Germans in South Australia

Our German heritage has long interested Jessie who recently wrote the following extremely insightful essay on their plight in Australia during World War I.




“During World War I, South Australia felt threatened by German connections”. With reference to particular historical events and legislation discuss the changes made in South Australia at the time.


When the British Empire declared war on Germany in 1914, the previously secure world of the German community in South Australia changed forever. Hostile attitudes towards ordinary citizens of German ethnicity were exacerbated as news from Europe of the atrocities on the front line made its way to Australia. Introduction of callous legislation including the War Precautions Act 1914 (Cth)1, the Nomenclature Act 1917 (SA)2, and the Enemy Property Act 1915 (SA)3, was a direct result of the xenophobic tendencies of the majority of British-Australians. With the implementation of such anti-German legislation in South Australia, community leaders of German descent were placed under house arrest, houses were searched and often ransacked; some were even compulsorily removed from their homes and interned, usually without specific charge, based only upon inconclusive complaints, often from sole informants. German schools were ordered to close, German language newspapers were obliged to cease publication and some sixty-nine place names were anglicized. With Australian Soldiers fighting Germany in Europe, British-South Australians felt threatened by people of German ancestry, questioning their loyalty to the British Crown. Unfortunately with the outbreak of War, the German contribution to South Australia
during the first eighty years of white settlement was buried beneath a sea of prejudice as they were subject to ‘a continuous campaign of cultural genocide.’4

Prior to 1914, German South Australians were ‘regarded as a valuable contributory group within South Australia’5, but when war broke out in Germany on August 4, 1914 there was a general feeling that the loyalty of South Australia’s German population should not be discussed or questioned, with South Australian Premier Peake stating, ‘there would be nothing of racial animosity in this state’6 and except for the odd smashed Lutheran church window, the situation initially remained relatively calm. However, British-Australians believed that to ‘be Australian was to be British and from this category, citizens of German descent were excluded.’7 Previously, in the state

they [the Germans] had won a leading position in the political, commercial and cultural life of the community. They had been admired and respected. But, the Australians, so heavily committed to the war emotionally, needed to manufacture a war close at hand lest their knitting and their fund-raising be their only war experience. The German-Australians became the scapegoats for Australia’s innocent embrace of war.8

It was not long before these differences in social outlook became apparent. Just three weeks after Peak’s statement for racial tolerance, two military officers with fixed bayonets, stormed South Australian Attorney General Hermann Homburg’s office demanding the right to search, subsequently taking all the books they believed to be subversive. Homburg, the King’s Senior Legal advisor in South Australian had never been out of the state but due to his German heritage became the target of xenophobia. Homburg’s plight is the most obvious example of the attacks against all things and people of German extraction that intensified as the war progressed.

British propaganda and the course of the war took a heavy toll on the Australian people and within a short period of time, managed to brainwash British-Australians that far from being the

sentimental, rather unworldly, music loving, beer drinking jolly German cousins of the beloved Queen Victoria, they were loathsome heartless brutes, known as the Huns, for like the Huns of old they ravaged, raped and pillaged all before them.9

The fact that Australia was at war with the Germans created a climate in which all people of German origin were treated with utmost suspicion or total rejection, and denunciation by British-Australians came into effect.10 Mounting xenophobic hysteria grew as the number of soldiers fatally wounded in Europe rose, further fueling the barrage of propaganda. The stereotype of the

Hun…came to personify a particular perception of the quintessential immorality of ‘Prussian Militarism’…in order to bring home the terrifying consequences of defeat and thereby sustain the will to continue the struggle until victory was secured, 11

scaring ordinary South Australians into believing that anything German was evil.

