Heritage travel: Germany
In the Midwest, many of our favorite traditions came over with the Germans.
© Beth Gauper
During Maifest in Amana, Iowa, dancers twirl around the May pole.
It's hard to imagine life without the Germans.
When they crossed the ocean, they brought hot dogs, potato salad and beer gardens. Thanks to them, we have Christmas trees, kindergartens and fairy tales.
Their traditions now are woven into the fabric of Upper Midwest life. To paraphrase the words of John F. Kennedy, we are all Germans.
This allegiance isn't just in spirit. Wisconsin is predominantly German — it's the land of beer and brats, after all.
But Minnesota is the stronghold of Scandinavians. We wouldn't be telling all those Sven and Lena jokes for no reason, would we?
Minnesota does have the nation's highest concentrations of Norwegians and Swedes. But it's actually German — way German.
In the 2000 census survey, 38 percent of Minnesotans reported German ancestry. The next-largest groups were Norwegians, 17 percent; Irish, about 12 percent; and Swedes, about 10 percent.
Germans are the largest group by far in Wisconsin, with 44 percent, and Iowa, with 40 percent. In Illinois and Michigan, only 20 percent report German ancestry, but that's still the largest ethnic group.
Throw a dart at a map, and you'll hit a town full of Germans.
In Minnesota and Wisconsin, everybody comes from somewhere else. The ancestors of the Dakota were first, followed by the Ojibwe, pushed westward by the Iroquois. French explorers arrived in the 17th century, and their countrymen made North America's first million on the backs of the beaver.
After treaties pushed the French and British over the border and Indians into reservations, Yankees from the East Coast hurried in, eager to harness waterfalls and harvest pineries. They made fortunes, and many moved on.
And then the Germans came.
A new way of thinking
The first wave of Germans came in the 1840s and 1850s, just after Indian treaties opened the best farmland to settlers. It was good timing for both the Germans and the state, said the late Madison historian Richard Zeitlin, author of "Germans in Wisconsin."
"The state was lucky because the German people had the skills and cultural values that fit with the values of the times," he said. "They had long-term vision. They were there to make something more than it was. It was a fertile land, just waiting for a hard-working people to come and put down roots and transform it."
© Beth Gauper
In New Ulm, Minn., the Glockenspiel's figures come out to play three times a day.
The Germans had come to stay. They did well, though their values sometimes clashed with those of their Indian neighbors, most
notably in the Minnesota River Valley.
Cultural differences between the Dakota, who shared freely in times of want as well as plenty, and the Germans, who believed in saving for a rainy day, aggravated a conflict that, in 1862, led to the siege of New Ulm and the massacre of at least 360 settlers.
Many of the new immigrants were urban, however, and they weren't all poor when they arrived. In the 1840s, Germany was not a
country but a loose collection of near-feudal states ruled by princes and barons.
After a wave of democratic revolts was suppressed in 1848, many of their middle-class organizers fled to America.
Calling themselves "freethinkers," they had a passion for education, equality and clean government. In Milwaukee, they formed
so many social and cultural clubs the city became known as "the German Athens."
In nearby Watertown, a freethinker started the nation's first kindergarten in 1856.
The same year, a group of Turners, freethinkers who promoted physical fitness, settled New Ulm; for decades, the town's
library and high school was at Turner Hall (for more, see Where the Germans are).
In Milwaukee, freethinking Germans sent a Socialist to the U.S. Congress in 1910, and a Socialist was mayor from 1916 to 1960, with an eight-year break in the 1940s.
Called "sewer socialism" because it promoted the orderly delivery of services to all citizens, their approach to politics exists even today in Wisconsin and Minnesota, said historian Zeitlin, though not solely because of the Germans.
"That progressive viewpoint was not an American viewpoint, it was strongly European," he said. "Clean government, government involved in improving the life of the community — those things were considered forward thinking, and that resonated with Germans and Norwegians. What you got was an alliance of these two immigrant groups."
Mainly, the Germans wanted to have a good life. Unlike the more puritanical Yankees, they liked to get out and about on Sundays, gathering with family and friends over food and drink. They enjoyed their beer — and they liked a party.
© Beth Gauper
Two lady Narren from New Ulm appear at an Oktoberfest.
Over the years, the stereotypical German has become a beer-bellied goof in a furry green hat, bobbing up and down and flapping his elbows to oompah music.
Germans not only gave us "The Little Chicken Dance," but they also invented kitsch, from garden gnomes to cuckoo clocks and Wayne Newton crooning "Danke Schoen."
But we forgive them; for one thing, we couldn't have a festival without their beer, bratwurst and polka bands. And secretly, we love it all.
Teutonic touch
Around here, there are many ways to get in touch with your inner German. Certain towns are bastions of Teutonic culture; along Lake Michigan, from Milwaukee to Sheboygan, it's hard to find anything that wasn't influenced by the Germans.
