The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Wartime terror on Fountain Avenue
In August 1918 as American soldiers were fighting the German Army an angry mob marched from Main Street to Fountain Avenue near Wesleyan University. They were intent on demanding an oath of loyalty from German-born delicatessen owner Carl Herrmann.
Herrmann, according to Middletown Press newspaper archives, had lived in the city for decades, but that night the 49-year-old shopkeeper, his wife Lydia and their three children must have feared for their lives like never before.
Carl Herrmann was one of a small number of skilled and entrepreneurial German immigrants who settled in Middletown to work in the city’s factories or start successful small businesses. In April 1917 when the United States entered the First World War, German families were a solid part of the city’s middle class.
The crowd of around 100 had gathered on Main Street to celebrate Allied successes in France. They became excited when someone said they had overheard Hermann making pro-German remarks. They resolved to give the immigrant a lesson in patriotism.
They made their way the mile or so to his home, where there they smashed a window, broke the front door and spread garbage on the back steps of the Herrmann house. They called on the frightened homeowner to appear and forced him to kiss an American flag and give three cheers for the United States.
The mob then ordered Herrman to make a patriotic speech, but he was too dumbstruck to speak. At this point his son, 20-yearold Carl Jr., bravely stepped forward and stated the family’s loyalty was beyond reproach. This inflamed the rioters and, according to newspaper accounts, the next day the mob had to be “restrained from laying hands on the youthful orator.”
Fortunately for the younger Herrmann, a single police officer motored up Fountain Avenue and ordered the mob to disperse. The crowd returned to Main Street hurling threats outside the home of a German-born photographer. They then moved to the German Lutheran Church, where they manhandled a parishioner, tore up hymnbooks and flew an American flag from the belfry.
Next day, the city was buzzing with talk of what had happened. Some strongly condemned the rowdy demonstration. Others said it should be repeated to deter any wouldbe German sympathizers who might be lurking in Middletown.
This ugly incident was consistent with the antiGerman sentiment that spread across America during World War I. People with German sounding names were accused of being disloyal to the United States and there were real fears German spies were actively collecting information or trying to sabotage the nation’s wartime efforts.
A federal government pamphlet of the time warned readers that Germany wanted to sow division in America’s towns and cities by appealing to political and ethnic divisions.
Within days, four young Middletown men were charged with breaching the peace and assaulting the Herrmanns. A good sized crowd turned up for their trial, where the prosecutor declared what happened was “a disgrace to the fair name of Middletown … and decent citizens of the town will not stand for it,” according to the newspaper archives.
Three of the four men were found guilty and received a $15 fine along with a suspended jail sentence. Judge James R. Edlin described their actions as “an outrage on a peaceful community,” adding it was up to the U.S. government to decide the loyalty of individuals, not the role of rioters. Sentiment in the city remained divided and it was reported many townspeople helped to pay the fines of the convicted men. The attack on the Her-
Next day, the city was buzzing with talk of what had happened. Some strongly condemned the rowdy demonstration. Others said it should be repeated to deter any wouldbe German sympathizers who might be lurking in Middletown.
rmanns was the only antiGerman outburst of any significance in Middletown, from what the newspaper archives tell. Yet during the war, Germans living in Connecticut and elsewhere were under scrutiny.
In 1917, the Connecticut Council of Defense invited towns to choose men of good character to help authorities look into suspicious circumstances and run down damaging rumors. They were to watch for illegal shipments of munitions and attempts by German sympathizers to collect information for enemy use.
Suspicious incidents were to be investigated and reported. Mr. E.B. Haling signed for these duties in Middletown and Durham farmer Paul P. Wilcox volunteered adding he had several trustworthy lieutenants who could act if needed. The state also sent letters to doctors and clergymen asking them to report anything suspicious their patients or parishioners encountered.
In February 1918, the U.S. government ordered German and other foreign-born men 14 years and older to register as aliens if they were not U.S. citizens. The Connecticut State Library still holds the alien registration cards for Middletown, which show that 52 German men were living in the city at the time.
Later in the year, German-born women were required to carry permits if they went within a half mile of military camps, arsenals, factories and other prohibited places. Failure to register or carry a permit could lead to arrest and internment for the duration of the War.
In July 1918, Connecticut libraries were asked to remove books deemed favorable to Germany from display. Libraries throughout the state complied and the Russell Library in Middletown reported “we have removed from our library shelves the books that show any sympathy for Germany … we had none of the real propaganda books,” newspaper archives show.
The Yale Library was one of the few to refuse and ordered more books with German themes to assert its academic independence. That same month, the governor of Connecticut prohibited languages other than English in schools and banned enemy aliens from teaching “for the safety of the state and the nation.”
After the World War, anti-German sentiment waned. In 1926, Middletown voters elected a mayor of German ancestry and during World War II, young men of German heritage served in the American Services.
Despite what had happened to him, Carl Herrmann Sr. remained in Middletown until he died in 1939. Ironically, the mob that demanded his loyalty on that frightening night was unaware he had become a U.S. Citizen two years before America declared war on Germany.