Nicol, J. M. (2008). Alvo von Alvensleben: I am not ‘an enemy to the people I have lived among’. British Columbia History, 41(1), 7.

Alvo von Alvensleben, a colorful entrepreneur who contributed to Vancouver’s golden years, was declared an enemy of the Dominion at the outbreak of the First World War. At the time he was in the United States and he reluctantly remained there until his death in 1965, aged 86. Vancouverites showed mixed emotions toward this self-made man who married the local school teacher and helped build the young city but whose loyalties to his homeland were unforgivable.

LINKS: UBC

Todd, D. (2014, Nov 07). Anguished memories from the other side; A German-Canadian recalls life in wartime Germany and the flight to another life. The Vancouver Sun

Along with her toy dog, Ortrun had been able to hurriedly pack a family photo album, a blanket, a leather bag of apples from their tree and “a little prayer book from my father – because my father was dead.” Ortrun hadn’t seen her mother for years and her beloved school principal father, Friedrich Schuetze, had been killed during Nazi Germany’s invasion of Russia.

LINKS: Vancouver Sun

Zdeb, C. (2014, Aug 02). Aug. 2, 1936: Swastika flags cause flap at annual German-Canadian picnic. Edmonton Journal

The German-Canadian National Association, self-described “anti-Nazis,” waded into the controversy by announcing they would hold an opposition picnic on July 26, a week before the reunion association’s event.

LINKS: Edmonton Journal

Neyer, G.. (1995). Auswanderungen aus Österreich: Von der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bis zur Gegenwart. Demographische Informationen, 60–70.

Osterreich ist ein Land, das seit Jahrhunderten durch Wanderungsbewegungen gepragt wird. Das ist das Resumee eines umfangreichen Forschungsprojekts zur osterreichischen Emigration. Die bis ins fruhe 19. Jahrhundert erfolgten Auswanderungen waren keine Massenbewegungen und meist politisch oder religids motiviert. Durch wirtschaftliche Umbruche und Disparitaten ausgelost wanderten zwischen 1876 und 1910 etwa 5 Mio. Menschen (ca. 10% der damaligen Bevol kerung) aus Osterreich-Ungarn aus; der uberwiegende Teil ging nach Obersee. Bis zum Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges nahm die Emigration weiter zu und wurde in der Zwischenkriegszeit sogar als politische Massnahme zur Eindammung der Wirtschaftskrise und der Arbeitslosigkeit eingesetzt. Nach dem Burgerkrieg des Jahres 1934 mussten einige Tausend politische Aktivisten das Land verlassen; mit dem Anschluss an Deutschland (1938) setzte die systematische Vertreibung der judischen Bevolkerung ein. Nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg nahm die Auswanderung wieder zu; die wichtigsten Ziellander sind Deutschland und die Schweiz, wahrend die klassischen Immigrationslander (USA, Kanada) seit 1945 einen Ruckgang an oesterreichischen Zuwanderern verzeichnen.

LINKS: JStor.org

Sauer, A. (1999). Being German in Western Canada: The German-speaking population of the prairie provinces, 1880s to 1980s. Journal of the West, 38(3), 49-55.

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LINKS: UBC

Stokes, L. D. (1976). Canada and an academic refugee from nazi germany: The case of gerhard herzberg. Canadian Historical Review, 57(2), 150-170. doi:10.3138/CHR-057-02-02

Letter excerpts included.

LINKS: University of Toronto Press

Vancouver Sun(2007, Feb 02). Castle Fort Langley: Fritz Ziegler’s home became his castle as he turned a farmhouse into ‘Schloss Klipphaus’. Vancouver Sun

Fritz Ziegler took the old axiom “a man’s home is his castle” to heart. In fact, he made his Fort Langley home into one. Really. Ziegler started off with a 1912 farmhouse, covered the outside in stucco and brick, added a few turrets, and presto!, had a reasonable-facsimile of a 16th- century German castle that he dubbed the Schloss Klipphaus.

LINKS: Vancouver Sun

Freund, A.(2010). Contesting the Meanings of Migration: German Women’s Immigration to Canada in the 1950s. Canadian Ethnic Studies 41(3), 1-26. Canadian Ethnic Studies Association.

