Why did Minnesota erase much of its German culture?
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Minnesota is stereotypically a lot more "uff da" than "oom-pah." But a larger share of Minnesotans report having German ancestry than Scandinavian.
There's a reason German culture and institutions aren't as visible as their Scandinavian counterparts. And it's not because of World War II, when Germany became associated with Nazism and Hitler.
By that time, "German culture in America was already gone," said Dave Bredemus, a retired St. Paul teacher with a passion for Minnesota's German history.
Disappearance of German culture and institutions actually dates back to World War I, when leaders in Minnesota and other states cracked down on displays of immigrant heritage in an effort to enforce loyalty to the United States. Anti-German sentiment, in particular, swept the state.
Reader Shane Loney, who has German ancestry, wondered about the German American culture that was erased after watching a TV special about lost history in Minnesota. He reached out to Curious Minnesota, the Star Tribune's community-driven reporting project.
"For obvious reasons, a lot of German culture went into hiding, so to speak, or disappeared," Loney wrote. "What Minnesota German establishments, etc. were lost?"
The erasure ranged from banning German instruction in Minnesota schools to renaming streets and removing public art. In the Minnesota State Capitol, authorities even painted over German motifs. Some German culture has since made a comeback, and the Capitol's art was restored. Still, the absences are striking — especially considering the state's once-flourishing German culture.
German Americans under surveillance
People from the land now known as Germany started coming to Minnesota in large numbers in the second half of the 19th century. Some were pushed out of their homeland because of economics, politics, or sentiments against Catholics and Jewish people, Bredemus said. Others were pulled toward the promise of farmland through the Homestead Act.
German enclaves sprung up across Minnesota, including in New Ulm, St. Cloud, Shakopee and St. Paul. There were many German-language newspapers in St. Paul before the turn of the 20th century, Bredemus said, and at least a dozen beer halls. German was spoken in many schools, as well as in church services and stores.
Things began to change in the early 20th century. The United States was a late entrant into WWI, declaring war on Germany in 1917. But a nativist contingent began to grow even before the U.S. sent soldiers overseas. They feared that in an unstable time, ethnic diversity was a liability for the United States, and launched a campaign against "hyphenated Americanism," wrote Carl Chrislock in the book "Watchdog of Loyalty: The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety during WWI."
Many German Americans urged the U.S. to remain neutral in the war — something that came back to bite them as relations between the two countries deteriorated and America ultimately got involved, Chrislock wrote.
In 1905, 70% of Minnesota's residents were either foreign-born or born to immigrant parents. The preoccupation with patriotism was intense in the state.
Just as the U.S. entered the war, the state Legislature established the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, a seven-member group given broad powers to police patriotism. One step the commission took was to require non-citizens to register and report their property. Nativists were especially wary of German Americans, who they feared would side with the Kaiser in the war.
"If you spoke German, or you did anything German, you were suspected of being a traitor," Bredemus said. German Americans were pressured to buy war bonds as a show of support for the U.S. The commission and its deputies could arrest people speaking German and conducted raids on pool halls and other establishments to find "idlers" (men who weren't working) or "slackers" (men who hadn't signed up for the draft).
In Luverne in 1918, a group of men kidnapped, whipped, tarred and feathered a German American farmer suspected of disloyalty. He was later awarded a settlement.
One of the commission's more notorious acts was its role in the ouster of town officials in New Ulm. Shortly after a draft was announced, thousands attended a meeting in town. Local officials "urged compliance with [the draft] law, but challenged the justice of the war and the government's authority to send draftees into combat overseas," according to the Minnesota Historical Society.
"There were a lot of people, young men, living in Brown County that did not want to be drafted to go overseas because they still had close relationships with the [German] families they had left behind," said Darla Gebhard, research librarian at the Brown County Historical Society.
At the meeting, "they were told, 'You need to go if you're drafted. The only thing you can do is plead not to be sent overseas,'" she said.
The Commission of Public Safety recommended ousting the New Ulm officials who spoke at the meeting. The group's chairman, Gov. Joseph Burnquist, removed them from office. Another speaker's employer was pressured to force his resignation from his job.
During this time, visible German-ness was a liability. As a result, some aspects of Minnesota's German culture disappeared.
Removing German culture
Cities and counties gave streets new names, many of which are still around today. Old Schmidt Road in Eagan became Yankee Doodle Road. In draft records, New Ulm residents who lived on German Street listed addresses on Liberty Street, Gebhard said, although the street's name wasn't officially changed.
In 1917, Gov. Burnquist decided to paint over the German motifs gracing the walls and arched ceilings of the Capitol's basement beer hall and dining space, called the rathskeller. (The rathskeller — designed by famed architect Cass Gilbert as a tribute to the state's German heritage — was painstakingly restored in 1999.)
In 1918, workers removed a statue of Germania — the personification of Germany — from the Germania Life Insurance Building in St. Paul. The company also changed its name to Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.
In a move that disconnected young Minnesotans from their German heritage, the Public Safety Commission ordered in 1917 that teachers instruct only in English. The commission also listed books that could not be taught, Bredemus said, and barred schools from teaching the music of German composers like Bach, Beethoven and Strauss.
And the beer halls once prominent in places like St. Paul? Many were casualties of Prohibition after WWI. The temperance movement that led to the banning of alcohol was fueled partly by anti-German and anti-Irish sentiment, said Doug Hoverson, author of "Land of Amber Waters: The History of Brewing in Minnesota."
Anti-German sentiment fades
After WWI, the Minnesota Legislature disbanded the Commission of Public Safety.
"The ruthlessness of the Commission's procedure shows ... how dangerous it is to vest even good men with arbitrary power," commission counsel Ambrose Tighe wrote in a letter diagnosing the group's flaws. He noted its "departure from the principle of constitutional government."
By WWII, there was less visible German culture in the state — and less skepticism of German Americans' allegiance.
New Ulm, a target of anti-German sentiment in WWI, even became the site of a German prisoner of war camp during the Second World War, located at Flandrau State Park.
"I always found it very quixotic ... that we had all this trouble in 1917, and then in the 1940s, when World War II broke out, they gave us a prisoner of war camp," said Gebhard, the Brown County Historical Society librarian. "It's like, 'Oh they trust us now. They're giving us POWs to watch.'"
New Ulm now bills itself as "the most German town in America." The pride in its heritage is on full display at an annual Oktoberfest. Another celebration, Hermannfest, pays tribute to the massive Germanic monument that has long kept vigil over the town: Hermann the German.
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