The following was posted on a list for scholars of German and Canadian Americans. It mentions the Germans of Braunfels, Texas -- many of whom were German-Bohemians from Bohemia and Moravia. A search of the Internet with CSUMC mentioned below got some very interesting hits about ethnic groups in Wisconsin, the Max Kade Institute and other sites. Karen In a message dated 5/6/2006 12:16:10 PM Mountain Standard Time, jsalmons@WISC.EDU writes: Dear H-GAGCS readers, With the author's permission, I'm cross-posting Walter Kamphoefner's H-Ethnic comments on the current controversy in the U.S. about the singing of the Star-spangled Banner in languages other than English. (By the way, an image of the German translation has recently been used as a book cover for a volume he co-edited: http:// csumc.wisc.edu/mki/Publications/1.PublicationsFrames.htm . Just scroll down to the Kamphoefner & Helbich volume.) Beyond the news value, Walter's post naturally reminds us of how basic historical facts can be ignored in political debate. The study of German-speaking immigrants in North America is especially relevant for how it could help inform those current controversies. Joe Salmons From: jmcclyme <jmcclyme@ASSUMPTION.EDU> List Editor: jmcclyme <jmcclyme@ASSUMPTION.EDU> Editor's Subject: H-ethnic: Star-Spangled banner query Author's Subject: H-ethnic: Star-Spangled banner query Date Written: Mon, 1 May 2006 15:15:44 -0400 Date Posted: Mon, 1 May 2006 15:15:44 -0400 Commentators on the current immigration controversy from the president on down are sorely in need of some historical context on immigration in general, and the National Anthem in Spanish translation in particular. Translations of the Star Spangled Banner go back over 150 years, and our history demonstrates the foolishness of automatically equating English with loyalty or foreign languages with disloyalty. <http://memory.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/loc.rbc.as.113160/ default.html>http://mem ory.loc.gov/cocoon/ihas/loc.rbc.as.113160/default.html O! Sagt, könnt ihr seh¹n in des Morgenroths Strahl, Was so stolz wir im scheidenden Abendroth grüßten? Die Sterne, die Streifen, die wehend vom Wall, Im tödlichen Kampf uns den Anblick versüßten? Hoch flattere die Fahne in herrlicher Pracht, Beim leuchten der Bomben durch dunkle Nacht. O! Sagt, ob das Banner, mit Sternen besä¹t Uber¹m Lande der Freien und Braven noch weht? This lively translation, true to the spirit of the original but not slavishly literal, originated in 1851 from the pen of a Texas German, but it caught on in the ethnic community and hung on for more than half a century. The presumed translator is Hermann Seele, the first mayor of New Braunfels, Texas, who published a very similar text in 1851 for a Galveston celebration where the Declaration of Independence was also read in translation. The image above (a Library of Congress rare document) is obviously of Civil War vintage, and based upon the publisher's address it must have been issued in 1862 or 1863. Immigrants made up one quarter of the Union army, Germans alone one tenth. Many of them served in ethnic regiments where German was sometimes used as the language of command as late as 1863. But even if (and perhaps because) they were singing the Star Spangled Banner auf Deutsch, they understood the core principles of the United States better than many Anglophones of American birth who were whistling ³Dixie.² Even neo-Confederates should be grateful that they did their part to save this great nation from being divided into a second rate power and a banana republic. The Sternbanner song also shows up in an 1890 choral book published for the youth of the Evangelisch-Lutherischen Synode von Ohio (and is reproduced in Willi Paul Adams, The German-Americans: An Ethnic Experience [Indianapolis, 1993], p. 41). The only protest against the translated anthem that I am aware of came during World War I. In May 1917, novelist Booth Tarkington and other prominent citizens of Indianapolis brought a petition protesting the fact that, in the bilingual public schools of their city, the Star Spangled Banner was being sung in German translation! (Frances Ellis, "German Instruction in the Public Schools of Indianapolis, 1869-1919." Indiana Magazine of History 50 (1954): 372). Depending on one's point of view, this could be seen either as an outrageous example of the lengths to which presumptuous German-Americans would go in promoting their ethnic culture, or as a reassuring sign that patriotism and political loyalties are totally independent of mother tongue. Either way, it is an illustration that the image of rapid and complete German-American assimilation often encountered today is at best a serious oversimplification if not entirely off base. An important point about the German Sternbanner is that it truly grew out of an immigrant culture, and continued to be an active part of that culture. The Spanish translation from ca. 1920 was, to judge by the name of the translator, an outside effort that was probably part of the Americanization movement. The Yiddish translations I have encountered appear to have more genuine folk roots. These are the only languages in which I am aware of a national anthem translation. [my literal re-translation of the translation: O say can you see in the morning¹s red rays What so proudly in the fading twilight we saluted? The stars and stripes, which waving from the wall In the deathly fight sweetened our view. May the flag wave high in magnificent splendor By the flashes of bombs through the dark night. O say, does that banner, with stars bestrewn O¹er the land of the free and the brave still wave ] Walter Kamphoefner Director of Graduate Studies Department of History Texas A&M University