German Australians in Rural Society 1914-1918
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German Australians in Rural Society 1914-1918. John McQuilton In the literature devoted to the home front during the first world war there is a general acceptance that the German Australian had moved from being a model citizen in 1914 to the ‘enemy within’ by 1916. The pressures of war and government propaganda demonised the German Australian, creating an ugly social climate that allowed the suspension of civil rights, encouraged witch hunts and personal scores to be settled using ethnicity as an excuse. Michael McKernan has argued that this was deliberate government policy. 1 Australia was a long way from the battlefields of Europe and the government, to boost the war effort, manufactured an internal threat. The German Australian became the ‘Hun’ beloved of propaganda. Without doubt, the most influential book on this subject remains Gerhardt Fischer’s chilling analysis. He paints a dark picture of prejudice, xenophobia, cruelty, dispossession, farce and occasional kindness.2 Walla Walla was a German Australian enclave with Culcairn Shire.3 For many in the district German was their first language and the riding consistently returned German Australians as councillors. Tensions between the German and Anglo communities was clearly evident at the outbreak of the war. In November 1914, the local branch of the Farmers’ and Settlers’ Association met to consider three motions: enemy aliens should not be employed by local farmers; enemy aliens were to be denied access to country districts; and all enemy aliens in country districts should be rounded up and interned in Sydney. The motions were lost by seven votes to five but allegations that local German farmers employed fellow nationals at under-award wages persisted.4 Although many of the young men from community enlisted, a sizeable section of Walla Walla’s German Australian community largely ignored the war. Others openly opposed Australia’s involvement. Frederick Heppner was fined £100 and bound over to keep the peace for twelve months in 1915 after charges of disloyalty had been brought under the War Precautions Act. Celebrating the fall of Warsaw he claimed, ‘Germany will beat all the world and all you b- Australians.’5 Tensions within the local German Australian community were clearly evident during the recruitment campaign in early 1916. After a violent struggle, the police arrested a ‘German national’ for singing ‘Wacht Am Rhine’. After his arrest, the ‘German’ compounded his error by calling for three cheers for the kaiser. Two armed men attempted to spring the prisoner from the cells, but failed and were arrested. The charge laid, however, was not attempting to release a prisoner: the charge was threatening language used against local German Australians.6 Although the first internments from Walla Walla had taken place in 1915, doubts about the loyalty of the district’s German Australians persisted, especially after the second conscription referendum in 1917. Walla Walla was now seen as a hotbed of not only German disloyalty but also Sinn Fein dissent. There was little the defence department could do with the Sinn Feiners but they could do something about the 178 Rural Society ‘German’ disloyalists. In March 1918, four men were arrested and interned, Herman Alfred Paech, Edward D Heppner, Ernest G Wenke and John Wenke. All were Australian born. The Wenke brothers were third generation Australians. The four men were justices of the peace and Paech and John Wenke were shire councillors. The shire council was embarrassed by the arrests, expressing its ‘regret’ at the action: John Wencke’s son, David, had been tended a welcome home social from the front a week before the arrests were made and Wencke had another son still serving overseas. He was released in June. The other three men, however, remained interned.7 The war’s end brought little change. In 1920, both Paech and John Wencke stood as candidates for the Walla Walla Riding in the council elections. Paech lodged £50 with the Culcairn newspaper to be forfeited if anyone could prove his disloyalty. The reward was never claimed. But both candidates faced strong opposition from the Returned Sailors and Soldiers Imperial League of Australia (RSSILA). Branches at Albury, Wagga Wagga, Henty, Culcairn and Walla Walla began a campaign to stop them standing. A deputation asked the New South Wales premier, Holman, to intervene. Holman referred them to the federal government. A second deputation visited W M Hughes, the prime minister. Surely the still operable war precautions act could be employed to stop Paech and Wencke, they argued: supporters of Paech and Wencke had threatened rival candidates with bodily harm. They also alleged that 200 ‘Germans’ were armed and ready to escort the two men to the council chambers after the election. The deputation argued the RSSILA felt compelled to take up arms and was prepared to