The Redemptorists and the German Immigrant Apostolate

Founded by St. Alphonsus Liguori in 1732, the Redemptorists arrived in the United States from Vienna in 1832. After brief exploratory work among Native Americans, they rapidly turned their attention to the growing German Catholic population—then one of the most neglected groups of Catholics in the country. Despite massive numbers of German speakers (as discussed here) German-speaking priests remained scarce.

From 1839 onward the Redemptorists became the leading religious order serving these communities. Supported by the Austrian Leopoldine Foundation and the Ludwig Mission Society of Munich, they staffed churches, schools, and missions where the language, liturgy, and popular piety of the German-speaking world could be preserved. Key early foundations included St. Philomena in Pittsburgh, St. Alphonsus and St. James in Baltimore, and the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer (often called the “German Cathedral”) on New York’s Lower East Side in the heart of Kleindeutschland (Previously discussed here). Although the congregation later expanded to serve Irish, French, and English-speaking Catholics, its foundational decades in America were predominantly German in personnel and purpose. Two of its greatest American members—St. John Neumann and Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos—embody that mission.

St. John Neumann (1811–1860)

Born Johann Nepomuk Neumann on March 28, 1811, in Prachatice (Prachatitz), Bohemia—then part of the Austrian Empire—Neumann grew up in a devout German-speaking household. His father, Philip, a stocking knitter from Obernburg am Main in Bavaria, had settled in Bohemia; the family spoke German at home and school, and young John acquired only a limited knowledge of Czech. From childhood he showed a love of learning and a quiet piety. His mother called him “my little bibliomaniac” for his constant reading. He studied at the Piarist gymnasium in Budweis and later at the University of Prague, mastering multiple languages and excelling in theology, while also developing interests in astronomy and botany. Inspired by reports from the Leopoldine Foundation about the spiritual destitution of German immigrants in America, he decided to leave for the missions even though his own bishop could not ordain him due to a surplus of local priests.

He sailed in 1836, arriving in New York with almost nothing, and was ordained within weeks by Bishop John Dubois. For four years he labored alone in the vast Niagara frontier region of upstate New York, traveling on foot and horseback to scattered German and other immigrant families, celebrating Mass in homes and barns, teaching catechism, and enduring isolation and hardship. Feeling the need for community, he entered the Redemptorists in 1840 and made his profession in 1842—the first in the United States. He served as superior of the American Redemptorists, worked tirelessly in Pittsburgh and Baltimore among German parishes, and became a U.S. citizen in 1848.

Appointed Bishop of Philadelphia in 1852 against his own preference for a quieter missionary life, Neumann faced a diocese swollen by Irish and German immigrants. He organized the first systematic diocesan Catholic school system in the United States, increasing the number of parish schools from one to approximately 200. He built dozens of churches, promoted the Forty Hours Devotion, founded religious communities to staff schools and orphanages, and continued to visit remote missions on foot or by carriage despite his small stature and frail health. On January 5, 1860, at the age of 48, he collapsed from a stroke on a Philadelphia street while running ordinary errands and died the same day. Beatified in 1963 and canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1977, he is the first male U.S. citizen declared a saint, first American canonized bishop, and is venerated as patron of Catholic education, teachers, & sick children.

Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos (1819–1867)

Born on January 11, 1819, in Füssen, Bavaria, Francis Xavier Seelos was one of twelve children of Mang and Franziska Seelos. Baptized the same day and named for the great Jesuit missionary, he showed early signs of a priestly vocation. He studied philosophy and theology in Augsburg and Munich. Moved by letters from Redemptorist missionaries describing the needs of German immigrants in America, he applied to the congregation and was accepted in 1842. He arrived in New York in 1843 and was ordained in Baltimore the following year.

His first major assignment was to St. Philomena Parish in Pittsburgh, where he served for nine years under the future St. John Neumann, first as assistant, then as novice master and superior. The two men formed a deep spiritual friendship; Seelos later said Neumann had introduced him to the active life and guided him as confessor. Seelos became renowned for his gentle yet penetrating preaching, his extraordinary availability in the confessional (often for hours each day), and his pastoral care of the poor and sick. He refused several invitations to become a bishop, preferring the ordinary work of a missionary priest.

After further assignments in Baltimore, Cumberland, Annapolis, and elsewhere, he was sent in 1866 to New Orleans as pastor of St. Mary’s Assumption, a Redemptorist parish serving the German community. There he threw himself into caring for victims of a severe yellow fever epidemic. Exhausted by constant sick calls, he contracted the disease himself. He endured his final illness with patience and cheerfulness and died on October 4, 1867, at the age of 48. A reported miraculous healing occurred almost immediately after his death. Pope John Paul II beatified him in 2000; his feast is observed on October 5. His remains rest at the National Shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos in New Orleans, and his cause for canonization continues.

St. Marianne Cope (1838–1918)

Born Barbara Koob (later anglicized to Cope) on January 23, 1838, in Heppenheim in the Grand Duchy of Hesse (present-day Germany), she was the eldest of ten children. The family emigrated to Utica, New York, the following year and became naturalized Americans. When her father became an invalid, young Barbara left school after the eighth grade to work in a textile factory for nine years, supporting the family while quietly nurturing a desire for religious life. In 1862, at age 24, she entered the Sisters of St. Francis in Syracuse and received the name Marianne.

She quickly proved herself a capable teacher and administrator, serving as principal of several schools and helping to found two of central New York’s first hospitals, including St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, where she later served as administrator. In 1883 the Hawaiian government and Bishop Hermann Koeckemann urgently requested religious sisters to care for people suffering from leprosy (Hansen’s disease). More than fifty religious communities declined the dangerous invitation. Mother Marianne, then provincial superior, volunteered at once with six sisters, declaring that she was not afraid of any disease.

They first worked at the Branch Hospital near Honolulu, transforming chaotic and neglected conditions into orderly, clean care. In 1888 Mother Marianne moved permanently to the isolated settlement of Kalaupapa on Moloka‘i. There she established a home for women and girls, improved living conditions, and personally nursed the dying St. Damien of Moloka‘i in his final months. After his death she assumed responsibility for the men’s home as well. For the remaining thirty years of her life she never left the peninsula, creating an atmosphere of dignity, beauty, and Christian hope amid terrible suffering. She never contracted the disease herself and died of natural causes on August 9, 1918, at the age of 80. Beatified in 2005 and canonized in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI, she is patron of lepers, outcasts, those suffering of blood-borne diseases, and Hawaii.

Servant of God Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin (1770–1840)

Born on December 22, 1770, at The Hague, Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin was a Russian prince of one of the most illustrious noble families of the empire, the House of Golitsyn. His father, Prince Dmitri Alexeievich Golitsyn, served as Russian ambassador to the Netherlands (and earlier to France) and moved in Enlightenment circles as a friend of Voltaire and Diderot. His mother was the Prussian Countess Adelheid Amalie von Schmettau, daughter of Field Marshal Samuel von Schmettau, a favorite of Frederick the Great. Although baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church, young Demetrius followed his mother into the Catholic Church in 1787 after her own return to the faith following a serious illness. At confirmation he took the name Augustine in her honor.

Sent to America in 1792 for what was intended as a grand tour, the young nobleman instead presented himself to Bishop John Carroll in Baltimore and entered St. Mary’s Seminary. On March 18, 1795, he was ordained—the first priest to receive all his minor and major orders in the United States. He initially used the name Augustine Smith to avoid the complications of traveling as a prince.

After brief service in Maryland and near Conewago, Pennsylvania, a fateful sick call in 1796 brought him to the remote McGuire’s Settlement in the Allegheny Mountains. Deeply impressed, he sought assignment there and arrived permanently in 1799. He renamed the place Loretto after the famous Italian Marian shrine and set about building a Catholic colony from the wilderness. Drawing on his engineering knowledge from military training and using (and ultimately exhausting) his expected inheritance, he purchased large tracts of land, constructed roads, sawmills, gristmills, houses, and a church, and sold parcels to incoming Catholic settlers on easy terms. He supported widows and orphans, defended the faith in writing against Protestant critics, and for decades traveled vast distances on horseback as the only priest serving a territory stretching from the Susquehanna to Youngstown, Ohio.

Though entitled by birth to great wealth, Russian law and family circumstances largely cut him off from his inheritance because of his conversion and priesthood; he lived and died in relative poverty while building a flourishing community that numbered thousands of Catholics by the time of his death. He refused several episcopal appointments, preferring to remain the simple “Apostle of the Alleghenies.” He died at Loretto on May 6, 1840.

His legacy endures geographically as well as spiritually. The nearby borough of Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, was named in his honor, as was Prince Gallitzin State Park and the Gallitzin State Forest. The Basilica of St. Michael the Archangel in Loretto, built with funds from industrialist Charles M. Schwab, houses his tomb beneath a bronze statue. Declared a Servant of God in 2005, his cause for beatification continues in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

Conclusion

These four figures embody complementary facets of the German-American Catholic experience: Neumann the organizer of education and immigrant pastoral care within the Redemptorist tradition; Seelos the tireless missionary preacher formed in the same congregation; Cope the courageous Franciscan servant of the most marginalized; and Gallitzin the frontier apostle and former noble who planted the Church amongst the working class. The Redemptorists’ early concentration on German-speaking communities provided the institutional backbone that allowed men like Neumann and Seelos to thrive and multiply their impact.

Today their shrines—in Philadelphia, Syracuse and Honolulu, New Orleans, and Loretto—draw pilgrims. Their intercession is sought by educators, caregivers, missionaries, and all who work among the poor. In an age still marked by cultural upheaval, the lives of these German American saints and blesseds, and the German-charactered Redemptorist mission that supported two of them, remain a witness to faith that came from the German speaking lands and built a witness to our ancestors faith in America.

Alle ihr Heiligen Gottes, bittet für uns!

Saint Hubert (also known as Hubertus or Hubert of Liège), who lived roughly from 656 to 727, was the first bishop of Liège and is remembered as the “Apostle of the Ardennes.” Born into Frankish nobility, he spent his early years as a passionate hunter and courtier. According to the well-known legend, on a Good Friday morning while pursuing a magnificent stag in the forest, the animal turned and revealed a glowing crucifix between its antlers. A voice warned him to turn to God or face damnation, saying “Hubert, unless thou turnest from thy sin thou shall go swiftly down into hell.” The experience transformed him: he renounced his worldly life, entered the Church under the guidance of Saint Lambert, and later became a zealous bishop who evangelized the pagan regions of the Ardennes.

His feast day falls on November 3. In the Middle Ages he was widely venerated as the patron of hunters, and his cult spread strongly across the Low Countries, France, and the German-speaking lands. In the Rhineland he was counted among the “Four Holy Marshals.” Several chivalric and military orders took his name, including ones linked to Bavaria and the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne. German hunting culture in particular keeps his memory alive. Ethical hunting practices—respect for the game, the “last bite” ritual of placing greenery in the animal’s mouth, and a general spirit of Waidgerechtigkeit (fair and proper hunting)—are often connected to the example and code attributed to him.

A distinctive expression of this devotion is the Hubertusmesse (Hubert’s Mass). These special Masses, celebrated around his feast day and during the hunting season, frequently feature hunting-horn music, processions, and gatherings of hunters, foresters, and local communities. They blend liturgical worship with traditional hunting culture and remain a living custom in many parts of Germany and neighboring countries. Altars and sanctuaries are richly decorated with antlers, leaves, hides, rifles, and other accoutrements of hunting.

That same legend of the stag with the cross between its antlers is the direct inspiration for the Jägermeister logo. The German herbal liqueur, whose name means “master hunter,” was created in the 1930s by Curt Mast, an avid hunter. He chose the image of the radiant stag as a tribute to Saint Hubertus, the true “Jägermeister.” The emblem has remained essentially unchanged on the distinctive green bottle ever since, and also features an excerpt from the poem “Weidmannsheil" (Hunter's Salute) by Oskar von Riesenthal. It translates: "This is the hunter's honor shield, that he protects and cherishes his game, hunts with respect, as it should be, and honors the creator in his creatures."

Churches and Places in the USA:

Although Saint Hubert is less commonly invoked in American popular culture than in Europe, several Catholic communities across the United States bear his name, reflecting both historical immigration patterns and local devotion.

Our favorite example is a forgotten medieval style chapel on a small island in New Jersey.

St. Hubert’s Chapel is a striking and relatively little-known historic structure that sits on a tiny island in Lake Kinnelon, within the gated Smoke Rise community in Kinnelon, Morris County, New Jersey. Accessible only by small boat, the stone chapel appears to float amid the water and trees, its clock tower rising above the surrounding landscape. Completed and consecrated in 1889, it is one of the most distinctive private chapels in the state and holds special significance for both Catholic history and American decorative arts.

The chapel was built by Francis S. Kinney, a wealthy tobacco industrialist (founder of the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company) who owned roughly 5,000 acres in the area as a private hunting and fishing retreat. Kinney himself was not Catholic, but his wife, Mary, was a devout Catholic whose health made the seven-mile carriage trip to the nearest church difficult. Out of devotion to her, he commissioned a private chapel on the island so that Mass could be celebrated for the family without the arduous journey. Franciscan friars from St. Anthony’s in Butler regularly traveled to the site to offer Mass and other services. Bishop Winand Wigger of Newark consecrated the chapel on October 25, 1889, under the patronage of St. Hubert —an especially fitting dedication for a chapel on a grand hunting estate.

Architecturally and artistically, the chapel is remarkable. Kinney engaged Louis Comfort Tiffany for what is widely regarded as Tiffany’s first fully integrated ecclesiastical interior commission. Tiffany designed the altar, wooden sacristy/confessional, woodwork, chandelier, front door, a large Celtic crucifix stained-glass window, mosaic tile floor (composed of hundreds of thousands of hand-laid pieces), and other elements. The overall design drew inspiration from medieval European churches of the seventh and eighth centuries, the era of St. Hubert himself. A tall stone clock tower with bells was also part of the complex. The interior originally featured additional stained-glass windows depicting St. Hubert and other religious subjects.

After the Kinney family’s use declined, the chapel saw intermittent non-denominational services and then periods of neglect. In 1957 it suffered significant vandalism; most of the original stained-glass windows were destroyed. Beginning in the 1960s, local resident Tom Kline and later the Kinnelon Heritage Conservation Society (and the Smoke Rise Club) undertook a long-term restoration. Key projects have included restoring the Tiffany Celtic cross (2003), the marble altar (2007), recreating lost stained-glass windows (completed in stages through the 2010s), repairing the tower, and reconditioning pews and other interior features. Today the chapel is carefully maintained and protected with security measures.

The chapel is no longer an active parish church, but it remains a consecrated historic site of Catholic legacy and a rare surviving example of an intact Tiffany-designed sacred interior. It is open only by reservation for guided tours (typically in warmer months), private events, and occasional special occasions. Visitors must arrange access in advance through the Smoke Rise Club or the conservation group, as the island lies within a private gated community and can be reached solely by boat. The setting, craftsmanship, and connection to St. Hubert make it a unique destination for those interested in New Jersey history, religious architecture, or the saint’s American footprint.

Examples of active parishes include:

-St. Hubert Catholic Community in Chanhassen, Minnesota. This church has a large new facility and their historic Franciscan German building is under threat. As of 2025 they are deciding whether to destroy or fully restore the structure.

-St. Hubert Church in Hoffman Estates, Illinois (now part of Holy Archangels Parish). This is a thriving parish family of churches and is not a historic building. They have a wonderful statue of Hubertus:

-St. Hubert Church on Whidbey Island, Washington state (a very small parish serving the South Whidbey Catholic community).

-The famous Holy Hill Shrine and Basilica of Our Lady Help of Christians, in southern Wisconsin, doesn’t have any specific devotion to St Hubert, but the area was settled by Germans and bears the census name of “Hubertus, WI” as well.

Thanks for reading,

Gott Segne Dich!

We also find the subjects discussed here perennially relevant in the face of our new labor crisis with rapid advancements in technology and Pope Leo XIV’s document Magnifica Humanitatis recently released. As always, thanks for reading. 

“THE SOCIAL REFORM PROGRAM

…it took pride in having a reform philosophy that took cognizance of more than socialism and the labor question. That reform philosophy was in truth very comprehensive.

Solidarism, the Central-Verein’s Social Theory

Many of the proposals advanced by Progressive reformers seemed mere palliatives to Kenkel. What he had in mind was a fundamental reconstruction, for he considered liberalistic society to be as thoroughly unacceptable as socialism. The social ideal he formulated for the Central-Verein had as its ultimate aim the realization of a Christian corporative order; the name of his system, borrowed from the German Jesuit Heinrich Pesch, was “Solidarism.” But while Pesch was considered the standard authority in the early years of the reform campaign, there were other influences as well, and we shall focus on the Central-Verein’s version of Solidarism rather than trying to summarize Pesch’s system as contained in his multivolume Lehrbuch der Nationalökonomie.³⁵

The most convenient statement of the Central-Verein’s social theory is a talk given at the organization’s 1915 convention in St. Paul. A brief recapitulation of this speech offers the best entry to the subject for a number of reasons. The speaker, Father Engelen, was born in München-Gladbach and as a student had been acquainted with Pesch; Engelen also enjoyed Kenkel’s full confidence as an interpreter of Solidarism, and his talk at St. Paul was regarded as an authoritative statement of the Central-Verein’s social philosophy. Moreover, the speech is valuable because it reveals so clearly the general temper of the Central-Verein’s theorizing in addition to outlining its substance.

