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Exhibitions:
"Grüß Gott" in Rensselaer County:
The Twentieth Century
 During
World War I, local German-Americans protested the English blockade
of food and surgical supplies to Germany and the atrocity propaganda
used to justify the British government's action. The local branch
of the German-American National Alliance (DANB) with 900 members
boycotted banks that sold Allied War Bonds in 1915. This measure
had limited success. From Vienna, the local journalist, Carl Dannhauser,
reported about the starving population their and in Germany. On
German-American Day in October 1916, over $7,000 was raised to
benefit war victims in Germany and Austria-Hungary.
On April 2, 1917, the United States declared war
on Germany despite considerable public opposition. Just a few
months after the United States entered the war, Secretary of the
Treasury, William Gibbs McAdoo, called the public mood a "delirium".
Sauerkraut became liberty cabbage, German Shepards became Alsatians
and the city of Syracuse banned pinochle, a German card game.
The press published calls for mass hangings of "disloyal
German-Americans" and some clergymen compared Germans to
cholera germs that must be annihilated. Despite this, naturalized
Germans collected relief funds for the Red Cross and served in
the U.S. Army.
The war, national prohibition beginning in 1919,
and the closing of free immigration in 1921 affected German-American
organizations. Membership in the societies of Germania Hall increasingly
shifted to second generation German-Americans. However, institutions
in Rensselaer County survived the war far better than those in
Albany, drawing on a larger German population.
After World War II, many of the German churches
dissolved. Germania Hall and its inner societies remained the
center of German-American social life. The hall's building at
134 River Street suffered fire damage in 1949 and in 1954 the
society built a new hall at its current location, 309 Third Avenue
in Lansingburgh. A Ladies Auxiliary was established in 1975 and
three years later the Schuhplattlerverein Alpenklang (Bavarian
folk dancing society) followed. To celebrate its 100th Anniversary
in 1990, Germania Hall published a history of its organization
and its inner societies. Today, Germania Hall remains a center
of German-American life with traditional German dinners being
served on Friday evenings.
In 1985, Dr. Hannelore Wilfert, Professor of German
(now emerita) of Russell Sage College founded, together with other
first-generation Germans, the German-American Culture Club. The
club conducts its monthly meetings in German and programs address
culture from literary, musical and culinary presentations to current
developments in Germany.
Both organizations look forward to the new Millennium
with a heartfelt Grüß Gott to Rensselaer County.
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