report44Holian8198 .pdf

FRAGILEANDBELEAGUEREDARETHEMANY

THERECURRENCEOFANTI

-GERMANACTIVITIES

DURINGWORLDWARII

he manner in which the German-

American community suffered as a

result of nativist hostility during the

World War I era is a well-documented

aspect of American history. War-engendered

hysteria against all visible signs of

German culture led to the renaming of

streets and even certain foods, the abolition

of German-American social organizations,

suppression of the German-language press,

and prohibition of the instruction of the

German language in numerous school systems.

Less known is the story of the internment

of approximately 6,500 members of

the German-American community during

World War II for fear of subversive activities

against the United States.¹ By submerging its

identity during the postwar years and

understating many traditional aspects of

German culture in America, the German-

American community had hoped to prevent a

recurrence of the nativism which imperiled

its standing during the 1910s. In fact, a

second war-engendered movement against

the German element in America occasioned a

new wave of anti-German discrimination,

culminating in the arrest and internment of

thousands of members of the German-

American community, against whom there

often was little or no hard evidence. Unlike

the experience of World War I, the selective

persecution of legal resident aliens from

Germany during the period of the Second

World War has gone largely undocumented

in the half-century since its occurrence.²

Attempts to bring this unique aspect of

American history to light have generated

controversy among some members of the

scholarly community, including accusations of

ethnic chauvinism. There have even been

unsubstantiated insinuations that research

into the internment of German-Americans is

part of an organized movement to alter history

through publications "doubtless ...

planted by the campaign" in reputable magazines,

newspapers, and academic journals.³

Such contentions notwithstanding, there is

considerable evidence that numerous members

of the German-American community

were afforded unduly harsh treatment as a

result of wartime animosities. Further, many

of these measures have yet to be fully

explained or acknowledged by the United

States government despite the enactment of

legislation designed to apologize to, and

even compensate, other victims of ethnic

mistreatment during the period.

With the outbreak of war in Europe in

September 1939, and mindful of its experience

during World War I, the German-

American community went to considerable

lengths to avoid a repetition of the hysteria it

had encountered scarcely a quarter-century

earlier. On September 18 the Cincin-natier

Freie Presse published its platform for

German-Americans, in which it clearly

advocated a pro-American stance among its

admonishments:

1. Absolute and unswerving loyalty

to American Ideals and Principles;

2. Continued and consistent effort

to inculcate that spirit in the

mind and heart of every citizen

of German extraction; and

3. Strict obedience to American

laws and customs.4

A similar perspective was voiced in

New York in December 1939 by Youth

Outlook, a monthly publication of the

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German American League for Culture

(Youth Federation), in which unity was seen

as the key to preventing a recurrence of anti-

German sentiment:

We do not stand alone in our desire

to prevent the return of the pogromlike

atmosphere which, in 1917,

made life miserable for loyal and

democratic citizens of German

descent. ...The young people of this

country will never sacrifice a constitution

and Bill of Rights for the

"right" to participate in the war

whose only issue is the domination

of the world—certainly no cause to

die for. The German-American

Youth Federation fights all attempts

of reaction to create another "liberty

cabbage" hysteria. It does this by

proving that we German-Americans

are loyal Americans.5

In spite of widespread efforts by the

German-American community to distance

itself from the strains of Nazism emanating

from Germany during the 1930s, considerably

more attention was generated by a relative

few organizations such as the German-

American Bund, consisting of a small but

vocal minority of fascist sympathizers who

openly expressed support for Adolf Hitler

and the Third Reich. Shortly after American

entry into World War II on the side of the

Allies, prominent German-American scholar

Carl Wittke warned against the effect of

such rabble-rousers in the fear that their

activities would undermine the pro-

American stance of a large majority of

German-American organizations:

Like those who belonged to other

racial strains and were intrigued by

the alleged virtues of fascism, a relatively

small number of German-born

and native Americans of German

stock, were attracted, before Pearl

Harbor, by the swastika and

[German-American Bund leader]

Fritz Kuhn's aping of gangster meth-

ods, storm trooper camps, parades,

and uniforms in the United States.

But anti-Nazi leagues were also

organized among German stock to

combat Nazi influences, and many

German societies were slit into violently

hostile groups. In the nationwide

debate over isolationism, the

majority of the German element

probably agreed, for the most art,

with that 75 percent American

majority whom the various polls of

public opinion reported as opposed

to American intervention in Europe.6

But such pleas fell upon deaf ears in a

number of quarters. During the late 1930s

and early 1940s numerous sensational

reports circulated, particularly along the

east coast, about Bund activities real and

imagined. Far from being fodder for disreputable

publications, the notices often were

given added credence by their appearance in

some of the most respected newspapers in

America: in October 1940 the New York

Times published an Associated Press dispatch

on the testimony of a former member

of the German-American Bund before the

House Un-American Activities Committee.