Twenty-five thousand German women immigrated to Canada as domestic servants between 1947 and 1962. Pushed by West German society that was increasingly hostile to women’s employment and emancipation, the female migrants, in their search for freedom, independence, and adventure, used Canadian immigration schemes that were based on patriarchal and paternalistic understandings of gender and class. The male Canadian bureaucrats who recruited the German women viewed them as cheap and docile labour for the growing middle class and as future citizens and mothers who fit the racial and religious criteria of immigration policy. The article illuminates the clashes between the female migrants and the mostly male bureaucrats over divergent meanings of migration within larger discourses of gender, class, and ethnicity. The article documents the women’s agency in the face of state control and how the women benefited from privileges received as white, Christian, Northwest Europeans. It argues that domestic servant immigration failed as a labour market policy, but, in the short term, supported Canada’s racial demographic policy to keep Canada white and Christian. It further argues that the migrants’ perspectives and actions must be taken into consideration in order to understand government policy and its implementation.

LINKS: UBC

Cowboys und Indianer. (1995, Feb 11). The Economist, 334, 1.

German tourism to Canada has almost doubled in the past decade to 397,000 visitors a year. Some Indian reserves are recreating traditional villages where German tourists can experience Indian culture.

LINKS: The Economist

Grams, G. W. (2001). Der Verein fur das Deutschtum im Ausland and its observations of Canada prior to world war one. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 33(2), 117-125.

Der Verein fur das Deutschtum im Ausland (The Society for Germans Abroad – VDA) was formed as a private institution in 1881 as the Allgemeiner deutscher Schulverein (General Society of German Schools), but in 1908 was renamed the VDA with the mandate to defend the German language and culture in foreign countries through education. Its main areas of interest were the schools in the border regions of Austria-Hungary and the German settlements of central-eastern Europe.(1) It was the oldest private, non-political organization protecting German culture and heritage abroad from assimilation.(2) Prior to World War I (WWI) some interest was paid to distant lands such as Canada(3) – the VDA had written some articles on Canada’s Deutschtum(4) and established preliminary contacts with the German-Canadian press, e.g. Der Nordwesten, 1907.(5) This article will examine the VDA’s publications and their assessment of Canada and its Deutschtum(6) before the outbreak of WWI. These observations are based on correspondence to the VDA administration and travels in Canada by Alwin Oppel, Robert Streit, and Dr. Hammann-Perleberg – all correspondence took place after the turn of the century.

LINKS: UBC

Grams, G. (2013). Der Volksverein Deutsch-Canadischer Katholiken: The rise and fall of a German-Catholic cultural and immigration society, 1909-52. The Catholic Historical Review, 99(3), 480-498. doi:10.1353/cat.2013.0163

Founded in 1909, Der Volksverein deutsch-canadischer Katholiken (Association of German-Canadian Catholics, or VDCK) was one of the largest German-Canadian religious societies in Canada. The VDCK was involved in German immigration and cultural movements in Canada, with its most productive period from 1909 until the depression. Although the VDCK’s work continued during the 1930s, immigration had ended, and many Canadians were suspicious of German cultural organizations due to the Nazi movement in Europe. Canadian society became increasingly secularized in the postwar era, and a decline in interest in rural settlement led to the VDCK’s dissolution in 1952.

LINKS: UBC

ENTZ, W. (1967). Die deutschsprachige presse westkanadas: Ihr inhalt und ihre sprache. Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 3(1), 37-52. doi:10.3138/sem.v3.1.37

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LINKS: University of Toronto Press

De Zepetnek, S. T. (1995). Early German-Canadian ethnic minority writing. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 27(1), 99.

This article on “Early German-Canadian Ethnic Minority Writing” aims at a primary presentation of the previously undisclosed corpus of nineteenth-century German-Canadian texts, written both in German and in English. The corpus includes a wide variety of text types, such as the anecdote, poetry, humorous letters, plays, autobiographical writing, and the novel.

LINKS: UBC

Grams, G. (2012). Enemies within our bosom: Nazi sabotage in Canada. Journal of Military and Strategic Studies, 14(3-4)

With the encroachment of World War Two (1939-1945) the Canadian government and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) re-examined German espionage in Canada during World War One. At some stages in WW I members of the Auswartiges Amt (German Foreign Office — AA) in the United States (US) organized and encouraged Germans to conduct sabotage activity within North America for the benefit of Germany’s war effort. Due to American neutrality AA members initially found the United States a convenient location to carry out espionage and sabotage.

