German Wine in Canadian Bottles: the Celebration and Commemoration of German

German Wine in Canadian Bottles: The Celebration and Commemoration of German Unification in Berlin, Ontario, 1871-1914 Mario Nathan Coschi, PhD Candidate McMaster University [email protected] On May 2, 1871, as many as 12,000 people gathered in the small, largely German town of Berlin, Ontario for a “Peace Festival” to celebrate the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the unification of Germany.1 The Anglo-Canadian media who witnessed this curious event responded with overwhelming and unanimous praise for the celebration and its participants.2 Forty years later, on January 26, 1911, when a group of Germans met to celebrate the birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the response was similar.3 There was no objection to the feting of a foreign monarch on Canadian soil. The unification of Germany and its celebration and subsequent commemoration were instrumental in creating and shaping the identity of the German community in Berlin, Ontario in the nineteenth century. The response of the Anglo-Canadian observers reflects the fact that although they copied nationalist celebrations in Germany, the celebrants themselves were not 1 L. J. Breithaupt Diaries, (University of Waterloo Doris Lewis Rare Book Room, Breithaupt Hewetson Clark Collection, GA24, Section 2.5.3), 2 May 1871. 2 “The German Peace Festival,” Globe (Toronto), 3 May 1871, 4; “The Press on the Festival,” (Kitchener Public Library Grace Schmidt Room, W.H.E. Schmalz Collection, MC.15.1a). 3 “The Emperor’s Birthday,” News Record (Berlin), 27 January 1911. German nationalists; it was not their intention to create a German colony on Canadian soil. I argue that the claim to be loyal Canadians was central to how Berlin’s Germans defined themselves. Celebrations of the German Empire were an invented tradition of Berlin’s ethnic elite who employed them in a Canadian context, and used them to define and secure their own place in Canada. Through these celebrations, they expressed a localized version of Canadian nationalism, one which tried to harmonize their ethnic identity with a broader Canadian national identity. In their response, the Anglo-Canadian population demonstrated that the definition of a “proper” Canadian could be sufficiently flexible to allow these Germans a place. Therefore, while people in both Berlin, Germany and Berlin, Ontario annually observed the Kaiser’s birthday, proudly sang “Die Wacht am Rhein,” and planted ceremonial oak trees, it was towards two different ends. Peter Goheen contends that public spectacles, such as these celebrations, were invested with symbolic significance because they served as a break from everyday routine.4 Historians studying public spectacles in the nineteenth century, argue that they were a mode of communication whereby a group expressed its identity and values to other citizens. Michael Cottrell, for example, argues that St. Patrick’s Day parades in Toronto were used by Irish Catholics to “publicize their distinctiveness.” They were halted in 1871 when the Irish Catholics sought to assimilate into Canada and the parades proved to be a barrier to that.5 I argue, 4 Peter G. Goheen, “Symbols in the Streets: Parades in Victorian Urban Canada,” Urban History Review 18, no. 3 (1990): 237. 5 Susan G. Davis, Parades and Power: Street Theatre in Nineteenth Century Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), 3; Craig Heron and Steve Penfold, “The Craftmen’s Spectacle: Labour Day Parades in Canada, The Early Years,” Histoire Sociale/Social History 58 (1996): 363; Michael Cottrell, “St. Patrick’s Day Parades in Nineteenth-Century Toronto: A Study of Immigrant Adjustment and Elite Control,” Histoire Sociale/Social History 49 (1992): 59,72-73 . 1 however, that by celebrating the German Empire, the ethnic elite were not attempting to build walls around their community and separate themselves from the rest of Canada. Instead, these public celebrations were what Royden Loewen and Gerald Friesen refer to as a “boundary zone.” These were forums such as politics, the workplace, or schools where immigrants and established Canadians encountered one another and negotiated their respective identities and their relationship to one another.6 In the boundary zone of public spectacles, the German community and the rest of Canada negotiated a national identity which was capable of crossing the lines of ethnicity. By allowing, supporting, and even participating in these celebrations, the Anglo-Canadian population showed their approval of this invented tradition and the meaning it conveyed. Eric Hobsbawm argues that the invention of traditions has occurred most frequently during periods of great change or upheaval, citing 1870 to 1914 in Europe as a time when traditions were invented “with particular assiduity.”7 In Germany, this period saw the proliferation of traditions which aimed to assert the legitimacy of the Kleindeutsch unification, which was dominated by Prussia and excluded Austria.8 In response to the immense transformations occurring in Berlin, Ontario in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, in which Berlin went from being a rural ethnic enclave to a thriving industrial town in the heart of 6 Royden Loewen and Gerald Friesen, Immigrants in Prairie Cities: Ethnic Diversity in Twentieth-Century Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009), 4-5. 