Introduction. German Americans are the largest ethnic
group in the US. Approximately 60
million Americans claim German ancestry.
German American loyalty to America's promise of freedom traces back to
the Revolutionary War.
Nevertheless, during World War II, the US government and many Americans
viewed German Americans and others of "enemy ancestry" as potentially dangerous,
particularly recent immigrants. The
Japanese American WWII experience well known. Few, however, know of the European
American WWII experience, particularly that of the German Americans. The
government used many interrelated, constitutionally questionable methods to
control those of enemy ancestry, including internment, individual and group
exclusion from military zones, internee exchanges for Americans held in Germany,
deportation, "alien enemy" registration requirements, travel restrictions and
property confiscation. The human cost of these civil liberties violations was
high. Families were disrupted,
reputations destroyed, homes and belongings lost. Meanwhile, untold numbers of
German Americans fought for freedom around the world, including their ancestral
homelands. Some were the
immediate relatives of those subject to oppressive restrictions on the home
front. Pressured by the US, many Latin American governments arrested at least
4,050 German Latin Americans. Most
were shipped in dark boat holds to the United States and interned. At least 2000 Germans, German Americans
and Latin Americans were later exchanged for Americans and Latin Americans held
in Germany. Some allege that internees were captured to use as exchange bait.
During WWII, our government
had to do its utmost to ensure domestic security against dangerous elements in
its midst. But it should have exercised greater vigilance to protect the
liberties of those most vulnerable because of their ethnic ties to enemy
nations. Some were dangerous, but too many were assumed guilty and never able to
prove their innocence. Admittedly, US wartime governmental actions are difficult
to assess decades later. To prevent possible future erosion of our civil
liberties, however, the federal government must fully review and acknowledge its
wartime civil liberties violations.
A comprehensive federal review of the European American experience has
never been done. On August 3, 2001, Senators Russell Feingold (D-WI) and Charles
Grassley (R-IA) introduced S. 1356, The European Americans and Refugees Wartime
Treatment Study Act in the US Senate, joined by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and
Senator Joseph Lieberman. This bill
would create a much-needed independent commission to review US government
policies directed against European "enemy" ethnic groups during WWII in the US
and Latin America. This
commission would also review the US government's denial of asylum to European
(primarily Jewish) refugees seeking refuge in the US from persecution in
Europe. It was reported favorably
to the Senate by the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2002 and renamed The
Wartime Treatment Study Act.
The
following summarizes two particularly onerous methods of control, internment and
exclusion, and a timeline of relevant events.
Selective
Internment. Pursuant to the Alien Enemy Act of 1798
(50 USC 21-24), which remains in effect today, the US may apprehend, intern and
otherwise restrict the freedom of "alien enemies" upon declaration of war or
actual, attempted or threatened invasion by a foreign nation. During WWII, the
US Government interned at least 11,000 persons of German ancestry. By law, only
"enemy aliens" could be interned.
However, with governmental approval, their family members frequently
joined them in the camps. Many such "voluntarily" interned spouses and children
were American citizens. Internment
was frequently based upon uncorroborated, hearsay evidence gathered by the FBI
and other intelligence agencies.
Homes were raided and many ransacked. Fathers, mothers and sometimes both were
arrested and disappeared. Sometimes
children left after the arrests had to fend for themselves. Some were placed in
orphanages. DOJ instituted very
limited due process protections for those arrested. Potential internees were held in custody
for weeks in temporary detention centers, such as jails and hospitals, prior to
their hearings. Frequently, their
families had no idea where they were for weeks. The hearings took place before
DOJ-constituted civilian hearing boards. Those arrested were subject to hostile
questioning by the local prosecuting US Attorney, who was assisted by the
investigating FBI agents. The
intimidated, frequently semi-fluent accused had no right to counsel, could not
contest the proceedings or question their accusers. Hearing board recommendations were
forwarded to the Alien Enemy Control Unit of the Department of Justice for a
final determination that could take weeks or months. Internees remained in custody nervously
awaiting DOJ's order--unconditional release, parole or internment. Policy dictated that the AECU resolve
what it deemed to be questionable hearing board recommendations in favor of
internment. Based on AECU
recommendations, the Attorney General issued internment orders for the duration
of the war. Internees were shipped
off to distant camps. Families were
torn apart and lives destroyed. Family members left at home were shunned due to
fear of the FBI and spite. Newspapers published stories and incriminating lists.