Sheboygan calls itself the bratwurst capital of the
nation, and in nearby Elkhart Lake, an Old World Christmas market in December brings German and local vendors to the Osthoff
Resort.
In Germantown, the Dheinsville Settlement includes original half-timbered buildings, and in Milwaukee, tourists go to Old World Third Street to buy smoked sausages at Usinger's and have a meal in heavily Teutonic Mader's. German Fest, held on the lakefront in July, is the largest German celebration in North America.
In western Minnesota, heavy concentrations of Germans settled in the fertile farmland between the Minnesota and Mississippi
river valleys, where towns bear the names New Germany, Hamburg, Cologne and New Munich.
And at the junction of the Minnesota and Cottonwood rivers, a group of German workingmen and Turners bought land and established the town of New Ulm.
© Beth Gauper
Students from around the continent come to learn German at Concordia Language Villages' Waldsee campus.
Along with schools and churches, they took time in 1897 to put up a 32-foot copper statue of the Alemannic warrior Hermann, who routed the Romans from the Teutoburg Forest in 9 A.D. Hermann came off his 70-foot dome in 2003 for $1 million in repairs, but he's back now, poster boy for ethnic pride.
His hillside throne is part of the New Ulm tourist route, as is Domeier's German Store, the Glockenspiel downtown and Schell's Brewery, the second-oldest family-owned brewery in the nation and likely the most picturesque.
In eastern Iowa, a group of devout German Inspirationists formed a communal society in 1855, pooling their resources and adhering faithfully to Scripture. The name they gave their settlement, "Amana," comes from the Bible and means "remain true."
They dropped the communal system in 1932 but retained their language and traditions. Today, restaurants in the seven Amana Colonies still serve meals family-style, and Millstream Brewery makes its beers according to old German purity laws.
The skills Amana workers developed — its residents now use to draw tourists to the many shops and artisan studios. The
colonies are celebrating their 150th birthday this year, with special events as well as the annual Mai Fest and Oktoberfest
(for more, see Truly Amana).
When it comes to a party, Germans know how to take a good idea and run with it — but you don't need to be German to join in.
Go to a festival
© Beth Gauper
The Elk River German Band plays at festivals around the region.
They're everywhere, but they include:
May, Maifest in Amana, Iowa.
June, Bavarian Festival in Frankenmuth, Mich.
July, Bavarian Blast in New Ulm, Minn.; German Festival in Cedarburg, Wis.; and German Fest in Milwaukee.
September, German-American Festival in Chicago, in Lincoln Square, and German Fest in Guttenberg, Iowa.
There are Oktoberfest celebrations everywhere; for more, see Toasting Oktoberfest.
Learn language and culture
German was the first language taught at Concordia Language Villages, an immersion camp started in 1961 by an elementary-education professor at the Moorhead college who saw how quickly children of U.S. servicemen in Germany picked up the language.
Today, the Waldsee campus on a lake near Bemidji hosts immersion camps for youth all summer and camps for adults and
families. For more, see Language camp
for adults and Going abroad in
Bemidji.
In St. Paul, the Germanic-American Institute is an active association of native Germans
as well as people of German ancestry.
It offers its 1,400 members language classes, lectures, trips, cultural groups and dinners, and it frequently opens its house on Summit Avenue to the public for festivities, including Deutscher Tag in June.
In Madison, the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies at University of Wisconsin offers lectures and workshops to the public.
© Beth Gauper
A kiosk sells Lebkuchen hearts at Chicago's Christkindlmarket.
In Davenport, Iowa, the German American Heritage Center offers classes, talks and events and includes the permanent, interactive exhibit "The German Immigrant Experience'' as well as rotating exhibits.
In the countryside near Dodgeville, in southwestern Wisconsin, Folklore Village presents ethnic workshops, concerts and festivities, including the lighting of a candlelit German Christmas tree in December.Visit heritage sites
At Old World Wisconsin, the nation's largest outdoor museum of rural life, three German homesteads from around Wisconsin have been moved to the sprawling site just southwest of Milwaukee and reconstructed.
In the summer, interpreters take visitors back to the years 1860, 1875 and 1880, explaining how immigrants observed Old World traditions and adopted new ones. A restaurant occupies the Clausing Barn, an octagonal barn built by a German immigrant in 1897.
In the west-central Iowa town of Manning, Hausbarn Heritage Park includes a handsome 1660 half-timbered brick Hausbarn brought over from the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein and reassembled with a roof thatched with reeds grown near the Baltic Sea.
Read
Good background reading includes "Germans in Wisconsin" by Richard Zeitlin (State Historical Society of Wisconsin, $9.95) and "Germans in Minnesota" by Kathleen Neils Conzen (Minnesota Historical Society Press, $13.95) both make interesting reading.
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