“Was wollen wir” (Our Aims), as the lecture was titled, began with a prologue in which Engelen portrayed the war raging in Europe as the latest fruit of capitalism and lamented the weak grasp that many Catholic reformers had on the true principles of social reconstruction.³⁶ He disclaimed originality for the theory he was about to sketch, indicating that it more or less created itself from the teachings of history, philosophy, and theology. His was not a program designed merely to repair “the reprehensible system of liberalism”; rather it was a set of ultimate aims by which one could judge all reform proposals and thus guard. against the errors made by “many quacks, including Catholic quacks.”

Getting down to the discourse proper, Engelen launched into an analysis of the nature of man. God had created man limited and incomplete; man was therefore a social animal because he had to live with his fellows and be dependent upon them. But God had given man free will to use in his life in society; hence man was to be understood as dependent, first of all, on his own efforts for the success of his undertakings. If individual effort did not suffice, man was then to turn to his relatives, neighbors, and friends for assistance; and if voluntary mutual aid was still insufficient to accomplish what was intended, the state should step in to assist. “The divinely ordained purpose of the state,” Engelen explained, “is that it should be the final assistance and support of all its children in the great national family.”

This brought Engelen to his fundamental principle of all social life. First there was to be purposeful self-help; secondly, and united to the first, voluntary social assistance from others; and, as a last resort, energetic assistance from the state. “This hierarchy of activities,” said Engelen, “will, to use Pesch’s terms, necessarily lead to the freedom of order, the restraint of arbitrary self-will, the unification of forces, and the adjustment of interests.” Freedom under this arrangement would be voluntarily self-limited in the interest of the common good and could truly be called “social freedom,” changing men from self-seeking creatures to genuinely social beings. Under Solidarism friendship would replace hatred in the human heart, and the godless struggle for existence would be no more. If the individual did not learn to curb his self-will, those wronged by his selfishness would unite in voluntary associations for protection, or the state could step in to shield the weak from oppression.

A society functioning according to solidaristic principles would engender the growth of vocational organizations, said Engelen. These organizations would not be instruments of class warfare; rather, animated by a spirit of mutual cooperativeness, they would assist individuals and adjust divergent interests. The “solidaric person” would learn “social thinking” by “physical necessity,” thus promoting the growth of vocational organizations and the reconciliation of interests. “Hence the state would again become an organism. …”

The state, which is built on classes and estates [Ständen], protects itself when it protects these organs. At the same time, it achieves through these organs that which is seemingly impossible—it penetrates into the furthest cottage without needing to embrace socialistic absolutism to accomplish this. Yet the state only lends assistance where assistance is required, for it respects liberty. As a result, the solidaristic state is strong enough to overthrow the absolutism of liberty for the protection of the fettered and the afflicted without becoming a menace itself.

The permeating consciousness of the need to subordinate all activities to the common good would lead to a genuine national economy in which the welfare of the entire national community would be the dominating consideration. The “ripe fruit” of the solidaristic system would be a healthy Mittelstand—that is, a middle class of small independent producers.

With this set of glowing assertions, Engelen declared that the essential outline of Solidarism was complete, but he added a few remarks on immediate problems. He gave qualified approval to labor unions as vocational organizations, noting, however, that they were not yet truly “solidaric” because they lacked the feeling for social justice and remained Kampfklassen—groups organized for purposes of class competition. Elaborating somewhat on the role of the state, Engelen called for increased governmental action in the social and economic order, but he also warned that the state must not transgress upon the rights of the subsidiary organs, the vocational estates.

These vocational estates, the specifically corporative elements in the program, were to play an important role in the solidaric society. (In another discussion Engelen made clear they were to be “true social and moral organs of the state,” and should be given “limited, subordinate and superintended self-government and legislative and judicial power.”)³⁷ By belonging to a vocational organization, the individual would come to think of himself as an organic unit in an organic society rather than merely as a member of a class. Classes were unacceptable as social divisions because they were based solely on wealth and were therefore unorganic. Vocational organizations would also eliminate the evils of capitalism by controlling production and restricting unfair competition. Engelen did not specify how this was to be done, but he was an enthusiast for vocational organizations. “Organizations everywhere,” he exclaimed. “What cannot these groups accomplish when protected by the state.” Among other things, he pointed out, they could relieve the state of the need to concern itself with wages, safety legislation, and social insurance.

In concluding, Engelen appealed strictly to logic to show that the solidaric society was a practical possibility; he argued, for example, that Solidarism was based on God’s law and God did not require the impossible. Earlier in his talk, however, he had cited historical evidence of its practicability. After describing the Gotteswelt or divine world that Solidarism would usher in, Engelen added that it had existed in its essential outlines “when the merry, smiling Middle Ages still constructed cathedrals and when religion still pervaded economic life.” In those days, he continued, “the state governed in the true sense. The guilds bustled with activity; and the greatest of men was no more a slave of mammon than was the least of men a wage-slave.” The dream had become a reality in the Middle Ages, and it was the task of Solidarism to reconstruct this reality with new materials under new economic conditions.

Thus did Engelen’s authoritative statement outline the theory of Solidarism. His relatively short speech was not a complete exposition of the Central-Verein leaders’ position; still less was it an adequate presentation of Pesch’s elaborate social and economic theory. But it was an official statement and was quite representative of the social theorizing carried on in the Central-Verein.

The most striking feature of the talk was its speculative character. The first part was speculative in the technical sense—from a philosophical analysis of the nature of man Engelen deduced the correct socioeconomic order. And in his mind, it was the logical coherence of the argument that proved the practicability of the solidaristic system. The stress on logical consistency was quite in keeping with the belief, shared by Engelen and Kenkel, that a total system had to be formulated before one could be sure of avoiding mistakes in the particulars of reform. Indeed, their writing on social reform was strongly affected by that fondness for abstract speculation and system-building which Theodor Brauer called an essential characteristic of the German mind. “The innate need of system,” wrote Brauer, who was an important Catholic social theorist himself, “makes the German . . . profound, but pedantic; comprehensive and rich in outlook, but rationalist and doctrinaire.”

But Engelen’s St. Paul talk was speculative in the popular as well as the technical sense. Once the philosophical groundwork of the system was laid, Engelen turned immediately to describing what life would be like under Solidarism. He made not the slightest effort to explain how the abyss between theoretical construct and social reality was to be bridged; although he spoke as if the conditions to which he referred were established facts of experience, Engelen was simply speculating. In fact, speculation is too mild a term for his visionary presentation of a happy kingdom, a socioeconomic paradise where lion and lamb would lie down together. Many of his longer expositions in the Central-Blatt and Social Justice were pervaded by this utopianism to such an extent that one is taken aback by the occasional reminder that, because of original sin, society would not be perfect even under Solidarism.

A third feature to be noted in Engelen’s discourse is the vagueness of the social system he described. The perfection he postulated of solidaristic society was of a highly generalized sort; and the effort to form a clear conception of what life would be like under Solidarism leaves the reader more frustrated than satisfied. The evils of liberal capitalism would be absent, of course; mutualism would replace self-interest as the animating spirit of society; and there would be vocational organizations, or corporative estates. But while the first two points are hardly precise, the extreme ambiguity of the corporative structures cries aloud for clarification.

The vocational organizations were, after all, critically important elements in the whole scheme. They were to serve a vital social-psychological function as the locus of human fellowship and communal solidarity, engendering in the individual the consciousness of being part of an organically unified society. They were also economic institutions that would play a key role in regulating production and the conditions of labor, and as “true social and moral organs of the state” they were unmistakably political in character. Indeed, it was by virtue of the political operation of the vocational organizations that the problem of freedom and order was to be solved: Upon them depended the “seemingly impossible” reconciliation of liberty with state regulation and assistance penetrating “into the furthest cottage.” It would be unreasonable to demand of a short talk that it provide a detailed exposition of how all this was to be realized, but Engelen’s failure even to hint at a solution of the many difficulties obviously entailed in such a scheme points to a fundamental weakness in the social philosophy of the Central-Verein. This failure to come to grips with complex problems involved in the introduction of the solidaristic system and to describe precisely how it would function was characteristic of the social theorizing carried on in the organization.

The diffuseness of the solidaristic vision of society and the failure to specify the means of its attainment and mode of its operation sprang in large measure from the way in which Kenkel and the other Central-Verein writers handled certain analytical concepts—or, to put it less abstractly, the way they thought about society and the state, social life, politics, and economics. Their great emphasis was on the organic wholeness of human life. They deplored the tendency of liberal individualism to reduce society to a mere aggregation of atomistic units, and they deprecated the corresponding tendency to think of human existence in a compartmentalized way. Man was a unity, and his life should not be fragmented into a collection of unrelated roles—as citizen, as worker, as consumer, as worshipper. All the facets of human existence were to be organically connected; the various spheres of life should penetrate one another rather than assuming the character of separate, self-contained categories. True social reform, therefore, had to be total reform—it had to comprehend and integrate all the dimensions that were grounded in the unified life of man. This perspective added depth to the critique of liberalism; it also made the Central-Verein theorists sensitive to the social dislocations brought on by industrialism and to the mutilations of the human spirit that accompanied these dislocations. But at the same time the central preoccupation with organic wholeness almost inevitably led to an oversimplification of the real complexity of modern society and blurred crucially important distinctions.

The vagueness surrounding the corporative organizations was primarily traceable to the working of this holistic bias. The corporative estates were posited as restoring organic unity to modern society by amalgamating social-psychological, economic, and political functions. It was never made clear, however, just how all this was to be done—how the corporative organizations were to replace actually existing

social, economic, and political institutions. To clarify these matters would obviously require detailed treatment of specific issues in several spheres of human activity. But it was precisely this dissection of human life through the isolation of problems in distinct conceptual categories that was most repugnant to those who favored the organic approach. While the Central-Verein’s social theory thus made possible a penetrating critique of the ills of modern society, its emphasis on organic unity militated against the systematic analysis needed to discover an adequate remedy.

Central-Verein spokesmen realized, to be sure, that their version of reform involved what is now called the “quality” of life—that it involved a transformation of social personality, a “new spirit” permeating the community. For this reason, they insisted that solidaristic reform would entail a renewal of religion and morals in addition to a restructuring of the institutions of society. Engelen scanted this aspect of the matter in his St. Paul talk, but in other discussions he gave more attention to the need for religious renewal. “No complete, no lasting reform . . . is possible,” he wrote, “without the Church and without correct ethics; for a reform of moral ideas is required, and also an application of the moral law to our economic life; and this is impossible without the divine teacher of true morality.”⁴⁰

The specifically Catholic dimension of social reform was closely associated in Kenkel’s thinking with the corporative features of Solidarism. He felt that Catholics were the only group of Americans who could appreciate the principle “that every society should be structured according to estates.” “The American Constitution,” Kenkel added, “completely did away with this principle, as with so many others. . . .” Consequently most Americans thought in terms of classes, which implied social antagonism; they had no grasp of the notion of social “estates,” which implied an organic connection between the various parts of society in the same way that “the hand and foot, the eye and brain and stomach work with every other part of the body.” The “old, healthy society of the Middle Ages” had been built upon the Lehrstand, Wehrstand und Nahrstand—that is, the clergy or teaching estate, the nobility or governing estate, and the commons or producing estate. Lacking these functional estates, modern society was, in Kenkel’s opinion, “therefore sick because it is wrongly organized.”

Kenkel did not explain why he thought Catholics were more likely than other Americans to appreciate the need for corporative social organization, but his and Engelen’s references to the Middle Ages provide a very obvious clue. The Middle Ages saw the flowering of a great Catholic civilization, and the corporative social order was an integral part of this magnificent “age of faith.” American Catholics responded enthusiastically in the Progressive period to the message of James J. Walsh’s The Thirteenth, Greatest of Centuries.⁴² Kenkel, who was personally devoted to medieval studies, undertook to explain how the desirable features of the medieval social order could be revived in the twentieth century. In a speech before the guilds of the AFCS, Kenkel commented:

You have undoubtedly heard of the guilds of medieval times. They were social organisms constructed on the lines of Christian ideas. It is sometimes said Catholic social action should lead to their renewal. But that is utopian. You cannot resurrect them. But what is not impossible is this: to resurrect the spirit that gave them life and strength. Why are the trusts obnoxious? The guild was a trust—the strongest kind of trust. But it was not founded upon the principles of capitalism . . . but on the principle that the producer was an officer of the public weal, that the guild as a whole and each individual member had a duty to perform toward the public . . . that to be a master artisan was to hold a public office. Justice and charity permeated these associations, their constructions and their members, and thus ramified that solidarity we so much admire but cannot imitate. . . . We would do well . . . to proclaim a social and economic system which avoids the errors of both individualism and collectivism: the system of mutual solidarity.

Conflicting Influences from Germany

In explaining to Americans how a corporative order reminiscent of the Middle Ages could be reconstructed, Kenkel could draw on a rich tradition of German Catholic social theorizing; and his social philosophy reflected some of the crosscurrents at work among Catholic thinkers in Germany at the turn of the century. A review of the Central-Verein’s program would therefore be incomplete without a brief sketch of the German background.

Corporatism emerged in Germany as a conscious social theory in the context of romanticism. It was part of the romantic reaction against the rationalism, liberalism, and cosmopolitanism of the eighteenth century;

it was also related to the conservative and nationalist reaction against the institutional changes introduced by the Napoleonic conquest of Germany. A number of romantics were admirers of the Germanic Middle Ages and several became converts to Catholicism as a result of their enthusiasm for things medieval. Among these romantic converts who preferred the organic social order of the Middle Ages to the ideology of the French Revolution was Adam Müller, one of the earliest theorists of the corporative state.⁴⁴

By the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Catholic contribution to corporative thinking in Germany was so important that Ralph H. Bowen devotes a chapter to “Social Catholicism” in his study of German Theories of the Corporative State. As the title of this chapter indicates, corporatism loomed large in the reform tradition among German Catholics. Until about 1880 it was clearly the dominant influence; then a more melioristic approach assumed first position until after World War I, when there was a strong resurgence of strict corporatism. The career of the Westphalian priest Franz Hitze illustrates these crosscurrents of reform thought in Germany. In 1880 Hitze published a book which Bowen calls the “most comprehensive theoretical elaboration” of corporatism to appear in Germany to that date. However, almost immediately thereafter Hitze abandoned his dedication to full-scale corporative reconstruction, feeling that piecemeal improvements and practically oriented reform organizations offered a more promising way of attacking the social question. Shortly before his death in 1921, Hitze reverted to rigid corporatism, but by that time he had become the outstanding champion of the meliorist approach. He was one of the founders of both the Volksverein für das katholische Deutschland and of the Christian trade unions.

While the meliorist approach was dominant in the generation before World War I, there were also Catholic reformers in Germany who rejected it as a compromise with liberalism and held out for thoroughgoing corporative reconstruction. Karl von Vogelsang, a north German convert to Catholicism who settled in Vienna, taught a strict version of corporatism that was strongly redolent of romantic medievalism. His teaching had considerable influence in Austria and southern Germany. In 1894 “an unreconciled group of radical corporatists” attempted to commit the Center Party to a stringent formulation which called, among other things, for “political representation of the vocational bodies,” either in the existing legislative bodies or in separate corporative chambers of equal rank. The moderates in the party defeated this move, not wishing to be tied to such a rigid program, although its proponents insisted on calling the plan the Catholic social program.

In the first decade of the present century the Köln-Gladbach Richtung of meliorists, or “social realists,” came under fire for deviating from what was described as the Catholic position on a number of points. Corporatism was not an explicit issue in these disputes, but the strict corporatists were naturally opposed to the meliorist approach and some of them urged the critics—the Berliner Richtung—to adopt a comprehensive corporative program. The dispute over Catholic participation in the Christian trade unions, which we have already noted, was one facet of the wide-ranging controversy; raging concurrently was a battle over the character of the Center Party. The key issue was whether the Center Party should remain interconfessional or whether it should become a strictly Catholic party, committed to a “Catholic viewpoint” rather than a “Christian viewpoint.” The relationship between Catholicism and culture was disputed in another quarrel, but the Literaturstreit, as it was called, is peripheral to our interests.⁴⁷

The controversies took place against the background of the Modernist movement and the reaction against it, and they were obviously related to this fundamental dispute over the response Catholicism should make to the contemporary world. The basic charge against the Köln-Gladbach faction was that it was minimizing Catholic doctrine in its devotion to pragmatic policies in the fields of labor and politics and in its desire to lead German Catholics to a confrontation of the problems of the age. In their effort to break out of the ghetto the progressive Catholics were said to be verging over into the condemned Modernism.⁴⁸ The Köln-Gladbach people, on the other hand, considered their indisputably conservative critics to be “Integralists” who were guilty of a superorthodoxy that was as un-Catholic and dangerous as ultraliberalism. They sometimes characterized this attitude as medieval, and they were particularly incensed by the Berliners’ fondness for making their exaggerated ideas the touchstone of orthodoxy.