LINKS: UBC

Freund, A., & Quilici, L. (1996). Exploring myths in women’s narratives: Italian and German immigrant women in Vancouver, 1947-1961. The Oral History Review, 23(2), 19-43. doi:10.1093/ohr/23.2.19

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LINKS: UBC

Wittmeier, B. (2013, Sep 21). Exploring our German connection; prof preserves a vanishing settler story. Edmonton Journal

The retired University of Alberta professor of German language and literature has been archiving and collecting records of the province’s Germanic diaspora for 15 years now, a hobby that takes him into libraries, archives and into the folds of century-old German language newspapers. Not only has the deluge of western European immigrants slowed to a trickle, the German language is falling into atrophy, a few remote pockets of Hutterites and Mennonites notwithstanding.

LINKS: UBC

Stokes, L. D.. (2006). Fact or Fiction? German Writer A.E. Johann, a Winnipeg Communist, and the Depression in the Canadian West, 1931-1932. Labour / Le Travail, 57, 131–142.

Between the mid- 1920s and his death in 1996 likely no foreign author writing in a language other than English or French published more about Canada than the Ger man A.E. Johann (the principal nom de plume of Alfred Ernst Johann Wollschlager). Beginning with his diary cum travelogue Mit zwanzig Dollar in den wilden Westen, which recounted his experiences during twelve months in 1927-28 with only twenty dollars to start in his pocket working as a labourer on farms and in logging camps across the prairies and northern British Columbia as well as being unemployed in Vancouver, Johann wrote at least eighteen volumes of fiction…

LINKS: JStor.org

Grenke, A.. (1995). From Dreams of the Worker State to Fighting Hitler: The German-Canadian Left from the Depression to the End of World War II. Labour / Le Travail, 35, 65–105.

Why did German1 Canadian labour first organize itself into a national movement in the late 1920s? Why was the movement plagued by discord shortly after it was organized, and why were the communists rather than the socialists eventually able to dominate the movement? With the ascendancy of the communist element, German-Canadian workers were integrated into the international labour movement, then dominated by the Soviet Union. How did this affect the movement? What effect did the rise of National Socialism in Germany have on German-Canadian labour? This paper will seek to examine the influence of these forces on the German-Canadian labour movement from the time it was first organized until its demise in 1949.

LINKS: JStor.org

Ewing-Weisz, C. (2012, May 30). German expat fell in love with the prairies. The Globe and Mail

With his doctoral studies well begun, Haderlein accepted a sessional lectureship at the University of Saskatchewan. In Saskatoon he met Marianne Vangool, recently arrived from Belgium with her parents and siblings. Like Haderlein, she was the eldest of 11. They were married in 1966, in plenty of time for her to type his thesis in 1970.

LINKS: UBC

Gordon, K. (2014, Jul 14). German fans erupt in cheers as their team wins world cup. Edmonton Journal

Soccer fans packed into Edmonton’s German Canadian Cultural Centre erupted in deafening cheers and table pounding Sunday after Germany scored late to beat Argentina and win the World Cup.

LINKS: UBC

Freund, A. (2004, Summer). German immigrants and the Nazi past. Inroads, , 106-117.

What may have been perhaps the greatest difference between Germans’ experiences in Germany and in North America lay in their encounters and relations with Jewish Americans, Canadians, prewar refugees, and Holocaust survivors. Freund presents the experiences of several immigrants and how memory has shaped intercultural relations.

LINKS: UBC

German wives happier, but husbands not. (1966, Sep 17). The Globe and Mail (1936-Current)

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LINKS: UBC

Redekop, B. W. (1992). Germanism among Mennonite Brethren immigrants in Canada, 1930-1960: A struggle for ethno.. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 24(1), 20.

Examines the German identity of one group of Mennonites in the thirty years after their arrival in Canada from Soviet Russia. Germanism as an instrument of ethno-religious group integration; Rise of German voelkish ideologies.

