Germany -- Foreign relations -- Turkey; Turkey -- Foreign relations -- Germany; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
At three o’clock I had an engagement to take tea with a director of the
Orient Bank and his wife. I had been there only a few minutes when
Zimmerman was announced. He was a different kind of man from von Jagow.
He impressed me as being much stronger, mentally and physically. He was
tall, even stately in his bearing, masterful in his manner, direct and
searching in his questions, but extremely pleasing and insinuating.
Zimmerman, discussing the German-American situation, began with a
statement which I presume he thought would be gratifying to me. He told
me how splendidly the Jews had behaved in Germany during the war and how
deeply under obligations the Germans felt to them.
“After the war,” he said, “they are going to be much better treated in
Germany than they have been.”
Zimmerman told me that von Jagow had told him about our talk, and asked
me to repeat part of it. He was particularly interested, he said, in my
statements about the German-Americans, and he wished to learn from me
himself the facts upon which I based my conclusions. Like most Germans,
he regarded the Germanic elements in our population as almost a part of
Germany.
“Are you sure that the mass of German-Americans would be loyal to the
United States in case of war?” he asked. “Aren’t their feelings for the
Fatherland really dominant?”
“You evidently regard those German-Americans as a distinct part of the
population,” I replied, “living apart from the rest of the people and
having very little to do with American life as a whole. You could not
make a greater mistake. You can purchase a few here and there who will
make a big noise and shout for Germany, but I am talking about the
millions of Americans of German ancestry. These people regard themselves
as Americans and nothing else. The second generation particularly resent
being looked upon as Germans. It is practically impossible to make them
talk German; they refuse to speak anything but English. They do not read
German newspapers and will not go to German schools. They even resent
going to Lutheran churches where the language is German. We have more
than a million German-Americans in New York City, but it has been a
great struggle to keep alive one German theatre; the reason is that
these people prefer the theatres where English is the language. We have
a few German clubs, but their membership is very small. The
German-Americans prefer to belong to the clubs of general membership,
and there is not a single one in New York, even the finest, where they
are not received upon their merits. In the political and social life of
New York there are few German-Americans who, as such, have acquired any
prominent position, though there are plenty of men of distinguished
position who are German in origin. If the United States and Germany go
to war, you will not only be surprised at the loyalty of our German
people, but the whole world will be. Another point: if the United States
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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