Karl,
It is clear to me that you as a half Danish boy (child) grew up with your Danish aunt and family in Esbjerg, and thus that some Danish elements and thus roots were attached to your life. This Danish Wadden sea coast must have been good for you, because you didn't want to go to Germany and hated or disliked Germany. That makes perfect sense, because you weren't raised there, had no connections there and had no social network there. You were adopted by German family (probably strangers to you) an didn't like the relationship your (Danish) mother had with another German man after your fathers death. You became a recalcitrant, rebellious and probably intractable young man, because you hated the fact that the army of your father (who died at the Eastfront) lost the war and the fact that "
your Germany" was ruled or dominated by Allied occupiers. What your write about the Americans is understandable for me, because the Americans had a tradition of anti-Germanism since World War I.
Anti-German sentiment in the United StatesAnti-German sentiment (or
Germanophobia or Teutonophobia / Teutophobia) is defined as an opposition to or
fear of Germany, its inhabitants, and the German language. Its opposite is
Germanophilia.
During World War I,
German Americans were sometimes accused of
being too sympathetic to Germany. Former president
Theodore Roosevelt denounced "
hyphenated Americanism", insisting that dual loyalties were impossible in wartime. A small minority came out for
Germany, or ridiculed
the British (as did
H. L. Mencken). Similarly, Harvard psychology professor
Hugo Münsterberg dropped his efforts to mediate between
America and
Germany, and threw his efforts behind
the German cause.
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 in 1917-18. The allegations included spying for Germany, or endorsing the German war effort. 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. One person was killed by a mob; in
Collinsville,
Illinois, German-born
Robert Prager was dragged from jail as a suspected spy and lynched.
Robert Prager (Feb 28,1888–Apr. 5,1918) was a German coal miner living in Collinsville, Illinois, who was lynched by a mob on 5 April 1918. Twelve men were tried for his murder but were subsequently acquitted. Prager was killed because of anti-German sentiment during the first World War and because he was accused of holding socialist beliefs.In Chicago,
Frederick Stock temporarily stepped down as conductor of
the Chicago Symphony Orchestra until he finalized his naturalization papers. Orchestras replaced music by German composer
Wagner with French composer
Berlioz. In Cincinnati, the public library was asked to withdraw all German books from its shelves. German-named streets were renamed. The town,
Berlin, Michigan, was changed to
Marne, Michigan (honoring those who fought in the Battle of Marne). 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 (Meyer v. Nebraska). The response of German Americans to these tactics was often to "
Americanize" names (e.g.
Schmidt to
Smith,
Müller to
Miller) and
limit the use of the German language in public places, especially churches.
A
1917 comic strip in which the character smashes a clown doll present because it was made in
Germany.
Anti-German sentiment was stoked by
the success of German saboteurs in
the 1916 bombing of Black Tom island; the operation had been directed and financed by
German intelligence officers under diplomatic cover.
When the United States entered the war in
1917, some
German Americans were looked upon with suspicion and attacked regarding their loyalty. Some men were convicted and imprisoned on charges of sedition, for refusing to swear allegiance to the United States war effort.
City streets in Chicago with German names were changed, with several noted exceptions being
Goethe & Schiller in the Gold Coast neighborhood (which remain the same today). The city of
Berlin, Michigan was renamed
Marne, though the Berlin Raceway located there retains the original city name. In New Orleans, Berlin St. was renamed for General Pershing (head of the American Expeditionary Force), sauerkraut came to be called (by some) "liberty cabbage", German measles became "
liberty measles", hamburgers became "
liberty sandwiches" and
Dachshunds became "
liberty pups". Many families with a German-sounding last name changed their surname. The vast majority of German-Americans, however, were loyal to their adopted country and
thousands of them served in the United States military.
As the public atmosphere became increasingly hysterical, vigilantes burned "
pro-German" books, spied on neighbors, and attacked and murdered immigrants and radicals.
Anti-German tension culminated on
April 4, 1918, in
the brutal lynching of German immigrant Robert Prager, a coal miner living in Collinsville, Illinois, who was accused of making "
disloyal remarks". In
June 1918 a
bill was
introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative
John M. C. Smith with the aim
to wipe out German names from the map of the United States.
Second World WarBetween 1931 and 1940, 114,000 Germans moved to the United States, many of whom—including Nobel prize winner
Albert Einstein—were Jewish Germans or anti-Nazis fleeing Nazi oppression. About 25,000 people became paying members of
the pro-Nazi German American Bund during the years before the war.
German aliens were the subject of
suspicion and
discrimination during the war, although prejudice and sheer numbers meant they suffered as a group generally less than
Japanese Americans.
