WWI German Discrimination took a serious turn

I wrote here about the Anti-German experience in World War I.  In the new resource I found yesterday, there were files released from the precursor of the FBI.  I searched the database for "Brueggemann".  I found this record, not one of "our" Brueggemanns.
  

Apparently, the Postmaster of Aloca, TN reported to the US Marshall  that there was a gentleman in his community that he found to be suspicious. 

 "A.L. Brueggeman of Alcoa, Tennessee, and I note that this man has aroused your suspicions because of his name and German accent, and the fact that he has written a great many letters, most of which, however, appear to go to his wife in Newark, New Jersey, and under these circumstances, I do not consider it advisable to have his mail opened and examined by an agent of this department, as suggested by you."  

Clay Irvine, Postmaster, thought this man was suspicious because he spoke with a German accent and he wrote a lot of letters.  It must have been a very hard time for German Americans, especially those who were proud to be American.

Akron Germania Newspaper

Ernst August Brueggemann left Zanesville in the fall of 1917 to work at the Germania Newspaper.  I am currently reseaching the paper and found the following information on another blog: 


At the age of 16, Paul E. Werner immigrated to America in 1867. He worked as a clerk and bookkeeper at several Akron stores. In 1873, Paul became an editorial writer for the Akron Germania newspaper. It was a popular German-language publication. He enjoyed it so much that he bought the newspaper a year later and became publisher. In the 1870s, Paul founded the Sunday Gazette and the Akron Tribune. He also began a commercial printing enterprize. In 1884, Paul quit the newspaper business and began making high-quality books. He built a printing plant in 1886 and built his sales offices all over the USA. Soon, he would have branches in 20-countries. Among the gold-leafed titles that the Werner Co. published in Akron were Webster's Dictionary, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Encyclopaedia Americana, the Waldorf Cook Book, the White House Cook Book and World's Best Literature. In the 1890s, the factory was producing 10,000 volumes a day. They would fill six train cars. Paul became friends with President William McKinley, Buffalo Bill Cody, French painter James Tissot, German Count Ferdinand Zeppelin and Queen Victoria. At the turn of the 20th century, Paul was hosting lavish gatherings at his Akron mansion. He was a multimillionaire. In 1904 he built Akron's German-American Music Hall. However, in 1908, Paul's fortune came to an end. Britannica filed suit alleging trademark violations. He was sued in all 20-countries where he did business. Paul hired a "dream team" of high profile lawyers and claimed victory in every suit. But the litigation cost him a fortune. In 1910, Paul's business collapsed. He filed bankruptcy and had to sell his 11-building Akron complex. Paul left Akron in 1915 to open a rubber company in Kansas City. But he lost his backing. That company folded in 1925. In 1927, next to broke, Paul returned to Akron and got a hero's welcome. Franklin A. Seiberling held a party for him at Stan Hywet Hall, Frank's Akron estate. Seiberling had bought the old Germania newspaper and gave it back to Paul. Paul Werner died of Bright's disease at the age of 80. Akron's elite packed the funeral.

EAB worked for the paper when Mr. Werner wasn't involved with the paper.  I am working on finding out about the paper during his tenure, I don't think the paper was active during World War I due to anti-German sentiment.

German Grave Sites are ONLY RENTED

One thing I learned at my Family History thing is not to expect to go to Germany and find the graves and headstones of our German ancestors.  Sites are rented for thirty years.  Presumably at the end of 30 years, the mourners have died.


If the family doesn't want to pay for an additional thirty years, the site is then available to be rented again  If the grave digger should find a few bones remaining of an earlier body he just buries them a little deeper in the
bottom of the grave. It makes sense really, otherwise the country would be overrun with cemeteries.


I wondered what happened to the headstones.  Were they piled up in the back of the church yard or did they get recycled?  I read on a genealogical web site that in Switzerland, they were crushed up and used for roads.  

Did the Brueggemann's face Discrimination during WWI?

WWI brought out anti-German sentiment 

By Feb. 4, 1918, all German males 14 and older in the United States who were not naturalized were required to register as alien enemies with local authorities. President Woodrow Wilson issued the proclamation in November 1917 as the United States entered World War I against Germany and its allies.

The German Alien Registration Act required that each "alien enemy" be issued a registration card, which was to be carried at all times. At their registration, they were photographed, fingerprinted and questioned about their personal habits. The government ordered them to get permission to travel or change residences.

Ohio later passed a law prohibiting teaching the German language in public schools. In Cincinnati, where 58 percent of residents were of German heritage, an ordinance was passed changing German street names. German-language books were removed from library shelves, one-third of the city's German-language newspapers folded and German teachers were fired.

- Rebecca Goodman

From Syllabus for German Immigration 

 Dr. Peter C Merrill,, Department of Languages and Linguistics, Florida, Atlantic University

On the eve of World War I, German-Americans were divided in the way they viewed the Kaiser. The majority were probably carried along by the wave of German nationalism, but the Kaiser also had his critics. Foremost among these were the Socialists, who were opposed on principle to militarism and who had been the target of oppressive anti-Socialist laws in Germany in the 1880s. German-American Catholics, like Catholics in Germany, could not forget the "Kulturkampf," the struggle between Bismarck and the Catholic Church. Missouri Synod Lutherans were also inclined to mistrust the imperial German government, which they vaguely associated with the liberal theology of Adolf von Harnack. To the pacifist American Mennonites there was nothing at all to be admired in the militaristic spirit that pervaded modern Germany. After all, the Mennonites, like the other Anabaptist sects, were strictly opposed to bearing arms and, having been persecuted for their faith, had few feelings of cultural attachment to Germany

It is my guess that it was a tough time for all Brueggemanns.  I think it was particularly hard for Rev. Ernst August Brueggemann.  At this time, he was a publisher of a German Language newspaper.  From what I've been told, the paper folded and he was unemployed.  I think it was at this time that he dropped the final "n" from Brueggemann.  I know there was also some discord in the family about serving in the Army but I will cover this in another post.  The war time must have been hard for all Americans but it must have been particularly hard for our German American ancestors.