The controversies in Germany were strikingly similar to the battles between conservatives and liberals in the American Church in the 1890’s The similarity was not lost on the German conservatives. In 1909 a critic of the German Volksverein pointed out that its version of “social Catholicism” was touched by “a little of the American spirit,” for it emphasized “Catholicism of action” rather than “Catholicism of doctrine.”⁵⁰ In commenting on the dispute over the Christian trade unions, Kenkel also gave evidence that he recognized the parallels between the German situation and the earlier American controversies. Criticizing the manner in which the friends of the Christian trade unions interpreted Singulari Quadam as an unqualified endorsement of the interdenominational unions, Kenkel reminded Amerika’s readers of the school controversy in which an “American prelate” had translated the papal tolerari potest as “fully approved.”⁵¹

But while the Central-Verein was firmly on the side of the conservatives in the American disputes, the situation in Germany was not so clear-cut. As it worked out, the thinking of the Central-Verein’s reform leaders was influenced both by the German progressives and the conservatives. The progressive influence was predominant at first but was superseded in time by the stricter corporatism of the antimeliorist group.

The progressive Volksverein was the explicit model for the Central Bureau, which followed the eminently practical methods of social education and agitation that had been mapped out by its German counterpart. And after the Gladbachers had been under fire for over a decade, Kenkel still praised the Volksverein very highly.⁵² Moreover, Heinrich Pesch is generally classified among the more practical and realistic of the German Catholic theorists, and his Solidarism was, of course, the Central-Verein’s official philosophy. It is true that there was a strong dash of utopianism to Kenkel’s and Engelen’s thinking, but it was tempered by Kenkel’s realistic attention to detail and the practical orientation of many of the Bureau’s activities. In his speech quoted earlier, Kenkel distinguished between “what was ‘utopian’” and what was “not impossible”; and in publishing a detailed blueprint of a Christian corporative society, Kenkel added an editor’s note saying that what it proposed was “of course, impracticable, at least at the present time and in this country.”

Kenkel certainly did not disdain practical reforms in his commitment to total reconstruction based on vocational estates, but neither he nor Engelen wholly escaped the doctrinaire rigidity so easily engendered by adherence to an ideological system that is self-enclosed and intellectually consistent. The theoretical symmetry and perfection of Solidarism encouraged in them an attitude of superiority to those “quacks” who did not think “solidarically”; it also led them to call for ever more “fundamental” reforms. For example, Kenkel criticized the measures of the Wilson administration in 1914 as insufficiently fundamental and Engelen once characterized the AFCS resolutions on the social question as “Nothing but a sum of the present popular reforms, but no principles. Temporizing, another sign of the widest ignorance.”⁵⁴ On another occasion, Engelen remarked that if he were to address a group of Catholics who had been considering reform matters it would be equivalent to saying to them: “Gentlemen, you have busied yourselves in vain with trivial questions. Everything must take its proper place. After you have heard me, you may therefore revise all your plans again.”

The growing uneasiness about state socialism was related to the reservations Kenkel and Engelen felt toward nonsolidaristic reforms. Eventually they included the Köln-Gladbach Richtung among the opportunistic and dangerous class of reformers. This conversion to the position of the Berliners did not occur until after the war and was part of a general movement toward conservatism on the part of the Central-Verein. But there were indications from the very beginning of the social reform program that Kenkel was not entirely in harmony with the approach of the meliorist reformers in Germany. In view of his distaste for the “shattered, distracted” modern world, and his profound admiration for the Middle Ages, Kenkel was bound to feel some sympathy for the more radical corporatists who also rejected the modern world and based their system on the medieval order. Evidences of this sympathy are plentiful, most notably in Kenkel’s veneration for Karl von Vogelsang, whose extreme corporatism had a pronounced medieval flavor and whose approach to the social question has been characterized as the precise opposite of the “social realism” of Franz Hitze and the München-Gladbach school. Kenkel also referred frequently and favorably to Albert M. Weiss, a Dominican priest who wrote on social reform and became a prominent critic of the Köln-Gladbach group.

The blending of practical and utopian elements in the Central-Verein’s social program thus reflected in part the conflicting influences coming from Germany at a time of deep disagreement among Catholic social theorists. In the administration of the Central Bureau, in the activities it pursued, and in strengthening and guiding the member units of the Central-Verein, Kenkel showed a hardheaded realism; to the degree that these phases of the program had a European inspiration, that inspiration came from the meliorists who created the Volksverein. But Kenkel’s social theory lent itself to visionary speculation of a highly romantic sort, and it proposed a restructuring of American society so radical and far-reaching as to be almost by definition impracticable. Peschian Solidarism differed from the more extreme teaching of Vogelsang in that, rather than rejecting the modern world out of hand, it accepted it as the starting point for reform. But Pesch’s Solidarism also stressed corporative institutions and envisioned fundamental structural changes. Kenkel gave no indication that he saw any incompatibility between the thought of Pesch and that of Vogelsang; instead he cited both as sources of wisdom on reform and as equally reliable guides to the creation of a better society.

In combining elements of down-to-earth practicality and romantic corporatism, the Central-Verein’s social program reflected not only conflicting influences from Germany but also the personality of Frederick Kenkel, the architect of that program. Kenkel’s estrangement from the modern world, his love for the Middle Ages, and his fondness for corporative theory place him firmly in the tradition of German romanticism. But Kenkel was also a man who believed in laying solid foundations for ambitious projects and who insisted on attention to detail and making haste slowly. During the prewar era, the practical work at the Central Bureau and among the state leagues claimed most of Kenkel’s attention, and perhaps the very palpable achievements of those years, on the part of the Central-Verein and Progressive reformers generally, encouraged him to believe that the melioristic approach would suffice. But the romantic corporative vision that implied a total rejection of modern society was just beneath the surface even in the Progressive period. In the 1920’s it emerged into full view, while meliorism was repudiated. This shift in Kenkel’s social thought will be examined in Chapter VIII, but first we must trace some aspects of the Central-Verein’s experience in American society between 1909 and 1917, for this experience played a part in shaping Kenkel’s thinking.”

Central-Verein’s Social Justice publication in 1909 from the State Historical Society of Missouri

Two of the most important works we draw on for our project here at the DKZ are Fr. Coleman Barry’s “The Catholic Church and German Americans” and Philip Gleason’s follow-up work “The Conservative Reformers: German-American Catholics and the Social Order.” The former was well summarized in part in our two part series “Rise and Fall of German American Catholicism.” Where such things as the Cahenslyist controversy, the St. Raphaelsverein, and the liberal-social leanings of this group were all discussed. Gleason’s seminal work on this subject explores the values and contributions of our niche interest and posits that the German American Catholic was not a driver of early liberalism per Se and did much to emphasize their ethnic heritage and conservative values. As a conservative publication, DKZ notices there remains a faction within the right-wing movements which have felt a draw towards no-nothingism, anti-Catholicism, and an emphasis on Anglo-American identity at the cost of other European ethnic heritages in the United States. In the interest of vindicating the German American Catholic community and heritage from the accusation of being yet another foreign influence, to explain the trajectory of German American Catholicism, to explore why liberal influence seemingly won out, especially via the Central-Verein, as well as to further the academic interest in this group and their fading history today, we will be posting excerpts and summaries from Gleason’s work in a few articles. We will also seek to explore positive aspects of their influence on politics today despite the leftward directions that occurred in many places, such as in the worker movement and in unionization. In this first article we will merely summarize the introduction chapter of the work and provide some excerpts to begin the project and establish format.

Summary of Chapter 1:

This book examines the assimilation of German-American Catholics as a case study in the broader Americanization of Catholic immigrant groups in the United States. All such groups, along with the Catholic Church as a whole, underwent a process of adjustment to the American environment. Common elements included generational transitions and, for non-English speakers, language challenges. However, outcomes varied based on factors like timing of arrival, group size, and unique cultural heritage. The study traces the German Catholics’ development in the twentieth century, highlighting how their distinctive background and historical contingencies shaped their assimilation—particularly how their interest in social reform intertwined with Americanization. It aims to illuminate not only immigration and American Catholicism but also how large social processes interact with specific historical circumstances.

Historians have covered German Catholics more thoroughly than other non-English-speaking Catholic groups due to their prominence. Colman J. Barry’s The Catholic Church and German Americans provides a detailed account of the late nineteenth century, but the post-1900 period remains largely neglected. This gap is significant because the era reveals the group’s assimilation in the twentieth century. A key puzzle emerges: How did a group viewed as deeply conservative before 1900 come to be regarded as progressive or liberal in the twentieth century?

In the 1880s and 1890s, German Catholics aligned with conservative positions in Church disputes, resisting the “emergence of liberal Catholicism” described by Robert Cross. They opposed tendencies toward greater accommodation with American society. Yet by the mid-twentieth century, German Catholic influence—especially in the Midwest—was linked to forward-looking developments. Figures like Cardinal Ritter were seen as shaped by “liberal German Catholics” open to Protestant society. Writers such as Thomas Beer, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Richard Hofstadter suggested that a stronger German (versus Irish) presence might have tempered American Catholicism’s conservatism and anti-intellectualism.

The liturgical movement pioneered by Midwestern German-American Catholics, notably the Benedictines of St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota, reinforced this progressive image. Another important but less noted factor was their engagement with social reform, or “the social question,” during the Progressive Era. In 1909, the German Catholic Central-Verein launched Central-Blatt and Social Justice, the first Catholic journal in the U.S. devoted primarily to social problems. This established the Central-Verein as the most socially conscious American Catholic organization.

The group’s record invites misconceptions. One might assume German Catholics radically shifted from conservatism or were never truly conservative. Both views are incorrect. They proudly identified as conservatives before 1900 and continued to do so afterward, even while pursuing vigorous social reform. In recent decades, their conservatism reemerged clearly through sharp criticism of the welfare state and post-New Deal liberal reforms. This pattern appears dramatically in The Wanderer, now a voice of extreme conservatism in religion and politics. Founded as a German-language paper in St. Paul, it has been led by the Matt family since 1899. Joseph Matt, a key Central-Verein leader during its embrace of social reform, supported those efforts.

These apparent contradictions arise partly from the vagueness and oversimplification of “liberal” and “conservative” labels. Careful distinctions reveal that positions on social reform do not preclude conservatism elsewhere.

The book provides closer scrutiny of the German-American Catholics’ social reform engagement—not as the primary focus, but as a symptomatic lens into the group’s life and Americanization process. It explores how the program was shaped by American and European influences, linguistic and generational transitions, organizational self-preservation, interactions with other groups, and broader assimilation dynamics. Analyzing these in the most significant non-English-speaking Catholic element sheds light on the Americanization of the U.S. Catholic Church.

The study centers on the Central-Verein because it became most deeply involved with social issues. In 1901, it committed to societal reform guided by Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum and thereafter prioritized social study, criticism, and action. While organizational details may sometimes overshadow broader themes, this focus is justified: the Central-Verein was the group’s primary national structure.

German Catholic identity was fundamentally tied to faith. Immigrants were “hyphenated Americans,” “hyphenated Germans,” and “hyphenated Catholics.” Their religion remained central but differed in the U.S. context. In Germany, Catholicism was intertwined with Germanic culture in a homogeneous setting. In America, they formed a cultural minority within a Church shaped by an Anglo-American core and dominated by Irish immigrants, whose traditions varied in language, liturgy, and culture despite shared faith.

The group cannot be defined solely by geography or descent. Self-conscious identification was crucial: German-American Catholics were those who viewed themselves as united by American residence and loyalty, German origin and culture, and Catholic faith. This combination distinguished them from others. Awareness arose through contrast—recognizing who they were not. They were not simply “Americans,” due to language, religion, and cultural differences from the native majority. Nativists reinforced their outsider status. They also differed from other German immigrants: Protestants, anticlerical Forty-Eighters, and liberals. Catholics faced hostility from German liberals, sometimes more acutely than from native Americans during Know-Nothing nativism in the 1850s.

Speakers at Central-Verein conventions emphasized a tripartite identity: “We are Catholics, we are Americans, and only then are we Germans.” The novelty of this three-way combination, absent matching preexisting institutions, necessitated creating their own. National parishes served as the core ethnic institution, meeting religious needs and anchoring voluntary associations, especially mutual benefit societies for sociability and practical aid. These were often small and local.

The second generation intensified the need for deliberate self-consciousness. American-born children lacked direct ties to the German homeland. English was their primary language; American influences surrounded them. They required education in their heritage to understand themselves as fully American yet distinct. Loyalty had to be actively cultivated through defined heritage and practices. Though second-generation issues predated 1900, they intensified as German immigration declined. Without new arrivals, the American-born outnumbered the foreign-born, making the group’s survival dependent on retaining second-generation allegiance. This demanded clearer articulation of identity and ways to express it.

Ultimately, the Central-Verein was not merely the organization most engaged with social questions. It was the only formal national structure embodying the German-American Catholics as a self-conscious group. Studying it means studying the group itself. Tracing the origins and evolution of its social reform interest reveals deeper insights into twentieth-century assimilation—an important chapter in the American Catholic story.

For those new to the page, we remind the readers that German-American Catholic history is to many a history confined to old photographs and forgotten parish records. The grand German churches of the Midwest have been closed, ethnic neighborhoods dispersed, and many once-vibrant customs reduced to museum exhibits.

Yet tucked among the rolling hills of Oregon’s Willamette Valley lies a remarkable exception we will explore today.

Mount Angel is not simply a town with German ancestry—it remains one of the last places in America where German Catholic heritage still shapes the landscape, the architecture, the liturgical life, and even the beer. In fact, it’s the last monastically brewed beer in the United States!

The story of Mount Angel begins with Swiss-German Benedictine monks.

In 1882, monks from Engelberg Abbey in Switzerland established what would become Mount Angel Abbey, bringing with them centuries of Benedictine tradition. Even the town’s name is an English rendering of Engelberg—“Angel Mountain.” The abbey became the spiritual and educational center of the region, founding schools, a seminary, and serving German-speaking Catholic immigrants throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Today the monastery remains one of the largest Benedictine communities in the western United States. The monks continue the rhythm of ora et labora—prayer and work—that has defined Benedictine life for over fifteen centuries. The seminary plays a critical in the archdiocese to this day as well.

Visitors can pray at pilgrim shrines along the hill featuring stations of the cross still labeled in blackletter German as well. It also features guest houses where one may go on silent retreats to pray.

The Benedictines once brewed beer shortly after their arrival in the nineteenth century, and historical records—including an 1885 diary describing a monastery brewery—show that brewing formed part of the abbey’s early life. In recent years, the monks revived that tradition by opening the Benedictine Brewery and the St. Michael Taproom.

What makes this especially significant is that this is America’s only brewery operated by Benedictine monks, preserving a brewing tradition inherited from Central Europe (where beer even there however is often associated with Trappists).

The hops are once again grown on the abbey’s own land, just as they were by the founding monks over a century ago. Looking across the hop fields while enjoying a Helles or the aptly named beer Black Habit makes it easy to imagine nineteenth-century Mount Angel much as it once was. Beer, after all, has never been merely a beverage in Benedictine (or German) culture. Brewing is an act of hospitality—welcoming pilgrims, supporting the monastery, and sanctifying labor.

St. Mary’s Parish

No German Catholic town exists without its parish church.

Completed in 1912, St. Mary’s Catholic Church dominates downtown Mount Angel with its twin towers and unmistakably European appearance. For generations it served families who spoke German at home and practiced a distinctly German Catholic culture rooted in parish life, processions, festivals, and the liturgical calendar.

English has long replaced German in everyday worship, the church remains the heart of the community and a visible reminder that Mount Angel was built around the parish and the monastery—not the other way around. Many festivals, including Oktoberfest, open with a Mass at St Mary’s.

A Bavarian Town in Oregon

Walking through downtown, visitors quickly notice painted Bavarian façades, alpine motifs, German flags, and family names that reflect the town’s heritage. Unlike many themed tourist destinations, Mount Angel’s German character grew organically from the immigrants who settled here and built their community around the parish and the abbey.

Each September, that heritage comes alive during Mount Angel Oktoberfest. Founded in 1966, it has grown into the largest Oktoberfest in the Pacific Northwest, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors to a town of just over 4,000 people. For four days, the streets fill with brass bands, traditional dancing, German food, local beer, and celebrations of the town’s Bavarian roots.

The Glockenspiel

Perhaps nowhere is the challenge of preserving heritage more visible than in Mount Angel’s glockenspiel.

Originally designed to tell the story of the town through carved wooden figures—from the Kalapuya people to the first German settlers, Father Matthias Butsch, Prior Adelhelm Odermatt, the Benedictine Sisters, and finally a celebration of Oktoberfest—the glockenspiel was intended as a public monument to Mount Angel’s unique history.

Today, however, many visitors notice something missing, as the German restaurant within has shut down after Covid policies placed too much financial pressure on the business.

