The largest demonstrations took place in Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre is the tenth most populous municipality in Brazil, with 1,409,939 inhabitants, and the centre of Brazil's fourth largest metropolitan area . It is also the capital city of the southernmost Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. The city is the southernmost capital city of a Brazilian...
in Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul
Rio Grande do Sul is the southernmost state in Brazil, and the state with the fifth highest Human Development Index in the country. In this state is located the southernmost city in the country, Chuí, on the border with Uruguay. In the region of Bento Gonçalves and Caxias do Sul, the largest wine...
. Brazilian police persecuted and interned "subjects of the Axis powers" in internment camps similar to those used by the US to intern Japanese-Americans. Following the war, German schools were not reopened, the German-language press disappeared completely, and use of the German language became restricted to the home and the older generation of immigrants.
Post-Second World War
Following the Second World War some historians such as Sir Lewis NamierLewis Bernstein Namier
Sir Lewis Bernstein Namier was an English historian. He was born Ludwik Niemirowski in Wola Okrzejska in what was then part of the Russian Empire and is today in Poland.-Life:...
and A.J.P. Taylor
A. J. P. Taylor
Alan John Percivale Taylor, FBA was a British historian of the 20th century and renowned academic who became well known to millions through his popular television lectures.-Early life:...
were considered as anti-German. Even the speed of West German
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
recovery following the war was seen as ominous by some who suspected the Germans of planning for World War III
World War III
World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would be likely nuclear and devastating in nature....
.
American General George S. Patton
George S. Patton
George Smith Patton, Jr. was a United States Army officer best known for his leadership while commanding corps and armies as a general during World War II. He was also well known for his eccentricity and controversial outspokenness.Patton was commissioned in the U.S. Army after his graduation from...
complained that the U.S. policy of denazification
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...
following Germany's surrender harmed American interests and was motivated simply by hatred of the defeated German people.
Much present-day anti-German sentiment has been particularly strong in East European countries occupied by Germany during the war, and those which were at war with Germany and its allies.
Although views fluctuate somewhat in response to geopolitical issues (such as the invasion of Iraq), Americans regard modern Germany as an ally and few hold anti-German sentiments. Occasionally, German people are stereotyped as Nazis (goose-stepping, shouting "Sieg Heil!", sporting a "Hitler moustache"), being "ruthlessly efficient" and having no sense of humour in some parts of American media, as well as in the UK and other countries. Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's music was not performed in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
until 1995 (radio) and 2001 (concert) and was for many years unpopular in Poland. This can be explained, at least partially, due to Richard Wagner's anti-semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
and the Nazi appropriation of Wagner's music based on Hitler's personal affection for his operas.
In Israel
Up to the rise of Hitler in 1933, many European Jews tended to be pro-German. German Jews were deeply integrated in the country's culture, and many of them fought with distinction in the ranks of the First World War German Army. Jews in CzechCzechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
lands tended to adopt the German language and culture in preference to Slavic languages (Kafka being a conspicuous example), and a similar phenomenon was evident in other parts of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. Throughout Eastern Europe, Jews spoke Yiddish, a language closely related to German, and Jewish intellectuals often took up German as "The Language of Culture". Theodore Herzl, the founding father of Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
, himself spoke and wrote German and in his utopian book Altneuland actually depicted the future Jewish state as German-speaking.
Such attitudes suffered an extremely painful rupture and complete reversal with the persecutions and atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, culminating with the systematic genocide of the Holocaust. In the first decades of Israel's existence, anti-German feelings were strong and dominant in Israeli society. There was a widespread cultural and commercial boycott of all things German (and often, Austrian as well) and a determination "never to set foot on German soil." German Jews in Israel, themselves refugees from the Nazi persecutions, came under strong social pressure to cease using German, their mother language.
At the time, the words "German" and "Nazi" were used interchangeably. (Until the late 1990s the sign language
Sign language
A sign language is a language which, instead of acoustically conveyed sound patterns, uses visually transmitted sign patterns to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's...
of Israeli deaf communities used the Swastika
Swastika
The swastika is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing form in counter clock motion or its mirrored left-facing form in clock motion. Earliest archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization of Ancient...
as the sign for "German".) There was a widespread scepticism about the possibility of "another Germany" ever emerging, and specifically a suspicion of Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Adenauer
Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...
's claim to be involved in the creation of a new, democratic Germany. Many Israelis took up the Soviet claims, made in the early years of the Cold War, that West Germany
West Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
was "a fascist state" in which ex-Nazis held key positions.
The Reparations Agreement with Germany, signed by the Ben Gurion
Ben Gurion
Ben Gurion can refer to the following persons:* Nicodemus ben Gurion, a Biblical figure, probably a rich Jewish member of the Sanhedrin that felt sympathetic to Jesus Christ...
government in 1952, was the focus of intense political controversy, and the protest demonstrations led by then opposition leader Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...
turned into pitched battles with the police. In the early 1960s, the Eichmann Trial brought the horrors and traumas of the Holocaust to the center of public consciousness. The establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and West Germany in 1966 entailed a new wave of protests and demonstrations, though less violent than those of 1952.
