World War I would change much of the outwardly German character of
German-American citizens and institutions. The war was a key period
in the formation of the ambivalent German-American mentality that
would greet the formation of the Cleveland Cultural Garden League
ten years later. When WWI erupted, the German-American community,
which had been politically apathetic, took action to support Germany
through promotion of American neutrality. The political activities
supporting Germany, including a campaign for the defeat of pro-British
Woodrow Wilson in 1916, were seen as by German-Americans as supporting
assimilation into the larger national community. Their political activism
was evidence that Germans were full American citizens, not traitors
to the government. However, the mobilization could not spur the German-American
community to unanimity of tactics, as Thernstrom notes: “Although
more Germans voted Republican than was true of the electorate as a
whole, local issues and internal divisions confused the pattern, and
Germans did not form a solidly anti-Wilson voting bloc.”
Despite German-American comfort with their heritage, confidence in
their assimilation, and lack of real political success with their
activism, they were about to learn that political activism and ethnic
pride was not going to be welcomed in the American community with
open arms during this period of crisis. What was acceptable during
the first three years of the conflict was quickly made unacceptable
once the U.S. entered the war on the side of the British and French.
Anti-German sentiment swept the country after the fall of 1917 as
George Creel’s Committee on Public Information whipped up American
nationalism with anti-German propaganda. A general climate of harassment
included bans on German-composed music and a massive effort towards
the renaming of Germanic towns, people and foods. Vandalism, tarring
and feathering, arrests for pro-German speech, and even a lynching
in April 1918 in Collinsville, Illinois shook the German community.
German books were burned, and German language instruction was banned
throughout the country. Several states even limited the freedom to
speak German in public.
Damage to German-American institutions was equally devastating. German-language
publications dwindled from 554 in 1910 to 234 in 1920, while daily
German-language newspaper circulation in 1920 was a quarter of its
1910 level. Even churches began to abandon the language. Finally and
most publicly, the National German-American Alliance that had met
with such success in the early part of the 20th century was dissolved
in April 1918 by a Senate investigation that brought its loyalty into
question across the country. The German-American community learned
that no matter how well-assimilated they had become by the WWI era,
German identity was welcome only when it suited the larger community.
It was a lesson learned well by the public that would make the German
Cultural Garden League’s task in celebrating ethnic pride all
the more difficult in the 1920s. Bernhard Kehrig and his family were
an example of the people the League would have to reach to accomplish
its mission of brotherhood amongst ethnic groups.
As a master painter in Deusseldorf, Kehrig was similar to the skilled
craftsmen and artisans of earlier waves to the United States. Kehrig
was a widower with six children: Anne, Gertrude, Hans, Lena, Theresa,
and Tony. Lena was the first to come to the United States. Lena worked
in a tavern in Germany during World War I with her sister, Anne, where
they came into contact with several American soldiers. The feverish
German nationalism of the early war years had already begun to fade
as hardship in Germany increased and disillusionment amongst the Germans
began to grow. Despite the American contribution to Germany’s
defeat, Lena and Anne did not resent the American soldiers. Instead,
they were moved by the generosity of the American servicemen that
came into their tavern. One even donated material that their sister
Teresa made into a blanket for the younger Gertrude. Already, Americanism
had taken hold in the Kehrig family before they had even boarded the
boat for the U.S.
When the war ended, Germany lay in ruins. The Versailles Treaty had
humiliated the German people by assessing blame for a world war at
their feet, the Second Reich of Kaiser Wilhelm had been replaced by
the imposition of the Weimar Republic, and the economy was in tatters
as Germany labored to pay war reparations with the handicap of a smashed
industrial base. Amidst the postwar chaos that had inspired so many
other Germans like her to contemplate emigrating to America, Lena
Kehrig remembered the kindness of the American servicemen she had
met in the tavern. She decided to come to the U.S. to marry one of
the G.I.s she had met at the tavern and make a new start. Although
her original paramour rebuffed her in Chicago, she found herself in
Cambridge, Ohio, where another serviceman, Oscar Higginbotham, welcomed
her. The two were married, and from this foothold in America, the
remaining Kehrig family would be reunited.
Teresa and Tony emigrated first to join their sister and brother-in-law.
Bernhard came next, bringing along Gertrude and Anne. Anne brought
her husband, Jakob Krems, a German soldier from WWI who had spent
time as a POW in France. Their daughter, Hildegard, came with them.
Bernhard, Anne, Jakob, Gertrude and Hildegard arrived in New Jersey
on St. Patrick’s Day, 1927, where Lena and Oscar picked them
up by car for the long, cramped drive west to Ohio. Hans followed
later. Each member of the Kehrig family arrived in the same fashion,
coming to Cambridge first before fanning out to Cleveland to look
for work in the larger city. This method of immigration was very common
during the time period, as one member of the family blazed a trail
for the others to follow. Successful immigrants in earlier waves began
a cycle that would repeat itself over and over again, as earlier families
wrote back to Germany about their success. As difficult as it may
have been to leave Germany, their disillusionment with the war, the
economic dislocation of the time, and their trepidation over the rise
of the Nazi Party and other political malcontents, especially the
communists, made America a blessed alternative.