The tower no longer carries the same lively presence it once did, and its empty spaces serve as an unintended metaphor for German Catholic America itself. when it is lived rather than merely remembered. It’s external architecture however is still a focal point of the celebrations.

Mount Angel matters because it reminds us that German Catholic America is not merely a chapter in a history book. It is still possible to attend Mass beneath twin church towers, visit a Benedictine abbey founded by German-speaking monks, drink monastic beer brewed on monastery grounds with locally grown hops, and walk streets where German heritage remains woven into daily life.

Places like this deserve to be known, celebrated, and supported—not simply because they are picturesque, but because they preserve a tradition that has shaped American Catholicism for nearly two centuries.

For those searching for the living heart of German Catholic America, few destinations compare to Mount Angel, Oregon.

Gott segne Sie und danke fürs Lesen!

The Texas Hill Country is famous for its German heritage, but the story of German Catholicism stretches well beyond Fredericksburg and New Braunfels (we talked about that history here)

German Catholic settlers also established thriving farming communities across North, Central, and West Texas, building churches whose names, architecture, and parish life still bear witness to their origins.

We chose this first parish to show a unique naming convention. Remarkably, this is the only example of the name “German Catholic” still retained in a parish we found, and is located in Texas. Don’t believe it? Look up any famous historically German parish, from St. Mary’s in NYC to the St. Joseph shrine of the ICKSP in Detroit, none of them actually bear the name of “German.”

St. Boniface German Catholic Church – Olfen

Northwest of San Angelo and founded by German Catholic settlers in the 1890s, the town was named after Olfen, Westphalia, while the parish was dedicated to St. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany. The present Romanesque church, completed in 1922 after a devastating fire destroyed its predecessor, remains one of the architectural gems of West Texas. It features brick construction, soaring interior, and a commanding presence over the surrounding farmland. In an area where many Catholic churches are modern and utilitarian, St. Boniface remains a striking reminder of the beauty and permanence that German Catholic immigrants sought to build into their parishes.

The parish also weathered the hostility directed toward German Americans during the First World War. Its pastor, Fr. Joseph Meiser, narrowly escaped being tarred and feathered after parishioners intervened to protect him. Despite such pressures, St. Boniface retained both its Catholic faith and its German identity and may be one of the last examples of keeping the word “German” in the actual parish name in the US.

Moving on from the naming conventions, our next parish highlight is chosen not for the name but for its German choir. While German hymns and tunes are found in many Catholic Churches, a full blown Liederkranz is much rarer!

St. Joseph Catholic Church – San Antonio

In the heart of downtown San Antonio stands St. Joseph Catholic Church, one of the most important surviving monuments to German Catholic immigration in Texas. Founded by San Antonio’s German Catholic community in the nineteenth century, the cornerstone was laid in 1868. It reads old German script: “Siehe die Wohnung Gottes bei den Menschen," or “Behold the Dwelling of God Among Men.”

The Gothic Revival church was completed in 1876 and became the spiritual center of one of the city’s German community.

Although the parish no longer bears the word “German” in its name, its German heritage remains unusually visible. The church is still home to the San Antonio Liederkranz, a German Catholic men’s choir founded in 1892 to beautify German-language services and parish celebrations. More than 130 years later, the choir continues to sing at Masses, including liturgies featuring German, Latin, and English hymns.

The Liederkranz is a rare survivor of the old German Catholic parish culture that once existed throughout America. Originally formed to serve the German-speaking Catholic community of St. Joseph’s, it remains a living link to the immigrants who built the parish and helped shape San Antonio’s cultural identity.

The parish has fought hard through the years to maintain it’s historic site and heritage and stands as an unusually strong remnant of German heritage!

For our final selection we are focusing on one parish which should invite the reader to explore the entirety of the Painted Hills churches of Texas.

Nativity of Mary, Blessed Virgin Catholic Church – High Hill

Among the rolling farmland of Fayette County, near Schulenburg, stands one of the greatest monuments to the Catholic heritage of Central European immigrants in Texas: Nativity of Mary, Blessed Virgin Catholic Church in High Hill, often called the “Queen of the Painted Churches.”

The story of High Hill begins with the waves of German-speaking Catholic settlers who came to Texas in the nineteenth century. The surrounding area became home to communities of German, Austrian, and Czech immigrants who brought with them not only their language and customs, but also a deeply rooted Catholic tradition across their ethnic lines.

The first church at High Hill was established in the nineteenth century to serve this growing Catholic population. As the community flourished, parishioners built the present Nativity of Mary church, completed in 1906. Designed by San Antonio architect Leo M. J. Dielmann, who had studied architecture in Germany, the church combined Gothic Revival architecture with the artistic traditions of European Catholicism.

Dielmann himself was an important German American figure in Texas. Wikipedia states:

Dielmann was born in San Antonio, Texas to John C. Dielmann, a German immigrant, and Maria (Gros) Dielmann, the daughter of immigrants. His father was a stonemason who joined a construction and supply business, Pauly and Dielmann. An active Catholic layman, he was elected the first president of the St. Joseph's Society of St. Joseph's R.C. Church and then served as first president of the Deutsch Römische Katholischer Staatsverband von Texas (the Catholic State League of Texas).

Like his father, Dielmann was a leading Catholic layman, as a member of the St. Joseph's Society of St. Joseph's R.C. Church, the Knights of Columbus, San Antonio Liederkranz, the Beethoven Männerchor, and as president of the Harmonia Lodge of the Sons of Hermann. He also served as a city council member in San Antonio in 1913 and 1914, and was a long-time member of the San Antonio Public Library board of Trustees.

Its interior was decorated in 1912, transforming the small rural parish into one of the most breathtaking Catholic sanctuaries in Texas.

High Hill is part of the remarkable collection of Painted Churches of Texas, a group of historic rural churches built by German and Czech immigrants throughout the Schulenburg and Fayette County region. Their painted ceilings, ornate altars, stained glass, and symbolic artwork are some of the crown jewels of Texas architecture.

Today, Nativity of Mary remains an active parish and a living witness to the faith of the men who built it. Their bells still call the faithful to worship, and the parish continues the religious heritage that German-speaking and Central European Catholics brought to the Texas frontier more than a century ago.

There are endless German Catholic parishes in Texas we could showcase, but we wanted to show these three to give examples that will allow the reader to continue to research such examples from any angle: linguistic, musical, architectural, or any other interest.

Gott segne Sie!

-DAKZ

Part 2: Surviving German Catholic Culture in New York City

While the historic German-Catholic parishes of Manhattan have largely faded or been repurposed, the legacy of German faith and culture endures in several notable institutions and events. One of the most prominent is the Leo House, founded in 1889 to provide lodging and spiritual support to German-speaking Catholic immigrants. Still self-identifying on their website as a German Catholic Guest house, this facility has broadened its clientele but still honor’s its past, which features figures we have previously explored here on the DAKV Zeitung.

Established in 1889 by German businessman Peter Paul Cahensly, The Leo House was founded to provide a welcoming refuge for German Catholic immigrants arriving in New York City. Recognizing the challenges faced by newcomers, Cahensly sought to create a sanctuary that would offer both spiritual and practical support. The establishment was named after Pope Leo XIII, who not only lent his name but also contributed a significant donation of $50,000 to the project, underscoring the deep-rooted Catholic ethos of the institution.

From its inception, The Leo House has been more than just a place to stay. Operated by the Sisters of St. Agnes of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin (another region which comes up often in German Catholic studies!), the guesthouse became a vital community hub for German-speaking Catholics. Its mission was to ensure that immigrants could maintain their faith, find solace, and integrate into their new environment without losing touch with their cultural roots.

Over the years, The Leo House has adapted to the changing dynamics of New York City while steadfastly preserving its German Catholic identity. Today, it continues to serve as a nonprofit Catholic guesthouse, offering affordable lodging to travelers from around the world. Despite the evolving landscape, The Leo House remains a testament to the enduring legacy of German Catholic immigrants in New York City, embodying a spirit of hospitality and faith that has welcomed generations of visitors

The German-American Steuben Parade, held annually each September along Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, is one of the most iconic celebrations of German-American culture in New York. The parade honors Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, the Prussian-born military officer who played a pivotal role in training and organizing the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. Steuben’s contribution to American independence made him a lasting symbol of German-American pride, discipline, and civic engagement.

The day begins with a traditional Catholic Mass, reflecting the enduring role of faith in the German-American community. Historically, this Mass has been held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral or nearby German-American parishes, anchoring the festivities in a spiritual tradition that has accompanied German immigrants since their arrival. Following the Mass, participants march along Fifth Avenue, showcasing German cultural societies, marching bands from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, floats, and Trachten.

Beyond the parade itself, the event is accompanied by festivals, concerts, and community gatherings in Central Park and throughout the city, often featuring German music, cuisine, and folk dances. It also hosts the crowning of a Miss German America every year. The Steuben Parade is the largest remaining culmination of centuries of German-American heritage in New York. It remains the most widely recognized and celebrated expression of German-American identity in the city today.

My apologies for delayed content, this was a draft folder for the last year and I wanted to make sure this series was wrapped up at the least. Auf Wiedersehen!

We will not focus too much on all of German New York history as it is simply too broad (in 1855, New York had the largest German population of any city outside Berlin and Vienna). In fact, New York is one of the last American cities with their original German language newspaper still in print. Starting in earnest in the 1850s, many Germans lived in “Little Germany” in Manhattan, also known as Kleinedeutschland or Dutchtown. The population quickly dwindled over the next 50 years but was exacerbated by the famous General Slocum disaster which killed off many of the most prominent residents of Kleindeutschland. Wikipedia summarizes:

The PS General Slocum was an American sidewheel passenger steamboat built in Brooklyn, New York, in 1891. During her service history, she was involved in a number of mishaps, including multiple groundings and collisions.

On June 15, 1904, General Slocum caught fire and sank in the East River of New York City. At the time of the disaster, she was on a chartered run carrying members of St. Mark's Evangelical Lutheran Church (German Americans from Little Germany, Manhattan) to a church picnic. An estimated 1,021 out of the 1,342 people on board died.

The General Slocum disaster was the worst maritime disaster of the 20th century until the sinking of the RMS Titanic surpassed it eight years later in 1912. It remains the worst maritime disaster in New York City history, and the second-worst on U.S. waterways, after the explosion and sinking of the steamboat Sultana, and until the September 11 attacks in 2001 was the deadliest manmade disaster of any sort in the New York area^.

The blow to the community was severe and far reaching beyond the Lutheran church and Little Germany never really recovered. Many of the remaining Germans went to Yorkville and to other parts of the US such as Chicago. That being said, there are still some surviving remnants of German culture in that part of Manhattan you can read about here. We are here to discuss Catholic history however and without further drift will discuss the most prominent churches of the German Catholics of New York.

Originally the most important was Deutsche Römisch-Katholische St. Nicholas Kirche, or St. Nicholas German Roman-Catholic Church (notably included it’s German identity in it’s name, something rarely seen today, certainly not found in the German remnant diaspora). Founded in 1833, St Nicholas was in fact the national church of the German speaking population of the US. In fact, St. John Neumann celebrated his first mass there! St. John Neumann, a German-Czech American, is the first canonized American bishop and only canonized male US citizen. As the parish grew, disputes led to the founding of Most Holy Redeemer parish as well, which we will revisit in a moment. By 1848 the parish outgrew it’s first building and built a large Gothic Revival building, pictured below.

However, as the German population dwindled over the next century or so the building was least to Sloveniens for a time (since by ‘35 had only about 50 Germans were attending) and then sadly demolished in 1960, though the rectory building on the left still stands.

Most Holy Redeemer parish still stands, however. Founded in 1844 by German Redemptorists, this church was once called “The German Cathedral of Lower East Side.”

Many German Catholics faced a lack of religious support in the city, prompting the arrival of the Redemptorist Order in 1832. Over time, the Redemptorists worked to serve the German community, including founding Saint Nicholas Church in 1841, but they encountered significant challenges, including "Trusteeism," a lay management system that hindered the church's governance.

In 1844, Father Gabriel Rumpler established a new church, the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, in response to overcrowded conditions and continued issues with Saint Nicholas. He purchased land on East Third and Fourth Streets, and by 1844, the first temporary church was dedicated. Despite a growing anti-immigrant sentiment, including opposition to Irish Catholics, German immigration surged in 1848/49, increasing the demand for church services.

Construction on a larger, permanent church began in 1850 under Father Rumpler's leadership but was completed by his successor, Father Joseph Mueller. The church was consecrated on November 28, 1852, and became known as the "German Cathedral." It was celebrated as a testament to the hard work and faith of the immigrant German community. The church's design was grand, featuring Byzantine-style architecture and intricate details. The opening was a major event in the city, and it became a symbol of Catholic devotion and immigrant solidarity in the Lower East Side. The story of the church for the next century is quite long and contain smany important details, so we will turn the reader now to a block of text taken from the parish’s own website for all interested in a detailed history:

New York City was growing and moving uptown at the turn of the century. Twenty-third Street was now the city's shopping center. The improvement of transit facilities gave impetus to the scheme to annex Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and parts of the Bronx to New York City in 1874. Jimmy Walker, who would become mayor of New York City, attended La Salle Academy which was a business school at this time. There were still 2,000 farms in the city, and more than 1.5 million New Yorkers lived in slums. The area bordered by the East River, East 14th Street, Third Avenue, the Bowery, and Catherine Street was the most populated area in the city. Although the composition of the immigrants coming into the United States was gradually changing at the turn of the century, Germans and their descendants still made up the majority of the population of the country. Prejudice against German immigrants still ran high, and the and the Germans of Most Holy Redeemer kept mostly to themselves, revolving life around the church and school. A bowling alley and shooting gallery opened on September 23, 1901, and a bowling club was organized. Notes written by the rector of the church in 1901 show that the parishioners and also the priests and brothers enjoyed many activities together. Neighboring church communities which were also comprised of immigrants joined with Most Holy Redeemer in holding events. "The Italians attached to Saint Brigid's Church, 8th Street and Avenue B, had an entertainment in our hall tonight. Admission 10 cents. Reserved seats 15 cents. The audience...seemed to enjoy the performance very much." Diaries of our church for the same year also show community outings to Plum Beach, Saint Joseph Orphan Asylum, and Long Island Sound. The parishioners of the church mourned in unison the death of President McKinley; on September 19, 1901, the church bells tolled from 3,00 pm to 4,00 pm and services were held. But not all Germans in the city were Catholic; many were Protestant, particularly Lutheran. Many parishioners of Most Holy Redeemerhad relatives and friends who belonged to The German Lutheran Church of Saint Mark, located on Sixth Street. Saint Mark's held its annual outing on June 15, 1904, and the congregation of Saint Mark's and their friends and relatives who were parishioners of Most Holy Redeemer boarded the General Slocum.The excursion boat slowly made its way up the East River with 1,600 happy passengers. Just as the General Slocum neared Hell Gate in the East River, a fire broke out. The captain made a decision to press on to the nearest island rather than head toward the shore. The rapidly spreading fire and the error in the captain's judgment caused the deaths of 1,200 passengers. The whole city listened to the news in horror, and the details of the tragedy spread even around the world. There was no house in the neighborhood that did not have at least two coffins, and one house had as many as twenty-seven. A Solemn Requiem Mass held at Most Holy Redeemer was attended by Protestants as well as Catholics. Although the Mass was celebrated at 5,30 am, the church was crowded to overflowing. The following Sunday the tragedy of the General Slocum was the topic of the sermons in every church of the diocese. Even William II, Emperor of Germany, sent a message of sympathy to President Theodore Roosevelt. Although the General Slocum disaster was not forgotten, other events of the period brightened life in the city. One particular event in 1904 changed the life of the citizens of New York City. On October 27, a subway was opened from City Hall to 145th Street, a distance of nine miles. Archbishop Farley blessed the new subway, and Mayor McClellan delivered a moving speech. By nightfall that evening, 35,000 passengers had the thrill of riding the subway. The heralding of the subway system in New York City, coupled with sad memories of the General Slocum disaster, also changed life at Most Holy Redeemer. The German parishioners who could not forget the horrible tragedy of the summer excursion moved away from the parish. The subway gave others the mobility to discover areas of the city out of their locale and then the opportunity to settle in those less populated neighborhoods or "suburbs". As a result, church records of Most Holy Redeemer show a marked decline of the parish by 1908. The first years of the 20th century brought many changes to life in the United States and New York City. Indeed, life was changing around the world. The Industrial Revolution had created a new class of people - those working in factories, even children, for pennies a day. The industrialization of society depleted workers from the agricultural industry and left it debilitated. These low paid factory workers migrated to overcrowded cities and many areas of cities around the world turned to ghettos. On March 25, 1911, a tragic event took place not far from Most Holy Redeemer Church. The Triangle Waist Co. was located at 22 Washington Place near Greene Street, one block east of Washington Square Park. A fire broke out at the end of the day in the factory, and in only ten minutes 441 workers died. Unsafe working conditions prevented the factory workers from escaping from the building. This horrible episode in history sparked union activities in the city and throughout the United States. An unrest circulated among this new class of workers in the United States, and also among the farmers in other parts of the world. The discernment with their lives led workers to revolt in thought and then in action around the world. New York's Lower East Side, where most of the city's laborers lived, became a hotbed of "liberal" ideas. Marxist activities were formulated around the Tompkins Square Park neighborhood and carried out in other parts of the city. There were early signs of union activities spurred on by the deplorable conditions in factories. Although the parish of Most Holy Redeemer sat in the middle of the fomenting revolution, the German, and now increasingly Italian, congregation for the most part did not join in. In 1912, the year that the Titanic sank, Father Joseph Schneider, rector of Most Holy Redeemer, was appointed Provincial of the Baltimore Province. Although the parishioners were unhappy to see him go, they were jubilant because of the honor given him. Father Schneider had the reputation of a builder, and before his departure from Most Holy Redeemer, he planned many renovations and alterations. Father Lieberth, who succeeded Father Schneider as rector, carried out these extensive plans which took six years to complete. The front of the church, which had been of common red brick, was covered with polished granite and smooth, white Indian limestone.The great tower was redesigned in the Romanesque style and lowered from 250 feet to 232 feet. The cupola of iron tiles was covered by copper, and on the top of the cupola a richly gilded cross was placed. The bells were reset. New light oak wood pews replaced the old solid black walnut ones. The sanctuary murals of the Ascension and Pentecost were retouched, and two other murals, Emmaus and Peter and John at the Temple, were added. The company of Zundel from Long Island designed the present stained glass windows. Of course, none of these wonderful renovations, alterations, and refurbishings could have been done without the generous support of the parishioners. In each stained glass window the name of the parishioner whose contribution made the work possible was memorialized. Plaques engraved with the names of generous donors had been set alongside altars throughout the church. One parishioner in particular, Mr. Rebeschung, a handyman and electrical mechanic, was experimenting with another idea. On January 11, 1914, he strung wires from the sacristy to the bell tower in an attempt to ring one of the bells by means of electricity. He proceeded to the sacristy, pressed a button, and to his excitement his experiment worked. His next task was to coordinate the bells so that they could be rung together, and he was successful. Mr. Rebeschung earned the title of the inventor of this system of electric bellringing, and Most Holy Redeemer became the first church or building in the world to have this system…

