CanyonAg77 said:

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B-1 83 said:

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CanyonAg77 said:

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B-1 83 said:

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They had a German POW Camp in Crystal City………..figure that one out. Some stayed after the war.

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I thought the Crystal City Camp was not a POW Camp, but instead an interment camp for Americans of German, Italian, and Japanese descent. You hear a lot about the Japanese camps, but other Axis powers were subject to interment, too.

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That would be news to me, but certainly not impossible. I just always heard it referred to as a POW camp.

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https://www.thc.texas.gov/crystalcity

Quote:

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Housing all three Axis nationalities, Crystal City (Family) Internment Camp was intended to be populated by people of Japanese ancestry and their immediate families. However, on December 12, 1942, the camp's first internees to arrive were a mix of German Americans and German Enemy Aliens. On February 12, 1943, the first group of Latin Americans arrivedalso Germansdeported from Costa Rica. On March 17, 1943, the first group of Japanese American internees arrived. The Immigration and Naturalization (INS) planned to transfer all German internees to another camp, but the German spokesman asked camp officials if they could remain because their living conditions here were far better than at previous confinement sites they were held at.

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Much more at link

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All through Latin America German, Italian, and other countries Nationals were rounded up on the behest of the Roosevelt administration. Many prominent businessmen, professionals, and companies lost everything in that process. In Nicaragua and Costa Rica the governments, i.e. Somoza in Nicaragua, took very valuable coffee and sugar plantations and other industrial enterprises. The famous quote "He may be a SOB, but he is our SOB" was Roosevelt on the original Somoza dictator. I met a few families that had lost vast holdings during WWII down there, and that had family members interned in the US for the duration. All were lost to the Somoza's.

One of my good friends, and my personal attorney, when I was in Nicaragua had an Austrian grandfather that had patented some processes for coffee processing or something, he had interests in some plantations and what not and was a very successful man. He got rounded up in Honduras and was held and sent to the US, but ended up with a reprieve when one of his close friends with US Fruit requested him to return to run US Fruit operations in Central America. But he came back as an employee and severed in that function for the rest of his working days.

Interesting how things happen and transpire.

All

WaldoWings said:

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I remember old-timer anniversaries, etc with polka bands and lots of beer. Sadly, those days are over in my neck of the woods. Lots of characters have passed away and not enough people care about this stuff it seems. But I love that this thread is 5 pages long! I like reading all of your tidbits, memories, etc.

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When I was growing up there was not a baptism, confirmation, graduation, wedding, or any other gathering that did not have beer

My wife's grandfather served on San Antonio city council for several years. His last name was Dietert. He might have overlapped with your relative on city council for a couple of years.

Can you send me a private email kyle.seele@gmail.com as you indicate my great-great-great-grandfather is your wife's great-great-grandfather. Trying to figure out the connection. My father would be very interested as well.

Speedbird087 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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My father's side was from Alsace and settled in Medina County in the 1850s.

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Same for me...except it was my mother's side of the family.

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Good chance we are related. If you are from the Castroville/Hondo area and ancestry went back before 1900 there were not many options.

riverrataggie said:

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Speedbird087 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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My father's side was from Alsace and settled in Medina County in the 1850s.

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Same for me...except it was my mother's side of the family.

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Good chance we are related. If you are from the Castroville/Hondo area and ancestry went back before 1900 there were not many options.

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Yeah, that's most likely. Dad's people were around Hondo, Rio Medina and much much later, Castroville. When I was a little kid, attended Mass at St, Louis Catholic Church.


I remember those pews and kneelers were uncomfortable as all get out.

This is a very cool thread. As someone of German heritage, but no real connection to Texas other than my dad being transferred here from CA back in the early 80's (when I was 8), I find this history lesson awesome. My family immigrated back at the turn of the century from Bravaria...settled as farmers in Iowa and Wisconsin.

Will note that my mom traced our family lineage back to 1542 and even found our family name inscribed on a church in some small town in south eastern Germany on one of their many trips to that area in search of relatives and to fill in family history gaps.

aggiehawg said:

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riverrataggie said:

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Speedbird087 said:

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aggiehawg said:

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My father's side was from Alsace and settled in Medina County in the 1850s.

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Same for me...except it was my mother's side of the family.

