Internment of German Americans

Internment of German resident aliens and German-American citizens occurred in the United States during the periods of World War I and World War II. During World War II, the legal basis for this detention was under Presidential Proclamation 2526, made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt under the authority of the Alien Enemies Act.

With the U.S. entry into World War I after Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare, German nationals were automatically classified as enemy aliens. Two of four main World War I-era internment camps were located in Hot Springs, North Carolina, and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer wrote that "All aliens interned by the government are regarded as enemies, and their property is treated accordingly."

By the time of WWII, the United States had a large population of ethnic Germans. Among residents of the United States in 1940, more than 1.2 million persons had been born in Germany, 5 million had two native-German parents, and 6 million had one native-German parent. Many more had distant German ancestry. During WWII, the United States detained at least 11,000 ethnic Germans, overwhelmingly German nationals between the years 1940 and 1948 in two designated camps at Fort Douglas, Utah, and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. The government examined the cases of German nationals individually, and detained relatively few in internment camps run by the Department of Justice, as related to its responsibilities under the Alien Enemies Act. To a much lesser extent, some ethnic German US citizens were classified as suspect after due process and also detained. Similarly, a small proportion of Italian nationals and Italian Americans were interned in relation to their total population in the US. The United States had allowed immigrants from both Germany and Italy to become naturalized citizens, which many had done by then.

In the early 21st century, Congress considered legislation to study treatment of European Americans during WWII, but it did not pass the House of Representatives. Activists and historians have identified certain injustices against these groups. Unlike Italian Americans and Japanese Americans, German American internees have never received financial compensation or an official apology for these events.

President Woodrow Wilson issued two sets of regulations on April 6, 1917, and November 16, 1917, imposing restrictions on German-born male residents of the United States over the age of 14. The rules were written to include natives of Germany who had become citizens of countries other than the U.S.; all were classified as aliens. Some 250,000 people in that category were required to register at their local post office, to carry their registration card at all times, and to report any change of address or employment. The same regulations and registration requirements were imposed on females on April 18, 1918. Some 6,300 such aliens were arrested. Thousands were interrogated and investigated. A total of 2,048 (0.8%) were incarcerated for the remainder of the war in two camps, Fort Douglas, Utah, for those west of the Mississippi, and Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, for those east of the Mississippi.

The cases of these aliens, whether being considered for internment or under internment, were managed by the Enemy Alien Registration Section of the Department of Justice. From December 1917 this section was headed by J. Edgar Hoover, then not yet 23 years old.

Among the notable internees were the Jewish geneticist Richard Goldschmidt and 29 players from the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). After being falsely accused by unscrupulous newspaper editor John R. Rathom of knowingly refusing a request to play The Star Spangled Banner, the BSO's conductor, Karl Muck, also spent more than a year interned at Fort Oglethorpe, as did Ernst Kunwald, the music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. One internee described a memorable concert in the mess hall packed with 2,000 internees, with honored guests such as their doctors and government censors on the front benches, facing 100 musicians. Under Muck's baton, he wrote, "the Eroica rushed at us and carried us far away and above war and worry and barbed wire."

Most internees were paroled in June 1919 on the orders of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer. Others remained interned until as late as March and April 1920.