Anti-German sentiment grew rapidly in Australia’s most German-populated state; it soon became clear that the South Australian Government felt publicly pressured to legislate. At this time, according to the 1911 census, ten percent of South Australia’s population were born in Germany or of direct German descent.12 South Australian Legislative Council parliamentarian, the Honorable
J.P. Wilson presented to the Legislative Council,
A petition signed by 49,000 people of the adult population of South Australia … rallying to disenfranchise people of enemy origin and to remove persons of enemy origin from the roll of justices of the peace and to remove persons of enemy origin from official positions and fill their places with British people, and to close German schools. 13
The minister felt that it was ‘hard for any Government or any Parliament to set aside a petition of that magnitude, particularly when it represents such strong sentiment’.14 From the floor of the House, Premier Verran proclaimed ‘the German people have tried to monopolize the best country in the world’.15 The Premier, with a few of his vehement supporters, saw ‘all Germans as the embodiment of evil’.16

Such a petition, of which led to the first official Act by state parliament against the Germans, the Enemy Contract Annulment Act 1915 (SA)17, effectively rendered all contracts with Germany null and void. This was quickly followed by the Enemy Property Act 1915 (SA)18, which made ‘provisions for the custody of property of Alien enemies during the present war’19, meaning that companies with German or even German-Australian owners, or those with subsidiaries in German-owned firms, were forced to close. Several of these cases are listed in the files of ‘The Royal Commission upon the Question of Loyalty to the Crown of German National Residents in Australia who are Property Holders’.20 Where disloyalty was proved, Germans were interned and their land confiscated and returned to the Crown. Carl Ernst, who had resided in Pyap West
near Loxton in the State’s Riverland, for some thirty years, made a statement that was interpreted so, as to throw into doubt his loyalty to the Empire - subsequently he had his property seized. Ernst’s case before the Commission in February in 1917, suggested that Germans who had become Naturalized Australians were in fact safe and equal before the law; but this proved not to be the case as many South Australian-Germans had their properties seized, with imprisonment following.

In 1917, a Nomenclature Committee was appointed, headed by South Australia’s Surveyor General, ‘to change the names of towns with German designations’.21 In presenting the committee’s recommendations to the House of Assembly the chief secretary, the Honorable A. H. Peake is quoted as saying,
…it was generally agreed that something should be done in order to remove from the map of this State names of enemy origin which have become obnoxious to the people of the State generally…These names have become well known to us, and names like Blumberg, Lobethal, Rhine and many others, which have been enumerated in the reports of the Nomenclature Committee. As many of these have become obnoxious, it was felt that everything possible should be done to remove what might be described as a preservation of racial instinct so far as the enemy countries were concerned. For that reason it is proposed in this measure to remove names of enemy origin and substitute others.22
In discussing the introduction of such a radical Act, House of Assembly member, Mr Twopeny stated that,
Honorable members are agreed that it is desirable to strike off certain alien names and replace them by good British names…the principle has been agreed to that German names should be removed from our map, because we cannot afford, and do not want to,
extend and perpetuate racial memories and feelings…I take it for granted that these German names, which have been put on the map, have to come off.23

The Nomenclature Act 1917 (SA)24 omitted sixty-nine names from the South Australian map, including Klemzig, which became Gaza; Hahndorf – Ambelside and Lobethal converted to Tweedvale25 along with numerous towns in the Barossa Valley. Interestingly, it can be noted that the city of Adelaide – named after Queen Adelaide, the German wife of William IV, was not altered.

South Australian parliamentarians took the ever increasing anti-German sentiment within the community into account, introducing additional bizarre legislation that further affected the lives of South Australia’s German populace. Speaking at a political rally in Wallaroo in 1915, ex-Labor Premier John Verran, said that