However, since the late 1960s, there has been a clear, though gradual, process of rapprochement between Israelis and Germans in all spheres: diplomatic, commercial and cultural.
The 1967 Six Day War realigned Israeli politics, with the issue of occupied territories henceforth defining what is "right wing" and "left wing," with, among other things, the result that militant Israeli nationalism tended to be anti-Arab rather than anti-German. When Begin became Israel's Prime Minister in 1977, he had little option but to take up the maintenance of already very extensive ties with Germany, to whose creation he had been fiercely opposed as an opposition leader.
A momentary flare-up of anti-German feeling occurred during the 1991 Gulf War, when Israel was the subject of missile attack by Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
's Iraq. Some Israeli columnists and politicians combined the revelations of German corporations helping the Iraqi arms industry and the strong anti-war movement in Germany and tied both with the German Nazi past.
The German government of the time managed, however, to assuage Israeli feelings by providing the Israeli Navy with several advanced submarine
Submarine
A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below the surface of the water. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability...
s, which, according to repeated reports in the international press, were used to mount nuclear missiles and provide Israel with a second strike
Second strike
In nuclear strategy, a second strike capability is a country's assured ability to respond to a nuclear attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker...
capacity.
At present, anti-German feelings in Israel are at low ebb. The ongoing debate about whether the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra
The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra is the leading symphony orchestra in Israel. It was originally known as the Palestine Orchestra, and in Hebrew as התזמורת הסימפונית הארץ ישראלית The Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (abbreviation IPO; Hebrew: התזמורת הפילהרמונית הישראלית, ha-Tizmoret ha-Filharmonit...
should play the works of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
is mostly considered as a remnant of the past. In 2008, German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel is the current Chancellor of Germany . Merkel, elected to the Bundestag from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 2000, and chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary coalition from 2002 to 2005.From 2005 to 2009 she led a...
was the first foreign head of government invited to deliver a speech in the Israeli parliament, which she gave in the German language. Several Israeli members of parliament left in protest during the speech, claiming the need to create a collective memory that "will create a kind of electric wave when Jews will hear the sounds of the German language, they'll remember the Holocaust.".
Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta'ot - which, as its Hebrew name "Fighters of the Ghettos" implies, included among its founders survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp....
- decided to reverse a long-standing ban and let a delegation from its museum accept an invitation to visit Germany. This was explained with saying that "When German babies born on the day of Hitler's death are now sixty-three years old, it is ridiculous to continue to demand a collective responsibility".
In a recent article, researcher Hanan Bar (חנן בר) summed up the ambiguous Israeli attitude to Germany: "If the average Israeli happens to see a football match between Germany and Holland, he would automatically root for the Dutch. But the same person, when buying a washing machine, would prefer a German model, considering it to be the best"
However, a silent boycott of German goods continues among some sectors of Israel. For example, it is rare to see Orthodox
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...
Israelis driving German cars, preferring non-German cars, in particular Volvo
Volvo
AB Volvo is a Swedish builder of commercial vehicles, including trucks, buses and construction equipment. Volvo also supplies marine and industrial drive systems, aerospace components and financial services...
.
Contemporary Europe
After the separation into two countries following the Second World War; West GermanyWest Germany
West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....
generally had good relationships with its western neighboring states, while East Germany to some degree had similar relationships with its eastern neighbors. Many of these relationships continued after the end of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
with the unified Germany. West Germany was a co-founder of the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
and the reunified Germany continues as a leading member. During the process of European unification, Germany and France forged a strong relationship, ending the long-standing French-German enmity
French-German enmity
French–German hereditary enmity is the idea of unavoidably hostile relations and mutual revanchism between Germany and France that became popular with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871...
which had peaked during and after the First World War.
In a poll carried out in 2008 for the BBC World Service
BBC World Service
The BBC World Service is the world's largest international broadcaster, broadcasting in 27 languages to many parts of the world via analogue and digital shortwave, internet streaming and podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays...
, in which people in 34 countries were asked about the positive and negative influence of 13 countries including Germany, Germany was the most popular, ahead of Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
; only 18 percent thought Germany had a mainly negative influence. The most negative attitudes were in Turkey (47 percent) and Egypt (43 percent).
Germans sometimes complain of stereotypical associations of them with acts and a regime of more than sixty years ago, such as the use of anti-German sentiment in headlines by parts of the British press, which were often used in the build-up to football matches between England and Germany. A more recent example arose when German Cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
Joseph Ratzinger became Pope
Pope
The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, a position that makes him the leader of the worldwide Catholic Church . In the Catholic Church, the Pope is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter, the Apostle...
Benedict XVI
Pope Benedict XVI
Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...
.
In fact, according to a recent poll, the British people have a rather positive image of Germany, with 62 percent believing that Germany has a mainly positive influence in the world and only 20 percent believing that Germany's influence is mainly negative, slightly better than Germans' views of Britain (60 percent and 27 percent, respectively).
Poland
Many Poles perceive Germans as their long-time oppressors, dating back to the times of Teutonic Order. This notion is based on a long history of conflict with ethnic Poles, first by the German-language and culture Prussians then by the united German state, starting with three partitions of PolandPartitions of Poland
The Partitions of Poland or Partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth took place in the second half of the 18th century and ended the existence of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, resulting in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years...
