Poster from a Wisconsin community urging men to register for the WW1 draft.
I became interested in genealogy via my dad who would tell stories from his childhood in the 1930’s. Some of the stories sounded like family legends and facts were and are hard to come by. Other stories had the ring of truth to them. Below is one of them.
My father told me that his uncles expressed reluctance to be drafted in 1917 when the US entered WW1.
At the time the City of Milwaukee had an ethnic German population of around 50%. Many of the immigrants were leftist, socialists that left Germany resenting the Prussian aristocracy and royal rule of the Kaiser. In other words, many of the German immigrants had no great love for the Prussian royals but still were sentimental about their country of origin.
The German side of my family immigrated in the 1870’s and 80’s. Dad remembered from his father that he thought they were Prussian. The term Prussian can be a generic term meaning any one of North German States that were welded together under Bismarck in the 1870’s. One document that I possess states that my German ancestors were Pomeranian, a region of Germany that is now largely in Poland but in 1914 when WW1 began was a Prussian German State.
My great-grandfather Frederick immigrated in 1875 at the age of nine and by 1905 he and my great-grandmother (immigrated 1887) had produced nine children who lived to adulthood. Two were girls and seven were boys. By 1917 five of the boys were of draft age. My grand-father, born in 1902 nor his sole younger brother were not of military age in 1917 or 1918.
Thus far, I have only found one record of a draft card for one of the boys (Willie, William and sometimes Wilhelm on the records, born 1892) and he was turned down because he had epilepsy. This does not mean the others were not drafted or registered; it just means I cannot find a record as of yet, maybe because they have not been transcribed to INET usage.
Dad told me he had thought that one of the uncles was wounded (in a gas attack) during the war and spent the post war years in a VA hospital. I have not been able to verify that either and I suspect that if it is true it was probably a cousin rather than one of my dad’s uncles. In my searches on Ancestry.com I have found many Roeders living in Milwaukee of military age but at this point cannot find any record that link any of them to my great-grandfather. It’s a bit frustrating given the number of references.
In any event, the story of my dad’s uncles expressing reluctance to be drafted has the ring of truth to it. The family was only thirty-five years removed from Germany. It was common for one portion of a family to immigrate and then later send for another portion to immigrate. Some would of course choose to remain behind but keep in contact with the portion that left. Dad told me that the uncles were reluctant to be drafted because they knew they would face cousins in the German Army.
The likely hood of that was probably remote given the scope of the Great War, but it did speak of a certain “civil type war” and at least sentimental divided loyalties on the part of dad’s uncles.
Although it is speculation at this point it is also possible that my uncles were leftist-socialists (horrors!) and shared the same pacifistic views the socialists in Milwaukee held. If so, it would be ironic because WW1 ended the notion that Milwaukee was a German city on the shores of Lake Michigan because the Anglo-Saxon powers that were didn’t care a whit whether or not you were a German pacifist.
The Anglo-Saxon contingent of Milwaukee strongly favored the British from the start of the war as did the second largest group of immigrants to Milwaukee, the Poles, most of whom came from the German partition of Poland (Polish Pomerania today.
At first, up until 1915 Milwaukee as a whole tried to stay neutral and non-biased regarding the latest European war. The German sinking of the Lusitania in May of 1915 began to sway general public opinion toward the British since many Americans were killed in the sinking. The fact the ship was a passenger liner, albeit one that was also carrying war material for the British war effort enraged Americans.
So, by 1917, when America declared war public sentiment against Germany and against German-Americans ran hot in some places, even if the German-Americans were pacifistic. In Milwaukee where German was spoken in many of the public schools it soon became banned. The lowly hamburger named from immigrants from Hamburg was now called a “liberty steak” and the “frankfurter” became the “hot dog.”
The persecution never led to what happened to Japanese Americans during WW2 but it was enough that many Germans dropped their heritage in an effort to prove their loyalty. And they did, as thousands of German-Americans became “doughboys” and served over there, meaning the battlefields of France, 1917-1918.
At present, I do not have a record of any of my grandfather’s brothers fighting in WW1. Nor am I able to determine whether or not they had cousins in the Kaiser’ Army although I think it likely.
Below are some pictures I found on the INET of youthful soldiers from both sides. The first batch is typical of German soldiers who marched off in 1914. The spiked helmet was in vogue until 1916. Note the youth of these soldiers.
The rest of the collection is at this link.
German Soldier 1914
Here is a picture of what my grandfather’s uncles would have looked like in the draft of 1917.
Youthful “Doughboys” 1917
Related articles
- German soldiers found entombed in an perfectly preserved World War One shelter (telegraph.co.uk)
- Marching With the Band – WW1 (henleyshamilton1.wordpress.com)
History and Hobbies 
The VA might have some medical records for World War I soldiers you are interested in. I live in the Washington DC area, but I wrote to the VA in Milwaukee (the VA HQ for Wisconsin) with my GF’s Name, Rank, Unit, and Army Serial Number. They sent me copies of his induction and release from military service physicals. Had he received serious wounds (or had been gassed), I think that kind of information might have been noted in his release physical.
Thanks for the heads-up William. I may be dealing with my late father’s memory. I remember his saying that he thought one of his uncles was gassed in WW1 and he meant the Roeder side. Except for the one uncle with epilepsy I cannot find a draft card.I think what I’ll do is a run a search for dad’s uncles on his mom’s side because perhaps that is what dad was really remembering. Anyway, thanks for the head’s up. One of my dad’s uncles is buried at Woods near the VA but he served as a warrant officer in WW2. He does not have a WW1 record.