The Alien Registration Act of
1940 required
300,000 German-born resident aliens who had German citizenship to register with the Federal government and restricted their travel and property ownership rights. Under the still active
Alien Enemy Act of
1798, the United States government i
nterned nearly 11,000 German citizens between 1940 and 1948. Civil rights violations occurred. An unknown number of "
voluntary internees" joined their spouses and parents in the camps and were not permitted to leave.
President
Franklin D. Roosevelt sought out Americans of German ancestry for top war jobs, including
General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, and
General Carl Andrew Spaatz. He appointed Republican
Wendell Willkie as a personal representative.
German Americans who had
fluent German language skills were an important asset to wartime intelligence, and they served as
translators and as
spies for
the United States.
The war evoked strong pro-American patriotic sentiments among German Americans, few of whom by then had contacts with distant relatives in the old country.
The
October 1939 seizure by
the German pocket battleship Deutschland of the
US freighter SS City of Flint, as it had 4000 tons of oil for Britain on board,
provoked much anti-German sentiment in the US.
Following its entry into the Second World War, the US Government interned at least
11,000 American citizens of German ancestry. The last to be released, a German-American, remained imprisoned until 1948 at
Ellis Island, three and a half years after the cessation of hostilities against Germany.
In 1944,
Henry Morgenthau, Jr., United States Secretary of the Treasury, put forward the strongest proposal
for punishing Germany to the Second Quebec Conference. It became known as
the Morgenthau Plan, and was intended to prevent Germany from having the industrial base to start another world war.
I respect that you want to hide your Auntie's name out of respect and for privacy reasons. She had children who live today with her memories and the name she gave them. She was your mothers sister and thus very close to you. Being half Danish your first years you spend in the country of your mothers and aunties birth and family. I wonder if you learned Danish or can understand Danish. I like Danish people, because they are close to us in culture and mentality and most of them speak English fairly well.
I am sorry you have never had the chance to get to know your father. But it were the war years and many people lost their father during the war. War is nasty and people loose their lives fighting in it and trying to survive. I understand why your Auntie never spoke of your fathers existance, because she was probably one of these introvert, silent types over the war. It was a custom back then in many families to not speak about the war, to be practical/pragmatic, and direct your energy and attention to the presence and the future. People had to make a living, survive and were focussed on their daily lives. Later people asked questions about the war and historical, critical documentries and historians came.
You as a son probably later regret the fact that you badly hurt your mothers feelings. As children, teenagers and young adults we can be impossible, hard to deal with, stubborn and rebellious to our parents. Later we can put things into perspective and see what the objectives of our parents were and that they had the best intentions with us. Your mother wanted probably the best solutions for you, but you were dragged out of your comforting and known "home" (heimat) in Denmark, to a probably for you strange Germany. You were born in Bremen, but raised in Denmark.
I do understand your hatred for Germany, and it must have taken you some time to integrate into the country of your father and his family, ancesters, friends and colleages. Today that shows to be reality, since you wrote about your homesickness for Germany. Germany became your Heimat after years of studying, working and working abroad for German interests.
You can't blame the Wehrmacht to leave you to the whims of the English military, because their leader and general staff (OKW) had a terrible strategic thought, tactical insight and gave the wrong orders, which resultet in the German defeat. I understand your mixed anger and fear against the Americans, because it must have been the same as the feelings of the Poles towards the Russian occupiers of Poland in 1945 after Nazi-Germany was defeated by the Red Army. What scenario was waiting for Poland. We know that now, but back then it was unclear to the world.
Yes, some Teenagers and adolescents can become suicidal due to their insecurity feelings, depression, and when reforms in some countries aren't taken serious. Did your anger and fear vent against others, in the sense that you were a bully, whom intimidated other pupils, kids of your neighbourhood and your youth territory?. In our youth we can commit brainless, emotional, sensational, dynamic and counter-productive actions, to block our opponents.
It is good from your mother lent to the family home that had been Grandfathers summer home in Cuxhaven. The home had been taken over by the English military and apparently with mothers request, the house was relinquished to her control to then release it to the family for them to live in.
Yes, I praise of my parents and what they lived through with strength and courage. My mother, indeed suffered considerably being Polish during the Second World War, but she was lucky that she was reunited with her parents and sister at the end of the war in Poznan (Posen in German).
Yes, my family in Poland, most of them survived the war. Some relatives died in Katyn (murdered by the NKVD; the Sovjets) and threre were a few casualties during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.
The worst thing was my grandfather humiliation after the war by Polish Stalinist Communists, because he lost his position in Poznan as school district inspector and his job as an economy teacher.
Cheers,
Pieter
;D: