Internment of Germans in the United States during World War II

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Internment camp for German citizens and German-Americans during the Second World War

During the Second World War , German citizens who lived in the United States and German-Americans were classified as " enemy aliens ". This provided the legal basis for forcibly interning them in camps. In contrast to the internment of Americans of Japanese descent , which also forcibly resettled and interned almost everyone affected by the regulation, of the roughly 6 million Germans and Germans of German descent between 1940 and 1948, only a little over 11,500 were actually at least temporarily assigned to camps.

In addition, after the Japanese air strike on Pearl Harbor , the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) called on South and Central American countries to extradite the Germans living there to the US government . A small number of other Germans from South and Central America were deported to the United States and interned there.

Before World War II

During the First World War, around 6,500 German citizens and German Americans were interned in various camps. Between the two world wars, a large number of Germans living in the United States increasingly distanced themselves from the politics of their home country. National Socialist ideas in particular were seen as contrary to liberal American convictions. As early as the 1920s, the German National Socialists began a . a. with the help of Kurt Lüdecke and Fritz Gissibl and later also Heinz Spanknoebel to advertise a National Socialist party within the German community. However, this was only moderately successful. The so-called foreign organization of the NSDAP (NSDAP / AO) tried harder since the attack on Poland and the beginning of the Second World War to register the Germans living in the United States and consequently to organize them. By supporting public appearances by uniformed and registered members, more followers should be attracted. The apparently Nazi-oriented organization, the so-called German-American Bund , also made use of such appearances to stage and present itself in a media-effective manner. With such attention, the alliance became more influential than it ultimately had. In 1930 there were 1.6 million German citizens living in the United States, two-thirds had emigrated to the United States before the First World War. Of the more than seven million people with German ancestors who lived in the United States in 1930, over 75% had already been born there. By comparison, there were around 1.2 million German nationals in the United States in 1940. 5 million had German parents and 6 million had at least one German parent.

Internment from 1940-48

Just two hours after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, under the direction of the FBI, over 2,300 foreigners, including 865 Germans, were arrested in 35 states. In Hawaii itself, the entire German community was arrested in a very short time. 1260 Germans who had previously been under state observation were imprisoned here. A total of 11,507 people of German descent were imprisoned between 1940 and 1948. This corresponds to a share of 36.1% of those imprisoned under the so-called Enemy Alien Control Program . Behind this program are three proclamations by Franklin D. Roosevelt . The first, Proclamation 2525, was promulgated on October 7, 1941 in response to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and only affected Japanese nationals and their children in American territory. In December 1941, Proclamations 2526 and 2527 followed, with which, analogous to Proclamation 2525, people of German and Italian descent were now declared to be Enemy Aliens . The legal framework for this was the Alien and Sedition Acts (also Alien Enemy Act ) reformulated in 1918 and the Alien Registration Act of 1940 , also known as the Smith Act .

The information on how many people of German descent were imprisoned for the Enemy Alien Control Program is contradicting itself. In addition to German citizens, German-Americans were also interned in a few cases. For example, the families of the internees were allowed to accompany them to the respective detention camps. This was particularly true of families where one parent was German and the other was US citizens. Their children were legally American citizens through " birthright citizenship ". German citizens who had left Germany due to the events of and after 1933 in order to obtain political asylum in the United States were also arrested.

The internment of German citizens and German Americans was assessed very differently by various sources after the end of the Second World War. While on the one hand it was viewed as an unlawful deprivation of liberty, others justified the detention as a success against the increasing cases of espionage and sabotage on the German side. What can only be considered certain is that internment was already controversially discussed at the start of the USA's entry into the war and that it must be considered unconstitutional in two respects. Internment can be understood, firstly, as a violation of the right to live in the United States as a citizen of any nationality in freedom and under the fundamental assumption of innocence, and secondly, against the duty of a nation to protect its citizens even in times of war .

