Colin Ross, "Unser Amerika" Chapter 2

 2.

Germany's Sons Over the Sea

It was in the spring of 1912 when I first saw the tower houses of Manhattan rising out of the haze before me. Compared to the skyscrapers of today, they were still small and modest back then; the Empire State Building was not yet standing, nor was the Chrysler, even the Woolworth was still under construction. One thing, however, rose higher and mightier than the buildings erected by ambition and greed after the war: the tower of hope, faith and certainty that rose into the clouds, embodied in the name “America”.

At that time, in those now distant pre-war days, America was still the hope of the weary and burdened, the comfort of the disappointed, the refuge of the persecuted, at least in the conviction of all who landed on its shores. It is true that many were disappointed again and again in all these hopes and expectations, beginning with the first settlements in Virginia and Massachusetts, but the faith remained, even in the hearts of those immigrants who did not make it beyond the lowest, worst-paid manual labor; even they clung to the idea that they had arrived in the land of freedom and wealth. Even if the sun of happiness would not shine on them, they never doubted for a moment that it would at least rise above the existence of their children.

It was this invisible, yet so certain tower that rose above the shadowy silhouette of Manhattan. It was this tower that made it the Grail Castle, the sight of which made the hearts of all who approached it for the first time beat faster. Even on our ship, one of Hapag's beautiful new fast steamers, no one could escape the magic of the hope-drunk city that rose like a fairy tale from the haze brewing over the water. The steamer was full of emigrants, poor people, Poles, Slovaks, Ruthenians and Hungarians. They stood devoutly on the deck. Men and women held hands. Intoxicated and dazed, they gazed at the miracle rising before them, and their hearts were already devoted to the new land, the New World, before they had even set foot on the pier.

We, too, who came not as immigrants but as visitors, not with the intention of finding a new homeland but attached to the old one, we, too, could not escape the spell exuded by the word, by the concept, by the idea of America, for whom the skyscraper miracle meant only symbol and promise.

"We", that was the study commission of the German Museum of Munich at that time. It was under the leadership of Oskar von Miller. All the "big shots" belonged to it; besides Miller, the famous inventor Diesel, the mayor of Munich, and the Bavarian prime minister, Count Podewils.

The fact that I, as a very young engineer, was allowed to be there was an improbable stroke of luck.

Our study commission was received with all the generosity of American hospitality. Starting with Morgan and Edison, all Americans of name and money vied with each other to show us everything we wanted to see and to entertain us lavishly.

Among the countless invitations we found on our arrival in New York was one from the German Associations. As secretary of the study society and travel marshal, I worked out the daily programs and submitted them to Oskar von Miller. Since it was my first overseas trip, all the details stuck in my mind, and so I remember exactly how Reichsrat von Miller said to me: "Actually, it is a waste of time to go to the German Associations. Their members are all small people without influence. They can't help us much, but as a matter of decency we must accept their invitation."

If I quote this statement here, it is in no way to disparage the founder of the Deutsches Museum. As his former employee, I know to what extent the Deutsches Museum is entirely his work, a creation of his brilliant imagination and his almost superhuman will. I have admired him all my life, and it was a great satisfaction to me that he kept his friendly attitude to me until the end of his life. No, I am reproducing Oskar von Miller's view of the mass of German-Americans because it was characteristic of the attitude of the Germans in the Reich toward the people in America. Even such a brilliant and far-seeing man as Miller could not escape the spirit and the generally accepted views of his time.

This time period looked down on the Germans who had emigrated to the United States as if they were prodigal sons and somewhat declasse, insofar as they had not made it to fortune and prestige. In complete misjudgment of the legal situation of the naturalized German-Americans, the old homeland resented on the one hand that they did not feel German but American, but on the other hand did nothing to give them a feeling of blood connection and cultural belonging. Whenever there was talk of the "failure" of the German Americans, they were quick to excuse themselves: "Well, they weren't exactly the best elements who crossed over." The idea of German-Americans was often associated with that of the "misguided sons" who were good for nothing but to be deported to America. Because the people who had moved across the Atlantic did not fulfill the impossible expectations of a sense of political belonging, they recklessly gave up the actual possibility of cultural affinity as well. Wilhelm II gave expression to this German attitude when he said, "I know Germans, and I know Americans, but I don't know any German-Americans!"

If this happened at the time of the Second Reich, when the mighty German Empire had just risen like a phoenix after three victorious wars, one need not be surprised at how quickly the German blood of the old homeland was lost, which had previously moved across the ocean when there was no German Empire, when Germany was nothing but a geographical concept and its sons moving across the sea were held in as low esteem as the Slovaks and Poles who had come over as steerage passengers with me on the same ship, and who were treated not much better than cattle by the immigration and customs officials. This, together with the magic that the idea and concept of America exuded, had to lead to the most rapid ethnic uprooting and to an Americanization that was actually an Anglicization. Those who wanted to succeed in the New World had to abandon their ancestral language, customs and views as quickly as possible and adopt the authoritative Anglo-Saxon ones. Sentimental clinging to the old homeland was considered the hallmark of the unsuccessful, even in the eyes of Reich Germans who visited the United States, although they did not like to express this view publicly. If the Anglo-American is still considered the real, the "one hundred percent" American, and if the German-American remained an American of the second degree, then the blame for this lies in no small measure with us, with us Germans, regardless of whether we moved across the sea or remained in the old homeland. If all the achievements of the ethnic Germans and all the sacrifices of property and blood have not to this day been able to bring the just appreciation of the German share in the building up of the United States, we must beat our breast ruefully. If the fact that one-fourth of the American population is of German descent could not prevent the United States from declaring war on us (World War I), not out of any state necessity, but merely for the sake of the pecuniary interests of a small class, and if, in spite of all the German blood flowing in the veins of Americans, there was at first nothing but hatred in America for the New Germany, then each and every one of us can only cry out, "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!" - "Our fault, our enormous fault!"

Much has been sinned against the relations of the ethnic Germans with the old homeland by both sides, less out of ill will than out of lack of understanding. I myself cannot absolve myself from the same mistake. It took me two dozen years, many years of living overseas, dealing with emigrants all over the world, to come to the right understanding of the ethnic German abroad, his special situation, his relations to the old homeland as well as his worries and hopes. Only from this understanding can one dare to approach the solution of the difficult problem, that is: Germany and her sons over the sea!