At this time World War I was ravaging Europe. Fortunately, the United States, for the most part, was unaffected. However, there was a growing prejudice against German-Americans. Dachshunds were kicked on the street and then were renamed Liberty Pups. Sauerkraut was renamed Liberty Cabbage. German language lessons were banned in schools. This distrust and hatred were felt by the Germans of Most Holy Redeemer. The Jaeger Society worked hard during World War I to defend German-Americans against bigotry and to protect church property. Father Joseph Schmidt was pastor of the church during the war. Because of partly successful bombings at Saint Patrick's Cathedral and Saint Alphonsus on Canal Street and because arson was again rampant, Father Schmidt took all possible precautions to protect the church. The war also brought other difficulties, including food and fuel shortages. There were various kinds of rationings and social activities to aid war victims such as Liberty Bond drives, the Catholic War Drive, and clothing drives. The parish participated in all of these projects. Throughout the dark days of the war there were also bright times. In 1916 a celebration commemorating the Golden Jubilee of the restoration of the picture of Perpetual Help was held, as well as the American Catholic Federation Convention. Most Holy Redeemer served as host to a group which attended the convention. Another celebration was held, this one in honor of Father Elias Schauer who celebrated the Diamond Jubilee of his profession. Father Schauer first came to Most Holy Redeemer in 1864, shortly after his ordination. Ten years later he was made Provincial, and during his term he opened many houses in the United States and Canada. He returned to Most Holy Redeemer at the age of 72 and became the faithful chronicler of parish events. In 1915 the parish started to decline noticeably. Each year the congregation decreased in numbers. There have been many opinions about what contributed to the decline. Some say the Slocum disaster caused the beginning of the decline. Others feel that World War I had much to do with it - many men of the parish never returned home. Another cause of the decline was the Spanish influenza. A theory put forth by a Redemptorist historian was that because of the "undesirable element of Socialists and Communists into the neighborhood, nearly all the descendants of the old German families have moved elsewhere." The most probable cause was that the latest wave of immigrants were non-Catholic. Although the congregation declined, the Redemptorists at Most Holy Redeemer continued to minister to the parishioners and were kept busy in many ways. Confessions, communions, baptisms, and marriages were more numerous…

Unfortunately, the peace that the United States experienced for just a short twenty years was abruptly interrupted by World War II on December 7, 1941. Although first hostilities and then war had been ravaging Europe for several years, America had not been touched. But by 1941 the United States began fighting both a Pacific front against the Japanese and a European front against the Germans and Italians. The war took its toll on Most Holy Redeemer in many ways. The congregation of the church still remained German with many Italians, and these two groups of Americans were discriminated against during the war. Also many parishioners were called to serve in the war which left families without husbands, fathers, and brothers for several years. Some men never returned home. Women parishioners started working in factories and taking on other jobs that were traditionally done by men. Many of these jobs were to support the war effort such as making clothing and parachutes for the armed forces. The congregation of Most Holy Redeemer also supported the war effort in other ways. The church participated in bond drives as it had done in World War I, and the Cadets and the Band joined each neighborhood block in raising the block flag in honor of the men from the block who were serving in the war. The Church, as well as its parishioners, was affected by fuel and food rationing…

In October 1954 the status of the Church of the Most Holy Redeemer was changed. The church had been a national parish to care for German-speaking people anywhere, but in 1954 it became a diocesan territorial parish with defined boundaries: from the south side of Fourth Street to the east side of First Avenue to the west side of Avenue B to the north side of Stanton Street to the west side of Clinton Street to the east side of Allen Street.

This concludes our discussion of the historic German parishes of the Big Apple. In Part II we will take a look at some surviving examples of German Catholic culture in New York, New York.

Sources & Further reading:

What's Left of Little Germany in NYC, Kleindeutschland - Untapped New York

History of Most Holy Redeemer

This short entry is intended to be one of many memorials to the giants of the Catholic faith in the German-American community, many of whom have had their contributions forgotten to time.

The Most Reverend John Martin Henni, D.D. 1844 - 1881

Rvrnd. John Martin Henni was born on June 15, 1805, in Misanenga, Switzerland. He began his priestly service in Ohio and served as an itinerant minister and pastor of predominantly German Catholics in the Ohio Valley region. Henni was chosen as the first bishop of the newly created Diocese of Milwaukee in 1843 and was consecrated a bishop on March 19, 1844, in Cincinnati.

Bishop Henni wrote appeal letters describing life in the new diocese to the Ludwigs-Missionverein, a Bavarian society founded to support missionary activity in the United States. He established the first German-language newspaper in Milwaukee, Der Wahrheitsfreund (The Friend of Truth), and supported the English-language Catholic newspapers as well.

Henni was a German-speaking Swiss who desired to build a strong German Catholic community that preserved language and ethnic traditions, though he still welcomed English-speaking Catholics to develop their own parishes and institutions, despite insinuations to the contrary during the Cahenslyist controversies.

He created a related controversy in 1878 when he requested that fellow German, Michael Heiss, be appointed as his coadjutor with right of succession. English-speaking Catholics protested, but Henni’s request was eventually granted.

Archbishop Henni died on September 7, 1881 in Milwaukee after 37 years of service, having built the Archdiocese from the ground up and ushering in a new era of flourishing for the Wisconsin German community. He is buried in the crypt of the Cathedral of Saint John the Evangelist in Milwaukee, WI.

Sources: 

Archdiocese of Milwaukee: https://www.archmil.org/ArchdioceseofMilwaukee/history/MC-017-Henni-Letters.pdf

Special Collections Archives and Manuscript Holdings Databases

Controversies, Archbishop Henni, and Cahensly (again).

This is an appendix article which is made up of bulk quotation and is simply meant to support and provide a backdrop for “The German Triangle of the West Part IV: Milwaukee, WI. as well as our series “The Rise and Fall of German-American Catholicism.”

As discussed in Part 1 of our series on the rise of German Catholics in America and in the our series on The German Triangle, Milwaukee WI was the largest hotspot in the 1800s for German immigration to the US. German ancestry is still the largest claimed ancestry group in Wisconsin and in Milwaukee itself! Their story is long and fascinating, but we will keep our discussion on topic to the German Catholics of Milwaukee. This community was so large that it was the center of a highly important set of controversies, including the Cahenslyist Controversy, which are quite complicated. We will make use here of large quotations from (our oft-cited) “The Catholic Church and German Americans” by Colman Barry (OSB) as an appendix to the main article.

“No decade in the history of the Church in the United States evidenced a more gradual yet relentless build-up of tension and emerging conflict than the years of the 1880's. During this period procedural and racial differences on a practical level, though seemingly unrelated, crystallized the basic issues which were to occupy Catholic leaders both clerical and lay in the years ahead. These issues broadened and intensified until by 1891 they broke forth in charges and countercharges of Americanism and Cahenslyism. When these procedural and racial differences of the 1880's were combined in the 1890's with supposed doctrinal errors relating to the school question, Heckerism, liberalism, and minimism, a major controversy ensued which has been termed "Americanism." Throughout the entire period, and perhaps basic to its development, were German organizations on a national scale,and the growing demands of the Germans resulting from their mounting immigration to the United States.

This fermentation process of the 1880's began in the so-called "German triangle of the West," which embraced the areas centering around Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. In all three localities the Church had been organized into provinces with archiepiscopal sees.

The first public indication of dissatisfaction within this triangular region came from Milwaukee in 1878, where Archbishop John Martin Henni, the first ordinary of that jurisdiction, petitioned the Holy See for a coadjutor with right of succession. After a long and fruitful tenure, which began in 1843, growing infirmity of body compelled him to seek assistance, and he submitted to the Congregation of Propaganda the names of Bishops Michael Heiss, of La Crosse, Joseph Dwenger, C.PP.S., of Fort Wayne, and Francis Xavier Krautbauer, of Green Bay, as his three choices. He also notified the other American archbishops of his decision and requested them, according to one of the regulations of the Second Council of Baltimore, to submit their opinions to Rome on the Milwaukee succession.

Even before +Henni had made this move a number of priests of Milwaukee had written to Archbishop James Gibbons of Baltimore and had requested him to consider their position in this matter. 

Reverend George L. Willard, pastor of St. Joseph's Church, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, drew a picture of the Church in that area for Gibbons.

He explained that he himself was a convert from Protestantism, an American whose ancestors had settled in the country before the Declaration of Independence and had fought in the American Revolution.

Willard was now very anxious that the powerful organization of German priests in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, whom their good archbishop had induced to come there, should not be successful in securing a German as successor to Henni. Owing to the feeble health of the Archbishop, these priests, he explained, had been more assiduous in their efforts and more importunate in their demands to have Bishop Heiss transferred from La Crosse to Milwaukee and Reverend Kilian Flasch, rector of St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee, appointed as bishop of La Crosse. He said that the American and Irish priests had remained quiet up to then, thinking there could scarcely be a possibility of another German bishop in Milwaukee, but they now felt they must act. He stated:

I have said Holy Mass, that God would direct me to write the truth in all charity to you. I think my mind is wholly divested of hatred to the Germans. I wish them all well, but would rather see them, like St. Paul, become all things to all men. Not that I love the Dutch less, but I love our Holy Religion more.

Whenever one or two German families settled, he continued, a mixed congregation was formed according to the opinion of the German priests of Wisconsin, and this congregation then had to be presided over by a German priest even if there be one hundred or more Irish families in the same place. This was the foundation for Archbishop Henni's frequent statement that he must have all German priests for his diocese. The basis of Willard's objection was, as he said, that:

…these German priests have frequent meetings, the principal and ulterior object of which is to perpetuate a young Germany here. . . . These priests seem to forget the Unity and Catholicity of the Church to perpetuate the curse of Babel in Language. Their great endeavors are to make everything foreign and German, to make them obnoxious to Americans. So long as the priests care more for sauerkraut and its concomitants than they do for the souls of the Americans, they are not very likely to convert them. And thus practically one great object of the existence of the Church of God here is frustrated. Over one half (by far) of the inhabitants of the state are Catholic. The great majority of the Catholics speak English. Only a small minority in comparison are real Germans. The work of the Church here is twofold: to convert the Americans and preserve our own. By this way of acting neither of these objects can be well gained.

On the following day Archbishop Gibbons received another letter from a committee of Milwaukee priests made up of Reverends P. F.

Pettit, pastor of St. Raphael's Church, Madison; H. F. Fairbanks, pastor of St. Patrick's Church, Whitewater; James J. Keogh, St. John's Cathedral, Milwaukee; Thomas Fagan and James J. Keenan, St. Francis Seminary and Pio Nono College respectively; and again George L. Willard, Fond du Lac. They asked for a remedy of what they considered to be existing evils and stressed the danger of the appointment of a German coadjutor archbishop. They asserted that there had not been one English-speaking bishop or ecclesiastical offcial in either Milwaukee or the two suffragan sees of the state, La Crosse and Green Bay. They further claimed that the English-speaking Catholics were the most numerous and that nearly all others understood English, the language of the country. Despite this fact, St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee had German officials and only two of the thirteen professors were English-speaking; in the Dioceses of la Crosse and Green Bay there were only five and four English-speaking priests respectively; the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who taught in the parochial schools of the area, were thoroughly German in their spirit and rule. These priests were worried about the future of the Church and the Catholicity of the children under what they termed the "thorough and complete rule of one nationality, which chance has placed in its possession, and a seeming determination on the part of that nationality to keep all the influence and authority in its own hands, and within the province of Milwaukee, to build up a new Germany in the Church." They asked that consideration be given to the vast population outside the Church which was English-speaking, since the Church had always in every state taken cognizance of the language of the country.

Archbishop Gibbons wrote to Archbishop John J. Williams of Boston after receiving these letters and explained that he was anxious to gratify the venerable Archbishop of Milwaukee by recommending his names, but at the same time he felt that the memorial of the Milwaukee priests was worthy of some consideration. Williams concurred with Gibbons and suggested that the whole case should be stated clearly to the Propaganda. To Williams the most prudent decision would be to have someone appointed who would be both satisfactory to the German element while at the same time taking an interest in others not German. To the English convert, James F. Wood, Archbishop of Philadelphia, such a choice would be Bishop Dwenger, of Fort Wayne, since he was born in America of German Parents, and had a perfect knowledge of both German and English. Wood felt that the statistics advanced by the Milwaukee priests gave substance to their complaints, and he continued:

“The whole Province seems to be pretty thoroughly germanised. Now if this defect could be corrected or even mitigated by the choice of a future Archbishop in the person of a coadjutor cum jure successions, it would certainly be very desirable. The appointment of either the others named, would confirm, perpetuate, and intensify the german-ising process usque ad infnitum. I think we know that this would be a calamity for the English speaking portion of the population.”

When the Congregation of the Propaganda received Archbishop Henni's terna they informed him that he had not followed the directives of the Second Council of Baltimore, since he had not asked the advice and opinion of his suffragan bishops in this matter. Accordingly, the bishops of La Crosse, Green Bay, St. Paul, and the vicariates of North Dakota and Marquette were assembled in Milwaukee on September 4. Bishop Thomas L. Grace, of St. Paul, reported to Gibbons on the results of the meeting. He stated that it was only with great difficulty that. he succeeded in obtaining the consent of the other bishops present to have the name of an American prelate proposed as a candidate for the appointment. Grace supported Bishop John Lancaster Spalding, of Peoria, who spoke both German and English and who had created a favorable impression in Milwaukee following his lectures he delivered there. Catholics and non-Catholics, both English and German-speaking, said Grace, had expressed the highest esteem for Bishop Spalding.

On the evening before the meeting the Vicar-General of Milwaukee, the Very Reverend Martin Kundig, visited Grace and urged him for the sake of religion to do all in his power to have Spalding's name on the list of candidates. Kundig had assured him that it was a false impression that the German people would not be satisfied with any other than a German bishop, since there was an intelligent and influential group among the German Catholics who leaned toward Spalding. Kundig feared there would be no change in policy if either of the German candidates on the list should receive the appointment as coadjutor. Kundig stated that fervent prayers were being offered through his urgency in several religious communities and pious societies of laymen for Spalding's nomination. At the meeting itself Grace was able to persuade the bishops to place Spalding's name third on the list, following Bishop Heiss in first place and Bishop Krautbauer in second. "The opposition to Rt. Rev. Spalding on the part of three Bishops," he told Gibbons, "had no other ground than that the Bishop was not a German."