Deportation of Germans from South and Central America

Approximately 4,500 German nationals were deported from South and Central America to the United States and placed in camps under the Justice Department. At the beginning of the war, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had drawn up lists of suspected anti-subversive people in fifteen South and Central American countries. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States demanded the deportation of these people in order to detain them on US territory and ultimately intern them. 4058 German citizens were probably affected by these deportations, 10–15% NSDAP members, some of whom were directly assigned to the NSDAP / AO for recruitment. 81 people in this group were German Jews who had fled the National Socialist dictatorship in Germany in order to apply for asylum in South and Central America. Many of the more than 4,000 deportees had lived in South and Central America for years or even decades. In part, the reward offered by the United States led to the identification, stigmatization and subsequent deportation of Germans living in South and Central America. However, some countries also refused to cooperate with the United States, particularly Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. In some cases, the property of the deportees was confiscated by the state.

The camps of the Germans deported from South and Central America were mainly in Texas (Camps Crystal City, Kennedy, Seagoville), Florida (Camp Blanding), Oklahoma (Stringtown), North Dakota ( Fort Lincoln ), Tennessee (Camp Forrest) and others States.

Time after World War II

After the Second World War, the US government reserved the right to keep interned Germans and German-Americans for the time being, and in some cases until 1948. After the end of World War II, many prisoners were either released or taken to Germany via Ellis Island , where not a few were arrested again until their innocence could be judged by a court. The court proceedings turned out to be difficult partly because of a lack of knowledge of German. Many of those now imprisoned in Germany were born in the United States and never learned the German language. The rehabilitation of internees was also made more difficult by the fact that Washington never recognized the imprisonment of Germans and German-Americans and so the former prisoners had to keep silent about their camp history while looking for work in order not to be stigmatized as former convicts.

Current debate and subject of research

The imprisonment of Germans and German-Americans has long been denied both officially and scientifically. While the Japanese Americans received legal protection, formal recognition and financial compensation relatively soon after the end of the war, there is still no such thing for German citizens and German-Americans, whose internment is not officially recognized. It is also controversial to what extent the so-called "Enemy Aliens" program, which was started before the war began, lived up to its claim of imprisoning and interning potentially "dangerous and disloyal" people. Arnold Krammer assumes that only 20 percent of those imprisoned were actually National Socialists. Former prisoners have been fighting for recognition and reappraisal of internment since the end of the 20th century. They accuse those responsible for violations of humanity and demand financial compensation. In 2005 the organization "German American Internee Coalition" was founded with the aim of publicizing the imprisonment, repatriation and exchange of civilians of German origin during the Second World War and obtaining political recognition. In 2001, the so-called "European Americans and Refugees Wartime Treating Study Act" was introduced, a draft law that should enable an independent commission of inquiry to investigate political decisions made against nationals of hostile nations during the Second World War. This law was passed by the Senate in 2007, but failed in the House of Representatives. Krammer, who has dealt extensively with the internment of German and German-Americans, wrote as early as 1996:

"It is completely incomprehensible [...] that the internment of thousands of Germans in World War II, almost five decades later, is still not recognized as a historical fact."

- Krammer : Feinde ohne Uniform (1996), p. 603.

literature

  • John Christgau: "Enemies". World War II alien internment. Iowa State University Press, Iowa 1985, ISBN 0-8138-0558-9 .
  • Robert C. Doyle: The Enemy in Our Hands. America's Treatment of Enemy Prisoners of War from the Revolution to the War on Terror. The University Press of Kentucky, Kentucky 2010, ISBN 978-0-8131-2589-3 .
  • Stephen Fox: America's Invisible Gulag. A Biography of German American Internment & Exclusion in World War II. Memory & History. Peter Lang Publishing, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8204-4914-8 .
  • Timothy J. Holian: The German-Americans and World War II. An Ethnic Experience. Peter Lang Publishing, New York 1998, ISBN 0-8204-3074-9 .
  • Arthur D. Jacobs: The Prision Called Hohenasperg. An American boy betrayed by his Government during World War II. Universal Publishers, USA 1999, ISBN 1-58112-832-0 .
  • Arnold Krammer: Enemies without a uniform. German civil internees in the USA during the Second World War. In: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , Volume 44, Issue 4, 1996. Enemies without uniform online
  • Arnold Krammer: Undue Process. The Untold Story of America's German Alien Internees. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, inc. Lanham 1997, ISBN 0-8476-8518-7 .
  • Jeffrey L. Sammons: Were German-Americans Interned during World War II? A Question concerning Scholarly Standards and Integrity. In: The German Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 1, 1998, pp. 73-77.
  • Don Heinrich Tolzmann: Review. In: Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 19, No. 1, 1999, pp. 118-120.
  • Don Heinrich Tolzmann: The German-American Experience. Humanity Books, Amherst, NY 2000, ISBN 1-57392-731-7 .