Eventually destitute, many families lost their homes and had to apply to the
government to join spouses in family camps, apply for welfare and/or rely on
other family members who could afford to support them. Eventually, under such duress, hundreds
of internees agreed repatriate to war-torn Germany to be exchanged with their
children for Americans. Once there,
food was scarce, Allied bombs were falling and their German families could do
little to help them. Many regretted
their decision. Considering the
spurious allegations, which led to the internment of a majority of internees,
their treatment by our government was harsh indeed. Their experience provides ample evidence
of why our civil liberties are so precious.
Exclusion. In cooperation with the War Department,
DOJ created a network of restricted areas.
Enemy aliens were forbidden to enter or remain in certain areas and their
movements severely restricted in others.
The restrictions imposed great hardship on those living or working in
these areas. Pursuant to Presidential Executive Order 9066, the military could
restrict the liberties of citizens and aliens, as it deemed necessary. This led to the exclusion of individuals
and groups from extensive "military zones" comprising over a third of the US.
The most well known group exclusion was the massive Japanese American relocation
from the West Coast. Several
hundred individual exclusion orders were issued. The government was particularly
suspicious of naturalized citizens of enemy ethnicity. Citizens could not be interned, so the
military threatened those it deemed dangerous with exclusion. Many felt
contesting exclusion orders was futile and moved before an order was actually
issued. Unlike group exclusion, hearings were required for individual
exclusions. Resembling enemy alien
internment hearings, these hearings were subject to very limited due process
protections, clearly violating the rights of American citizens. If an exclusion order was issued
following a hearing, excludees were given little time to depart. Homes were
abandoned. Some excludees left their families behind. FBI agents followed them
to their new communities. The government often advised police and employers how
"dangerous" excludees were, so finding and keeping jobs was difficult. Little or
government resettlement assistance was given to excludees. Some contested their exclusion
orders in court, protesting the government's violation of their due process
rights. After several federal courts found the military's actions of
questionable constitutionality, the individual exclusion program decreased in
popularity. Although more unusual,
in lieu of exclusion the government also sought to denaturalize citizens, so
they could be interned as enemy aliens or deported.
1918 Codification of Alien Enemy
Act of 1798, 50 USC 21-24, permitting apprehension and internment of aliens of
"enemy ancestry" by US government upon declaration of war or threat of
invasion. The President is given
blanket authority as to "enemy alien" treatment. Civil liberties may be completely
ignored because enemy aliens have no protection under this 202- year-old law.
Government oppression is likely during wartime.
1939-1941 Various governmental
bodies, such as the FBI, special intelligence agencies of the Justice
Department, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the Army's Military
Intelligence Division compile lists of dangerous "enemy aliens" and citizens,
including the FBI's Custodial Detention Index (the "CDI").
1940 The census includes
specific listings and location of persons based on their ethnicity, which may
have assisted the US Government in later identification of "suspect" individuals
of "enemy ancestry."
1940 Alien Registration Act of
1940 passed requiring all aliens 14 and older to register with the US
government.
Dec. 7, 1941 Japan bombs Pearl
Harbor. Pursuant to the Alien Enemy
Act of 1798, Roosevelt issued identical Presidential Proclamations 2525, 2526
and 2527 branding German, Italian and Japanese nationals as enemy aliens,
authorizing internment and travel and property ownership restrictions. A blanket presidential warrant
authorized U.S. Attorney General Francis Biddle to have the FBI arrest a large
number of "dangerous enemy aliens" based on the CDI. Hundreds of German aliens
were arrested by the end of the day.
The FBI raids many homes and hundreds more are detained before war even
declared on Germany.
Dec. 11,
1941 US
declares war on Germany and Italy.
Jan. 1942 Pursuant to Presidential
Proclamation 2525-2527 and 2537 (issued Jan.14, 1942), the Attorney General
issues regulations requiring application for and issuance of certificates of
identification to all "enemy aliens" aged 14 and older and outlining
restrictions on their movement and property ownership rights. Approximately one
million enemy aliens reregister, including 300,000 German-born aliens, the
2nd largest immigrant group at that time. Applications are forwarded to the
Department of Justice's Alien Registration Division and the FBI. Any change of address, employment or
name must be reported to the FBI.
Enemy aliens may not enter federally designated restricted areas. If enemy aliens violate these or other
applicable regulations, they are subject to "arrest, detention and internment
for the duration of the war."
Jan.- Feb.
1942 In
cooperation with the military, the DOJ establishes numerous, small prohibited
zones strictly forbidden to all enemy aliens. DOJ also establishes extensive
"restricted areas" in which enemy aliens are subject to stringent curfew and
travel restrictions, particularly on the West Coast.
Feb. 19,
1942
Roosevelt signs Executive Order 9066 authorizing the Secretary of War to define
military areas in which "the right of any person to enter, remain in or leave
shall be subject to whatever restrictions" are deemed necessary or
desirable. This order applies to
all "enemy" nationalities.