LINKS: UBC

Dailey-O’Cain, J., & Liebscher, G. (2011). Germans from different places: Constructing a german space in urban canada. Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 23(4), 315-345. doi:10.1017/S1470542711000183

This paper deals with the role of the distinction between Germans from speech islands (the so-called Volksdeutsche) and Germans from Germany (the so-called Reichsdeutsche) in conceptualizing the German community in urban Canada. First, 64 interviews with members of this community were analyzed for stretches of talk in which that distinction was made relevant. Then, a subset of these was chosen for the analysis presented here. Our analysis of these six excerpts employs both conversation analysis and positioning theory in order to show how participants draw on various aspects of place, ethnicity, and time in constructing a German space in Canada and their own ethnic identities in connection with it.

LINKS: UBC

Clark, J., & Isern, T. D. (2010). Germans from Russia in Saskatchewan: An oral history. The American Review of Canadian Studies, 40(1), 71-85.

The Germans from Russia are a prominent settlement group in the rural landscape of Saskatchewan. Perhaps because they came incrementally, by chain migration, rather than by organized group colonization, they compose an ethnic group little noticed by historians. Also, their immediate origins are divided, inasmuch as earlier German-Russian immigrants came directly from Russia, whereas many twentieth-century German-Russian immigrants came to Canada from the United States, mainly from North Dakota and South Dakota. This article offers the first focused, scholarly historical treatment of German-Russian immigration and life in Saskatchewan. Drawing on oral histories collected with the support of the Faculty Research Program of the Canadian Embassy, it focuses particularly on growing up German-Russian on the prairies, positing a German-Russian ethnic identity distinct both from neighbor immigrant groups in Saskatchewan and from origin communities in the United States.

LINKS: UBC

Stories by PAULA SIMONS, Journal,Staff Writer. (1996, Mar 25). Give them a home where kids can roam; city draws german immigrants; WHY EDMONTON? series: The new Edmontonians; Edmonton’s newest immigrants and their role in our city’s future. Edmonton Journal

The economic and social pressures of reunification have brought higher taxes and higher unemployment rates, pushing more West-Germans abroad. There are concerns about Germany’s Neo-Nazi movement, and fears that unrest in Eastern Europe could spill into Germany.

LINKS: UBC

D’Aliesio, R. (2002, Oct 25). Hank smith fulfilled dream of making country music: German immigrant got order of canada for his contribution: Life and times. Edmonton Journal

Hank Smith stepped off a steamship in Halifax in 1956 with 50 cents in his pocket, a guitar and suitcase in his hands.He spoke English remarkably well for a 22-year-old born and raised in Germany. He had learned the language by listening to country and western songs, favourites with American troops stationed near his hometown after the Second World War.

LINKS: UBC

Grams, G. W. (2010). Hans Mayer: An atypical Nazi in Alberta. Alberta History, 58(1), 2.

Hans Mayer was born on June 25, 1889, in Blaubeuren, Wurttemberg, Germany, and emigrated to Canada in November 1912. A stone mason by profession, he changed his vocation and became a farmer and cattle breeder near Vegreville. Shortly afterwards he returned to Germany, married, and came back in 1913 with his bride Bertha. They eventually had four children–two boys, Fred and Hans Jr., and two girls, Katie and Mina. Mayer won various provincial prizes for dairy cattle and seed grains and became well established as a farmer. He became a Canadian citizen in 1928.

LINKS: The Free Library

Manley, F. (2007, Jan 02). HERBERT KRENTZ, RCAF PILOT AND CIVIL SERVANT 1919-2006. The Globe and Mail (1936-Current)

Sixty-two years ago, Herbert Krentz was a little behind schedule when he coaxed his Halifax bomber into the wartime skies above England. Ground crews had been slow to bomb up the plane and, to make matters worse, two fullv loaded 30-ton bombers…

LINKS: UBC

Boeschenstein, H. (1967). Is there a canadian image in german literature? Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, 3(1), 1-20. doi:10.3138/sem.v3.1.1

To answer this question we must be open minded. If we don’t find a clearly outlined image in German creative writing or in German-Canadian poetry and fiction, we have to search among other forms of expression—journalism, scholarly works or the records set down by immigrants who, though often primitive grammarians, were in close contact with the country. German awareness of Canada arose in the late 18th century. The fortunes of war and more particularly them is fortunes of the Hessian mercenaries who had to help England during the American War of Independence swept a first group of observers into Eastern Canada. One of them was Johann Gottfried Seume (1762-1810), who had been pressed into Hessian service, sold
to the British and shipped to America…

LINKS: UBC

Wintemberg, W. J.. (1899). Items of German-Canadian Folk-Lore. The Journal of American Folklore, 12(44), 45–50. http://doi.org/10.2307/533769

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LINKS: JStor.org

Lawson, R.. (2007). Joachim von Ribbentrop in Canada, 1910-1914: A Note. The International History Review, 29(4), 821–832.

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LINKS: JStor.org

Guse, A. (2010). Kanada: Deutschstudien im Wandel — von neuen Gegebenheiten zu Ansätzen einer Selbsterneuerung. Die Unterrichtspraxis / Teaching German, 43(1), 2-10.

Die Germanistik oder German Studies in Kanada zeichnen sich durch Variabilität und starke regionale und institutionelle Unterschiede aus. Die nach jahrelangem Rückgang mittlerweile etwas fluktuierenden Immatrikulationszahlen an Univer-sitäten lassen auf Konsolidierung der Deutsch-programme hoffen; die sich ändernden Programme und die disziplinäre Erweiterung des Faches weisen auf einen Generationswechsel unter Pro-fessoren und auf Erneuerung hin.AnUniversitäten haben Deutschprogramme mit MA und PhD an Profil gewonnen, aber auch Undergraduate-Pro-gramme beeindrucken durch das Engagement und die Kreativität ihres Lehrkörpers in dem Prozess, sich neu zu organisieren und zu definieren. An Schulen ist Deutsch im Westen Kanadas stabil und teilweise sogar ansteigend, in Quebec und den Atlantikprovinzen hingegen fast verschwunden.

LINKS: UBC

Nicol, J. (2008). Meteoric career of Alvo von Alvensleben reached beyond Vancouver. British Columbia History, 41(3), 4-5.

“At all events, his meteoric career made a chapter of life which Vancouverites will never tire of discussing.”
So wrote an unnamed American scribe in a profile of Alvo von Alvensleben, appearing in Deeds of Heroism and Bravery, in 1920. As predicted, more than eighty years later, stories of Alvensleben’s “meteoric” life and times continue to be told. But this German emigre’s highrolling reputation reached well beyond the pioneer port. Alvensleben spread German money around, investing on Vancouver Island and northern BC, as well as Alberta and Washington State.

LINKS: UBC

National Designation for William Hespeler. (2007). Manitoba History, (54), 28-29.

The article focuses on William Hespeler, an entrepreneur, immigration official, and politician in Canada, who died in 1921. It is reported that as Commissioner of Immigration and Agriculture for Manitoba and the Northwest Territories, Hespeler hired about 7,000 Mennonites in Manitoba during 1874-1880. On February 19, 2007, at Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall at the University of Winnipeg, Winnipeg, Manitoba, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada unveiled a plaque in honor of Hespeler.

LINKS: UBC

Paterson, W. (2014, Jul 14). Packed German Canadian club celebrates world cup victory. Kelowna Capital News

Club president Inge Hoffmann said the mood was “nail-biting at first,” before Mario Gotze scored in extra time, leading Germany to a 1-0 victory over Argentina. “Everybody jumped and cheered and waved and hollered,” said Hoffmann. “Soccer is growing in Canada and it’s growing in Kelownait’s a wonderful team sport.”

LINKS: Kelowna Capital News

White, C. O. (1994). Pre-World war I Saskatchewan German catholic thought concerning the perpetuation of their language and religion. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 26(2), 15-45.

The paper is divided into three parts, the purpose of each being to set out the position of members of St. Peter’s German Catholic community on the use of parochial schools to perpetuate their language. Their views on that subject having been established, their thoughts on religious instruction in schools can be laid out with relative ease.

LINKS: UBC

Freund, A. (2012). Representing “New Canadians”: Competing Narratives about Recent German Immigrants to Manitoba. Journal Of Mennonite Studies, 30339-361.

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LINKS: UBC

Grams, G. W. (2005). Sankt Raphaels Verein and German-Catholic emigration to Canada from 1919 to 1939. The Catholic Historical Review, 91(1), 83-104. doi:10.1353/cat.2005.0105

By the 1860’s members of the Catholic Church administration had observed German emigrants suffering in domestic harbors and paying exorbitant prices for basic goods. They became concerned about the health and welfare of these emigrants culminating in 1871 with the founding of Sankt Raphaels Verein zum Schutze katholischer deutscher Auswanderer (Saint Raphael’s Society for the Protection of German-Catholic Emigrants—SRS). By the end of World War I this organization was firmly established in Germany.