Despite a lack of corroboration for the

account, the organization dutifully reported

that the Bund had planned to march on Wall

Street and hang "some big bankers," with

the inference that Adolf Hitler might personally

select the date for the action. Further

accounts maintained that a "few hundred"

members of the New York City police force

were sympathetic to the activities of the

Bund, and that the organization sponsored a

German-language school in the Yorkville

section of town, with the specific aim of

indoctrinating sons and daughters of

German immigrants in Nazi ideology.7

Invariably, such reports colored the perception

of the German-American community as a

whole and contributed to a changing per-

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ception of German legal residents aliens

from that of a benign presence to a possible

threat to national security interests upon

American entry into the war.

In June 1942 a confidential memorandum

from the Bureau of Intelligence summarized

the public mood relative to German

and Italian aliens in the eastern United

States based on a survey of residents of

Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and New

Haven. Forty-seven percent of respondents

believed Italians to be loyal to the American

cause, while forty-three percent felt that few

or no Germans were so. Only one percent of

those polled opined that Italians were the

most dangerous of alien groups, compared

to forty percent who selected the Germans.

Most importantly, while as much as sixty

percent of respondents believed the treatment

of Italian legal resident aliens by the

United States government had been "about

right," sixty-three percent felt that government

treatment of German aliens had not

been strict enough. Further according to the

poll, Philadelphia was the east coast city

most suspicious of German legal resident

aliens and most anxious to take strict actions

to curtail their liberties; New York and

Boston were seen as similarly inclined "to

be drastic with Germans." In support of the

findings, the Bureau of Intelligence maintained

that the number of ideological fascists

within the German-American community

was "considerably higher than that

among the Italian-Americans and may be

regarded as a significantly high minority,"

although the concession was made that there

was "obviously no way of knowing exactly

what proportion of German-Americans may

be so described."8

As early as September 6, 1939, in an

effort to identify which German aliens

might be considered subversive, President

Franklin D. Roosevelt directed the Federal

Bureau of Investigation to compile a roster

of "individuals, both aliens and citizens of

the United States, on whom there is information

available to indicate that their presence

at liberty in this country in time of war

or national emergency would be dangerous to

the public peace and safety of the United

States."9 As a result, the so-called "ABC

List" was generated which prioritized members

of the German-American community

from most to least likely to commit subversive

activity. The master list was compiled

primarily from the membership rosters of

German-American societies, particularly

those such as the German-American Bund

known to have direct ties to Germany, subscription

lists from German-language magazines

and newspapers and German-

American newsletters, and reports from

confidential informants who often had no

direct evidence of wrongdoing by members of

the German-American community.10

Identification of potentially troublesome

aliens was made simpler in the summer

of 1940, when the Alien Registration

Act of 1940 was enacted. Although the

measure was introduced under the premise

that it would safeguard German and selected

other legal resident aliens from undue

hardship or persecution, the government

reserved the right to punish aliens who did

not comply fully with the letter of the law;

violation of the restrictions listed on the

reverse of each alien identification card subjected

offenders to possible detention and

even internment. Clearly public opinion was

on the side of the government. In response

to a Gallup poll of June 10, 1940, in which

those surveyed were asked if individuals

who were not citizens of the United States

should register with the government, ninetyfive

percent of respondents answered "yes."

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As of late December 1940 roughly

5,000,000 aliens had filed the appropriate

registration papers, and before the end of

May 1941 over 950,000 aliens in New York

City alone had undergone the process."

The ultimate benefit of alien registration

to the federal government became evident in

the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor bombing

on December 7, 1941. Faced with the

prospect of American entry into an

increasingly global, armed conflict, authorities

quickly moved to detain aliens from Axis

nations as a first strike against potential

sabotage and treasonous activity. Although

the United States did not formally enter into

war with Germany until December 11, the

first arrests and detention of German legal

resident aliens deemed a security risk took

place on December 7 and 8; as of 12:30 p.m.

on December 9, a total of 620 German aliens

had been taken into custody by agents of the

Federal Bureau of Investigation, including 47

by the New York field division district, 27

by the Newark branch, 23 by Philadelphia,

17 by Boston, 15 by New Haven, and 10 by

Baltimore.12 That the United States had

formulated specific plans as to how to handle

German legal resident aliens and suspicious

Americans of German extraction was

demonstrated by former Assistant Attorney

General James Rowe, in testimony before the

Commission on Wartime Relocation and

Internment of Civilians during the early

1980s:

I found at the time [December 7,

1941] that there had been a planning

commission at the Department of

Justice, a war planning committee,

whatever you wish to call it, that had

been operating for about a year or six

months on the theory that we might

get into war. Also on the theory

which proved correct that our enemies

would be the Japanese, the

Germans, and the Italians. And what

they were doing was trying to make a

selection of the German, Italian, and

Japanese aliens, enemy aliens we

might have thought were dangerous.

