MiltownKBs

Do you still live in WI? If so, where? I never heard of Boscobel. Going to look it up. Cool to spend time with your grandson like this. The times spent with my grandpa, a Korean war vet, remain as my best memories ever. God bless you and your loved ones. Thank you for your service. Cheers from Milwaukee.

As of 2014, James Niggemeyer was still receiving counseling for PTSD

"When tragedy strikes, there are people in this world who will step up and try to stop it. There are people who will stand up in the face of death and give their life to try to save others.... They did that with no police there, with no guns. Those are the true heroes to me." - Officer Niggemeyer

Story with footage and Neggemeyer

I did two weeks on the trail in maybe 97. Think I covered about 150 miles. I can't imagine doing the whole trail. Respect for those who do.

here is a trutv story about it with some video. It might say in there, or maybe you can see it well enough to guess? Also, there might be more info buried in one of the links I provided in this post. If I am not mistaken it was like 200-250 people.

It wasn't just the Nazi's that made Germans hide their heritage. There was a huge propaganda effort and an effort during WWI to erase German culture from the US. Hell, we fucking interned US citizens of German dissent for often no reason at all ... Twice!!

Prior to WWI, you could live in neighborhoods where German was spoken. You could practice your faith in a church where German was spoken. Many cities offered an option for children to attend German or American speaking schools. German was the language of the entertainment and theater scene. Prior to WWI, German was not simply an ethnic minority language, it was the most studied modern foreign language in America.

But all that changed quickly around the time of the sinking of the British ocean liner Lusitania on May 7, 1915. In 1915, 25% of hs students studied German, by the end of WWI it was down to less than 1%. People began to think that if you spoke German, you would become a 'hun'. If you studied German, you would become a totalitarian in favor of the Kaiser. The fear was so real to some that in Iowa, in the 1918 Babel Proclamation, the governor prohibited all foreign languages in schools and public places. Nebraska banned instruction in any language except English, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the ban illegal in 1923. Sauerkraut came to be called "liberty cabbage, German measles became "liberty measles", hamburgers became "liberty sandwiches", dachshunds became "liberty pups". People had to Americanize their names in order to try to avoid the bigotry.

Some people spoke against involvement in the war. Some (not nearly all) of these people were German-Americans. As a result, their patriotism was questioned and they became known as "hyphenated Americans", a term coined by the Teddy Roosevelt administration (I think) and adopted by the Woodrow Wilson administration as a political tool during WWI. Roosevelt said this: "There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else" Woodrow Wilson said this: "Any man who carries a hyphen about with him, carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic when he gets ready." During WWI, internment was managed by the Enemy Alien Registration Section of the Department of Justice headed by J. Edgar Hoover.

Hans Kuhnwald, the concertmeister of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was interned; the German language was forbidden; the German-American press was heavily censored; libraries had to pull German books off the shelves; German-American organizations were targeted. Frederick Stock was forced to step down as conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra until he finalized his naturalization papers. Geneticist Richard Goldschmidt was interned, 29 players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra along with their music director Karl Muck were all interned. Orchestras replaced music by German composer Wagner with French composer Berlioz. Towns and cities changed their name. For example, Berlin, Michigan, was changed to Marne, Michigan. Street names were changed. Businesses changed their name. Books were burned. German dogs were slaughtered.

On April 4, 1918, a German immigrant and coal miner, Robert Prager, was lynched in Collinsville, Ill. He was taken the day before from his home by a mob who paraded him down the streets with all the abuse that goes with that. A policeman (Fred Frost), fearing for his safety, put him in jail. That night, rumor went around the bars that a German spy was being held in the jail and a drunk and angry mob gained entrance to the jail and found him hiding in the basement. With the police standing aside, the mob marched him to an area referred to as Mauer Heights for his eventual lynching.

Here is one account of the lynching: "They stripped him totally naked, and they put a rope around his neck, and they paraded him down Main Street, making him sing patriotic songs. And they would take their beer bottles and break them in front of him. So he had to step on the broken beer bottles, cut his feet really badly." Prager professed his love for America and kissed the flag that his tormentors wrapped him in. Even so, he was taken to the edge of town to a hanging tree. The first hand account continues: "The group lowered him down quickly and, you know, break his neck. They hollered, 'once for the red,' and they lowered him again, 'once for the white' and 'once for the blue.' " He was hung in front of a crowd of 200 people. Nobody was charged.

How did Collinsville react to this barbaric lynching? A week after the trial, an editorial in the newspaper the Collinsville Herald, by editor and publisher J.O. Monroe, said that, "Outside a few persons who may still harbor Germanic inclinations, the whole city is glad that the eleven men indicted for the hanging of Robert P. Prager were acquitted." Monroe noted, "the community is well convinced that he was disloyal.... The city does not miss him. The lesson of his death has had a wholesome effect on the Germanists of Collinsville and the rest of the nation." Nationally, the Washington Post declared that, "In spite of excesses such as lynching, it is a healthful and wholesome awakening in the interior of the country."

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 (internment) in 1917-18. 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. Some aliens were convicted and imprisoned on charges of sedition, for refusing to swear allegiance to the United States war effort.

Internment of German Americans was such a great idea that we did it again during WWII when we interned some 11,000 more German-Americans, or should I say hyphenated Americans. The last one to be released was in 1948 (over three years after hostilities ended).

Patriotism became a huge part of our war effort with propaganda constantly sowing these seeds and others. An extensive propaganda attack, including posters, pamphlets, articles, and books, targeted German Americans and German citizens, labeling them a threat to European civilization and the American values of peace, democracy, and liberty. The media often referred to the Germans as “Huns,” after the barbaric hoards of Asian warriors who had ravaged the Roman Empire. Germans were portrayed as aggressive, materialistic, savage and uncivilized, and Germans living in the U.S. were frequently accused of creating an extensive propaganda machine and an elaborate espionage system.

German Americans, as one would expect, resisted their demonization and the destruction of their culture in the US by rallying behind the saying “Germany is my mother; America my bride.” It didn't work. No longer able to keep both allegiances, German Americans were not only required to prove their unfailing, singular loyalty to America, but it was the duty of every American citizen to hate Germany, and by extension, Germans.

Most of my post focused on the WWI era. I felt it appropriate to start there since that was the start of the anti-German effort in the US. The history is certainly more extensive than this and in many ways only increased during WWII.

I had family interned. They lost their land, homes, and businesses. They were denied proper education and health care in the internment camps so good people within these camps would set up make shift schools and basic medical care with what they had available. It is another truly disgusting part of our past that needs to be remembered so that we do not repeat past mistakes. And yes, I have heard Americans again calling for internment. "round them up" they say. I have heard some of my relatives say this and I can't believe they would say that seeing as how our relatives were victims of this same exact thought process. We are truly doomed to repeat history if even victims call for the same racist hostilities against some new enemy of our patriotism. Propaganda works and is very difficult to fight. I know it is a long post, but I hope you kind of enjoyed.

TL;DR: There will be none since this needs to be remembered.