While this new terna was being forwarded to Rome the whole matter entered the public forum in the Milwaukee area with unfortunate results. The German professors at St. Francis Seminary were accused of having petitioned Rome for a German coadjutor, while extreme and intemperate individuals, like the Irish priest, Thomas Fagan, representing a minority of two on the seminary faculty, took what they considered their complaints against Bishops Heiss and Krautbauer into the secular papers and held up their characters and actions to ridicule. Fagan asserted that Heiss could not write grammatical English and that he blundered in public addresses, while Krautbauer could not get along in his own diocese. The two local Catholic weeklies, the English language Catholic Citizen and the German language Columbia, clashed in an editorial battle over nationalistic attitudes toward the succession. The rumor that the seminary priests had petitioned Rome proved baseless, but not before the editor of the Catholic Citizen went to the extreme of sending the seminary professors a document to sign, denying that they had prepared a petition. The Columbia claimed that all this talk of a plot was really an attempt to distract attention from the real conspiracy on the part of English-speaking Catholics to end German "rule." Archbishop Henni finally felt constrained to issue a strong circular to his priests condemning this public agitation. He reminded them that Rome was to make the ultimate decision, and that any discussion in public print could only bring discord and disgrace to their archdiocese. He branded the charges against the seminary professors as entirely false and as a slander to his dearest institution. Then he went on to condemn those priests who had heaped insults upon his close friend, former secretary and faithful colaborer, Bishop Heiss of La Crosse, a man who was, he contended, distinguished for his piety, deep learning, and ardent zeal for religion.

This, fortunately, put an end to public commotion. All waited throughout the spring of 1879 for the decision from Rome. On May 17 Giovanni Cardinal Simeoni, prefect of the Congregation of Propa-ganda, wrote again to Archbishop Henni and informed him that the cardinals of the Propaganda had met on the question of the Milwraukee coadjutorship. They did not feel that Heiss should be transferred from La Crosse because of the condition of his own health and, too, because such a move would be detrimental to that diocese in so far as they could not easily find a suitable successor.

Simeoni asked Henni again about his opinions on the succession of Bishop Spalding to Milwaukee, and stated that he would have been appointed if it had not appeared from the Archbishop's letters that this would be less satisfactory to him. The Archbishop was also asked to present names of suitable priests for the position, since the congregation was not favorable to transferring bishops from one see to another.

Documentary evidence is not available on the details of this matter, but one year later, on April 9, 1880, Bishop Heiss was transferred from La Crosse to Milwaukee, and Very Reverend Kilian Flash, rector of St. Francis Seminary, was appointed Bishop of La Crosse in June of that year. When Heiss succeeded to the metropolitan see of Milwaukee, following the death of Archbishop Henni, the Coadjutor Bishop of St. Paul, John Ireland, delivered the sermon at the conferring of his pallium on April 23, 1882. Six days later, when the new Archbishop received a public welcome at Notre Dame Convent, the chaplain of the sisters, Peter M. Abbelen, gave the address of welcome." This man, soon to become the vicar-general of Archbishop Heiss, and Bishop Ireland, soon to be metropolitan of the new archiepiscopal see of St. Paul, would clash publicly over the German question long before the ten-year administration of Heiss was com-pleted. At that time the question of Heiss's successor would divide the American hierarchy even more decidedly.”

Milwaukee WI was the largest hotspot in the 1800s for German immigration to the US, & German ancestry is still the largest claimed ancestry group in Wisconsin, and in Milwaukee itself! Their story is long and fascinating, but we will keep our discussion on topic to the German Catholics of Milwaukee. The background as to why the Germans came here can be found in our Rise and Fall of German-American Catholicism series and the general background for their move to the Midwest can be explored in the earlier entries of our Triangle of the West series. We also strongly recommend reaching the appendix article on our Substack to read about the controversies surrounding the foundations of the German parishes of Milwaukee and the Midwest at large.

We will suffice to say here that the massive social and economic upheavals of the mid-19th century pushed many Germans to seek a better life near Chicago and especially in the cheap farmlands to the north around Milwaukee. So many Germans moved here that at one time the city was known as Das Deutsche Athen (The German Athens). By 1910, Germans made up about 50% of the city population. In the Catholic Church, so many Germans, lay and clergy, came in that other ethnic groups felt that the Germans were taking over the region. As the populations grew even more, Swiss-born John Henni became the first Archbishop of Milwaukee in 1843 at the establishment of the diocese, despite American and Irish priests complaining about german-speaker’s institutional strength to the Holy See and voicing their concerns that American Catholics would be overlooked. +Henni dedicated the earliest days of the diocese to the support of ethnic Germans throughout the region, supporting German-language Catholic schools & parishes and making the city extremely appealing and friendly to German speaking immigrants. St. Francis Seminary, which still operates, was founded by +Henni and at one point soon after had only 2 English speaking professors for another 11 taught exclusively in German. 

On the secular side, the Milwaukee encyclopedia says of the 1840s: “German-American trade unions, choral and folk culture societies, sharpshooting clubs, aid societies, and fraternal orders formed in Milwaukee in the 1840s, and elite cultural institutions and radical political groups proliferated the following decade. Among them, the Milwaukee Musical Society quickly included other Americans, the German and English Academy offered private bilingual education, and the Turnverein combined gymnastics and German culture.”

The Germans here also gave rise to Milwaukee’s long history of being one of the only American cities long dominated by a Socialist Party: “For all the divisions among German immigrants, they agreed on their superiority over other Americans when it came to fostering meaningful human interactions and Gemütlichkeit. As the Milwaukee-born son of a German woman wrote, “The Yankees were regarded as a class of bloodless and soulless individuals who worshiped the almighty dollar, constantly sought to practice paternalism over the newcomer, and lacked an appreciation for the higher and nobler impulses of life.” To introduce other Americans to German culture and meet their own emotional needs, German Americans opened biergartens and held festivals. The Volksfest of 1852 was a prime example of religious and secular organizations coming together to parade, enjoy German music and sports demonstrations, and, importantly, drink. Immigrants considered alcohol consumption integral to their way of life, and defending the right to drink often became a political rallying cry.” (Check out the story of nearby Chicago’s Lager Beer Riot of 1855). By the 1890’s, Beer dynasties such as the Pabst Family also dominated the city.

Returning to the Catholic side of our story, let us explore the original German parishes of Milwaukee (Eventually, we will expand to other parts of Wisconsin as well). 

Old St. Mary’s was perhaps the most prominent German parish. The parish website offers a lovely synopsis of their history as follows:

“Old Saint Mary Parish and the City of Milwaukee, both established in 1846, are the same age. This pioneer parish stands as living testimony of the faith of Milwaukee’s early German Catholic immigrants. Through personal sacrifice and financial help from Bavarian mission societies, they gave life to their hopes and dreams for their own church. Of the many societies that then flourished, the most important was the Saint Anne Women’s Society (Sanct Anna Frauenverein), founded on October 6, 1844. This group of women were the prime movers in the establishment of this church. The society is still active today. The first Pastor was Father Michael Heiss, who later became the second Archbishop of Milwaukee.

The church was designed by the renowned architect Victor Schulte who then went on to design the new cathedral and the new seminary for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Among the artistic treasures of Old Saint Mary is the painting depicting the Annunciation above the High Altar, a personal gift from King Ludwig I of Bavaria. This painting has hung in the church since 1848 and is attributed to the Munich court artist, Franz Xaver Glink. The Stations of the Cross, also painted in Munich, was the gift of the parish Saint John Young Men’s Sodality. Three Bronze Church Bells named Mary, Mary Ann and Mary Magdalene, were cast in Munich and added in 1868. The clock in the tower was installed in 1860. The wooden hand carved High Altar, an irreplaceable work of art, was purchased in 1848. The church organ, installed in 1871, was destroyed in 1893 by fire. The new organ, with the present hand carved organ case, was installed in 1894 and was expanded and updated in 1949.

Several beautiful statues adorn the church. In the nave, as you face the altar, to your left is St. Peter (holding the keys of heaven and earth) and St. John the Evangelist (with the scroll and the eagle). Directly across from these, you have the statutes of St. Paul (with the downward sword) and St. James (with a fuller’s staff, the object of his martyrdom). In the sanctuary, as you face the High Altar, to your left is St. Anthony of Padua (holding the Christ Child) and St. Francis of Assisi (holding the Cross). On the opposite wall there is a representation of St. Anne, the Mother of Mary and Grandmother of Jesus, and St. Leonard (with an abbot’s crosier and an ox).

Our Lady of the Way, a statue of Italian marble on Kilbourn Avenue, was installed and blessed in 1959. The Mosaic, “Madonne of Milwaukee,” located on the Broadway exterior, was installed and dedicated in 1982. This mosaic was designed by Franz Braunmiller and executed by Valentine Mamalo at the Franz Mayer Glassworks Company in Munich. The stained glass windows and some of the statues were the work of the same Franz Mayer Company. The church interior was restored in 1982 by the Conrad Schmitt Studios.

In 1848, Father John Neumann (later canonized), a zealous advocate of Catholic education, accompanied Bavarian Notre Dame nuns to the area. On January 2, 1851, led by Sister (Mother) M. Caroline Freiss, the School Sisters of Notre Dame opened their first Catholic School in the diocese at Old Saint Mary. In 1866, a new schoolhouse, which was built immediately south of the church, also served as a rectory. It was replaced in 1891 by a school built on the corner of Milwaukee and Biddle (Kilbourn Avenue) Streets. Like the church, this building was constructed of Cream City brick. After it was demolished in 1978, the salvaged bricks were reused for the 1979 addition connecting the church, rectory and the newly acquired Parish Center on Milwaukee Street. This Parish Center serves the spiritual family of Old Saint Mary for parish activities as well as the parish offices.

Old Saint Mary, a Landmark of Milwaukee, is also listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Important as these honors are, its greatest service remains in the spiritual harvest of souls. Articles about Old Saint Mary mention that the business people, office workers, clerks, shoppers and others find the church to be within easy walking distance. Many of these bring their families on Sunday to share the beauty they have grown to love. There is an intangible magnetism about this venerable, special church, a certain indescribable attraction in its old world atmosphere. Standing bravely in the flow of commerce, Old Saint Mary continues to offer a special challenge:”

“Here have I stood these many years
Asking the busy passer-by
Whether one carries – even as I –
Christ in one’s heart.”

The archdiocesan seat, the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, also housed many Germans and was built by the same architect for Archbishop Henni. Wikipedia states: “Established in 1837, St. John's parish was the first Roman Catholic congregation in Milwaukee. In early years, the congregation worshiped at St. Peter's church nearby. Archbishop John Henni purchased land for the cathedral in 1844. The cornerstone was laid on December 5, 1847, after nearly $30,000 was raised for construction. It was completed in 1852 and dedicated to John the Evangelist. The building was designed by architect Victor Schulte in the nineteenth-century Zopfstil (or "pigtail" style) and built using Cream City brick, a distinct light colored brick found locally. Schulte designed two other Milwaukee churches in the same style: St. Mary's on North Broadway and Holy Trinity at Walker's Point”

On that note, let’s also read up on Holy Trinity in Walker’s Point. The parish is now merged and no longer bears the name, but the building is the 3rd surviving Zopfstil style building standing in the city. “The Walker's Point settlement was founded in the 1830s. Many of the early settlers were German-speaking Catholics - many with roots in southern Germany and Austria In the late 1840s, Father Salzmann of St. Mary's Church began organizing those German-speaking Catholics of the south side into Holy Trinity parish^. German-born architect Victor Schulte designed the main block of Holy Trinity (as he had St. Mary's) rectangular with brick walls which have weathered to a warm gray. Bays are framed in pilasters, with a large round-topped window in the center of each. The roof is low-pitched, largely hidden behind a brick parapet. The style is influenced by Zopfstil, a German counterpart of the American Federal style.”

Today, there is little left within the archdiocese promoting its old German heritage (Chicago still has at least one parish, St. Alphonsus, which holds its scripture readings in Deutsch as well as a large Oktoberfest, but more on Chicago another time). Milwaukee itself is still well known for its massive German Fest, as well as German beers, restaurants, and societies. The Milwaukee German-American Societies website boasts an impressive list of sister-clubs you can see here!

 Organizations | German-American Societies of Milwaukee, Inc.

Wisconsin as a whole as a massive depth of history of German Catholic history we will explore, but that concludes our research here for now. Danke fürs Lesen! 

-The German-American Catholic Verein

Sources and resources:

Old St. Mary Church - Encyclopedia of Milwaukee

About Us – Old Saint Mary Parish

Germans - Encyclopedia of Milwaukee

Holy Trinity Roman Catholic Church (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) - Wikipedia

Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist (Milwaukee) - Wikipedia

Organizations | German-American Societies of Milwaukee, Inc.

In terms of specific settlements, St. Louis’s travel website states:

“Some of these early German immigrants moved west up the Missouri River and founded what is now Hermann Missouri in 1837. They brought with them their knowledge of wine making and began planting vineyards. Some of the wineries those immigrants established in Hermann are still producing wine today, such as Hermannhof Winery, founded in 1852; Oak Glenn Winery, founded in 1847; Stone Hill Winery, founded in 1847. The town of Bremen, named for Bremen, Germany, located north of the city of St. Louis in what is now the Hyde Park area, was a German community that was incorporated in 1850. Bremen was annexed into the city of St. Louis in 1854. The Baden Neighborhood, which at first was called "Germantown,” also experienced a large influx of German immigrants in the 1840's and 1850's.”

The first wave of these immigrants were largely protestant, but Catholics soon followed. There was an issue however. In all three cities of the “German Triangle” many bishops were frustrated with how quickly German influence was growing in parishes and schools but also on the diocesan level. This issue reached a head with the debate over ‘Cahenslyism” in the American Catholic churches, which we will discuss another time. For now, suffice to say that Germans often faced discrimination from English-speaking residents and even bishops!

The Archdiocese of St. Louis states: “Although many of the original inhabitants had been French, St. Louis soon became a destination for Germans. Many German Catholics came to St. Louis because it offered freedom, good land and the presence of other Catholics. In fact, many Catholic immigrants found their way to St. Louis after being treated badly in other parts of the country. They faced hostility from Americans because they were German just as they had faced hostility from Germans because they were Catholic. That was less of an issue in St. Louis, and as the city grew, about half of the new settlers were Catholics. But not all spoke English. There were French-speaking Catholics whose families had built St. Louis. With German-speaking Catholics too, there weren’t always priests who spoke the language of their parish. The churches St. Mary of Victories and St. Joseph served German-speaking Catholics. Although they had thriving congregations, the German-speaking churches were not parishes in the technical sense.”

Eventually, Fr. Joseph Melcher stepped in to serve as pastor at St. Mary of Victories. A Vienna born priest originally serving North Italy, he was sent to America when he told his bishop he felt called to missionary work.

The Archdiocesan article continues: “Shortly after, he was named vicar general for German-speaking Catholics. Melcher returned to Europe to recruit other German-speaking priests. On three such trips, he recruited four priests and 12 theology students, seven of whom worked in the St. Louis Diocese after ordination. One of those recruits, Father Henry Muehlsiepen, would succeed him as vicar general and become well-known among German-speaking Catholics in St. Louis and throughout the United States… The rapid pace of immigration into the diocese both created and solved a problem. Immigrants needed places to worship, and new churches cost money. But, poor immigrants often had trouble getting loans at reasonable interest rates. In addition, many who did not speak English felt more comfortable trusting their money to representatives of the Church. (The bishop's coadjutor) went into the banking business. The "Bishop’s Bank" was at first, a small program set up by Father Ambrose Heim at St. Mary of Victories. A native of France, Heim had attended the seminary in Perryville. An immigrant himself, he encouraged his German-speaking congregation to save their money, and many chose to deposit it into his safekeeping. In 1846, Heim was transferred to the Cathedral to become a secretary, and his bank went with him. The bank not only accepted deposits and gave loans to individuals, it also provided loans to struggling parishes and paid for the expansion or renovation of religious communities. Over the years it became so successful that when St. Louis encountered an economic crisis known as the Panic of 1857, the diocese was able to loan the city money for public works.”

Thus, German Catholics can be thanked for bolstering the diocese and even saving the city’s economic prosperity even despite being looked down on at first!

St. Mary of Victories has additional history around its German origins as well. The wikipedia article states that “The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. It is also a consecrated Roman Catholic church; that is, the Vatican has bestowed the consecration privilege on the church itself by Pope Pius IX, performed with a specific ritual by St. Louis Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick in 1866. The main altar of the church also has an Indulgence attached to it by Pope Leo XIII in 1896, granting temporal remission of sins at the time of death for those Catholics saying the specific prayers, and dying in the state of grace.”

Our readers may recall Pope Leo XIII’s history of friendship with German American Catholics when we discussed the Leo House German Catholic Guesthouse in NYC, created to protect and house German Catholics as they arrived through Ellis Island. 

The article also states: 

“The interior of St. Mary of Victories is also remarkable as the first interior in a St. Louis church whose design was based upon liturgical studies. It was developed and constructed by Max Schneiderhahn, the city's first professional church artist. Himself a German immigrant, Schneiderhahn studied at a German university and two monasteries, bringing the craftsmanship tradition of liturgical art to the St. Louis area. The altars, statuary, steepled baptismal font, communion rail, carvings and frescoes were all conceived and executed by Schneiderhahn, who also painted the Stations of the Cross.