LINKS: UBC

Bassler, G. P. (1990). Silent or silenced co-founders of Canada? reflections on the history of German Canadians. Canadian Ethnic Studies = Etudes Ethniques Au Canada, 22(1), 38.

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LINKS: UBC

DeVoretz, Don; Hinte, Holger; Werner, Christine (2000). Research on Immigration and Integration in the Metropolis. Some Immigrant Language Lessons from Canada and Germany.

Germany and Canada stand at polar ends of the linguistic debate over language integration and ascension to citizenship. German naturalization, as of January 2000, contains an explicit language criterion for naturalization. Canada, in effect, does not base immigrant entry or citizenship on knowledge of either of its official languages. Acquisition of a second
language in Canada is voluntary and largely dependent on labour market incentives. Which system of second language acquisition — the statist German system or the laissez faire Canadian model — provides the best milieu for immigrant second language acquisition? This paper makes a comparative review of Canadian and German legal and educational programs to answer this question.

LINKS: UBC

Grams, G. W. (2006). T.O.F. Herzer and his work with German-speaking immigration to Canada. Journal Of The Canadian Church Historical Society, 48(2), 161-183.

Dr. Reverend Traugott Otto Francis Herzer was born in Plymouth, Wisconsin on July 24, 1887. Although an American he spent the majority of his adult life in Canada. He died in Winnipeg, Manitoba on October 7, 1958. Throughout his life Herzer exercised humility and a desire to help those less fortunate.

LINKS: UBC

Keyserlingk, R. H. (1984). The Canadian government’s attitude towards Germans and German Canadians in world war two. Canadian Ethnic Studies = Etudes Ethniques Au Canada, 16(1), 16.

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LINKS: UBC

Grams, G. W. (2010). The deportation of german nationals from canada, 1919 to 1939. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 11(2)

This article examines the repatriation of German nationals from Canada between the two World Wars. After World War I, Germans living in Canada were suspicious; this sentiment lingered into the 1930s. During the 1920s, deportations from Canada allowed the government to rid themselves of unwanted residents.During the Great Depression, poor, unemployed immigrants became redundant which encouraged the deportation process. Unfortunately, deportations punished the unlucky and needy; many had experienced hardships in Canada, a country that was unwilling to aid immigrants.

LINKS: UBC

Keane, A. H. (2002). The german colony at leduc. Alberta History, 50(4), 24.

This article examines the repatriation of German nationals from Canada between the two World Wars. After World War I, Germans living in Canada were suspicious; this sentiment lingered into the 1930s. During the 1920s, deportations from Canada allowed the government to rid themselves of unwanted residents.During the Great Depression, poor, unemployed immigrants became redundant which encouraged the deportation process. Unfortunately, deportations punished the unlucky and needy; many had experienced hardships in Canada, a country that was unwilling to aid immigrants.

LINKS: The Free Library

Grenke, A. (1988). The German community of Winnipeg and the English-Canadian response to world war I. Canadian Ethnic Studies = Etudes Ethniques Au Canada, 20(1), 21.

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LINKS: UBC

Hoerder, D. (2002). The German-language diasporas: A survey, critique, and interpretation. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 11(1), 7-44. doi:10.1353/dsp.2011.0035

German-language emigrants and ethnics have not usually been conceptualized as a diaspora. Patterns of migration and of later mainly German-language1—scholarly discourse combined to create two distinct images of the Eastern European and North American regions as separate major areas of settlement. A third image places smaller colonies on other continents, of which, for example, those in South America and Australia have been investigated, while those in London and Paris have been neglected.

LINKS: UBC

Kelly, B. (2011). “The Huns and Vandals are thundering at our gates and within our gates”: Faces of the enemy in Saskatoon during the second world war. Urban History Review, 39(2), 3-16. doi:10.7202/1003458ar

Although at a safe remove from combat during the Second World War, many citizens of Saskatoon exhibited a strange sense of embattlement. During these years fearful residents believed the city to be under threat by a succession of enemies, including German Canadians, Hitler’s Wehrmacht, Japanese Canadians, communists, and the provincial Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. Which foe occupied the spotlight shifted with time and the changing fortunes of war. Come the summer of 1944, enemies that had seemed so real during the early years of the war had all but vanished. By D-Day and the June provincial election, Saskatonians had overcome their wartime paranoia and optimistically turned their attention towards the more pressing needs of domestic reconstruction.