Videography

  • Michaela Kirst: Damned to the Nazi. Germans in American camps. Germany 2008, TC: 00: 00: 00-00: 52: 00.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Arnold Krammer: Enemies without a uniform. German civil internees in the USA during the Second World War , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1996), volume 44, issue 4, pp. 582, 600.
  2. ↑ Don Heinrich Tolzmann: Review , in: Journal of American Ethnic History (1999), Vol. 19, No. 1, p. 119.
  3. ^ Arnold Krammer: Enemies without a uniform. German civil internees in the USA during the Second World War , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1996), volume 44, issue 4, p. 588.
  4. ↑ Timothy J. Holian: The German-Americans and World War II, An Ethnic Experience Peter Lang Publishing, New York 1998, p. 15.
  5. ↑ Timothy J. Holian: The German-Americans and World War II, An Ethnic Experience Peter Lang Publishing, New York 1998, pp. 17-18.
  6. ↑ Timothy J. Holian: The German-Americans and World War II, An Ethnic Experience Peter Lang Publishing, New York 1998, pp. 52-53.
  7. ↑ Timothy J. Holian: The German-Americans and World War II, An Ethnic Experience Peter Lang Publishing, New York 1998, p. 16.
  8. ↑ Tetsuden Kashima (ed.): Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. Part 769: Personal justice denied . University of Washington Press, 1997, ISBN 0-295-97558-X , pp. 289 .
  9. ^ Arnold Krammer: Enemies without a uniform. German civil internees in the USA during the Second World War , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1996), volume 44, issue 4, p. 584.
  10. ↑ Tetsuden Kashima (ed.): Judgment without trial: Japanese American imprisonment during World War II . University of Washington Press, 2003, ISBN 0-295-98299-3 , pp. 124 .
  11. ^ Brief Overview of the World War II Enemy Alien Control Program
  12. ^ Alien Enemies Act and Related World War II: Presidential Proclamations
  13. ↑ a b Don Heinrich Tolzmann: Review , in: Journal of American Ethnic History (1999), Vol. 19, No. 1, p. 118.
  14. ↑ Don Heinrich Tolzmann: The German-American Experience , Humanity Books, Amherst, NY (2000), S. 334th
  15. ^ Arnold Krammer: Enemies without a uniform. German civil internees in the USA during the Second World War , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1996), volume 44, issue 4, p. 585.
  16. ↑ Timothy J. Holian: The German-Americans and World War II, An Ethnic Experience Peter Lang Publishing, New York 1998, p. 153.
  17. ^ Arnold Krammer: Enemies without a uniform. German civil internees in the USA during the Second World War , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1996), volume 44, issue 4, p. 600.
  18. ^ Arnold Krammer: Enemies without a uniform. German civil internees in the USA during the Second World War , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1996), volume 44, issue 4, p. 595.
  19. ↑ Timothy J. Holian: The German-Americans and World War II, An Ethnic Experience Peter Lang Publishing, New York 1998, p. 4.
  20. ↑ Timothy J. Holian: The German-Americans and World War II, An Ethnic Experience Peter Lang Publishing, New York 1998, pp. 156-8.
  21. ↑ a b Timothy J. Holian: The German-Americans and World War II, An Ethnic Experience Peter Lang Publishing, New York 1998, p 169th
  22. ^ Arnold Krammer: Enemies without a uniform. German civil internees in the USA during the Second World War , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1996), volume 44, issue 4, p. 599.
  23. ↑ Timothy J. Holian: The German-Americans and World War II, An Ethnic Experience Peter Lang Publishing, New York 1998, pp. 1-3, 155.
  24. ^ Arnold Krammer: Enemies without a uniform. German civil internees in the USA during the Second World War , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte (1996), volume 44, issue 4, p. 603.
  25. ↑ oA archive link ( Memento of the original from August 16, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed July 2, 2015). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gaic.info