Brothers Beyond the Sea: National Socialism in Canada

By Jonathan F. Wagner

During the years 1933 to 1939, a pro-Nazi movement developed in Canada. With the support of the German National Socialist Party, Canadian pro-Nazi institutions were formed: clubs, rallies, schools, and newspapers. The movement ended in failure. The author analyzes the reasons for the formation and decline of the National Socialist Party in Canada, describing in the process the general characteristics of the German community in Canada, the extent of Nazi activity in this country, and the influence of the Canadian environment on the movement. The book, well researched and carefully documented, is an original contribution to Canadian history of the 1930s.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Release date: Oct 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781554588121

Jonathan F. Wagner

Jonathan Wagner, Associate Professor of History at the University of Winnipeg, holds the Ph.D. degree from the University of Wisconsin. His articles on modern German and German–Canadian history have appeared in such journals as Central European History; the Canadian Historical Review, and Archiv für Kulturgeschichte.

Book preview

Kulturgeschichte.

BROTHERS

BEYOND THE SEA

NATIONAL SOCIALISM IN CANADA

BY JONATHAN F. WAGNER

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Wagner, Jonathan F. (Jonathan Frederick), 1940-

     Brothers beyond the sea

Bibliography: p.

Includes index.

ISBN 0-88920-096-3

1. National socialism - History. 2. German Canadians -

Political activity. 3. Canada - History - 1918-1939.*

I. Title.

DD255.C2W33            324.271'02            C81-094875-3

Copyright © 1981

WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY PRESS

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L3C5

81 82 83 84 4 3 2 1

Cover Design: David Antscherl

No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system, translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, microfiche, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher.

To Nathaniel

Johanna,

and Sarah

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Frequently Used Abbreviations

Chapter One.    The Canadian Germans

1. German Immigrants in East and West

2. The European Backgrounds

3. Occupational Patterns and Problems

Chapter Two.    The German Effort in Canada

1. The German Image of Canada

2. The Auswärtiges Amt

3. The Deutsches Auslands-Institut and Volksbund für das Deutschtum im Ausland

4. The Auslandsorganisation and Other Nazi Propaganda Agencies

Chapter Three.    Canada's Pro-Nazis

1. The Deutscher Bund Canada

2. The Arbeitsgemeinschaften

3. The Tage

4. The German-Canadian Press

Chapter Four.   The End of the Movement

1. Opposition to the Nazi Movement

2. Suppression and Internment

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

List of Illustrations

Ludwig Kempff, German Consul-General for Canada in Montreal, 1921-1937

Heinrich Seelheim

Deutscher Tag in Winnipeg, 1938

DAI Representative Karl Götz visiting Hugo Von Schilling in Loon River, Saskatchewan, 1936

Deutsche Zeitung title page

Franz Straubinger

Deutscher Tag in Saskatchewan

Bernhard Bott

Winnipeg celebration of Hitler's coming to power, January 30, 1939

L. Pfau's NSDAP Membership Card

Group picture of Saskatchewan internees, Fredericton, N.B.

Internment camp leaders

Ludwig Kempff, German Consul-General for Canada in Montreal 1921-1937

Heinrich Seelheim

Deutscher Tag in Winnipeg, 1938

Left: Wilhelm Rodde

Right: Fritz Bringman

DAI Representative Karl Götz (right) visiting Hugo Von Schilling (left) in Loon River, Saskatchewan, 1936

Deutsche Zeitung title page

Franz Straubinger

Deutscher Tag in Saskatchewan

Bernhard Bott

Winnipeg celebration of Hitler's coming to power, January 30, 1939

Top left: Wilhelm Rodde

Top right: Otto Janssen

L. Pfau's NSDA Membership Card

Group picture of Saskatchewan internees, Fredericton, N.B.

Internment camp leaders

Front row, right: Otto Thierbach, leader of Deutscher Bund Canada

Preface

Like the United States, Brazil, South West Africa, and so many other countries with substantial German minorities, Canada experienced a pro-Nazi movement within its German community during the years 1933-1939. The history of National Socialism among Canada's Germans constitutes the subject of this study. The object of Brothers Beyond the Sea¹ was clear from the outset: to describe the membership, the organization, and the expression of the Canadian National Socialist movement and to analyze the reasons for its being, its aims, and its accomplishments. Because it was acted out by individuals who usually felt more German than Canadian and because these pro-Nazis were supported by Germany, it constituted from the beginning as much a problem in German as in Canadian history. To a considerable degree, it represented German history being made in Canada. Since this was so, a dual approach to the movement seemed to be the most appropriate; that is, the Nazis in Canada were studied from both the German and the Canadian angles.

