Ethnic Germans' Sufferings After World War I in the United States and Europe

German-Americans were the most visible non-Anglophone group in the US during the 18th and 19th centuries. But the hostility against these groups took place during the nineteenth century, but were largely non-systematic. The Germans' stance of anti-slavery position in the Southern United States brought about violent clashes in slave states such as Texas during the American Civil War.

The pacifist Mennonite and Amish communities attracted considerable hatred, particularly during the American Revolution and the US Civil War, when many Mennonites and possibly Amish were imprisoned or forcibly conscripted. There was a popular view that Germans did not consider themselves part of America.

Upon the outbreak of World War I, anti-German sentiment quickly reached fever pitch. Many Germans supported their (former) homeland's side in the war, in which America long remained officially neutral. The situation came to a crisis with America's entry into the war in 1917. By the time the troops returned from Europe, the German community had ceased to be a major force in American culture, or was no more perceived as German.

When in France during World War I, members of the Yale University had learned about the German song Die Wacht am Rhein and were apparently shocked to discover the fact that Yale's traditional song "Bright College Years" had been written to the "splendid tune" of Carl Wilhelm. Suddenly hating this melody, Yale Alumni sang "Bright College Years" to the tune of the Marseillaise instead, and after the war the German melody was banned for some time until it was reinstated in 1920.

In Canada, thousands of German born Canadians were interned in detention camps during World War I and World War II and subjected to forced labour. Many Ukrainians and other Eastern Europeans were also detained during the First World War as were Japanese and Italian-Canadians during the Second World War.

In Britain, Germans were demonized in the press well before the First World War, when the Kaiserliche Marine started to challenge the Royal Navy, but particularly around 1912 and during the First World War. Anti-German sentiment was so intense that the British Royal Family (which was, in fact, of German origin) was advised by the government to change its name, resulting in the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha becoming the House of Windsor. The German Shepherd dog was renamed as Alsatian. The waters that had been known as the 'German Ocean' were also renamed; the North Sea (as in German Nordsee) despite being east of the British Isles.