The Internment of German-Americans during World War II: The History of the American Government's Controversial Decision to Intern and Deport Citizens of G
ISBN: 9781671990210
$9.99
*Includes pictures
*Includes a bibliography for further reading
The internment of Japanese Americans in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor is second only to slavery in terms of America’s most tragic and regrettable chapters in history. While the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast during the Second World War is widely recognized - they have even received apologies and compensation from the U.S. government - what is not as well-known is that between 1941 and 1948, approximately 10,000 Americans of German descent were also forcibly interned at camps scattered across the United States. Some refugees, who had fled from Germany in an attempt to escape Nazi persecution, were rounded up, interned, and later used in a prisoner exchange program between the United States and German governments. The American government also went to great lengths to secure Germans living across Latin America who they believed posed a tangible threat should they cross America’s southern border.
The Roosevelt administration’s policy on enemy aliens, and German-Americans in particular, favored an intelligence-based, targeted approach for interning and deporting those who might be deemed a threat to national security. Political pressures from within the administration and the public at large led to carrying out this policy of interning and deporting enemy aliens. Sadly, this ultimately violated the civil rights of German-American citizens and refugees fleeing Nazi-controlled Germany.
*Includes a bibliography for further reading
The internment of Japanese Americans in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor is second only to slavery in terms of America’s most tragic and regrettable chapters in history. While the forced relocation and internment of Japanese Americans living on the West Coast during the Second World War is widely recognized - they have even received apologies and compensation from the U.S. government - what is not as well-known is that between 1941 and 1948, approximately 10,000 Americans of German descent were also forcibly interned at camps scattered across the United States. Some refugees, who had fled from Germany in an attempt to escape Nazi persecution, were rounded up, interned, and later used in a prisoner exchange program between the United States and German governments. The American government also went to great lengths to secure Germans living across Latin America who they believed posed a tangible threat should they cross America’s southern border.
The Roosevelt administration’s policy on enemy aliens, and German-Americans in particular, favored an intelligence-based, targeted approach for interning and deporting those who might be deemed a threat to national security. Political pressures from within the administration and the public at large led to carrying out this policy of interning and deporting enemy aliens. Sadly, this ultimately violated the civil rights of German-American citizens and refugees fleeing Nazi-controlled Germany.