March 11, 1942 Executive Order 9095
creates the Office of the Alien Property Custodian which gives the Custodian
discretionary, plenary authority over all alien property interests. Many internee assets were frozen
creating immediate financial catastrophe for affected
families.
Feb.-April 1942
Congress
ratifies Executive Order 9066 authorizing the imposition of sanctions for
violations of the order. Extensive
military zones established on the east and west coasts, significantly expanding
upon those originally created by DOJ, and in certain areas around the Great
Lakes. Gen. John DeWitt issues a series of Public Proclamations creating Western
Defense Command military areas and outlining curfews, travel restrictions and
exclusion provisions, among other things, applicable to German, Japanese and
Italian aliens, as well as Japanese American citizens. By military order, thousands of German,
Japanese and Italian aliens required leave military areas on the West
Coast. Later, approximately 100,000
Japanese and Japanese Americans are relocated from the West Coast to camps
administered by the Wartime Relocation Authority. On an individual basis, "potentially
dangerous" US citizens of German ancestry are also ordered out of military zones
and forced to establish new lives with little or no government assistance.
October 1942 Wartime restrictions on
Italian Americans terminated.
1942 – 1943 Internment camps administered by
the military and the DOJ are established throughout the country. The INS operated the DOJ camps. The
largest were located at Crystal City and Seagoville, Texas and Ft. Lincoln,
ND. There were at least 50
temporary detention and long-term internment facilities. Internees are transferred from camp to
camp under armed guard, further disrupting their lives and making it even more
difficult for their families to find them.
1942 US Government initiated
exchanges of approximately 2,000 internees for Americans held in Germany. Six
exchange voyages carried many families to Germany, including American-born
children and US citizen spouses of German alien internees. As the war progressed, travel across the
Atlantic was increasing hazardous.
Upon arrival in war-ravaged Germany, exchangees were unexpected and
unwanted by their families. Many
are suspected of being spies.
Families with young children, some even born during the trip to Germany,
had to make their own way to family homes through hazardous countryside,
frequently in winter, carrying all their worldly belongings. Some men were beaten and arrested by the
Gestapo as spies and put in camps, leaving families destitute again.
1942 The US initiated a
cooperative program whereby Latin American countries at US direction captured
German Latin Americans, including German and Austrian Jews who had fled
persecution. Under US military
guard, prisoners were shipped to the US in the dark, dank holds of boats and
rarely permitted on deck. Open bucket latrines were placed among the
prisoners. No one told them what
was happening to them. They were
interned and many forcibly shipped to Germany. General George Marshall stated in a
12/12/42 memo to the Caribbean Defense Command: "These interned nationals are to be used
for exchange with interned American civilian nationals." By the end of the war, over 4,050
German Latin Americans were brought to American internment
camps.
1942 – 1945 Thousands of German aliens
and German Americans are arrested, interned, excluded, paroled, exchanged and
generally harassed by a suspicious country. Few know why they are interned or for
how long. Internees try to make
lives in camps, attempting to ignore the psychological and physical upheaval to
which they have been subjected.
Mental anguish, anger, guilt and shame are common. Armed guards and guard dogs watch over
internees living in huts or dorms in barren parts of the country surrounded by
barbed wire, observed from guard towers.
All mail is censored.
Contact with the outside world is severely limited. Many continually appeal their internment
orders. DOJ generally ignores their
requests, requiring unobtainable "new evidence" for consideration of
appeals. Some are granted
rehearings, pursuant to which an even smaller number are released. Internees who
are released do not know why, nor do they ever learn why they were interned.
Those released are generally subject to parole restrictions. Internees are pressured to
repatriate. Hopeless and bitter,
many agree and are readily used for exchange. There were six exchanges with Germany,
primarily of civilians, but also of POWs. One trip of the SS Gripsholm in
January 1945 involves 1,000 exchangees. The government arranges for
"trustworthy" able-bodied men to work outside camps. One group works on the Northern Pacific
Railroad in North Dakota repairing the railroad tracks and living in boxcars
with coal stoves throughout the winter.
Others work for the Forest Service and 3M.
May 7, 1945 Germany
surrenders.
July 1945 Truman issues a
Presidential Proclamation 2655 authorizing the US to deport all enemy aliens
deemed "to be dangerous to the public peace and safety of the United
States." This affects
hundreds, if not thousands, of internees who remain imprisoned
indefinitely.
Aug. 14,
1945 Japan
surrenders.
November
1945 Many
internees released from camps.
Parole limitations for most persons terminated. Internment camps progressively closed
and remaining internees eventually consolidated at Crystal City and Ellis
Island.
