Quote:
Originally Posted by Steely Dan
No.
Whatever lingering German nationalism that was left in the US after WWI was thoroughly annihilated by Adolf Hitler.
I remember my own great-grandfather telling me how he and every other German-American he knew in chicago "buried" their Germanness during great wars and did everything they could to prove their american patriotism.
Flying the star and stripes became a billion times more "german-american" than flying any flag associated with the old country.
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Right. And this wasn't just a nativist impulse, or reflexive anti-German sentiment.
There were fascist rallies on American soil before and during WW2. The NYT recently did an expose of Third Reich-funded network of German summer camps and youth programs. There was strong support for the Third Reich from German-Americans until the end. Of course that doesn't justify discrimination, but the community was in a difficult place, and chose assimilation in the postwar years.