, germanization in the 19th and 20th centuries, and culminating in the Nazi Germany's invasion of Poland
Invasion of Poland (1939)
The Invasion of Poland, also known as the September Campaign or 1939 Defensive War in Poland and the Poland Campaign in Germany, was an invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent that marked the start of World War II in Europe...
in 1939 and the genocide of six million Polish citizens that ensued during the German occupation 1939-1945. These mass murders focused both on the Jewish minority and the Polish intelligentsia
Intelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
.
Several issues have also strained recent Polish-German relations, although Poland and post-reunification Germany overall have had mostly positive relations
German–Polish relations
German–Polish relations have a long and complicated history. From the 10th century on, the Kingdom of Poland had relations with the Holy Roman Empire, which were however soon overshadowed by the Polish-Teutonic wars, as a result of which, Prussia became a fief of the Kingdom of Poland. Prussia...
. The Poles are suspicious of the campaign led by Erika Steinbach
Erika Steinbach
' is a German conservative politician and president of the Federation of Expellees. She has been representing the Christian Democratic Union and the state of Hesse as a member of the Parliament of Germany, the Bundestag, since 1990...
, a daughter of a German officer in the German forces occupying Poland, made famous for her voting against Oder-Neisse line
Oder-Neisse line
The Oder–Neisse line is the border between Germany and Poland which was drawn in the aftermath of World War II. The line is formed primarily by the Oder and Lusatian Neisse rivers, and meets the Baltic Sea west of the seaport cities of Szczecin and Świnoujście...
borders, who seeks reparations for the property lost by Germans expelled by Poland following the Second World War and to create the Centre Against Expulsions
Centre Against Expulsions
The Centre Against Expulsions was a planned German documentation centre for expulsions and ethnic cleansing, particularly the expulsion of Germans after World War II. Since March 19, 2008 the name of the project is Sichtbares Zeichen gegen Flucht und Vertreibung...
.
In addition, the proposed Russo-German pipeline through the Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
Sea
Sea
A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...
, is seen by Poles as aimed at cutting off Poland's natural gas supplies from Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
without damaging supply to Germany, and was even compared to the ignominious Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
by Radosław Sikorski, Polish foreign minister.
Netherlands
For centuries, and most recently since the Second World War, a feeling of animosity exists towards Germans among some Dutch.From the 15th century up until the large-scale industrialization of Germany; the Netherlands attracted a lot of seasonal migrants from Western Germany willing to work on Dutch farms for low wages. As such, prior to the Second World War, the Dutch regarded Germans as inferior and uneducated peasants. There are known joke books
Joke
A joke is a phrase or a paragraph with a humorous twist. It can be in many different forms, such as a question or short story. To achieve this end, jokes may employ irony, sarcasm, word play and other devices...
in which Germans are featured prominently and stereotypically as dumb, arrogant and filthy. With the advent of the Second World War, and the brutal occupation of the Netherlands it brought with it, this image intensified dramatically.
Dutch authorities are cognizant of such anti-German sentiment and have been trying to moderate such feelings over the past few years, and according to recent studies the attitude towards German people has become less antagonistic.
Anti-German sentiments in the Netherlands are sometimes expressed through dark humour. An example is the painting of the words 'Zimmer Frei' (room vacant) on old bunkers along the highways coming into the country from Germany, a reference both to the war and the Netherlands' popularity among German tourists.
Switzerland
Rapid increase of German immigration to SwitzerlandGerman immigration to Switzerland
About a quarter of a million German nationals had permanent residence in Switzerland in 2009.Ever since the emergence of Switzerland and Germany as distinct nations in the Early Modern period, there has been considerable population movement in both directions, but meaningful population statistics...
during the 2000s has given rise to "germanophobia" in German-speaking Switzerland.
Greece
2011 economic crisis in Greece and German-driven austerity measures imposed on Greece have revived anti-German sentiments in Greece.External links
- “Nobody Would Eat Kraut”: Lola Gamble Clyde on Anti-German Sentiment in Idaho During World War I (Oral history courtesy of Latah County Historical Society)
- “Get the Rope!” Anti-German Violence in World War I-era Wisconsin (from History Matters, a project of the American Social History Project/Center for Media and Learning)
- “We Had to Be So Careful” A German Farmer’s Recollections of Anti-German Sentiment in World War I (Oral history courtesy of Latah County Historical Society)
- Article from Der Spiegel 31/10.2006 on Polish - German Relations
- http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/Why-do-we-still-laugh.2442846.jpArticle from Allan Hall in The ScotsmanThe ScotsmanThe Scotsman is a British newspaper, published in Edinburgh.As of August 2011 it had an audited circulation of 38,423, down from about 100,000 in the 1980s....
11 July 2003: "Why do we still laugh at Germany?"] - http://web.mala.bc.ca/davies/h324war/prager.lynching.1918.htm Newspaper Articles from 1918, describing the lynching of Robert Prager in Collinsville, Ill.