In the former instance, this meant that the German backgrounds of Canada's Germans had to be examined to discover both the strength and the nature of their German consciousness. Such an investigation was designed to shed light on the kinds of Germans in Canada who became Nazis. Moreover, to understand the German role in the movement, it was necessary to know what the German government and Nazi officials in Germany thought about Canada, Canada's German community, and the possibilities for developing National Socialism here. Finally, it was necessary to consider what the various German Nazi agencies and officials were doing in Canada to advance the Nazi cause, for such German aid represented a crucial factor in the movement's development.

With respect to the Canadian side of the problem, an effort had to be made to measure the influence of the Canadian environment on the Nazi movement. The measuring process included considering the issue of assimilation—how much of and how far the Canadian German community had been Canadianized. In addition, the influence of the prevailing social and economic conditions on Canada's pro-Nazi forces had to be taken into account. Finally, the attitude and stance of the Canadian public and government toward the Nazi movement in Canada during its rise and fall had to be dealt with. All of these factors would figure prominently in the success or failure of Canada's Nazis.

The book's basic concern with the pro-Nazi movement as a German-Canadian ideological and social phenomenon has naturally limited its scope. Although the study touches on the policy of the Canadian government vis-a-vis Germany, it never attempts to provide a history of Canadian-German relations. Likewise, in relation to the internment problem, it does not offer a comprehensive discussion of internment. Most of all, the book does not purport to be a history of Canadian fascism. In the following pages, little effort has been made to tie the German-Canadian Nazis to such native fascist groups as those headed by Adrien Arcand or William Whittaker, for the simple reason that the German aspect of the movement limited relations from ever becoming very close. Of course, this is not to claim that no contacts with other fascists existed or that the German-Canadian Nazis did not share certain ideological prejudices. They did. Nevertheless, the xenophobic and racial-national excesses of the Canadian Nazis rendered collaboration with other reactionary forces difficult.

One last caveat. Since this book is about Germans in Canada, some may ask what is meant by the term Germans. Defining German is a little like trying to impart a precise meaning to Christianity or democracy. It can be done in more than one way and no single definition ever seems completely acceptable. Generally speaking, I have included several elements (unfortunately often vague in themselves) in my conception of German. For example, someone would qualify as a German in Canada if he or his forefathers emigrated from Germany or the German-speaking areas of Europe. In Canada he might list German as his mother tongue, but not necessarily so. He could speak German at home, but even this would not be a necessary condition for belonging to Canada's German community. Nevertheless, because of either the linguistic association or because of the connection to a German community in Europe, the persons with whom this work is concerned would define themselves as Germans over against the English, the French, or some other Canadian ethnic group.

At this point, I would like to express my gratitude to some of the many persons and institutions which made this book possible. On more than one occasion, the University of Winnipeg generously made available funds for research and travel. The Canada Council provided a Leave Fellowship which allowed me to live in Germany and to research the numerous sources available there during my sabbatical year, 1975. In my research in both Canada and Germany, I continually met with the greatest courtesy and co-operation from librarians and archivists. I would specifically like to thank Jay Atherton and Arthur Grenke of the Public Archives of Canada in Ottawa, Drs. Hans Booms and Ernst Ritter of the Bundesarchiv Koblenz, Dr. Weinandy of the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes Bonn, Daniel Simon of the Berlin Document Centre, and Sandra Zuk of the University of Winnipeg Library. In addition, a number of other persons deserve to be singled out for special recognition. My thanks go out to Professors Theodore S. Hamerow of the University of Wisconsin and Cornelius Jaenen of the University of Ottawa for their early encouragement for this project. Likewise, I would like to thank my colleague, Professor A. Ross McCormack, for the many helpful suggestions rendered me during the preparation of the manuscript. I am deeply indebted to Professor Dr. Hans-Adolf Jacobsen of the University in Bonn for his great patience, his kind encouragement, and his essential advice. During my research in Germany, he acted as a kind of second Doktorvater to me. To Harold Remus and his associates at Wilfrid Laurier University Press, I offer my thanks for their forthright and professional editorial advice. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Science Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to my wife Shannon for the many hours spent editing, typing, proofreading, and encouraging. None of those who assisted me is accountable for any shortcomings which may exist. The responsibility for these rests with me. Where German sources have been used, the translations are my own.

J. F. W.

1 The title derives from the 1938 novel of the same name (Brüder über dem Meer) by the pro-Nazi Karl Götz. In his novel Götz laments the racial and culturaldeath being suffered by the German minorities living abroad and by Germans in Canada specifically.

Frequently Used

Abbreviations

FREQUENTLY USED ABBREVIATIONS

Chapter One

The Canadian Germans

1

German Immigrants in East and West

Like the European Germans, Canada's Germans were composed of many different elements. This variegation derived from the varying lengths of time which these Germans had spent in Canada, from the various environments from which they had emigrated to Canada, and from the differing vocations which they pursued during the 1930s. All of these factors were crucial in separating the German-Canadian community into relatively different eastern and western groups.