Late 1947 Crystal City family camp
closed. Those still imprisoned,
exclusively German internees and their families, transferred to cramped Ellis
Island where others are held.
Virtually all are of German ancestry. Over the next year, many additional
persons are returned to Germany.
Others are paroled or unconditionally released to return to their
homes. The barbed wire exercise
cages overlook the Statute of Liberty. The captives contest repatriation
and deportation by pooling their limited funds to finance appeals in court. They finally find a voice in
Congress—Senator William Langer of North Dakota.
August 1948 Due in large part to
Senator Langer's efforts, among others, the last person, a German American, is
finally released from Ellis Island, three years after cessation of hostilities
with Germany. No internee was ever
convicted of a war-related crime against the United States. Upon release, most adult internees sign
secrecy oaths, many are threatened with deportation with no prospect of return
if they speak of their ordeal. Many internees, always fearful, take the secret
to their graves. Reportedly, camp employees also sign oath of secrecy. The secret is well kept. Few today know of selective
internment.
Aftermath
Internees and excludees
return home to suspicious communities, some have been interned 6-7 years. Children do not remember life without
barbed wire. Homes and livelihoods are lost. Reputations destroyed. No safety net protects them. They
confront feelings of confusion, anger, resentment, bitterness, guilt and
shame. They try to understand what
happened and repair broken lives.
The experience scarred families forever. Those exchanged to Germany struggled to
survive in the extremely difficult postwar years. Some exchangees returned to
the US years later. Frequently, American-born children left their families
behind in order to do so. Many
never were allowed to return.
Others, embittered by what they perceived as America's betrayal, never
wanted to come back.
1980 Commission on Wartime
Relocation and Internment of Civilians ("CWRIC") created. Focusing primarily on the relocation of
Japanese and Japanese Americans, the CWRIC did not allow German Americans or
other European Americans to testify or offer written testimony on their wartime
experiences. The final report,
Personal Justice Denied, focuses primarily on German American individual
and group exclusion issues under Executive Order 9066. It identifies only 4 internment camps.
The tribulations of German internment are covered in only four paragraphs
primarily discussing the hearing process. The CWRIC asserts that this process
afforded sufficient "rough fairness" under the circumstances. The CWRIC is wrong. Lacking sufficient
due process protections, this "rough fairness" frequently resulted in
unjustified, painful years of captivity, exchange and property loss for
thousands.
1988-present Civil Liberties Act of 1988 passed solely giving redress to and acknowledging injustices to Japanese Americans and Aleuts. No German American or other affected European American allowed to give oral or written testimony on their wartime experience during congressional hearings. Civil Liberties Education Fund established to fund projects relating to public education regarding the Japanese American experience. National Park Service study funded to designate Japanese relocation camps as national historic landmarks. In January 1999, the US settles Mochizuki class action agreeing to monetary redress of $5,000 and a presidential apology for Japanese Latin Americans. In November 2000, the Wartime Violations of Italian American Civil Liberties Act signed into law recognizing only the government's wrongful denial of Italian American civil liberties. In February 2001, Wartime Parity and Justice Act of 2001 introduced to provide for the inclusion of Japanese Latin Americans in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, among other things.
Nov. 19, 1999 Congressman
Matt Salmon placed a statement on Proclamation 2526 in the Extension of Remarks
section of the Congressional Record. In this statement, Congressman Salmon
urged the members of the House "...to pursue a full historical accounting
of the experiences of all Americans [German, Italian, as well as Japanese]
who suffered discrimination during the Second World War as expeditiously as
possible."
Aug. 3, 2001 Senators Russell Feingold
(D-WI) and Charles Grassley (R-IA) introduced the European Americans and
Refugees Wartime Treatment Study Act, joined by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT).
Reported favorably by the Senate Judiciary Committee to the Senate in
March 2002, amended and renamed as the Wartime Treatment Study Act.
Feb. 5, 2003 Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA)
introduced H. Res. 56 calling for National Day of Remembrance on February 19 and
supporting the goal of the German, Japanese and Italian American communities to
increase public awareness of the World War II violations of civil liberties by
the US government.
Conclusion
Thanks to federal
legislation and effective activism by their ethnic group, US government
mistreatment of Japanese Americans is well known. After almost 60 years, the
German American experience remains buried. The few surviving, aged internees
remember their experiences well, despite years of trying to forget. Their
memories haunt them. Mostly,
because they are Americans who revere freedom, they want the dreadful saga of
their wartime mistreatment told so it will never happen again. The CWRIC
reviewed a significant portion of government's discriminatory wartime
policies. Another commission should
be established immediately to complete the study of these policies as they
affected European Americans, particularly German
Americans.
Karen E.
Ebel
February 24, 2003