he was opposed to any Germans being employed, even if they had been naturalized and stated that given the chance he would not naturalize any more; that the time had come when the Education Department should not employ as teachers persons of German origin or German name.26
There was tremendous pressure imposed upon people of German ancestry, a ‘Mr Schubert changed his [name] to Stuart and started to wear a kilt to prove he had become a true blue British Subject’.27 It was such anti-German sentiment from Verran that lead to the tabling of the Education Act Amendment Bill 1916 (SA)28 in state parliament. Discussions by the Attorney General in parliament Hansard, required that
throughout the State the English Language shall be taught, so that we can foster English ideals and English habits of thought amongst our population at the time when their minds are most amendable to impressions.29
At the time the ‘present [education] Act provid(ed) that instruction must be at least four hours each day through the medium of the English language’30, however under the proposed Bill, section 53 was altered so ‘that no instruction in any school shall be given other than in the English language.’31 The Attorney-General drew on comments made by Mr Theodore Fink, a member of the Victorian Council of Education, to further his argument for the school closures where he quoted him as saying,
they maintain the separation of races; they keep alive German characteristics and traditions; they strengthen racial associations; they perpetuate Germanism. Segregated in these schools established by Germans, whose support of the schools is evidence of their desire to cling to German traditions and sentiments, they constitute the soil from which in future may be raised a foreign garrison in our midst. This is what, in view of the great German hatred of Britain and the passionate German desire to compass our downfall, they necessarily become. The isolation of children of the German race in German schools, keeping them throughout the most impressionable period of their lives – their hours of teaching and play – apart from their fellow Australian children, will ensure the persistence of the racial outlook and keep them Germans – a race apart.32

That said, the Attorney-General concluded, by adding that ‘we should induce the German-Australian in our midst to be of us, with us, and in every sense to become a Britisher [sic] in language, thought and sentiment.’33 Under the proposed legislation, ‘power [would] also be given to the Minister of Education to close any school wherein an offence has taken place.’34 After a swift passing of the alterations, the Education Amendment Act 1916 (SA)35 was introduced, forcibly closing down all German run schools within six months of ascension. Immediately before their closure many schools were searched, in some cases floorboards were removed for fear that they were harboring munitions supplies for the enemy. However callous these practices were, parliamentarians felt compelled to act, in the apparent best interests of national security.

The crimes and atrocities purported to have been committed by German soldiers in Europe were said to have been directly related to their German culture, the same customs that were being practiced by Germans in South Australia. As a result, British South Australians became increasingly intolerant of people of German heritage, giving South Australian lawmakers more ammunition to introduce further parliamentary bills. Debating the Naturalized Subjects (Justices) Bill 1916 (SA)36 in Parliament on August 31, 1916, it ‘was moved to introduce an Act to disqualify Justices of the Peace of enemy origin from acting in their offices for the duration of the War.’37 Hansard Reports also indicate that an attempt was made when debating this Bill by Premier Verran to disenfranchise naturalized German persons in South Australia.38 In 1917, Verran once again moved for the ‘disenfranchment of all persons of German origin or birth, excepting those who or whose sons have offered their services and have been accepted for military service abroad’39; it was passed with a great majority in the Lower House, but was subsequently defeated in the Upper House.


Just as German place names were under attack, so too the German language came under heavy fire from the Australian public, but the South Australian Protestant Lutheran Church defended its adherence to German in sermons and scripture lessons on religious grounds.40 In a written statement defending government restrictions, the church stated that ‘the decision touches a question of religion and of the exercise of religion…The manner in which we give our children instruction in religion in our schools, is a part of the exercise of our religion.’41 Discussions mounted in parliament and in the public sphere about use of the German language in South Australia. Campaigning by Parliamentarians and public officials called for the general prohibition of the German language. Despite no legislation ever being enforced as to the use of the German language in private settings, the language debate continued until the end of the war in 1918.

As a result of hysteria and high emotion, German tradition was openly attacked. Public opinion even forced some one-hundred and fifty-nine South Australians to change their names during the war years to have more British sounding ones.42 A changed name seemed for many British-Australians as a way of denouncing their German connections and was openly praised. There were fervent calls for the Anglicization of plant names, language, music, and even the names of some everyday goods. The South Australian Government tried unsuccessfully to change the name of the sausage ‘Fritz’ to ‘Austral’, but was successful in changing the name of the sweet bun ‘Berliner Pfannkuchen’ to ‘Kitchener Bun’ and a well known rose variety ‘Frau Karl Druscke’ became ‘Snow Queen’.43 In
March, 1917 the Sydney Sun newspaper printed a lengthy article suggesting that all German Clubs were a ‘hot bed of sedition and treason.’44 Just four days after publication, through public pressure, the federal Minister of Defence issued an order that led to the closure of all German Clubs in Australia.