LINKS: UBC

Ley, D. (2008). The immigrant church as an urban service hub. Urban Studies, 45(10), 2057-2074. doi:10.1177/0042098008094873

This paper draws from interviews conducted with leaders of 46 immigrant Christian churches in Vancouver. The congregations comprise newcomers from Korea, ethnic Chinese who are primarily recent immigrants and an older post-1945 German migration. The churches are identified as a hub in which relations of trust and compatibility generate bonding social capital; from this base, a wide range of personal and social services is provided, significantly aiding co-ethnic members to adapt to their new conditions. In a neo-liberal era, the state is facilitating such activities as part of a policy of contracting-out its own former in-house functions. The capacity of the immigrant church to serve both its own members and adherents and also a broader expanded constituency beyond its co-ethnic clients is important. The paper examines the activities of some of the churches in this transition from bonding to bridging social capital and the challenges that they confront.

LINKS: UBC

Peter, K. A., & Peter, F. (1979). The kurtenbach letters: An autobiographical description of pioneer life in saskatchewan around the turn of the century. Canadian Ethnic Studies = Etudes Ethniques Au Canada, 11(2), 89.

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LINKS: UBC

Grams, G. W. (2008). “this terrible Karl May” in the wild west, Kanada im Faltboot. Alberta History, 56(1), 10.

Carl Schwerla was a German journalist who visited Canada in 1929 where his goals were to travel through parts of the West, reporting on his experiences, and at the same time investigating the state of German emigrants. This would enable him to collect material for future publications. One result was the book Kanada im Faltboot (Canada in a Collapsible Boat) published the year after his return.

LINKS: The Free Library

Freund, A. (2015). Transnationalizing home in winnipeg: Refugees’ stories of the places between the “here-and-there”. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 47(1), 61-86.

In this context of the dominance of national history and migration historians’ attempts to transnationalize the writing of history, documenting refugees’ lives is an attempt to tell a counter narrative that undermines the story of nationalist triumph by exposing the costs of nationalism. In the writing of history, the notion of home as a story of belonging is a central concept, but also contested terrain.

LINKS: UBC

Moogk, P. (2014). UNCOVERING THE ENEMY WITHIN: British Columbians and the German menace. BC Studies, (182), 45-72,251.

The Esquimalt dry dock, the Bamfield trans-Pacific cable station, the Point Grey radio station, railway bridges, explosives warehouses, power houses, wharves for seagoing vessels, and the legislative buildings were protected. The property of fugitives could be confiscated.10 Notices in English were placed in BC newspapers directing citizens of the enemy powers to register with the local police.\n An investigating committee reached “the unanimous conclusion that the charges against Mr. Barnes were not proven” and the Board of Governors accepted its report “unanimously.

LINKS: UBC

Gill, A. (2007, Jan 27). Vancouver’s man of the streets. The Globe and Mail.

He is referring to the city-council ordinances of the 1970s that limited the kinds of signage businesses could use. For [Fred Herzog], it was the beginning of the end of the “disordered vitality” that had inspired his collection of some 100,000 streetscapes. “Now, it’s not really a convivial city,” he continues. “It has been enriched in other ways, but not for the people who want to enjoy the street. Not for people like me.

LINKS: UBC

Aldous, R. (2008, Nov 27). Victoria celebrates 150 years of brewing. Victoria News.

The German immigrant set up a brewery in a small log building near Swan Lake, bought surplus grain from the Puget Sound Agricultural Company – whose supply was mounting with the ceasing of orders from Russia due to the Crimean war – and grew hops in his backyard. The commercial brewery was the first one west of the Great Lakes and started a strong beer culture in Victoria, concluded Greg Evans, Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) member.

LINKS: UBC

Grams, G. (2007). Was Eckhardt Kastendieck Saskatchewan’s most active Nazi?. Saskatchewan History, (1), 4.

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LINKS: University of Alberta