supply ‘an even stronger force of determined men’ to stop the escort. The deputation’s concluding remarks, however, they demanded land for returned men. The best land in the district, they claimed, lay in German hands. It should be resumed for soldier settlers. The federal member for Hume led a smaller deputation supporting Paech and Wencke. Hughes characteristically huffed and puffed but decided that it was a state matter and referred the whole matter back to Holman.8 Meanwhile, the elections were held. Paech and Wencke lost. Obviously the non-German Australian constituency had deserted the two men for the first time. The defeat was greeted with three cheers for the king by the returned men and a hoisting of the Union Jack. The Albury Evening News claimed that the campaign against Paech and Wencke was more a political matter than a patriotic matter.9 The RSSILA was testing its power in a postwar Australia. How typical was Walla Walla of the treatment of German Australians in rural Australia during the war? Less than one hundred kilometres to the south in North Eastern Victoria, the treatment of a regional German Australian population was very different indeed. German Australian settlers first arrived in north eastern Victoria in substantial numbers from South Australia in the 1870s. They selected land under the provisions of the second grant act. They brought with them their German language schools, their Lutheran faith and the community structure associated with South Australia’s German settlements. They settled mainly in the lower reaches of the Kiewa and Mitta valley systems near the townships of Yackandandah, Wodonga and Tallangatta although they also settled in other parts of the region, from Beechworth and Rutherglen to the upper Murray. By 1914, the sense of community that had underpinned their initial settlement had begun to break down. They had intermarried with the non- German community and had begun to Anglicise their Christian names. German 179 Imaginary Homelands language schools, like the one at Baranduda, had closed down, local families preferring to send their children to the local state school.10 German Australians occupied important positions within the local community. They acted as justices of the peace, they served on shire councils, they were executive members of football and racing clubs and some had become prominent in local business. They were also found on both sides of the regional political divide. The Political Labor Council, the Liberal League and the People’s Party boasted German Australian members. The process of assimilation, then, had been substantial although they were still recognised locally as being ‘German’, rather like other groups were recognised as being ‘Irish’ or ‘English’ or ‘Scottish’. At the outbreak of war in 1914, both the federal member of parliament for the region, John Parker Moloney, and the regional press actively promoted a clear differentiation between Germany and the German Australians living in their midst. As Moloney remarked: ‘They were not responsible for the war, and they should treat them kindly.’11 It was an admirable sentiment, but could it last? The first inkling of how the war had affected the regional perceptions of the German Australian population came in May 1915, just as the news of the landing at Gallipoli was breaking. Reinhold Rau appeared in the Wodonga court. Rau, who had arrived in Australia in 1911, had been placed on parole at Hay but had left western New South Wales for north eastern Victoria, hoping to find work amongst German families in the Wodonga district. He had been found sleeping in the railway sheds. Rau had not only broken his parole but had been found on an installation designated as a secure area. The bench seemed bemused by Rau and opted to fine him 20/-. The military authorities, however, promptly interned him.12 There was little than an outside observer could fault with the region’s response to the Germans and Germany. Regional councils and the regional press backed campaigns like the one mounted by Traralgon shire to keep Peter Schmidt in internment. The ‘Hun’ had become a staple in the regional press by 1915 and the Ovens and Murray Advertiser excelled itself with a grim description of Beechworth under the heel of an occupying German army. The regional police were diligent in searching out and arresting German nationals who happened to stray into the north east although their tally was a small one — they had arrested only six by war’s end.13 And there was certainly evidence of ethnicity being used to settle old scores as Conrad Huhs, H E Kugelmann and Dr Dovaston were to discover. Huhs was a naturalised British subject, one of Rutherglen’s bakers and a borough councillor. He had also served as mayor in 1907. During his time as a councillor, he had crossed swords with the Prentice brothers, Alexander and John. Huhs was a man of strong views and a fiery temper although he had a soft spot for the local children.