20:15 Uhr: Burning Beethoven: The Eradication of German Culture in the United States during World War I – Buchvorstellung mit Erik Kirschbaum

Before World War I, many parts of the United States were home to a flourishing, vibrant German culture. But a lot of that culture was abruptly attacked by a fury of anti-German hysteria that swept the country and seized upon the civil liberties of millions of German-Americans. Fueled by attacks from powerful people determined to eradicate the German language from American schools, churches and the country’s newspapers, the sudden eruption of hostilities against America’s biggest and most successful ethnic group diminished greatly what had until then been a thriving German-American culture. Some German aliens falsely suspected of being spies of the Reich were hanged by mobs, many more German-Americans were attacked, discriminated against or even sent to internment camps. Sauerkraut was turned into liberty cabbage, dachshunds were renamed liberty pups and German measles became liberty measles. Erik Kirschbaum’s Burning Beethoven shines a light on that mostly forgotten chapter of American history.

Erik Kirschbaum is a foreign correspondent mainly based in Berlin. He has worked for Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, and several prominent European newspapers since 1989. Kirschbaum is also the executive director of the RIAS Berlin Commission, a German-American exchange program for broadcast journalists.



Einführung und Moderation: Prof. Dr. Jörn Leonhard, Historisches Seminar der Uni Freiburg



Eintritt frei; Veranstaltungssprache: Englisch

Veranstalter: Carl-Schurz-Haus, Historisches Seminar der Universität Freiburg

Text: Veranstalter

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