Within its hallowed walls are also other liturgical art treasures and fixtures donated at later dates by other Roman Catholic religious orders and communities in the metro St. Louis area, particularly those of German origin, including the School Sisters of Notre Dame, the Franciscan Sisters of Mary, the Mill Hill Fathers, and the group promoting the canonization of Blessed Francis X. Seelos, C.SS.R., a Bavarian Redemptorist priest who worked with German immigrants in St. Louis, Baltimore, and New Orleans.”

The other large German catholic church in St Louis was St. Joseph Shrine, which is the site of the only Vatican-approved miracle in the midwest! A German immigrant in 1864 was injured while working in a factory and dragged himself to the church to kiss a relic, which restored his health within a few days. 

Perhaps the most impressive church of German origin is the now-ICKSP-operated St. Francis De Sales Oratory. Founded by Germans in 1867 overflowing from other parishes, homilies were preached and classes taught) in German for much of this church’s history. The stained-glass windows show German saints including St. Henry, St. Boniface, St. Elizabeth, and the Blessed Herman Joseph Steinfeld. Famous German-American Catholic Fr. Frederick Holweck was rector here for a time before being appointed vicar-general for the Archdiocese!

Many Germans left St. Louis for other parts of the US in the 1950s after much persecution during both world wars. However, German cultural events do still go on, german restaurants pepper the city,  and the legacy the Germans left on the city’s devout Catholic faith has not been forgotten. 

Sources & Further Reading:

St Louis German History

An Immigrant Church | The Church in the New Millennium | About the Archdiocese | Archdiocese of St Louis

Missouri Rhineland - Wikipedia

Shrine of St. Joseph

Saint Mary of Victories Catholic Church - Early History

Fr. Frederick George Holweck

In Cincinnati, the Germans mostly moved to an area on the canal called über den Rhein (Over-the-Rhine), referring to the canal as the Rhine due to the sheer number of Germans on it. Christian Moerlein beer was manufactured here until prohibition (the company revived its old German Ohio roots by reopening beer manufacturing in the district in 2010). At one point about 50% of the population purchased German-language newspapers. Cincinnati.com states: “The first German-language newspaper in Cincinnati, Die Ohio Chronik (The Ohio Chronicle), began publishing weekly in 1826. The first daily, Tägliches Cincinnatier Volksblatt (People’s Daily Journal), arrived a decade later. Heinrich Rödter founded Volksblatt in 1836 as an organ of President Andrew Jackson’s Democratic Party. Newspapers of the time, including The Enquirer, were inherently political, and Jackson’s policies appealed to the immigrant. As the surge of Germans poured into the young city, other German newspapers cropped up: Cincinnati Volksfreund (Friend of the People), Lichtfreund (Friend of Light), Cincinnati Republikaner, Der Hochwächter (The High Guard) and Der Wahrheitsfreund (The Friend of Truth), the first German-Catholic newspaper, published by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.” These mostly died out after WWII by the 1960s.

To paint this picture slightly more, Global Cincinnati states:

 “The first mayor of Cincinnati was a German immigrant from Heidelberg who had served in the U.S. military—David Ziegler, elected in 1802.

The strong German presence in Cincinnati also caused strife for Cincinnatians. In 1855, a Nativist mob rioted in the German neighborhood. But they were met with armed German militia near Vine street.
The 1950s saw a second wave of German immigrants coming to Cincinnati. Today, nearly half of all Cincinnati population claims some German ancestry. The German-American Citizens League is headquartered here in Cincinnati. The Tyler Davidson Fountain (located on Fountain Square downtown) was produced in Munich, and Cincinnati boasts the largest Oktoberfest celebration (outside of Munich). In keeping with the German tradition for their love of beer, Cincinnati is also the home of a number of breweries including Christian Moerlein and Hudephol. There is also a rich history of German food here in Cincinnati including the Mecklenburg Gardens, founded in 1865, and Hofbrauhaus in Newport Kentucky.” 

German speaking parishes were a huge part of Catholic Cincinnati. Heilige Dreieinigkeit (Holy Trinity) was the first to serve the german people here, founded in 1834 when of 8,000 out of 12,000 Catholic residents were German-speakers. Wikipedia states: “This was the second parish founded in Cincinnati and was closed in 1958. The building was torn down for urban renewal and the construction of Interstate 75. Lost with this church were the Frank Duveneck murals, which were painted on each side of the main altar.” This parish was one of the prime examples of targeted ethnic cleansing against European-descent minorities in the US through the ‘60s in the wake of WWII, especially against churches. E. Michael Jones discusses this extensively in his work “The Slaughter of Cities; Urban Renewal as Ethnic Cleansing,” in regards to German, Polish, Irish, Italian, and other parishes that were wiped out in the name of ‘Urban Renewal’ which leveled much of the beauty in American cities. 

Old St. Mary’s in Over-The-Rhine still stands however, which was built when the parish of Holy trinity got too large in the mid 1840s, and in 2017 was given to the Cincinnati Oratory Society made up from the priests Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. Theykeep the beautiful Tridentine Mass tradition going in this, the oldest continuously used worship-building in the city. Other former German parishes you can read about include the closed St. Michael the Archangel Church and the still-active Immaculata Church who’s altar reads:

O Maria, ohne Suende empfangen, bitte fuer die Bekehrung dieses Landes, Amerika.

(O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for the conversion of this country, America.)

Let us pray for the commemoration of the faithful Germans in the Catholic faith in Cincinnati, for their souls and for the memory of their largely forgotten contributions.

Join us for parts II and III where we will explore Milwaukee and St. Louis.

Sources:

Our history: German-language newspapers once thrived in Cincinnati

Cincinnati's German Heritage

German Cincinnati History & Heritage • World Affairs Council of Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky

Wikipedia citations are hyperlinked in-paper.

The Studentenverbindung (Student fraternities) were formed in the German-speaking sphere and rose to their height in the mid to late 1800s. These fraternities emphasized the preservation of tradition, life long brotherhood, and the masculine art of self discipline.

Their colors and garbs are characteristics which mark different groups,

and there are many interesting artifacts, but perhaps nothing as interesting as the swords of the Mensur, which match the various guard and blade types of modern french fencing, which I may delve into another time.

it is in these societies that the Mensur competition emerged. The Mensur itself is not a duel. It is not necessarily even a competition. It is a mark of self control. The participants stand at equal striking distance and attack without moving forward or backwards, unlike regular fencing, often cutting one-another’s faces to ribbons with only eye goggles for protection. It ends only when the participants call “satisfaction.”

The scars resulting from such shows of courage (Schmiss, or smites) were extremely fashionable in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One may often see old images of German officers and such sporting prominent cheek scars (in fact, my own great-grandfather was from Bremen and participated, his glass stein notched with marks of his bouts is perhaps my most prized possession). The Schmiss was so held as a mark of courage and prestige that it was oft-jested to be the beginning of a man’s bachelorhood when he gained his first, without which he would be unable to even attempt to approach a woman with any chances. Today the scars are a thing of the past thanks to antiseptic, though the Mensur does still go on, as do these societies, though they are much smaller and more private now.

In fact, their all-male, tradition focused, Vaterland-loving practices have brought them under intense scrutiny. In Austria, many conservative politicians are still members of these private societies. (https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpDN-o1akAAwdfQ.jpg)

Despite decline in numbers however, the Mensur, and the Burschenschaft societies live on. 

As a note due to the nature of this page, most Catholic student societies banned the Mensur due to its similarity to the traditional sword duel’s propensity for violence without just cause however and are usually classified as “non-striking.” 

We hope you found this content helpful in understanding the often misunderstood but also often seen (in historical German studies) Mensur scar of yore.

Sources:

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burschenschaft?wprov=sfti1

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mensur_(Studentenverbindung)

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmiss

In the last article we took a look at the causes, scale, and general nature of the German Catholic diaspora in America. One may note several references to the work of Pope Leo XIII especially during this time. Catholicism had reached a golden age in some ways in the Prussian realm at this time, despite persecution. Some impressive men who come to mind from the time include; the Mainz Bishop Wilhelm von Ketteler, who advocated for prayer societies for the conversion of and union with Protestants while remaining a bulwark against Bismark’s Kulturkampf, and is even cited in His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Deus caritas est; Peter & August Reichensperger, who fought against usury, income tax, and anti-catholic policy; andf Baron Burghard von Schorlemer-Alst, who defended farmer’s rights and working class protections like life insurance, and saw the encroachment of liberalism as a particular threat to the agricultural class. Despite such brilliant men in high positions however, many Catholics were forced to flee the Vaterland to America. It was very important to them to retain their own particulars of faith, language, and life (which will be discussed in Part III), and several organizations began supporting the move. After many of them failed to garner the funds and power needed, success was found in 1871 when an assembly of bishops at Mainz threw their support at the formation of Der St. Raphaelsverein zum Schutze katholischer deutscher auswanderer, what we refer to hereafter as the St. Raphaelsverein. The three-fold mission was to help the emigrant in his homeland to prepare, to secure passage, and to help him past the port and in his new life. Many prestigious princes, barons, and bishops funded the project. Collections were held in dioceses, pamphlets (we highly recommend viewing on the archive link) and brochures were printed, offices set up at major ports such as London & Rotterdam, agents (vertrauesmann) were hired. The Prussian government eyed them with suspicion and launched roadblocks and propaganda against them, but they endured with prayer and fierce public defense of their work. The generous, spiritual, and humble nature of the agents furthered their cause and reputation, staying above reproach to allow no slander to stick. Despite silence after petitioning many world leaders, Pope Leo answered the society’s pleas with explicit support. In fact, the Leo House NY was established in New York by Pope Leo XIII’s own charter in 1889 for the safe housing of Germans and stands to this day. The website boasts the title of the only German Catholic guest house in NYC and is now an affordable accommodation spot for all travelers. It is now managed in tandem by the Sisters of St. Agnes in Fond-Du-Lac, Wisconsin, another region full of German catholic history near Milwaukee. 

Peter Paul Cahensly was one of the most important boots-on-the-ground figures, a godly man known as “der kleine Cahensly” due to his short stature. Cahensly was a driving force of this society and invited much controversy. Cahensly’s idea of separate catholic parishes with their own languages and cultures for various catholic nationalities (“Cahenslyism”) was disliked by an America which sought integration and americanization, but his busywork laid the foundations of the verein, home and across the sea. 

Coleman Barry OSB writes:

In his St. Raphaelsverein activity, Cahensly during these years became more and more engrossed in dealings with city and port officials, consuls, and ship captains. He made yearly reports to the Katholikentage and strove to spread a knowledge and support of the movement in the Catholic body of Germany. As individual parts of the society's first two aims in its program began to be realized, Cahensly turned his interest to the third point, namely, the care of the emigrant at the port of arrival in the new world. Canada, South America, Australia, and the United States entered more prominently into his plans. At the Bonn Katholikentag in 1881 he asserted that one third of all German Catholics lost their faith after arriving in the United States because they settled in areas where there were no German churches and schools. He suggested that the emigrants go to Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, and Illinois rather than into the larger cities in the East. In the western states, colonies existed for the emigrant, and Cahensly recommended the settlements made by the Benedictine Fathers and the one sponsored by Bishop John Ireland in St. Paul MN.

His report of 1881 concluded: “The St. Raphaelsverein embraces the poor emigrant with charity; its agents assist him without charge in all ports on his journey so that he may arrive at his new settlement without peril of body and soul.

This is done so our separated countrymen may have a blessed remembrance of the German fatherland, and upon their arrival on the other side of the ocean they may remain true children of the holy Catholic Church. May God dispose it.”

The Raphaelsverein made waves in both the old and new world, and it’s assistance undeniably shaped America. Chicago, Omaha, and Milwaukee all owe a massive debt to their German heritage to this day. The German Triangle of the West took shape by their influence. Please join us for Part III where we will delve into the life and culture, parishes and architecture, philosophy and music, of the newly formed Deutschamerikaner.

Sources and further reading:

Sankt-raphaels-verein - Semantic Scholar

St. Raphael's Society | Encyclopedia.com

German Roman Catholic Central Verein of North America, Catholic.com

Raphaelswerk – Wikipedia

https://archive.org/details/Raphaelsverein/page/n1/mode/2up

Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler - Wikipedia

Peter Cahensly - Wikipedia

Note: This article is a repost from an older project, and is part of a panned series on the global German Diaspora.

The wave of German immigrants to Texas was distinct, intentional, and independent. This group lasted from the mid 1800’s until WWII, when German Americans felt pressured to not pass on their heritage to their children. They spoke in what has now been recognized as a unique dialect, texasdeutsch, which is rapidly dying out and on;y spoken by a few elderly individuals. They gave us true Texan BBQ, helped expand US beer brewing, and built many successful ranches and farms. For all this, they are largely forgotten. If you will indulge my sentimental love of German-American history, I’d like to tell you a little of their story.

Let us start from the beginning. The early-mid 1800’s in Europe, and in German-speaking lands especially, were a time of great unrest. The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the fickle popular movements and revolutions for and against such ideals as democracy or empire; oppressive taxes, unemployment, and poverty made for generally unhappy living for the people of the various German states. Eventually, these stressors reached a head in the late 1840’s. For example, in the Palatinate (where most of our subjects hailed from), revolts related to the Märzrevolution of 1848 caused class upheaval, military clashes, and all sorts of general unpleasantness. 

Amidst all this, of course, was the promise of a new and free life in the fertile lands of America. By the 1830’s, Texas was beginning to fill with its share of those seeking the promises of the West. At this point, Texas was still a border to the unknown, on the edges of the frontier. Some Germans, such as one professor Ernst Knapp, had already settled there, having been driven out of his homeland for his rather liberal views on government, seeking a place where he could realize a philosophy of what he called ‘pure freedom.’ Rumors of German success in Texas began reaching the Fatherland. An excerpt from a visitor’s recollection of Knapp states: “within his book-covered walls he used to serve his guests with self-grown wine and homegrown tobacco,” and “philosophized about the advantages of life in the country.” Knapp believed that pollution and mechanization would shape mankind's destiny for the worse. Looking at the Industrial Revolution and its consequences in Germany, it is easy to see the appeal such thinkers had on the pool of potential immigrants in Europe. 

Besides the letters of other successful German pioneers that could be discussed at length, a few publications stick out as main drivers in the move of Germans to Texas. 

Texas und seine Revolution, a memoir of the conflict by a soldier (who was 17 when he fought at the Siege of Bexar), gave ideas of glory and freedom, and showed a place for Germans in the push into the Wild West. 

On the practical side, Texas Hill Country Pioneer Ottomae Von Behr wrote a guide called Good Advice for Immigrants with discussed the successes of ranching in south-central Texas, encouraging his countrymen to come, saying:  “[Germans] who want a place of refuge to come during the bad times which will come to Germany… our country gains strength every year and could show the Old Country who is boss.” Friedrich Ernst painted an edenic picture with his “Letter to Fire the Imagination” in 1832:

“The land is hilly and alternates with forests and natural grass plains… the climate is like Sicily. The soil needs no fertilizer. No winter, like March in Germany. Bees, birds, butterflies the whole winter through. Planters with several hundred head of cattle are common. Tobacco, rice, and indigo grow wild. Melons of an especial goodness, wheat, rye, vegetables of all kinds, peaches in great quantity wild in the woods, mulberries, plums, persimmons sweet as honey… deer, bear, raccoons, wild turkey, geese: free hunting and fishing. Wolves are of a feeble kind… meadows most charming…” 

…and here is where it really becomes interesting. All of this pining for Texas reached its tantamount realization in 1842; five sovereign princes and sixteen noblemen assembled on the Rhein at the castle of the Duke of Nassau, seeking to promote a German colony inside Texas. Overall, they were poorly financed, misinformed, and loosely organized. Despite this, they founded the Mainzer Adelsverein at Biebrich am Rhein, Verein zum Schutze Deutscher Einwanderer in Texas, or "Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas.” Usually, this is just referred to as “the Adelsveiren.” Despite the messy start, the first favorable report came back the next year in ‘43, and an experiment began, with a fourfold purpose of uplifting the working class, uniting the immigrants, establishing regular contact with the Old World through maritime trade, and preserving German craft and culture in the New World to create a market for their wares.

The colonists the Adelsveiren gathered and funded sailed (on a rather German diet consisting mostly of beef, pork, sauerkraut, and plum & pea soups) to Galveston, then to Indianola, in 1844. The first two years were a struggle, but the in-pour of northwestern Germans into Texas was large: 7,400 by 1847, and by 1860; nearly 20,000. Where did they go?  The first choice the society had, a privately owned 4000 acre ‘Nassau Farm’, was not selected. Interestingly enough, this was because it was too close to American settlements, and the veiren wanted the German immigrants to maintain their distinct heritage. A massive 3,000,000 acre land grant holding was also not selected due to proximity to Native American attacks as well poor farming conditions. However, an offshoot group called the “Darmstadt Forty” attempted to settle that land after being approached by the VP of the Adelsveiren. But another founder, Prince Solms, traveled to Texas and negotiated for a tract on the Guadalupe River. The settlements from Solms’ land met with great success. The Darmstadt Society largely failed, and this eventually led to the general failure of the Adelsveiren Society. Funding dwindled, the organization ran loose and poor, interests differed, and the Adelsveiren dissolved. This failure did not dissuade the German immigrants however, as the land along the Guadalupe was prospering. Two of the most successful settlements (which stand to this day) are New Braunfels and Friedricksberg. This general region between Austin and San Antonio is known as the Texas Hill Country. 

