Colin Ross, "Unser Amerika", Chapter 33
33.
Luther in the Midwest
“Weil aber der Mensch ge-fa-gefa-alen-ist."
The twelve-year-old began to stutter, and the teacher became angry: "Setz dich, Fritz! Karl, lies du weiter!“ (“Sit down, Fritz! Karl, you read on!”)
Karl was evidently the light of the class. Swiftly and jabbing, as if he were chopping the words syllable by syllable from the sentence, it came from his lips: "Weil — aber — der — Mensch — gefallen ist —, steht er — unter — dem — Zorn— des — heiligen — Gottes und — bedarf des Erlösers.” (Because - but - man - is - fallen -, he - is - under - the - wrath - of - the - holy - God and - needs - the Savior.")
„Sehr gut, Karl! Was heißt das, Lieschen, der Mensch bedarf eines Erlösers?“
Two stiffly twisted pigtails, between which a little face stunned with astonishment had been staring at the strange visitors on the last bench, wheeled around startled, but then Lieschen reeled off the memorized answer.
The astonishment was no less on our side. So this still existed in the United States: a village school where German was taught!
Our astonishment was all the greater because the visit to Milwaukee, the capital of Wisconsin, had been a great disappointment. Milwaukee is considered the most German city in America, a city that has been famous for its cultivation of German art, culture, and science, and that once held the sobriquet of the "German Athens." Today, there is no trace of either "German" or "Athens." If I had not known that in the 1840’s during the summer, week after week between 1,000 and 1,400 German immigrants arrived in Milwaukee continuously, and that Milwaukee was considered a purely German city before the first World War, I would have noticed nothing of Germany on the streets, in the stores or inns, and also the cityscape is as American as that of any other Midwestern city.
Of course, there is still a strong German community, but it is not apparent, moreover, it is divided within itself, and its individual political tendencies feud with each other in the most violent manner. It is the same phenomenon as in Pennsylvania, as in New York, in Illinois. City air seems to be intolerable to American Germanism. It is in the large cities that Germanism is strongest, but it is here that it Americanizes most rapidly in the Anglo-Saxon sense, instead of forming its own American way.
In the small towns of Wisconsin, in Kenosha or Watertown, the picture was already different, and here in Lebanon I was in a village where the peasants, even in the last elections, declared to a party speaker, "with us you must only speak German if we are to understand you," when he wanted to give them an English speech.
But make no mistake, even in the countryside the German language will not be maintained unless the whole attitude toward other languages changes in America, and unless Americans of German blood realize that for America's sake the German language must be maintained at least in certain parts of the Union, and unless they unite their /efforts in this field to maintain German schools here.
The German language stands or falls with the German school. Of this there is no doubt. Even the most energetic parents of German origin can hardly get through to a purely English school. In the long run, the children speak only English.
In the first world war, during which a campaign of extermination was waged against all Germans, the German schools were hit terribly. Today, German is generally taught only in those parochial schools where the church language has remained German, and even in them only in religion and German reading.
The Church has long held on to German in America. In the Catholic Church, however, Germanism has finally lost the language battle to the Irish, and the Protestant one is going over to English worship wherever the younger generation demands it. In the dichotomy of holding on to the German church language or losing parishioners, the Protestant church in the United States is everywhere deciding to the disadvantage of the German language. In some places, the old German prayers are still said, while the sermon must be preached in English.
You can't even blame the congregations that much; after all, they have to live. There are no state churches in the United States. All costs for church, schools, pastor and teachers are covered by voluntary contributions of the parishioners. Of course, sometimes the pastor has to help a little, and I once heard a man railing from the pulpit that he would send all those who were late with their payments to hell, and that the Lord Jesus Christ had given him full authority to do so as his representative. They should not be deceived about this. Since some of the congregations are very small and the burdens therefore extremely high, it depends on each individual member.
The Germans of Wisconsin are predominantly Lutherans. There is a separate Wisconsin Synod, which has its theological college in Watertown. It is still predominantly German and has retained entirely the character of an old German high school.
The American Lutherans are of an orthodoxy hardly comprehensible to the outsider. Not only a Catholic, but also a Reformed, even a Lutheran of a different synod than their own is considered the devil. For this reason, at least the clergy are almost entirely hostile to New Germany. On the other hand, there is a strong religiosity in this rigid, old Lutheranism, and if it should once break its dogma shackles and understand the deep religiosity that is struggling for new forms in today's Germany, then it may one day soon become a firm supporter of Germanism.
This may become of vital importance to Wisconsin; for if any state in the Union is German in its scenery, its climate, and its character, this is it.
Crossing it in an automobile, one might think for long stretches that one was in Germany.
Germans came to Wisconsin on their great east-west migration, which led them by way of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois to Wisconsin, and from there by way of Iowa and Minnesota to Dakota, everywhere among the first, yet not solely the first, almost everywhere the most numerous among the foreign-born, but yet nowhere an unconditional majority. Thus it was their lot everywhere to help to the greatest extent in the development of the West and yet nowhere to be able to decisively make their mark on the new country.
Comments
Post a Comment