7 Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” in The Invention of Tradition eds. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 4-5; Eric Hobsbawm, “Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe, 1870-1914,” in The Invention of Tradition eds. Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 263. 8 Hobsbawm, “Mass-Producing Traditions,” 273; Abigail Green, Fatherlands: State-Building and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Germany (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 313. 2 Ontario, the German community’s ethnic elite borrowed from these newly created traditions but ascribed to them a different meaning. The area that became Berlin was settled at the start of the nineteenth century by German speaking Mennonites from Pennsylvania. They were followed, beginning in the 1820s, by German immigrants from Europe. Early Berlin was not only isolated culturally and linguistically from the rest of Anglo-Saxon Upper Canada, but geographically as well. At the time, it was the farthest inland settlement in the province. Nearby Guelph was not founded until 1826, more than two decades after the first Mennonites had arrived in Berlin. There were few roads to connect Berlin to the major centres of the province, while those that did exist were treacherous and, at times, impassable. It was even settled in advance of the government survey, and for a long time afterwards, there remained little evidence of the authority of the state in the village. 9 In 1852, Berlin politically outmanoeuvred the larger town of Galt to be named the seat of the newly created Waterloo County.10 This brought with it a court house and the other accoutrements that came with being the centre of local government, as well as a branch of the Bank of Upper Canada and many English professionals. This brought Berlin into closer communion with the rest of Upper Canada. Owing to this new prestige, the Grand Trunk Railway also decided to extend its line from Toronto to Berlin.11 9 John English and Kenneth McLaughlin, Kitchener: An Illustrated History (Toronto: Robin Brass Studio, 1983), 20- 21; Herbert Karl Kalbfleisch, The History of the Pioneer German Language Press of Ontario, 1835-1918 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1968), 24; Berlin was only given a post office and justice of the peace in 1838 after lobbying by Heinrich Wilhelm Peterson, the founder of Berlin’s first newspaper. 10 English and McLaughlin, 27-28. 11 English and McLaughlin, 32; 48. 3 This, more than anything else, helped to end Berlin’s isolation from the rest of the province. Prior to the line’s completion, Berlin’s newspapers keenly discussed the benefits that would accrue to the town from the opening of trade and communications with the rest of the province.12 Once the line was opened, Berlin’s residents eagerly availed themselves of the opportunity to visit and explore the rest of the province.13 This interest was reciprocated as newspapers such as the Toronto Globe began reporting on the satisfactory progress they witnessed in Berlin.14 Local newspapers were certain to reprint the glowing praise Berlin received from outsiders and the Berlin Chronicle stated “whatever other advantages the railway may have conferred upon us, it has at least drawn public attention to the town, and induced strangers to come among us.”15 Facilitated by the new rail line as well as the arrival of steam power in 1846, Berlin was also becoming a small but significant industrial centre. By the 1870s, Berlin’s 27 industrial firms had roughly 700 employees.16 As Berlin became economically integrated with the rest of the province, its predominantly German businessmen forged connections with their largely Anglo- Saxon counterparts in the surrounding towns and cities.17 By ending Berlin’s isolation, these transformations brought the town’s Germans into increasing contact with the Anglo-Canadian world around them. As this German community 12 Telegraph (Berlin), 22 April 1853. 13 “Railroad Excursion,” Chronicle and Provincial Reformers’ Gazette (Berlin), 30 July 1856. 14 “Railway Excursion,” Globe (Toronto), 25 July 1856. 15 “Berlin,” Chronicle and Provincial Reformers’ Gazette (Berlin), 30 July 1856; Chronicle and Provincial Reformers’ Gazette (Berlin), 13 August 1856. 16 English and McLaughlin, 37-38. 17 In his diary, a young Louis Jacob Breithaupt, the son of a German-born tannery owner, frequently made note of his father’s business trips which took him all over Upper Canada/Ontario. Later, after the business had grown and he had taken over, Louis Jacob’s business trips would take him across Canada, the United States, and even to Europe; See, for example: L. J.

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