The settlement settled into its life on the frontier, raising cattle, creating institutions, churches, schools. They brought the practice of smoking meats, beer brewing, bakeries, shoe cobbling, later even schützenverein (German Shooting Clubs), and everything else appropriate to the effort, with a uniquely German style.  

The region ended up developing a unique dialect overtime too. Scholars now call this Texasdeutsch. Texasdeutsch is a fascinating, nearly dead language. A small elderly population clings onto it in the rural areas chiefly around Fredericksburg, and it will be gone by 2030. Dr. Hans Boas of the University of Texas at Austin has been doing some incredible work to study and preserve this language. He has worked to interview speakers in this odd, southern sounding, very dated sort of German. Their stories are wonderful, talking of dances, folk beliefs, details of traditional meat harvesting, storms on the prairie, and other tales. You can listen here at the Texas German Dialect Project. There are unique words for things that didn't yet have names in German at the time of the colonists, and so developed separately from the homeland. My favorite; stinkkatze (“stinking cat”), a rather quaint name for skunks. Dr. Boas also wrote a thorough book called “The Life and Death of Texas German.” Finally, A small team has produced a rather hard to find documentary about this tale called “All Gut Things,” which produces some enjoyable clips which can be seen on their website: All Güt Things. Texasdeustch is remarkably mixed, as the speakers are descended from immigrants of different parts of Germany, and different dialects. The language was also isolated, and offers a quaint, vintage sound in some of it’s aspects which clearly date from a bygone era.

Thus, while the project of creating a distinct German microstate of sorts failed, the implanting of German culture into Texas did not. I strongly recommend articles like this to get a picture of such things. An excerpt:

“(these) immeasurable contributions to our cuisine: not just barbecue and chicken-fried steak, but also chili, where in the stealthily very German city of San Antonio, German Texans played a vital role in popularizing the dish nationally and globally. (As Alamo City journalist Robert Rivard once put it, “The German imprint on San Antonio is everywhere if you look for it, and invisible if you don’t care.”)

But it’s still more than that. The Germans inoculated much of South Texas against a malady that afflicts pretty much every other region of the Southern tier of states save for South Louisiana: Puritanism.

“It was an epicenter of puritanical upper South mentality: It was dry, and all these Christian fundamentalist sects believed that anything fun was sinful. They didn’t dance—they didn’t even know how. They didn’t drink. Well, they did, but they would sneak out in the woods to do it. But I grew up among all these Germans and Czechs, and you’d have these church fairs with the priest staggering around with a beer in one hand and a big ol’ cigar in the other, polka music blaring, kids of all ages everywhere having a good time, and nobody thought a dang thing about it. When I would go visit my grandparents up there in Comanche County, everything was different. They have a different dialect, they really do, and I thought I was going to a foreign country.” 

The towns like Friedricksburg inherit a European legacy of architecture, community, and beauty. They settled in beautiful regions and built walkable towns, something people now spend millions of dollars to find. 

While there is still effort to preserve much of this today, the question is raised of why so much, especially the language, died out? The obvious answer is population growth, globalism, immigration, and the general gamut of modernisms which have destroyed localism, human-scale living, and ethnological and linguistic diversity in European descended nations. On a tied-in historical note, there was also large persecution and suppression of German language and culture during and following World War II. This is a fact that occurs across the board when studying Deustchamerikaner history. During the 1940’s, one may observe ostracization, the dropping of Deutsch language courses in schools, businesses hiding the German nature of their craft, recipes, foundations, etc. Earlier generations stop passing their languages on so their descendants experience less discrimination. However, there is some hope. Besides the work being done to preserve this heritage, there are popular, mainstream things that last in Texas’s Hill Country. New Braunfels has a massive Oktoberfest and Wurstfest, and some biergartens of impressive scope. I visited Kraus's Cafe in NB, TX which even had a giant Adelsveiren logo hanging on the wall.  The newspaper is still published as the Zeitung, though it is written in German no longer. Fredericksburg has the highest surviving concentration of this preservation. Modern German festivals can be rather campy and disingenuous. Bavarian lederhosen (which are fantastic, don’t get me wrong— just not exactly the appropriate regional item) and art clearly from the ‘50s seems to be the general theme of most American German revival work, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Compared to past years, it seems Americans are more and more interested in discovering the real aspects of where we come from, and if we have to wade through some camp and bad taste to get back to our roots, I’m okay with that. So smoke some Bratwurst, grab a Shiner Bock beer, throw on a pair of cowboy boots, and say “Guten tag, y’all.” I know it’s lame, but bear with me.

Reclaiming America’s European roots will be awkward at first, but our children will thank us.

Sources:

Books:

Lich, Glen E. The German Texans. San Antonio, TX: The University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures, 1981. 

Articles:

The Race to Preserve Texas German

The Texas German Preservation Project

Sprechen Sie Texas Deutsch? How a Variation of German Once Ruled In Fredericksburg

Videos:

Speaking Texas German - Hans Boas

The story of German immigration in America is sweeping in scope and effect. German-speaking immigrants have settled US soil since before the American Revolution and have had a profound effect on the American Ethos. Architecture, cuisine, music… the whispers of a teutonic legacy grace a gentle touch on much of our Americana. Until World War II, these groups held a strong linguistic and cultural solidarity, and though the general rule of European-American immigration has been one of cultural integration and even suppression, the German-shaped imprint on our nation is indisputable. We are here to tell the story of their hopeful rise, oppressed fall, and discuss what revival may be wrought. This subject is sweeping in scope and consequence, and there are many examples of the German diaspora in America, hidden though they are. 

Thus, we will narrow this scope specifically to the experience of the Catholic Germans in America. Until the world wars, there were German Catholic towns throughout the US; with German speaking parishes, schools, even clubs and societies (“Verein”) for shooting, or traditional dancing, or many other cultural activities. While Protestant Germans had been around since the mid 1700s (mostly Palatinate migrants of Lutheran, reformed, and anabaptist persuasion around New York & Pennsylvania), most Catholic German activity was found in the so-called “German Triangle of the West” which began its zenith around the 1890’s; between the cities of Milwaukee, WI; Cincinnati, OH; and St. Louis, MO. You see, the German movement had tapered off following the American revolution, a period which was generally unfriendly to Catholicism. 

It was after the American Civil War that Catholics started coming in droves from Germanic regions. The Irish and Italian catholics are now considered the largest and most memorable example of this, but Germans, now also hailing from regions which were largely resistant to the Reformation of the 14th and 15th centuries, were pouring in almost en masse. From 1865 to 1867 over 117,500 arrived via New York city alone.

The first thing one may observe is that German Catholics made up a significant cohort of Catholic immigration to America, rivaling and often outpacing the now much more well recognized Irish and Italian catholic foreigner waves (and yet, Irish and Italian Catholic ethnicity is well remembered and represented in America today, unlike Germans, due to intense and intentional suppression, which will be discussed later). In fact, Catholics made up 35% of German immigration to the US from 1865 to 1900, totaling around 700,000 souls. From 1830-70, Irish had the largest numbers, 50% higher than Germans, but the Germans equaled their pace until around 1890 when Italians held the lead for many decades after. 

The other inference of note is that the waves of Germanic diasporans correspond to unrest in their vaterland. The Holy Roman Empire’s dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars, the Märzrevolution of 1848 amidst the most massive wave of revolutions Europe has ever seen (The “Springtime of Nations” as it is sometimes known), the Deutsche Einigung (“German Unification”) and eventual Deutsche Reichsgründung (Proclamation of the German Empire) of 1871… the turmoil of dissolution and unification over and over of various German states during this period seemed to go on ad infinitum. The last event mentioned is perhaps the most important for our subgroup of Catholic Germans. The newly birthed German Empire was decidedly Protestant in governance, with the power centering around the Prussian, north German states and led by the Pietist Lutheran Otto von Bismark. Reichskanzler Bismarck ushered in a power conflict with Catholic institutions in Germany known as the Kulturkampf, which bode poorly for many citizens throughout the Reich. This is perhaps the most important factor which pushed the faithful Catholic Germans westward, into the new world. 

As a side note, to give a sense of what the kulturkampf meant for the formerly institutionally empowered Catholics in Germany, I’ve quoted the Encyclopaedia Britannica below. I could go on at great length, but this is the story of our forebears in the New World, not the Old, and we don't want to digress at too much length:

“Kulturkampf”; (German: “culture struggle”), the bitter struggle (c. 1871–87) on the part of the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck to subject the Roman Catholic church to state control. The term came into use in 1873, when the scientist and Prussian liberal statesman Rudolf Virchow declared that the battle with the Roman Catholics was assuming “the character of a great struggle in the interest of humanity.”

Bismarck, a staunch Protestant, never fully trusted the loyalty of the Roman Catholics within his newly created German Empire and became concerned by the Vatican Council’s proclamation of 1870 concerning papal infallibility. The Roman Catholics, who were represented politically by the Centre Party, distrusted the predominance of Protestant Prussia within the empire and often opposed Bismarck’s policies.

The conflict began in July 1871, when Bismarck, supported by the liberals, abolished the Roman Catholic bureau in the Prussian Ministry of Culture (i.e., ministry of education and ecclesiastical affairs) and in November forbade priests from voicing political opinions from the pulpit. In March 1872 all religious schools became subject to state inspection; in June all religious teachers were excluded from state schools, and the Jesuit order was dissolved in Germany; and in December diplomatic relations with the Vatican were severed. In 1873 the May Laws, promulgated by the Prussian minister of culture, Adalbert Falk, placed strict state controls over religious training and even over ecclesiastical appointments within the church. The climax of the struggle came in 1875, when civil marriage was made obligatory throughout Germany. Dioceses that failed to comply with state regulations were cut off from state aid, and noncompliant clergy were exiled. Roman Catholics, however, strongly resisted Bismarck’s measures and opposed him effectively in the German parliament, where they doubled their representation in the 1874 elections. Bismarck, a pragmatist, decided to retreat. He conceded that many of the measures were excessive and served only to strengthen the resistance of the Centre Party, whose support he needed for his new thrust against the Social Democrats. The advent of a new pope in 1878 eased compromise. By 1887, when Leo XIII declared the conflict over, most of the anti-Catholic legislation had been repealed or reduced in severity. The struggle had the consequence of assuring state control over education and public records, but it also alienated a generation of Roman Catholics from German national life. 

Kulturkampf | German history | Britannica

This gives us a rather top-down view of Catholicism in Germany at the time from a political perspective, but what about the life of the average citizen? What motivated the average farmer to leave his fatherland? Here is the report of a catholic of the Rhineland in 1883 as reported by an agent of the St. Raphael’s Verein (which will be the subject of the next part of this series):

My landlord gave us free lodging and 23-30 pfennig a day for wages. For this my whole family had to labor on Sundays as well as weekdays. We were obliged to do our own chores during free hours and on Sunday afternoons. If we asked permission to go to Church on Sunday, then the man abused us . . . every time and said: "You won't always need to be running after the priest if you find yourselves in the alms house." And so I am going to America. My acquaintances write from there that they have such good conditions, and on Sundays as many as wish to may go to Church. My children shall not imitate my slavery.

There you have it. With cultural pressure and persecution, wage slavery and miserable conditions, it was high time for these people to pursue the prospect of a better life in America. However, immigration wasn’t always simple, and Germany couldn't lose laborers in such a time. The focus of Part II will be to explore the stories of their travel and the part that was played by the St. Raphaelsverein, a fascinating and largely forgotten organization that was founded to help German Catholics make their way to America. It is a fascinating subject, we hope you will join us for the second part of this series on the Deutschamerikaner Catholics.

-Die DAKV

Sources &Citations

The Catholic Church and German Americans by Colman J. Barry, O.S.B

Katholisches Deutschtum in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika. Ein Querschnitt by Georg Timpe

Einige Gründe der Massenauswanderung aus Deutschland. SRB Jan. 1886

Intro: St. Boniface was an English born Benedictine, originally named Wynfred. Wynfred led the first truly successful missions to the Germanic peoples in the 700s and is known as the Apostle to the Germans & Patron of Germania. The most famous story of his hagiography deals with his aggressive dealings with pagan worship. When the people in Hesse refused to stop worshiping at the Oak of Donnar (Thor) even after being baptized as Christians (sneaking sacrifices and evil incantations before the tree out of fear of the pagan gods); Boniface, in righteous anger, seized an ax and began hewing down the mighty oak until it fell. The people were amazed that the gods did not strike him down and subsequently worshipped only the True God. The timber was used to build a shrine to St. Peter. Pope Gregory II named him Boniface and used him to build the Church in Germany for most of his life, growing diocesan structures and founding monasteries. During the later years of his life he insisted on returning to the dangerous region of Frisia, feeling compelled to share the gospel with more Germanics. He was cut down with an ax blow, holding up a Bible before him in defense. Thus, the ax and a broken Bible are his iconographic symbols, the tools of his martyrdom. He was buried at the monastery he founded in Fulda, where he was immediately venerated and associated with miracles. The German people have honored him as the father of the Catholic Church of Germany ever since.

In German America:

Many churches founded by German immigrants bore or bear the name of St. Boniface. For example:

The Church of St. Mary was formerly the Church of St. Boniface in Melrose, Minnesota. The church and the adjacent rectory were listed on the National Register of Historic Places for having local significance in the themes of European ethnic heritage and social history. The property was nominated to the Register as a manifestation of the importance of ethnic parishes in the cultural and religious life of Minnesota's rural German American populace in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The parish was founded in 1878 by German immigrants, six years after a nearby parish, St. Patrick's, was founded by Irish immigrants. The church was destroyed by an arsonist and demolished in 2020.

St. Boniface Parish Church and Parish was a Catholic church in Perryville, Missouri. Two major waves of German migration to Perry County, Missouri brought German Lutherans from Saxony (present-day eastern Thuringia) and German Catholics from Baden. In the 1860s, German Catholic migration from the Baden region of Germany had led to the establishing of a number of German Catholic parishes in Perry County. Perryville already had a Catholic church and parish: St. Mary's of the Assumption. However, due to cultural and linguistic reasons, a second separate parish was established for the German-speaking community and their descendants. The church was merged with another parish in 1964 and demolished. Another piece of German catholic heritage lost

.Finally, one parish still standing is St. Boniface Catholic Church of Sublimity, OR. Built in Carpenter Gothic Style, the first Catholics came to Sublimity in the 1870s. They were German immigrant farmers from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Nebraska. The first priest, Fr. Peter Juvenal Stampfl, arrived in 1879. St. Boniface Church is still an active parish in the Archdiocese of Portland

Resources:

The English Way By G.K. Chesterton, Bede Jarret, et al (edited by Maisie Ward), Published by Cluny Media. An excellent source on the life of St. Boniface. https://clunymedia.com/products/the-english-way

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonifatius

The story of German immigration in America is shockingly vast. German speaking groups have settled US soil since before the American Revolution and have had a profound effect on the American Ethos. Heritage, culture, music, cuisine, architecture; you name it, the Germans have touched it. Until World War II, this was widely celebrated, and though the general rule of European-American immigration has been one of cultural integration and suppression, the German-shaped imprint on Americana is indisputable. We are here to tell the story of their rise, fall, and possibly shape a revival. This subject is sweeping in scope and consequence, and there are many examples of the German diaspora in America. (Perhaps most notably in the Upper-Midwest, such as Minnesota and North Dakota, Deutschamerikaner heritage flickers softly, in the “Kaffee und Kuchen” brunches of old churches, in little diners with names echoing words like “alpine” and “edelweiss,” the last whispers of the sentimentality Americans had for their German heritage before the world wars, and before globalism began it’s great crusade against local culture.)

We would like to narrow this scope specifically to the experience of the Catholic Germans in America. Until the world wars, there were Catholic German towns throughout the US; with German language parishes, schools and even clubs and societies (“Verein”) for shooting, dancing, and many other cultural activities. During WWII, it became illegal for many of these groups to meet or to speak their Muttersprache in public. This devastated the Deutschamerikaner legacy. No more could one see Detroit police vehicles read “Polizei” or sing hymns in German on a Sunday morning. No more could parishes identity with their German strains of philosophy and their cultural origins in the Rheinland, Hessia, Bavaria and the like. The obviously German expressions of architecture and art lie unidentified now in in churches and halls that are sometimes re-named, repurposed, and eventually torn down. Some ethnic European catholic groups maintain a shadow of their inherited identity in the face of globalism today, such as some historically Irish or Polish congregations, but most memories of the German Catholis are long gone… until today. Our goal: the DAKV will seek to research, educate, promote, and revive the spirit of German Catholicism as it was expressed throughout America via books, articles, working with German-American societies, local parish programs, community events, and whatever else we can get our hands on. Any information about your own heritage or communities you know about will be welcome. Danke und Auf Wiedersehen!

P.S. If you’d like to join the discussion, you can also join our Telegram feed and chat at https://t.me/dakverein

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