After 50 years, German-bashing must stop!

As an American of German descent I do not appreciate the anti-German bias being promoted or condoned by the media, and others.

Not a day goes by when one does not read, see and hear derogatory remarks and intentional distortions about German and by inference German-American heritage, especially when related to World War II. Clearly one wonders what is the motivation behind this narrow-minded German-bashing? Is it just the unconscious residue of the distant war years innocently embellished by an ignorant and insensitive media and an exploiting book and film industry? Or is it something more sinister?

The evidence seems to suggest the latter because 25 or 30 years ago, the demonizing characteristics of the anti-German sentiments of today were scarcely evident. Indeed, it seems that the more distant World War II becomes, the more frantic the effort to drape Germany in a perpetual shroud of evil.

As a result Americans, including German-Americans, have been so conditioned to accept, without question, this methodical and persistent anti-German propaganda to the point where even former National Security Advisor General Brent Scowcroft, in a recent speech before the prestigious Union Club audience that included German diplomats and business leaders, casually laced his remarks with contrived anti-German sentiments.

Anti-Germanism in America, of course, is nothing new. German-Americans have been its periodic victims since America's entry into World War I in 1917. Brutal anti-German sentiments, fueled by irrational and fanatically government-inspired hate-filled propaganda reached hysterical proportions. German-Americans have been ruthlessly stripped of their identity, their pride, their dignity and their self-respect.

Despite German-Americans' significant contribution and deep loyalty to America when the American government declared war an Germany in 1917, the United States also "declared war" on its own German-American citizens.

During 1917-18, German-American schools and newspapers by the thousands were forced to permanently close. Today we recoil from the images of book burnings in 1930's Germany, yet we ignore that it happened two decades earlier in America when mountains of German books were ordered burned across the nation. The officials of German-named towns that had been founded by German-Americans were intimidated by government officials into anglicizing their names and into destroying all traces of their German heritage. German-sounding street names were banned.

Thousands of German-Americans were fired from their jobs, people with German accent were taunted and attacked in the streets and even lynched, and German-American businesses were forced to close. German subsidiaries such as Merck & Co. and Bayer were confiscated without compensation. This ugly side of Americana is kept well hidden and never taught in our schools.

During World War II the purges in America returned as thousands of German-Americans were rounded up and imprisoned in concentration camps and had their properties confiscated. Many of those that were not interned found themselves confronted by wholesale hate-filled discrimination. And yet the American government still expected them, unlike the Japanese, to go to war and fight against their own German relatives.

Furthermore, unlike the Japanese, who received compensation, not one single German-American that was victimized has ever received one cent of compensation or an apology from their American government.

Despite German-Americans being the single largest ethnic group in America, with 25 percent of the population, and a very stable, productive and law-abiding component of America's middle class, German-Americans have been virtually ostracized from the top leadership positions in their American government. For example, there is not one German-American in the Clinton cabinet. Why?

Unfortunately the national organizations that claim to represent German-American interests have done nothing to protect German-American rights and thereby have tolerated anti-German bias in America.

If German-Americans are ever going to stop this bias directed against them and avoid becoming maligned and second-class citizenry, they must, either individually or through organized groups, challenge in the courts, if need be, each and every false and biased statement, innuendo, publication, radio and TV broadcast and film to hold those who make them, those who condone them and those, such as advertisers and investors, who support them accountable for damages.

Not until the bias stops and the wrongs have been righted will the 65 million German-Americans be able to reclaim their pride, their heritage and their just and rightful place in their American homeland.

Karl F. Kettler,
Flemington, USA