This is the first comprehensive inquiry into the role of one major non-Native, non-English-speaking ethnic and cultural element in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador. It investigates the German experience in Newfoundland and Labrador to 1945 . “German experience” is understood here in both meanings of the word, that is, as Germans’ experiences of Newfoundland-Labrador and as Newfoundlanders’ and Labradorians’ experiences of Germans. Therefore one aim of the book concerns identifying individuals of German-speaking background who entered, chose to live in, and played a role in this former British dominion. Whatever could be uncovered about their origins, entry, and residence,...

Every student of Newfoundland history knows that the reason for the island’s settlement was the fishery and that economic, political, and military circumstances gave Britain ultimate control over that fishery. Similarly well known is the fact that by the nineteenth century virtually all (more than 99 per cent) of Newfoundland’s population was of British origin. This frequently noted extraordinary degree of ethnic homogeneity for a North American society has, however, obscured the multinational origins and multicultural aspects of the island’s modern history. Indeed, Newfoundland’s change from an international fishery to a largely British fishery was a very slow process. In...

When the German edition of Lewis Amadeus Anspach’sHistorywas first published in 1822 , German-speaking Moravian missionaries were already harvesting the fruit of half a century of continuous presence in northern Labrador. They had pacified the seemingly unpacifiable region, created a written form of their language for the Inuit to facilitate their literacy, and introduced educational and other strategies to enable the Inuit and their cultural identity to survive in a rapidly changing modern world. The Newfoundland government did more than just tolerate with benevolent indifference Moravian cultural dominance in northern Labrador. It also specifically invited Moravian responsibility for...

The nineteenth century not only entrenched the Moravians as the dominant civilizing force in northern Labrador; it also brought to the island of Newfoundland for the first time a steady flow of goods, ideas, and people from Germany. Responsible for this influx was a new type of contact – the provisions trade with Hamburg. Little known today, this regular and, at times, rather voluminous trade was made possible by two developments: the first was the gradual repeal beginning in 1806 of the English Navigation Acts of 1640–60, and the second was the liberalization of Britain’s colonial trade in the wake...

After 1870 two developments overlapped to set the stage for a different type of German migration to Newfoundland. These were Germany’s ascent to industrial and world power and Newfoundland’s quest for economic diversification, as indicated by the pattern of trade between the two countries. The quest for diversification – a theme still heard today – derived from the realization that the unreliable fishery could never satisfy the needs and aspirations of the island’s growing population. The search brought such land-based enterprises as mining, the construction of a trans-insular railway, and the establishment of a host of manufacturing industries in the 1880s. It...

Chapters 3 and 4 have shown how the nineteenth-century economic, social, and political transformations of Germany and Newfoundland generated a new spectrum of linkages between the two countries. As a result, people of German-speaking background in increasing numbers not only ended up as settlers in Newfoundland but also travelled to the colony for other reasons, such as tourism, science, or commerce. Some of these visitors put their impressions on paper and published them later in German-language books, journals, and periodicals. Their amazingly wide-ranging observations have discovered, so to speak, this part of the world for the German reading public. Their...

World War I, also known as the Great War, affected residents of German-speaking background in all Allied countries unlike any other event in their history. Virtually overnight, the traditional positive pre-war perceptions of Germans were replaced by stereotypes with such negative descriptions as cruel, untrustworthy, and disloyal. Negative stereotyping was accompanied by the increasingly severe measures of social ostracism, internment, and deportation. In Newfoundland, unlike in Canada and the United States, people with the remotest German association were treated as suspects. Here, the pejorative World War I image of Germans as spies and saboteurs received a new lease on life...

One of the casualties of World War I was Newfoundland’s German heritage and community. Four years’ exposure to patriotic brainwashing, the loss of 1,300 Newfoundlanders on the battlefields of France, and the intense engagement of the entire population in a total war against Germany had forged a new sense of “nationhood” in Newfoundland not conducive to any appreciation of German roots and contributions.¹ The island was gripped by the same anti-alien sentiment that swept the British Empire for a number of years after the war. Between November 1919 and June 1920, over 30,000 former enemy aliens were expelled from Britain,²...

The revival of trade, tourism, and consular links in the 1930s also reawakened German scholarly interest in Newfoundland after the war. This led to the articulation of more comprehensive and diversified German perceptions of Newfoundland, its people, and its culture. Instrumental in shaping the image that German-speaking readers developed of Newfoundland were, in particular, the prolific travel literature from the pen of Colin Ross and the scholarly publications of Hans Schrepfer. The first and most widely read post-war portrait came from the pen of Colin Ross (1885–1945 ). Ross visited Newfoundland and Labrador in 1933 and published his impressions...

Hitler’s assumption of power in Germany in 1933 created unprecedented masses of potential immigrants for Newfoundland in the form of refugees. In fact, the refugees knocking on Newfoundland’s door between 1934 and 1939 constituted the largest tide of immigrants desiring entry during any comparable period in the island’s history in more than a century. Political, religious, and racial persecution by the Nazi regime made Newfoundland and Labrador suddenly appear as an attractive refuge for thousands of German-speaking Jews and non-Jewish refugees from the Third Reich and countries occupied by or allied with it. Individually and in groups, they sought admission,...

World War II turned Newfoundland’s residents of German-speaking background into enemy aliens for the second time within the lifespan of one generation. Again they were suspected of being real or potential spies, this time labelled Nazi fifth columnists. Again the suspicions were unfounded and they were helplessly exposed to persecution as scapegoats. The World War II enemy alien trauma can only be fully appreciated against the background of public attitudes and government policies in Newfoundland, especially since local newspapers and government records provide the chief sources of information.

Judged by the number and tone of views expressed in the media,...

When the British government declared war on 3 September 1939, Newfoundland was ready to meet perceived fifth columnists with a battery of emergency acts and regulations modelled on similar British and Canadian legislation. Defence Regulation 39 of 1 September 1939 , for instance, declared anyone guilty of an offence who “is upon any railway, pier, wharf, bridge, viaduct or culvert, or loiters on or in any road or path or other place near a railway, pier, wharf, bridge, viaduct or culvert, with intent to do injury thereof.”¹ According to Regulation 69, anyone might be guilty of an offence who “does...

German U-boats have been a topic of unabating interest in Newfoundland since World War II and have occupied a significant place in local popular history and folklore. Contemporaries, amateur historians, and naval experts have described their movements in the North Atlantic waters off Newfoundland in considerable detail. Reviewing or adding to that literature would go beyond the scope of this book. Of interest in the context of this study, however, is the circulation of curious tales of U-boat antics still widely believed to be true. Indeed, the wartime belief that U-boats secretly communicated with shore-based contacts, or landed and released...

The relish with which Newfoundlanders have speculated about U-boat crews’ ability to penetrate island society with unrivalled bravado and ease, a senior Newfoundland historian tried to explain to me, revealed a subconscious fascination with German skills and daring. The flourishing lore of U-boat crews coming on land in broad daylight and mixing with the local population in bars, movie theatres, and stores implies an alleged German capability to pull off anything, he suggested, and should be interpreted as a positive image. However, the wartime depiction of local residents of German-speaking background as enemy agents seeking contact with U-boats is incompatible...