Language and Loyalty among German Americans in World War I

This article analyzes the attitudes and reactions to World War I on the part of German Americans. It is based only on private letters whose authors could be identified by name and located in the U.S. Census. This provides crucial information such as recency of arrival, social class, community of residence, and in some cases religious background, to supply context for the sentiments expressed in letters. But equally important as who was writing and what they wrote, is the issue of who was not writing. One of the striking features of transatlantic correspondence is how seldom it extended beyond the immigrant generation. This was not due to language loss, but rather to lack of emotional ties. There were U.S. soldiers of the second and third generation writing home from France in the German language, evidence that preservation of heritage languages had no political significance.