Within a Canada of ten million inhabitants, the size of the total German community in the 1930s was generally estimated at about half a million.¹ Germans had been coming to Canada since the middle of the eighteenth century. Nearly always, the immigrants came in waves, both large and small, of those fleeing a past which no longer seemed to offer them hope of advancing or even, in some cases, of surviving. Up to 1930, there were four major waves of German immigration which correspond to the following periods: the mid-eighteenth century, the end of the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth century, the 1870s, and the years from 1885 to 1930, with, of course, an interruption during the First World War and directly thereafter (1914-1923).²

The oldest German settlements date from the eighteenth century and are located in the Maritimes.³ Shortly after 1750, small but thriving permanent centres of German population were formed in Halifax and Lunenberg.⁴ Throughout the eighteenth century and into the next, these settlers developed a distinctively German life-style, enjoying the privilege of their own churches and schools. Gradually, however, during the nineteenth century, their German traditions began to die out.⁵ By the first quarter of the twentieth century, the process had gone so far that Heinz Lehmann, perhaps the foremost German authority on Canada, would lament that among the 30,000 German-Canadians in the Maritimes German customs ... are dead.⁶

The second wave of German settlers in the eighteenth century was composed mostly of those forced into emigration by the American Revolution. Of these German loyalists, there were two major groups. A number of German mercenaries employed by King George III elected to move into Canada rather than return to Germany. Some 2,500 of these settled in Ontario. Pennsylvania's Mennonite settlements constituted the other major source of Germans from the south. Several thousand of these pacifist people were driven out of the American colonies during the revolutionary war and directly after it because of sympathy with the British cause. Many emigrated of their own free will after the war because of dissatisfaction with the course of the new republic.⁷

In the early years of the nineteenth century, Ontario's Mennonite communities grew quickly, because of natural growth plus an additional influx of American Mennonites. This later Mennonite immigration, which lasted into the 1820s, concentrated itself, as had the earlier migrations, in Waterloo County and adjacent areas of southwestern Ontario. The success of the Mennonite Germans in establishing their farms and villages prompted other non-Mennonite Germans to follow their example. In the 1830s Lutheran and Catholic Germans from Germany (later referred to as Reichsdeutsche⁸) began to arrive. This trend continued until nearly mid-century.⁹

Although scattered German settlements existed beyond southwestern Ontario, the focal point of Ontario German life remained into the twentieth century the area about Waterloo County. There the vast majority of Germans in Ontario were concentrated (the 1871 census recorded 115,189 of Ontario's 158,108 Germans as residents in this area),¹⁰ and there the German settlers were more willing and more able to carry on as Germans. Living together in substantial numbers, they developed, in the course of the nineteenth century, their own schools, their own churches, and their own German-language press.¹¹

Their cultivation of the German language and customs was due largely to the Mennonites, who sought to remain linguistically German in order to preserve their faith. Nevertheless, even the German commitment of the inhabitants in and around Waterloo County began to suffer gravely at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Pressured by the Ontario government to make English the dominant language of instruction, German schools rapidly declined. With the coming of World War I and the attendant anti-German hysteria, things greatly worsened. The hostility of fellow Canadians forced numbers of Germans to anglicize their names.¹² The lively German-language press of some thirty local papers totally disappeared.¹³ Indeed, by 1930 German traditions and language had suffered such serious setbacks that informed observers were convinced of the imminent cultural demise of Ontario's 150-year-old German community.¹⁴

Toronto and Montreal also possessed German communities in the 1930s. Toronto's German settlement, which dated from the early nineteenth century, numbered only about 10,000.¹⁵ In the twentieth century, Toronto's Germans appeared to be having as much trouble maintaining their German heritage as their ethnic brothers in Nova Scotia or Waterloo County.¹⁶ The situation for Montreal's Germans differed somewhat.¹⁷ Being located in a seaport, they enjoyed frequent contact with German ships and German business people. Moreover, the German community there had the largest number of German nationals living in its midst, and finally, Montreal was the seat of the German General Consulate. This intimate contact with Reichsdeutsche made it easier for Montreal's German-Canadians to relate to Germany and to cultivate their German heritage.¹⁸ Nevertheless, the importance of the Montreal German group to the overall eastern Canadian German community should not be exaggerated. Numerically, it represented less than 3 per cent of the total number of Germans living in Canada's east (ca. 5,000 as opposed to ca. 215,000).¹⁹

The vast majority of German immigrants who came in the third wave travelled to the previously neglected and largely unknown west. Although Germans had been present with Lord Selkirk in the early nineteenth century, the real German immigration to the west began only in the 1870s. The new settlers were directed there by a government which desired to secure this area for Canada; they were lured to the west by land possibilities which no longer existed in the east.²⁰ Again the Mennonites paved the way for the influx of future German settlers.²¹