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Good chance we are related. If you are from the Castroville/Hondo area and ancestry went back before 1900 there were not many options.

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Yeah, that's most likely. Dad's people were around Hondo, Rio Medina and much much later, Castroville. When I was a little kid, attended Mass at St, Louis Catholic Church.


I remember those pews and kneelers were uncomfortable as all get out.

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Been to several weddings there. Lots of family still in the area.

It's really cool though. My moms side settled in the Hondo /Castroville area and my dads side were one of original families who settled New Braunfels.

Yeah, that's most likely. Dad's people were around Hondo, Rio Medina and much much later, Castroville. When I was a little kid, attended Mass at St, Louis Catholic Church.


Rio Medina..... where I grew up, and also where I live now.

You keep giving me more clues, but nothing that turns on the light bulb yet!

Edit to add: That is also where I go to church on Sundays.

A bit off topic and not necessarily Texas related, but does tie into the conversation and there a neat A&M tie in if you read the article.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Gaertner

Allen76 said:

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Yeah, that's most likely. Dad's people were around Hondo, Rio Medina and much much later, Castroville. When I was a little kid, attended Mass at St, Louis Catholic Church.


Rio Medina..... where I grew up, and also where I live now.

You keep giving me more clues, but nothing that turns on the light bulb yet!

Edit to add: That is also where I go to church on Sundays.

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nm

Thaddeus73 said:

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Quote:

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The Joske Church (ones from San Antonio will know what I am talking about)

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St. Joseph's Catholic Church, built by German immigrants, now surrounded by Rivercenter Mall, instead of Joske's...All of the stained glass windows have German script on them, no English...

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Couple of years ago, I was there for Mass. They had a letter posted in the narthex from the pastor of St. Joseph to the president of Joske's from the 1930s.

It was a letter rejecting Joske's latest offer to buy the church. The letter said the people of God had been there for 60 years and would still be there long after Joske's had closed and gone out of business.

The man was prophetic.

Joske's didn't really go out of business. They sold out Dillards

Sundays afternoon's were special. We'd go visit grandma. She always had fresh prune kaffee kuchen (coffee cake) and koch kase (cooked cheese). She was a tough woman. Grandpa had died and she took care of a big garden, assorted fruit trees, milk cows and 20-30 hens. She sold eggs to supplement her income.

Cen-Tex said:

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Sundays afternoon's were special. We'd go visit grandma. She always had fresh prune kaffee kuchen (coffee cake) and koch kase (cooked cheese). She was a tough woman. Grandpa had died and she took care of a big garden, assorted fruit trees, milk cows and 20-30 hens. She sold eggs to supplement her income.

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Coffee cake for the win!

LonghornDub said:

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There was a great German restaurant in. San Antonio in '50s and ''60s. Forget the name.

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Schilo's Deli downtown?

wbt5845 said:

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Good stuff. My dad remembers people in San Antonio in the 1930's still speaking German in stores he visited.

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I remember this n the late '80s.

I'm a sixth generation Texan German. My moms first language was German. She didn't start learning English till first grade. My grandparents spoke German to each other all the time and I had no idea. My mom's side of the family is from Goliad. My family came to Texas through port Indianola. Lots of history.

Camp Swift near Bastrop had as many as 10,000 POW at its peak.

My dad would point out the rock landscaping around the trees along 290 that the prisoners apparently constructed. Come to think of it I wonder if those were preserved as part of the recent highway widening projects?

Burdizzo said:

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Joske's didn't really go out of business. They sold out Dillards

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A distinction without a difference?

Joske's was my moms go-to place in the 60's-70's. Were they Germans?

Great thread. I'm a 4th generation German Texan. Great great grandfather came over in the 1850s and settled in Runnels County near Winters. There's a little purple spot on that map where they were.

I wish I knew more details, but I do remember my grandpa speaking a little bit of German to me when I was a kid.

Here is the cornerstone of St. Joseph downtown Church in San Antonio, on Commerce Street...Translated into English it says, ""Behold the Dwelling of God Among Men."
https://stjsa.org/

Each fourth Sunday, the German spirit is particularly evident when the Liederkranz sings for the 11 a.m. Mass. The all-male choir established in 1892 also performs its traditional repertoire throughout the city and has toured Germany, its vice president, Mark Mueller, said.