.... The program worked quite well;

we picked up right after Pearl Harbor

about 60,000 enemy aliens— I think

mostly German, a large number of

Italians, and a large number of

Japanese. And we thought we were

off to a pretty good run.13

For the duration of the war, the east

coast provided the area with the greatest

number of apprehensions of German legal

resident aliens; between December 7, 1941

and June 30, 1945, New York led the list of

arrests by state with 2,291, followed at a

considerable distance by New Jersey (756);

Pennsylvania (388); Connecticut (92);

Massachusetts (58); and Maryland (56).l4 A

memorandum dated December 8, 1941,

from FBI director J. Edgar Hoover made

clear that preparations for the detention and

possible internment of German legal resident

aliens had been made well in advance

of the Pearl Harbor bombing; among individuals

"considered for custodial detention"

were 636 German aliens, 1,694 individuals

of German descent whose citizenship was

unknown, and 1,393 American citizens considered

sympathetic to Germany—a clear

indication that the prospect of arrest and

internment of German-Americans extended

to the American-born as well as the Germanborn.

In the aftermath of American entry into

World War II, numerous measures were

undertaken in traditional German-American

communities to safeguard against the

prospect of sabotage. In Ohio, officials in

Cincinnati placed barbed wire around the

main city water works building in January

1942, and Cleveland authorities instituted

an ordinance forbidding the use of bright

lights between midnight and 6:00 a.m.16 As

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early as January 5 aliens nationwide were

required to turn in all firearms, radio transmitters,

short wave radio receivers, and

cameras to local police; the list was quickly

amended to include weapons or implements

of war such as: bombs; ammunition; signal

devices; codes or ciphers; sketches and photographs

of military installations; and

papers, documents or books in which there

might be invisible writing.17 The spontaneity

of the additional measure became evident

in short order, when authorities were forced

to concede that there was no practical way to

determine whether or not there was

invisible writing in a given book, as well as

that no sane-thinking alien was likely to

enter a police headquarters with a bomb to

turn in.

The formation of alien hearing boards

added a new dimension to the fate of

German legal resident aliens. Formed in the

immediate aftermath of the Pearl Harbor

bombing and the early detention of enemy

aliens, the boards were established in all

ninety-four federal judicial districts and

were composed of five citizens—only three

of whom presided over a given hearing—

from lists submitted by local district attorneys

to the Department of Justice. In hearing

the case of a given alien, the board was

empowered to recommend one of three possible

outcomes: 1) outright release of the

alien, due to a lack of evidence of wrongdoing;

2) conditional parole, in cases where

sufficient doubt remained regarding the

trustworthiness of the alien that the individual

would be required to check in with

authorities on a regular basis; and 3) internment

at a designated center for the duration

of the war due to a perceived security risk.

Although federal authorities maintained that

the purpose of the boards was for aliens to

have the opportunity to present their case

for release or parole, the hearing process

was heavily slanted in favor of the government.

Although aliens could have friends or

family members vouch for their character,

they were allowed neither to argue the particulars

of the case against them nor to

object to lines of questioning and evidence

presented. Aliens were not allowed to retain

legal counsel to argue on their behalf. The

government, on the other hand, was able to

present its accusations against a given alien

without revealing the source; at no point

were aliens allowed to confront their accuser.

The internment of German legal resident

aliens and selected American-born

members of the German-American community

remains to this day the most problematic

issue with regard to the treatment of ethnic

Germans in the United States during the

1940s. While only a small minority of all

German legal resident aliens and other

German-Americans were targeted specifically

for custodial detention, wartime

internment, and eventual deportation to

Germany, the number of individuals affected

by such action remains considerably higher

than most estimates have provided during

subsequent decades. In 1991, on the fiftieth

anniversary of the Pearl Harbor bombing,

widely respected newsmen, such as

Clarence Page of the "McNeil-Lehrer

News Hour" and John Chancellor of NBC

News, reported that no European-

Americans—German, Italian, or otherwise

—were interned during World War II.

Such assertions are far from the truth.

According to an Immigration and Naturalization

letter of August 9, 1948, 10,906

Germans were received by the INS under

the enemy alien program, including those

from outside of the continental United

States and those who were voluntarily

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interned in order to join families already in

internment centers. Furthermore, although

native Japanese and American-born

Japanese-Americans were out of internment

camps by the end of June 1946, the last

group of German legal resident aliens,

roughly 100 in number, was finally released

in June 1948—over three years after the end

of World War II in Europe; authorities have

yet to explain why it took so long to conclude

the internment of ethnic Germans to a

close.19

To facilitate the incarceration process,

detention and internment centers were