The first western Canadian Mennonite settlers, nearly 7,000 of them, immigrated to southern Manitoba from czarist Russia in 1874-1879. In Canada they hoped to find unrestricted economic opportunities, to be able to pursue their religion unmolested, and to be free from the threat of military conscription.²² Coming from the Ukraine, these Mennonite farmers, who settled at first in two sections of land on the east and west banks of the Red River south of Winnipeg, were well versed in farming prairie land. Because the Mennonite farms in southern Manitoba flourished, other German settlers soon imitated their example.²³

In the mid-1880s, the fourth and most significant movement of German immigration to Canada began. Although statistics on the numbers of German immigrants to the west from 1885 to the end of the century are incomplete, we know that groups of future settlers did arrive steadily. Within twenty-five years of the Mennonite beginnings, the census takers listed 52,000 Germans in the west. From the turn of the century to 1914, these numbers increased. Indeed, within the first decade of the new century, the number of Germans in western Canada had nearly tripled (151,900).²⁴

The new settlers followed the example of the Mennonites, choosing small towns or isolated homesteads in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, where the best opportunities for acquiring good, cheap land appeared to lie. By 1901, the German element in the prairie provinces constituted over 11 per cent of their total population. In 1911, there were 34,530 Germans in Manitoba, 68,628 in Saskatchewan, and 36,862 in Alberta.²⁵ The percentage of Germans in Saskatchewan had reached 14, a figure which represented the country's highest provincial concentration of Germans. In terms of overall German immigration, the prairie provinces received in the years 1907-1916 over 64 per cent of all Germans settling in Canada.²⁶

As the Germans in the east had done, the newcomers to the west sought to provide the schools, the churches, and the reading materials to keep alive the German language, which they had preserved over the centuries in their former lands, often only with the greatest of hardships. Again, the effort to maintain the German language and customs was most obvious among the Mennonites.²⁷ But the Lutheran and Catholic Germans likewise sought to hold on to their traditions. Since these Germans often settled together as units (e.g., the St. Peter's Colony in Saskatchewan), the opportunity of cultivating their German language was afforded them, as it had been afforded the closely knit Mennonite groups. The stark isolation of the settlers, at least in the early years, often made it difficult for non-German influences to impinge upon them.²⁸

Examples of attempts by the new Germans to maintain their language are numerous. Taking advantage of the Manitoba Public Schools Act of 1890, Manitoba's Mennonites introduced German instruction into the public schools of their districts.²⁹ Although the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan were not so sympathetic to the language claims of minorities, the newly arrived Germans there had some success before 1914 in establishing their own private schools.³⁰ Moreover, at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, the churches in much of the west helped keep alive the German heritage. The commitment to the German cause can be seen, for example, in Saskatchewan's Catholic St. Peter's Colony, where German schools were provided for the children, German sermons were delivered in the churches, and a German newspaper, the St Peters Bote, appeared each week.³¹

Generally speaking, it did not take the Germans in western Canada long to establish their own local and regional press. In 1889 the four-page weekly Nordwesten appeared in Winnipeg. This pace-setter was followed by a host of other papers across the prairies: the Regina Rundschau (1901), the Winnipeg Westkanada (1907), the Leader Enterprise (1909), the Calgary Der Deutsch-Kanadier (1909), and the Steinbach Post (1913). The German-language press sought to bind the community of German readers more closely together by keeping its readers informed on local conditions and thus to insure the survival of the German language and culture in western Canada.³² This effort was rudely jolted by the Great War.

German immigration ceased with the outbreak of war in 1914, except for a few scattered individuals and several thousand apolitical, pacifist Hutterites from the United States. The interruption lasted almost ten years. During the war and its immediate aftermath, the government's programme of integrating the Germans of the west into the Canadian nation³³ was considerably advanced. The work of assimilation, which one well-known and respected Anglo-Saxon authority on immigration to western Canada described as a task of emancipation,³⁴ was made easier by the anti-German hysteria and emotion which accompanied the war. From anti-German riots such as the one in Victoria in 1916,³⁵ which wrecked German businesses and clubs, to less dramatic efforts, the western German community was subjected to emancipation. During this time when many Germans were disenfranchised, the final victories for English-language schools were won across prairie Canada.³⁶ Manitoba revised its liberal school law which had permitted German-language schools. Moreover, in the churches and on the streets, German was deliberately spoken less often, as many in Canada's German community, a community which had 8,500³⁷ of its members interned during the war, made efforts to appear less German.³⁸ In Saskatchewan the town names of Koblenz, Bremen, and Prussia disappeared from the map; the village of Kaiser was renamed Peebles.³⁹ Finally, the number of German-language papers in the west was reduced.⁴⁰ The loss here was in no way as catastrophic as the wholesale destruction of the German press in the east, but it did indicate that assimilation was being carried out.

Yet victory for those who