If the State Government’s attack was concentrated on the German culture, that of the Commonwealth was focused on basic civil rights. Following a rather harsh remark in the British House of Lords, that ‘the only good German was a dead German’45 and as a result of the xenophobic sentiment within the wider Australian population, Federal parliament enacted the War Precautions Act 1914 (Cth)46, prohibiting those of German heritage proceeding with their everyday lives. Such abhorrent legislation, ultimately suspended the constitution, allowing the ‘Governor-General to make Regulations and Orders for the safety of the Commonwealth during the present state of war.’47 Under the legislation, employees were given the right to ‘dismiss any person with enemy origin, or allowed co-workers the right to refuse to work with such people’.48 Published in the Government Gazette, the Act amongst other regulations, also enabled the military or their agents under the guise of acting in the public interest the ‘power to arrest, search or detain any suspected person who was disaffected or disloyal’49, handing the military unlimited powers.

In South Australia some 355 German nationals were interned at the Torrens Island Camp, which had the worst reputation in Australia; of that figure some 261 were naturalized or Australian born Germans.50 In November 1915, camp internees formed the Association of Interned Australian-born
subjects. Questioning the rationale behind their incarceration, a petition was sent to the Defence Minister, protesting the injustices of their imprisonment without trial, denying that they had committed any illegal acts or spoken any words of disloyalty, and ‘demanded that definite charges be laid against them, as was their right as British Subjects.’51 They claimed that their internment was a ‘result of personal animosity or business jealousy.’52 In reply to their request, the Defence Department decided that they should remain interned as ‘it is not expedient in the public interest to reveal the evidence against you.’53 Lutheran Church Pastors were imprisoned because their parishes were allegedly directly affiliated with the Prussian state Church in Berlin. Often those incarcerated were arrested at gunpoint in their own homes or at work, immediately being imprisoned without knowledge of their assumed offence. The Torrens Island camp only operated for ten months after it was discovered how badly the Australian military were treating the German internees. It could best be described as a witch-hunt undertaken by authorities to find people purportedly associated with the enemy, people who had failed to take up citizenship in Australia and those who frequented German Clubs, Churches and allowed their children to go to German run schools.

A clause relating to the German language was also included in the initial War Precautions legislation: ‘Any person who writes, prints, utters or publishes seditious words shall be guilty of an indictable offence punishable by three years imprisonment’54, saw the closure of all registered circulating German language newspapers as public figures felt there would be no way of knowing what the ‘Huns were planning through the circulation of their newspapers.’55 The Act ultimately turned Australia into a nation of informants – a nation spying on itself.


The Trading with the Enemy Act 1914 (Cth)56 also enacted in the first year of the war effort, forbad all ‘trade with enemy aliens and the payment of money to any such persons, no matter in which
country they lived.’57 This ultimately stopped trade by non-naturalized Germans all around the country.

The treatment of Germans in South Australia during the First World War shows that South Australians were indeed still a ‘parochial British outpost which had failed to come to terms with the significant non-British minority in its midst.’ 58 In a time of desperation, Australia – often the birth country of many German-Australians - ill-treated them as they turned against their own countrymen and rejected them without legal or moral reasoning to the point of internment, purely because of their German roots. Because of their inherited cultural interests, they were perceived to be scheming against the British Empire, in order to further the German war movement. The Germans were cast into the role of the enemy through the unfortunate events of the war; they were ‘passive recipients of injustice, innocent victims caught in a world of upheaval over which they had no control.’59 It could be argued that if they had spoken English and embraced the British way of life, they could have avoided many of the unpleasant experiences they were forced to endure during the war years. At the end of four years of harsh treatment, a German expressed the thought that ‘there should be no Englishmen, Scotsmen, Irishmen, nor Germans, but all South Australians.’60