An annual Mass said in German takes place on the first Sunday in May, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker.

Friedrich Hermann Seele. His grandson Hermann Hugo Seele '17 (my grandfather) was the first of what is of now 4 generations of Aggies.

coupland boy said:

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Camp Swift near Bastrop had as many as 10,000 POW at its peak.

My dad would point out the rock landscaping around the trees along 290 that the prisoners apparently constructed. Come to think of it I wonder if those were preserved as part of the recent highway widening projects?

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Many of the German POW's had jobs outside the camp. Some helped local farmers and others were hired by contractors. They were paid 80 cents/day.

Lots of Germans and Norwegians settled in Bosque county in the mid to late 1800s. I did a little digging and came across a German restaurant just outside Meridian that is owned by some recent German immigrants. Look like a place worth trying if anybody is ever up in what is referred to as "the top of the hill country."

https://www.zurautobahn.com/

Huntsville receives the first Nazi POWs...They ate better than the Texans did, so the locals called the POW camp the "Fritz Ritz..."

Huntsville Fritz Ritz

As part of their re-education, prisoners were also showed films of Allied soldiers liberating the concentration camps. "We saw the emaciated bodies and empty eyes of the survivors," said POW Gerhard Hennes. "We saw the piles of naked bodies, starved to death. We saw the mass graves. We saw the ovens where tens of thousands had been cremated. We saw and stared in silence, struggling but unable to believe what we Germans had done to Jews, gypsies, prisoners of war and many others deemed inferior or expendable."
They watched them in disbelief, and many refused to accept the truth of what they saw. "This just doesn't happen," former POW Herman Daumling recalled thinking as he watched the films. "Nobody does that." The fact of concentration camps was an open secret, but German soldiers claimed that no one knew about the genocide that claimed the lives of 6 million Jews and 5 million others that the Nazis deemed undesirable. Listening to American radio news reports eventually convinced Daumling that the films weren't propaganda, but unvarnished truth, but he was the exception. Fewer than half believed that the Holocaust was real by the end of the war, according to a poll conducted by the U.S. government.

Accepting the fact of the death camps had profound consequences for German soldiers. Hennes was one of the believers. "I turned in one profound transformation from being a hero to being a villain," he said.

BoerneGator said:

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Burdizzo said:

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Joske's didn't really go out of business. They sold out Dillards

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A distinction without a difference?

Joske's was my moms go-to place in the 60's-70's. Were they Germans?

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A German Jew.
https://www.uiw.edu/sanantonio/JoskesBrothersStore.html

w h seele said:

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Friedrich Hermann Seele. His grandson Hermann Hugo Seele '17 (my grandfather) was the first of what is of now 4 generations of Aggies.

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I assume also the namesake of Seele Elementary in New Braunfels.

I am not German Texan but did grow up in New Braunfels from 1988-2004.

Gestapo threatens "Americanized" Germans at Camp Hearne, TX...

https://www.historynet.com/nazis-once-worked-and-played-in-hearne-texas/

Another little oddity of the immigrant community - the version of language they speak in the new world becomes frozen in time as opposed to the old country.

Some friends of mine who spoke Czech here in Texas went to Prague on vacation. Said people would laugh at them speaking Czech, saying they sounded like an old timey radio show.

No story of the German Texans would be complete without mentioning John O. Meusebach.

He managed to "fix" the mess Prince Solms made of the Adelsverein.

AggieHawg. "My father's side was from Alsace and settled in Medina County in the 1850s."

Same here, except 1840 to Castroville

w h seele said:

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Friedrich Hermann Seele. His grandson Hermann Hugo Seele '17 (my grandfather) was the first of what is of now 4 generations of Aggies.

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He has lots of neat markers and historical murals/writings around New Braunfels.

w h seele said:

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Friedrich Hermann Seele. His grandson Hermann Hugo Seele '17 (my grandfather) was the first of what is of now 4 generations of Aggies.

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You are my late wife's cousin (distant). Her grandmother was Ruth Seele Aniol - daughter of Fredrich Herman Seele.

BoerneGator said:

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Burdizzo said:

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Joske's didn't really go out of business. They sold out Dillards

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A distinction without a difference?

Joske's was my moms go-to place in the 60's-70's. Were they Germans?

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I believe they were. My mother bought her wedding dress there in 1959.